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Inspired
Inspired is the nation's leading public radio show about faith, ethics and spirituality. Each week we offer you analyses of the big headlines alongside lesser-told stories – those of Orthodox Jewish artists and African-American atheists, Muslim feminists and spiritual seekers. Through these stories, a rough sketch of our country’s religious landscape begins to emerge. It’s a marketplace of beliefs and ideas too complex for sound bites, and too important to ignore.
This week on Interfaith Voices:
Toni Newman: “I’m accountable only to God”
Toni Newman grew up in a strict, southern Christian household. But when Toni came out as a gay man in college, family and church relationships were strained. And then, Toni came to realize she was really a transgender woman, not gay. She says she lost her friends in the gay community and felt the whole world turn away: “Not only did I lose my natural family, my church family, I lost my gay family.”
In the past decade, public opinion on LGBT issues, like same-sex marriage, has changed drastically. But the growing acceptance of the L, the G, and the B has not necessarily extended to the T — transgender people. That may be because being transgender is not a sexual orientation, but a gender identity; it isn’t about who you love, it’s about who you are. We talk to two journalists and two researchers on how Americans and their religious communities are still working through the complexities of gender identity.
Emma Green, staff writer for The Atlantic
Robert P. Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute
Kevin Eckstrom, former editor in chief of Religion News Service and current chief of communications at the Washington National Cathedral
Rob Griffin, associate director of research of the Public Religion Research Institute
In a preview for the rest of our series, we asked some scholars from a variety of different faith traditions: Is it okay to be trans in the eyes of God? But as we’ll learn, the answer is far from simple. We’ll hear from just a few voices, informed, but not entirely representative of their faiths, about what they interpret the answer to be.
Scott Kugle, professor of South Asia and Islamic studies at Emory University
Denny Burk, professor of biblical studies at Boyce College
Ruth Vanita, director of the department of Global Humanities & Religions at the Univerisity of Montana
Rabbi Elliot Kukla, a transgender rabbi at the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center
Carol Anderson, professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College
