Today is “Transgender Day of Remembrance”, a day when in particular, we remember those who have lost their lives to transphobic violence. (New Ways Ministry notes in their post, that around the world, there have been 350 such murders recorded in the last year alone. That’s almost one a day – and does not include those unrecorded, or not recognised as transphobic).

In addition to the human tragedy inherent in each and every one of these deaths, for the Christian churches, and the Catholic churches in particular, there’s a particular religious tragedy, which erases the transgender elements in church history, and distorts the understanding of gender in theology, and in the world.

The most notable example from church history is obviously St Joan of Arc, condemned  by the church authorities as a heretic  and executed in part for her practice of dressing and behaving as a man, in contravention of standard gender roles. Later, the church re-evaluated her, and recognised her as a saint and martyr. It is notable that Pope Benedict once discussed this, as an illustration of the distorting tradition in church history, and how there have been times when the theologians and cardinals of the church, can be wrong.

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