December 22, 2017 – Washington, DC

After a group of anti-LGBTQ religious leaders drafted a letter about the transgender community that claimed transgender people are a “false” idea, the National LGBTQ Task Force’s National Religious Leadership Roundtable offered up some advice: reach out and connect with transgender people – you obviously know little about their lives, struggles, victories and aspirations.

On December 15, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with 20 conservative religious leaders, representing stridently anti-LGBTQ segments of Christian and Muslim faith communities in the U.S., published an ill-conceived, trans-denying letter: “Created Man and Woman.” The letter referred to transgender individuals as persons that have a “discomfort” with their sex, and claimed to call for transgender people to be “treated with respect,” but then claimed being transgender is a “false” idea and called on the state to impose “social institutions and norms” onto the transgender community.

The National LGBTQ Task Force published a letter on December 22, in response to “Created Man And Woman” from the Task Force’s National Religious Leadership Roundtable (NRLR) signed on by over 20 religious groups that called out the harmful inaccuracies throughout the letter and implored those religious leaders that had signed on to better educate themselves by reaching out and connecting with the transgender community:

As leaders from a wide range of moderate and progressive faith and spiritual communities, we reject the intent of the letter to deny the existence of our beloved transgender companions.

Finally, we implore those religious leaders who signed the ill-conceived, trans-denying letter, “Created Man and Woman,” to reach out and connect with transgender people – you obviously know little about their lives, struggles, victories and aspirations. You will learn a lot about the divine’s creative genius if you walk and talk with transgender people and really listen to their stories.

Read the entire letter here.