16: A Home Within the Church

Episode 16: George shares with listeners about his faith journey, his gender transition, and his teaching vocation.

He explains how the very Catholic understanding of the primacy of conscience helped him.

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Transcript

 You are listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro. My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways, we're living our faith today. Pope Francis has used the image of a caravan. A diverse group of people travelling together. On a sometimes chaotic journey together.  That's an image that has helped shape this podcast. I hope you'll feel encouraged and affirmed and maybe challenged at times. I am too in these conversations. 

Thanks ever so much for joining me, George, on the pod today. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. I think it's gonna be really interesting for listeners. Maybe you'd like to introduce yourself? 

Hi. It's great to be here with you, Theresa. Thank you. I am George White. I am a teacher of religious education at Saint Paul's Catholic School in Leicester. I am a transgender man and also a freelance consultant looking at how, schools in particular Catholic schools in particular could be inclusive of the LGBT community. 

Brilliant. Thank you. So you're someone who's not a cradle Catholic. You became a Catholic later. How did you start to be interested in becoming a Catholic? 

So my sister and I, despite my parents not being religious, we were sent to Catholic schools. So we went to a Catholic primary, and then we went to a Catholic secondary. And we expressed an interest in becoming Catholic earlier at primary school because what would happen if you weren't Catholic, you would then move to do your final year, your year 6, in an Upper School somewhere else. We'd had this thought about it before, but it seemed really it was it was about kind of staying with friends. But then we had another conversation so that the priest at the time said, you know, maybe if they still feel like this when they're 12 or 13, we can explore it then. When I got to secondary school, I became a bit of a problem child. So I was dealing with what I now recognise as as gender dysphoria, but I had teachers that never lost faith in me. That just felt like a call to be part of that community. So I have to say when I initially did that at the age of 16, both my twin and I did it, I didn't know exactly what it meant to be a Catholic. I didn't have all of the answers, and I suppose none of us ever do. But yeah. So we chose to become a Catholic. For me, it was about, I really wanted to be involved in the community, and it felt like, you know, when we had the Eucharist or when we had services that I wasn't able to fully participate, so I felt called to do that. I used to do a lot of work with the chaplain. We both chose some of our teachers to be our baptismal sponsors. And the great thing now I often tell people, so I get to sit next to my baptismal sponsor in the school office, because I work there now as a grown up. 

That's quite a strange thing to have done in some ways, isn't it, to find yourself back?

The school that I went to, the Catholic school that I went to on the other side of Leicester from you, my husband and me both went there although we didn't know each other at school. But then when our children went there and we went, we were suddenly meeting teachers who had been our teachers, but now we were on a on a level with them because we were parents and people that were teaching. It was quite an interesting dynamic that you just don't foresee when you're going through school yourself, I think, that you might actually be back as a grown up. 

Yeah. It took a while for me to get used to not having to call people Miss and Sir and using their first names. But I did write in my yearbook that I would within 10 years, I would be back teaching RE there in my A- level leavers book, and within 8 years, I was back. So 

Wow. Okay. So you had a plan?

I had a plan. I had a plan. Okay. And then, obviously, in in your life, you've made some big decisions and some big changes in yourself. And I wonder whether, has your faith supported you in those decisions and changes, or is it something that you had to park while you got that sorted out and then were able to come back to?

So at the time I started to question my gender identity, I was living with priests, at a retreat centre, priests and brothers. And I felt called to their way of life, but obviously couldn't, being born female. And that wasn't why I decided to transition, so I still couldn't be a priest. But I just felt that I had to separate the two at the beginning, that I had to separate my faith and my identity. So I went down 2 paths which felt very wrong for me. So one where I kind of embraced what you might call traditional Catholicism, which felt really disingenuous, didn't feel right. And then I tried to completely ignore Catholicism and embrace myself within a kind of LGBT community, which again just felt okay, but it didn't feel like the whole part of me, really. So I had a priest that I spoke to at the time, and I said to him, you know, I wanted to come to confession. He said, you do know that how you feel, you know, in terms of your gender identity is not something to bring to that. And I wasn't going to, but I was I was grateful that he gave me that reassurance. And I was speaking to him for a very long time kind of at the beginning. The other kind of defining point really was seeing a counsellor a couple of years later who was a gay Anglican priest who had partnered, and he said, you know, if God didn't create you to think these things, then who did? If God didn't create you to feel this way, where else is it coming from? So I started to embrace the two aspects that I was questioning. I found I've got lots of LGBT Catholic friends. There are plenty of organisations doing some work. I've found a home within the church. It's not always supportive. I remember once I was speaking to a sister who was one of the lecturers at university, and she was saying, you know, if you can't be honest with yourself, then you can't be honest with God. You know, if you can't honestly be yourself, you can't honestly be with God. So those kind of conversations changed my outlook, and I have to say I've been really well supported by people, friends, especially those of faith. Yeah. 

I just need to check-in a little bit there. I misunderstood slightly at the beginning there when you're talking about confession. I thought the priest was saying to you about not bringing your gender identity to the confession. I thought you meant he was saying, yeah, we're not talking about that, when that's not what you meant. He was saying he was saying this is not sin. 

Yeah. So what he was saying was, it's not a sin how you feel. You know, if you come and bring that to me, that conversation about how you feel. 

That's not confession? 

Yeah. He was like, it's not a sin for you to confess. 

And again, the second bit you were mentioning about somebody saying you need to be honest with yourself, I thought that was criticism as well because you mentioned having these two strands you were trying to separate out that sense of not being honest with yourself, isn't it? But actually, you've found a way to bring that together, but recognise that that's not always something that is supported in Catholic communities. Have I got that straight? 

Yeah. So everyone  I've just been speaking about was very supportive. So the priest that was kind of saying about being honest with yourself had actually since become a Catholic, so is no longer a priest in the Church of England. So about that time, I also started to do a lot of reading, And the primacy of conscience, the Catholic way of describing the conscience as being in your most inner core and inner sanctuary with God, felt to me like I was doing the right thing by transitioning. So for me, I now no longer have to think, what does God want? Am I right for thinking this? Am I right you know? It consumed every part of my being in having these questions about faith and gender, and now it doesn't. So when I pray, it feels authentic. When I'm delivering my vocation as a teacher, it feels authentic and genuine, and I don't have to be concerned in a way that was really kind of very challenging to lead an ordinary life. 

That's good. So today, what is it that you find nourishing in the church? And we'll talk about things that might be challenging in a minute. But what are the things that are nourishing for you in your faith? Are there practices that, you know, are helpful to you? Are there communities to be part of that are helpful to you? Are there bits of scripture?

Yeah. I'd say one of the things, church in the larger form, is being in a school with young people, being able to open their minds to what's going on in the world, being able to be there at a critical time in their development feels like a really important part of my mission, certainly. I've been very fortunate, so there are groups: in the UK, there is QUEST, which is a pastoral support group for LGBT Catholics. It's in its 51st year.  We had a message of support from the Pope last year where he sent his greetings and his blessings to us through sister Jeannine Grammick, who's been working kind of with LGBT Catholics for 50 years in the US. Literally last week, I was in the USA in Washington at conference hosted by a group called Outreach, which was founded by Father James Martin, where 300 LGBT Catholics, their friends, family, and allies were all celebrating together. So a reflection at the time in the Eucharist, in particular, of the first Mass we had, which was celebrated by Cardinal Wilton Gregory, with all the inclusive language and message, it was made me shed a tear, a tear or two. So I certainly think that being able to celebrate in inclusive liturgy is wonderful. Yeah. I'd say I'm supported in lots of ways, but they're certainly quite practical. 

Okay. And just for listeners who want a bit more, understanding this, what makes the liturgy inclusive for you? What does that need to look like or sound like? 

That is a really good question. So often the words of liturgy say brothers and sisters. During the conference, we said brothers, sisters, and siblings, which might be helpful for anyone who's non binary. But the hymns that we choose as well, so there's a few that we have in the conference, but, essentially, the kind of theme generally saying that we are all one body and that we're making that very clear. It may be even as well, I guess, so we mentioned in both of the homilies that we had, you know, LGBT+ people. One was very specific to LGBT people. One was very simply a homily that also had maybe a kind of like a question at the end about LGBTQ + people. So just including language that is friendly is always a good thing. 

So those are some positive things. And what are things that can still be challenging? You mentioned that you feel comfortable, that you don't have to stress about your identity in your own prayer life, for example, and your own conversations with God, your relationship with God, which is great. What are the things that still feel challenging then in the broader church? 

Most recently, the release of the document Dignitas Infinita, which came out, which suggests that any form of medical transition is a threat to human dignity. That has informed some of the things that we've seen from the church, particularly in in the church in England and Wales. There was the statement, Intricately Woven by the Lord, which kind of reaffirmed those things and suggested again that although trans adults are welcome, that trans young people should be encouraged to accept their biological sex as given at birth. So there are things that can be difficult, but we have seen, I'm now going back to the positives. I think I'm trained to do this. With all the dialogue that we hear from the Church, and, you know, I'm talking in particular about the Vatican documents, the actions of Pope Francis are different. So he meets monthly with a group of trans women from a local parish. He was seen kind of eating out on the streets with them. So his actions and the words that get published are often, they're often in dispute, and I think that we can gain some insight from the way that he acts with people when we're looking at what we should be doing in our own ministry, in our own in our own parishes and schools, for example.

I read an article where they were saying that, you know, it's difficult for the Pope. He's perhaps, in some ways, ahead of where the documentation is, and that he's demonstrating that this is the way to work pastorally while we get the process of thinking through this and making that journey together and getting the documents brought forward that actually, you know, there seems to be this slight mismatch between what we see written down. I don't know if that seems fair to you. 

Absolutely. So directly after Dignitas Infinita, Sister Jeannine Gramick from New Age Ministry in the US sent him a letter. He responded by saying trans people must always be welcomed, which isn't really what the document says. Or it doesn't not say that, but he was just very clear on that afterwards. And when we were at the Outreach conference, there was a session exploring what's happening in the church, and we explored that very concept that he is holding the balance. There are countries and continents where the Catholic Church is seen as very traditional. There are countries and continents where it's much more liberal, and that he is holding the balance of all of that, you know, of the largest kind of denomination within Christianity. So he's got a hard job on his plate as well. 

Yeah. And I can see that from a personal perspective. I can see that in my own lifetime, the church has moved quite a lot actually in its pastoral work. I don't know about the documentation quite so much. I think maybe the move there has been not so visible to the naked eye. But in terms of pastoral support and in terms of dialogue about LGBT issues, I think the church is so different from when I was a teenager when being gay was something that happened somewhere not in the church. So I think there is progress to feel positive about, and I recognise my own journey on that. Having been educated in an environment in which this was something that was not part of Catholic education, I've had to find my own way into this too. Like I would say many people of my generation. And I'm aware of my own journey into this work, and that's why I'm interested to speak to you really and keep myself moving forward.

Which is pretty important. So, again, you know, Pope Francis, going back to him, he used a word that was derogatory to gay people in the priesthood, but kind of has apologised for that and moved forward and tried to show that he's willing to engage in those conversations. That, yes, you know, we all in honest and open dialogue, no matter who we are, we're always gonna encounter some sort of mistake. I think it's important to recognise that, apologise for it, and try and move forward. So I really do appreciate you getting in touch, and I really appreciate, I think, what Pope Francis has done for the church since he began by at least bringing LGBT people to the table for a conversation.

 Yeah. Okay. Great. You've mentioned about inclusive liturgy. Okay. But do you prefer a Mass that's really quiet with no music because I'm being really reflective? Or do you like, let's have all the music because I need lifting out of this gloom that overcomes me having to get up early on a Sunday morning? What kind of liturgy speaks to you? 

It's a really good question. So, for example, at the Mass at the Outreach conference, I didn't know any of the songs, but it's quite clear that they sing them quite regularly in in the US or within their parishes. So I didn't recognise the music really at all. Often, I can feel like I'm losing the prayerfulness if that is the case, but the singing was wonderful because it was done in a joyful way as well. It was particularly special. Typically, I think now that I just, now that I feel better, like, no matter what the kind of liturgy style is, I feel that I can engage with it in some way. And I guess it depends when we're - at the bidding prayers sometimes I've got a lot of stuff I really want to bring, people, family members, violence in the world. And then other times, there's not so much. So I'm a happy go lucky kind of liturgy person. Whatever it is, I will  get involved. 

Good. Well, that's a balanced approach. Tell me a little bit then about so obviously, you were brought up in a family that wasn't Catholic. You and your sister, you mentioned, became Catholic, and then you've had a further journey transitioning. So how are your family embracing all of that? 

Yeah. So they attended our baptism, my mum and dad. So it's me, my mom, my dad, and my twin sister. So they attended our baptism when we were 16, and our confirmation they were at. I think we just had the Holy Communion thing at lunchtime at school, so I'm not sure they were there for that one. They've always been very supportive. They often ask the question, which I think most people would also ask, which is, why would you want to stay? You know, why would you want to stay in a church that doesn't feel particularly supportive? I come home, and I talk about some of the things that happen within my experience, you know, certainly when I was early on in transition, and they just don't really understand why I'd want to be involved in that. And I think for me, it's about making sure that people like me feel that there is a place for them in the church. And if I'm not here doing that, then I don't know who else would be. But yeah. So they're not religious. When I came out to them, they were absolutely fine. I paused the television. I'd come home from London. We were going to, my nan was being buried the next day. So we were sad, but I paused the TV and said, look. I I've just got something to tell you. I told them, and they were like, oh, okay. Well, we love you no matter what, so put the telly back on. So they were not surprised. So previously in the diocese of Nottingham, we used to have LGBT ministry Masses, and they have attended a couple of those with me. They've always kind of come to support me in those things. They do tell me that they're proud of what I'm doing as well,  making a difference. Maybe not in something that they recognise, but in in the world that I'm in. 

It's wonderful that you've got a supportive family when sometimes in the church, can be a more mixed experience. 

It absolutely can. 

I understand what you're saying about staying in the church. I've had conversations with people who are struggling to some extent, and I think there's something about who needs to leave and who needs to stay and what it would look like if people who were more receptive to things were the ones who left. I think listeners too will hear that from different kinds of perspectives. 

Yeah, absolutely. 

So you teach in a Catholic school and I know that you also consult for Catholic schools on these issues. How does this all work in school where the church’s teaching, we've been saying, is in a different place from pastoral care or where pastoral care can be. How does that work for you in school?

So Catholic schools still have to meet kind of Ofsted requirements for what they're producing in their curriculum, in their policies, which does include including LGBT content and challenging any homophobic, biphobic, or transphobic bullying, and that is also one of the legal protected characteristics. So when I deliver to other schools, I will go in and I will talk about the Equality Act, so the legal side of it, and church teaching. So any kind of bit of church teaching that's come out about LGBT Catholics. So the teaching in the catechism, in the universal catechism, says that LGBT Catholics are, the way it describes it in this one, again, it would probably need to be updated soon, but anyone who is homosexual or gay should be accepted with sensitivity, compassion, and respect. So accepted to me means not trying to change their mind, and sensitivity, compassion, and respect is love and respecting that person's innate dignity, which it was reaffirmed at the beginning of Dignitas Infiniti, which is great. It's just the violation part that became difficult. In our, in my school, so the head and the CEO of the Trust have both been very supportive, but we host diversity and inclusion weeks where we look at all different stories, cultures, and we try and share those with the young people. So we have visitors come in who might lead. For example, we've had someone come in that spoke about the 50 years of Ugandan Asian migration to Leicester when that was on at one of the museums. We've had someone come in and teach them British sign language. We have people telling their story, and we allow our students to do the same thing as well. So for us, in particular at school, it's not just exploring LGBT people. It's exploring all the diverse. You know, Leicester in particular, is exploring all the diversity and all that we can celebrate in everyone else's identity. So that's kind of one way that we look at that. Then when I go into schools, I'll kind of give some pastoral examples of what Pope Francis does, and I translate those into, you know, along with the legal aspect in the teaching, I translate those into what a practical example might look like in school, which doesn't break church teaching. 

I bet that's really helpful for schools because it's, it's quite a tricky polarising topic in some parts of society, isn't it? So I think having some sound guidance from somebody who understands the context must be really helpful.

 I believe so. It often allows just to educate, like, individuals in the in the community to be able to do something that shows that they are a safe person to talk to. You know, we can't take this off the table. Young people, you know, regardless of what we might think, young people are much more at home talking about these things. They're much more comfortable. They're much more comfortable in coming out than people were. You know, there's no Section 28 kind of banning any literature. You know, we're doing a disservice to our young people if we can't engage with them properly. That involves knowing the law. It involves knowing church teaching, and it involves knowing how to move forward. One of the things I kind of always anecdotally will tell people is that very often young people now will say, well, I'm gay or my friend's gay and the church has nothing the church offers nothing to me. The church is homophobic. And I have to say, well, we have to understand the church's position as well as yours you know, if you want to be listened to, you also have to do the listening. So we have those discussions, and by putting them on the table, we see that our young people are more informed when they come to making up their mind. 

That's great. And you mentioned bullying there. That's something I'm imagining that education like that, having open dialogue helps with reducing 

When we have an incident at school, regardless of which area it is that someone's either misspoken on or purposefully done something, we would have a conversation with a young person, say, what you asked that person isn't appropriate, or the way that you said this or the word that you use is not appropriate. And if they were to do it again, they would get, like, a fixed term exclusion, and we'd have a conversation then with parents as well. Sometimes people use their faith as an excuse to suggest that they can say that being gay is wrong or it's sinful, but we just have a very clear kind of an anti discrimination policy, which suggests that in much the same way that religion and belief is a protected characteristic, so is gender reassignment and sexual orientation, and that we cannot use one to discriminate against the other. As I said, you know, there are sometimes young people that say, well, the church and anyone in it is homophobic, and, actually, we're not fostering good inter-relational skills there unless we challenge both of those points of view and get people to sit and listen. So I often say I wouldn't start anything with, like, a polarising debate. So I wouldn't start anything with a statement that said something like gay people can get married in the Catholic church and say, you know, who's for it, who's against it? Because you'll often find that without understanding the stories of people, people talk about those things in a way which is not very friendly. And when they realise you're talking about human people, very often, their kind of language changes. One of my favourite things when I go into to other schools, I allow students to ask anything they want. And I say to them, you know, I'll tell you if it's inappropriate, and I'll certainly let you know if I'm not gonna answer it. Once you've got the opportunity to ask someone who isn't going to be offended, I'd like you to do that. And very often, you know, the first couple of questions are things like which toilets do you use? What underpants do you wear? And then within a couple of questions, oh, I saw in the photo you had a dog. What's her name? How did you, you know, how did your family react? What are your hobbies? And it becomes less about being trans and more about just understanding the person there. 

Okay. The other thing that I was thinking about was, obviously, you teach RE. Are there theologians you could point to that really work well for you that you find helpful? 

Yes. So there is a UK priest and theologian, gay priest, James Alison. I've also, at the conference, been introduced to Yunuen Trujillo, Dr Ish Ruiz, and Craig Ford Jr. So I will pass on links for you for those afterwards. But, yeah, there are some wonderful theologians working in this area. It's definitely expanding, so all is all is good. 

Great. That's good. I'll be glad to share the links, keep us all up to date. Thanks ever so much, George, for this conversation today. I've really enjoyed talking to you and hearing your perspectives on stuff and meeting you although online. So thanks for being so honest and sharing what in some ways is a very personal conversation, but also some really good information there for people who want to explore this further and update their own thinking.

Thank you, Theresa. Thank you for opening this space and allowing this conversation to happen. 

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time. I hope today's conversation has resonated with you. A new episode is released each Wednesday. Follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms to be sure of not missing an episode. And follow our ex, Twitter, and Facebook accounts at kinds of Catholic. You can comment on episodes and be part of the dialogue there. You can also text me if you're listening to the podcast on your phone, although I won't be able to reply to those texts. Until the next time then.