I'm sorry this is still affecting you. I just gave Caleb's post another read, and didn't really see it as implying "excluding trans people", which is not to say that the way I read it is more right than how you have read it.

I'm not a mod here, and I don't speak for anyone but me, but here is how I see the community as a whole currently:

1. There are hatefully people everywhere, but hopefully we can keep reins on that.

2. There are many "conservative" Christians here who would disagree with some of the cultural shifts concerning gender; but this doesn't mean we won't hold them to high standards of respect for all.

3. Christianity teaches that we are to love and respect all people, but that those do not necessarily imply affirming all the choices or identities of people.

Many Christians would say that one of the central messages of Christianity is that there are aspects of all of our identities that are corrupt and harmful, and that the solution is to give up both our family and community given identities as well as our self-identities, and instead find the new identities given to us by Jesus. I know that this could sound very confronting or even offensive to anyone who is queer and/or who has had to stand against the identities that others have tried to force onto them. I believe that it is healthy for all of us, queer or not, to be able to own our identities and to feel free to express ourselves in ways that are consistent with our identities. But I also believe that the hope of the Gospel gives us freedom, from the tyrannies of identities forced onto us, from the anxieties of self-determination, from the guilt and shame of not living up to our identities (where external or internal).

Thank you for engaging with us here. If you are willing, please do continue to highlight the problems in our community so that we cannot be blind to them.

I'm sorry this is still affecting you. I just gave Caleb's post another read, and didn't really see it as implying "excluding trans people", which is not to say that the way I read it is more right than how you have read it.

I'm not a mod here, and I don't speak for anyone but me, but here is how I see the community as a whole currently:

1. There are hateful people everywhere, but hopefully we can keep reins on that.

2. There are many "conservative" Christians here who would disagree with some of the cultural shifts concerning gender; but this doesn't mean we won't hold them to high standards of respect for all.

3. Christianity teaches that we are to love and respect all people, but that those do not necessarily imply affirming all the choices or identities of people.

Many Christians would say that one of the central messages of Christianity is that there are aspects of all of our identities that are corrupt and harmful, and that the solution is to give up both our family and community given identities as well as our self-identities, and instead find the new identities given to us by Jesus. I know that this could sound very confronting or even offensive to anyone who is queer and/or who has had to stand against the identities that others have tried to force onto them. I believe that it is healthy for all of us, queer or not, to be able to own our identities and to feel free to express ourselves in ways that are consistent with our identities. But I also believe that the hope of the Gospel gives us freedom: from the tyrannies of identities forced onto us, from the anxieties of self-determination, and from the guilt and shame of not living up to our identities (where external or internal).

Thank you for engaging with us here. If you are willing, please do continue to highlight the problems in our community so that we cannot be blind to them.