Caitlyn and Christ

Caitlyn and Christ

Caitlyn Jenner is on the cover of Vogue.  Meanwhile, transgender guests Lucy, Jeralyn, and Patty (not their real names) were all at Manna House this week, some homeless, all poor, enjoying the hospitality.

These guests at Manna House likely reflect the harshest truths about being transgendered in our society, and they face those truths without the shields of fame or wealth.  Those harsh truths include homelessness as they are rejected by family, along with physical threats and beatings, and verbal harassment.   There are many studies that show the emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse transgendered people endure in our society.

I have learned a great deal from the transgender guests at Manna House.  They have taught me about their dignity, their perseverance, their sense of humor, and their struggle to survive in a society that is largely hostile toward them.  I wish those who are repulsed by them or respond to them with derisive laughter (and worse) could meet them and learn from them too.

I confess to some unease around the first transgender guests who came to Manna House some ten years ago.  Like everyone else at Manna House, I was committed to providing hospitality to whoever showed up.  Basic to that hospitality is treating everyone with respect; recognizing their human dignity as made in the image of God.  So when Coco came for a shower and a change of clothes, we welcomed her.  But I was not sure what to make of her, and never really entered into much conversation with her.

It was another transgendered guest who transformed me.  I was on the front porch of Manna House one morning and “Suzy” approached me.  “Will you pray for me?” she asked.  As a Roman Catholic raised in the Midwest I had gained enough Southern Evangelical experience to say, “Sure. What would you like me to pray for?”

“Pray that I don’t give up.  Pray that I don’t kill myself.  Pray that I find a church where I will be loved.  Pray that people will love me.”  As all of those requests spilled out of Suzy, she began to cry.

Then she took my hands into hers and said through her tears, “Just pray.”  She bowed her head and I turned my eyes heavenward.  I had never made such a heartfelt prayer in my life.  I asked God to bless Suzy in each of the ways she had requested.  Suzy thanked me and went into the house.  I stood on the porch shaking.

Basic to Christian hospitality is the passage from Matthew 25:31-46 in which Christ identifies with “the least of these” as he says, “whatever you do unto the least of these you do unto me.”  Christ, I know, spoke to me that morning in Suzy.  Christ identifies with the transgendered as they are ostracized and rejected, and that might even include one on the cover of Vogue.