I learned this term while sitting in overflow room 1D in the district court of Little Rock. I was invited to attend the hearing in which the ACLU, on behalf of transgender children and their parents, asked for an injunction to temporarily halt HB1570. The law, passed by a supermajority of Arkansas legislators, vetoed by the governor, and then reinstated when said legislators overrode the veto, was scheduled to go into effect next week. It would have stopped kids currently receiving hormone therapy from being able to receive it, and prevented anyone else from starting such treatment. The injunction, which was granted, means care can continue until the lawsuit, which challenges the constitutionality of HB 1570, is settled in court. Which of course may take awhile.

I was invited by my friend, the mom whose nine-year-old child will need such care when she hits puberty, probably within the next three years. I went to support her family and to observe.

I was ushered into 1D along with a motley crew of other observers: legal types in tailored suits and ties akin to the dress I was wearing; reporters who reinforced the stereotype of a reporter with their nerdy glasses, spiral notebooks, and unruly hair with pens and pencils sticking out; and members of the transgender community, who of course had the most at stake. As I sat there my thoughts drifted as they often do and I wondered, if Jesus were here in person, where would he sit?

The young suit-and-tie-clad person beside me chewed his cuticles until they bled. I thought of how sitting by Jesus would probably give him peace and I wished I could do that. But I don’t imagine Jesus would have been sitting in my seat. He would have sat across the aisle with the little band of trans brothers and sisters leaning into one another, holding hands. Those folks one legislator this past session called “abominations” on the House floor of their own state capitol. I think Jesus would have sat among them, drawing them close in his arms, or perhaps in front of them, a buffer between their seats and the court assembled to decide whether they could or could not continue to exercise full rights as human beings.

As the attorney explained gender dysphoria and how it can be alleviated by hormone therapy, I thought about my own body and how, even though I’ve been at war with it a lot of my life for not meeting certain standards of beauty, I’m thankful my body reflects that I’m a female. As such my worst struggle is keeping weight off. I’ve wrestled with that enough to explore all kinds of medical intervention, from drugs to nutrition therapy to surgery. How unspeakably more difficult would it be to be me—dress-wearing, pageant winning, high school cheerleading, fingernail painting, breastfeeding mother-of-four, big haired, smooth legged, purse-carrying, wrinkle-fighting me–inside a body that presented who I am to the world as male? I can’t begin to imagine that kind of betrayal. If I have trouble not hating my thighs, how must it feel to be a boy with breasts, or a woman with a beard?

I wonder if it is this level of dysphoria Jesus feels when he contemplates the Church, which is called the body of Christ? Does the difference in the reality of his body—how it presents him to the world—reflect who he is on the inside? I’m a tiny freckle on that body, and I’m afraid not always very well. I bet Jesus relates to transgender people more than we might imagine.

As a child I fell in love with the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible seems to me a lot different from the version we see in much of the American Evangelical body of Christ—and so-called Christian politicians. While many lawmakers consider themselves part of his body, they hurl stones at children, stones like HB 1570. Laws like this wound people Jesus loves, but in the Bible Jesus healed. He never stood with powerful men throwing stones. Instead he stood between those lawmakers with their stones, and protected the marginalized. He picked up outcasts like a mother hen gathers her chicks. He shepherded. He marched right into the halls of power and declared the kingdom of heaven belongs, not to the religious, not to the loud, rich, and powerful, but to the least of these. Jesus sees the image of God in bodies our legislature calls an abomination. If Christians in Arkansas want Jesus to be represented by the body of Christ—much less our legislative body–we need to see with new eyes.

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I’m a spiritual refugee too; I’m a Christian. To some this makes me an object of suspicion, for good reason I suppose. To some I’m a heretic because I inhabit the realm of uncertainty. Each side wants everything black or white but it’s not always that simple. To be a mom who follows Jesus means I can’t hoard peace and freedom, but try to treat others the way I want to be treated. What I want for my own children I want for all the little children of the world.

For that reason I’m an advocate for public schools. I want my kids to have access to a great education so I want that for all kids. Same goes for health care. Same goes for being able to find good jobs and raise their families at home in Arkansas. Wanting what’s good for all kids comes naturally in my job; I’m a teacher. I’ve practiced this mentality enough that there’s a rule I keep close to me when weighing hard decisions: there is no such thing as other people’s children. If I look at an issue using this lens, I nearly always find clarity.

I went to the legislature earlier this session to speak on behalf of rural public school kids. Other than that I’ve watched from afar as something like 600 bills have gone through the process. When all of the transgender bills were being discussed alongside March Madness, I combed twitter, trying to wrap my head around it all. This tweet caught my attention: “Arkansan with serious mixed emotions tonight. Wanting the Hogs to win so bad. But also feeling gutted that #arleg voted to impede my ability to make healthcare decisions for my child.”

The writer sounded so normal. So Razorback-ish. So mom-ish. 

And so hurt.

I contacted her and she was willing to meet with me. We agreed on a coffee shop between our two towns. When she walked in I immediately recognized her—I’d seen her picture—but more than that I recognized myself in her. A busy mom on her phone, dashing into a meeting she probably didn’t have time for but made anyway because it was important. She was blonde, definitely more hip than me, a little younger. Her oldest child is a tween while my oldest two are out of high school. But we have kids near the same age, as well. Mine is 9, hers 8-years-old.

I’m not going to tell her whole story here. Hopefully she will be able to do that herself soon. What I want to say is, as we visited it became more and more apparent that this woman could have been me. She grew up in Arkansas, sang on the praise team in her Southern Baptist church, went to the U of A, and taught Children’s Church with her husband who was a process engineer. From the time her child was a toddler she could tell there was something different about them—choices in toys, clothes, other interests, the way they carried themself in the world. It wasn’t until recently that her child could articulate—and she understand–her child is a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

I’ve listened to many conversations about transgender people. A professor at my university 30 years ago presented as a man one year and a woman the next. I didn’t know the professor at all and so it was easy to think they were strange, and maybe mentally ill, which were the two options most insinuated around campus. Besides her, I’ve known one person who transitioned, a friend who had been abused as a child. The nature of the abuse, and horrific resulting trauma, made it easy to comprehend why this person would want to transition away from a forced role and toward who she had always been inside. I could imagine this even if I still didn’t understand.

It was easy to remain ignorant. To not understand, until it wasn’t.

Staring into the unflinching eyes of this mother forced me to see myself in her situation. What if this was my own child, and I knew, like a good mother does, that she was suffering? Would I believe my child if she told me that her insides didn’t match her outside? Would I admit what I could see was true in my heart of hearts? What would I do if I was in this situation?

Considering these questions through her eyes gave me a new perspective. I can’t say I know for sure exactly what I would do. But looking at the anti-transgender laws being passed in Arkansas through this lens—that there is no such thing as other people’s children—I can say without a doubt I would not want the government to tell me what to do. I would want and need the freedom to pray, study science, talk to my family, talk to our doctor, and take whatever steps, one day at a time, that I felt were right for my child.

The truth is, any mother or father in the Arkansas Legislature would also want and need that freedom if they were being honest. And so would you.

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