Marleen,
It seems to me that GLAAD (and I probably meant PFLAG, actually--I had
to run out and couldn't look any of these up) would assume that the
issue of whether or not a transgender situation involved one partner
being "gay" was of little importance, as all such sexual orientations
are morally equivalent. Baha'is would understand the situation
otherwise. I'll grant you that this might not change how to deal with
the situation I hypothesized, except that there might be less support
for a Baha'i who felt his/her spouse had acted selfishly in marrying
them under false pretenses (but I don't know that for sure).
However, even if the morality or immorality of being gay, straight, or
something else were not the issue, Baha'is should take the likelihood of
damaging a marriage to be very serious, indeed. I think that, in a
"regular," straight marriage, my deciding that I needed to get a divorce
so I could be happy, no matter how "deeply happy and fulfilled" I think
it will make me, may not be an acceptable thing to God. I find Western
culture to be much more concerned with the individual's quest for
happiness: if something might allow me to fulfill my dreams, find my
true soulmate, or whatever, and I have to get a divorce to do it, I
believe that many Americans would say, "Sad, but you've got to do it if
you think it's what you need." But, that's not what I get from the
Writings. In this light, I suspect most human beings don't know where
happiness really lies, or what it actually consists of.
>Right. But what if a man and a woman marry and later one of them has
gender reassignment surgery? Then it appears that you have a gay
couple, either two women or two men, depending on if it is the man or
the woman who undergoes the surgery. In the eyes of the law, their
marriage is still valid. Doesn't the Faith recognize legal marriages
regardless of what the couple look like? Chromosomally, the couple
remain male and female.
I see no way in which the Faith accepts gay marriage, no matter how many
governments pass laws to that effect. Of course, such marriages are
recognized as legal by the state, but are not Baha'i marriages.
Obviously, this discussion is about something more difficult to define,
so I don't know if the Baha'i Administration would get involved in such
a "changed" marriage.
>So what will the Faith accept as defining gender? What medical
experts say? Chromosomes? Body appearance? What the person believes
his or her gender to be? If a female changes to a male and later
enrolls in the Faith, can he serve on the House? If a male is born with
ambiguous genitalia and raised female, can he serve on the House if he
chooses to later identify as male? The bottom line is can any of us
really know the original gender of a person if he or she chooses not to
reveal it?
No, we can't. Anymore than if a person is an alcoholic or drug addict
and manages to keep their addiction completely hidden. Or a person
secretly hates the Faith, yet disguises themselves as a Baha'i?
Completely??? I do question the ability to pull off such deceptions,
but, no doubt, somebody will manage to fool people. Anyway, for the
sexual issues, I think I won't worry about differences that make no
difference, such as personal medical information that is never revealed.
Should something come up publicly, aren't we lucky that the House has to
decide this? ;-)
>I don't expect any answers; I just think it is interesting to think
about. Marleen
I agree that this is an interesting subject, some of which we may
encounter. I am not in the situation stated, so it may be presumptuous
of me to speculate. Nevertheless, just for the heckuvit, here are my
(perhaps uninformed) speculations on what could be a Baha'i viewpoint:
1) if an existing marriage is not in question, then getting one's sexual
identity "corrected" is OK; 2) if one is a*already married*, then
changing one's external orientation is a betrayal of one's marriage
agreement, whether one divorces or not (which doesn't necessarily mean
it is forbidden, just not a selfless/detached kind of act that rises to
the highest spiritual standards--and most human acts don't); and 3) if
one is married and changes to the gender of one's spouse without
divorcing, the*other* spouse will then have to either choose to have a
"gay" relationship in violation of the Faith's teachings, live
platonically and thus be deprived of a marriage in practice, or go ahead
and ask for divorce themselves. Again, it seems massively unfair for the
"changing" spouse to have put the other in that situation. (Yes, I know
that Life is Not Fair.) We're not discussing the effect on any children
at this point, or the "appearance of wrongdoing" that could taint the
Faith in the eyes of the public.
What a terrible personal test this would be for all concerned.
Yours,
Jeanine
M Chase wrote:
How would Bahai assumptions be different?
Jeanine H. wrote:
Sounds like a long forum discussion with GLAAD would be in order,
tho' Baha'is still won't be operating from the same set of
assumptions...
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