“A Quaker Transgender Marriage”
By Robben Wainer
On taking an in depth view of the faith restored to me by my Quaker upbringing, I would like to make a few observations, one being that the Quaker mission is to seek the truth, the second being that Quakers profess our love to be of God’s love, and to be a universal love. I see the pacification of these rites to be gender neutral, which may mean gender non-conforming, and in my case means transvestite or male to female transgender.
Quaker love comes from a source of divine intervention that is a natural expression of the way we identify ourselves physically, spiritually and emotionally. I am proud to have been married in a Quaker service and to have been the bride of my wife Alix.
I am a gay femme who is still male, in our disposition to have not only a gay wedding ceremony but a Quaker transgender wedding ceremony seemed like we may be stretching our truths a little far.
But to live in the light of Gods truth as it relates to Quaker truth, my growing up with girls, and progressing to live my life as a woman raised certain precepts. That my wife’s love for homosexuals and homosexuality would prove to be unyielding in my case, proved by far to be the most rewarding gift any wife of such a strong, voluptuous feminist could possibly redeem. At the ceremony Alix was asked if she would accept and receive me as her bride, while there was light chattering a harmonious eternal flame was lit, that would last throughout our entire lives, and brought into our vision a real perception of a gay love between two consenting adults myself being transgender.
Being transgender male to female and the wife of Alix a dear and loving woman has lead me to many concepts concerning the issue that is implied that carries the question if transgender then why Quaker? As well as being LGBT friendly, I feel the effeminate quality of peace, love, compassion and understanding, contains a wisdom that is predisposed to male youth who are identified as pretty and as girls, my being a transgender male to female to me today means that I have no pronoun preference, and that I submit to my wife a holy spirit that brings me in touch with God, and a love universal that is realized by all men and women who are gay or lesbian, which in my case as a femme who in private knows that she is female in her heart.
