Several years ago, I was hiking in the woods on a mountain just outside of Seattle when I ran into two women hiking with an infant. The child was dressed in such a way that you couldn't tell whether it was a boy or girl and when I commented on the cuteness of the child, the women addressed the child as “they.”
Apparently, they’ll let their kid decide on its own which gender it is, an idea that struck me as harmful to the child. A kid needs to know who they are. That’s where I stand on that issue.
But this is, of course, one of the hottest topics in American journalism, and, thus, American life, today. Is gender simply a matter of choice, not DNA or destiny? Could you decide to be male or female simply by lopping off a few body parts or adding them?
Such thoughts came up when I read ESPN’s profile of transgender activist Layshia Clarendon, written by an ESPN staff writer who has posted “they/them” pronouns. As the writer enthused on Twitter: “I've never had the opportunity to write a story about an athlete with whom I share so many identities.” Um, OK. I’m trying to imagine a similar statement from an ESPN reporter covering a traditional religious believer.
I usually don’t go after the motivations of the reporter, but this story went beyond respect and dignity to pure advocacy and the non-subtle hint that those who question this woman’s journey are transphobic haters.
Here is the key for GetReligion readers. This feature also made a real effort to work Clarendon’s faith into the mix, including captions that referred to the basketball player’s belief in God, which is not something you find in most ESPN cover stories.
What exactly is that faith? The story tries to shed some light on that, while skipping over many details.
Getting through this feature is quite convoluted part because the writer’s determination to mix gender pronouns so thoroughly that the reader often could not determine to whom the reporter was referring. I know the article was trying to be sensitive to how Clarendon talks about herself, but what resulted was a jumble. The confusion was, we can assume, part of the message in this sermon.
Yes, we got the point that with non-binary people, the pronouns are continually shifting. From sentence to sentence, the subject of the piece is referred to her, then him, then they; an admirable effort for sure to keep to the heights of LGBTQ sensitivity but a mess to read.
For those who don’t know Clarendon, she is a star in the Women’s National Basketball Association who also identifies as a devout Christian. Currently, she’s best known for showing her “top surgery” scars on YouTube. Near the beginning, the reporter says:
When Layshia was in middle school, their parents discovered that Jasmine had a girlfriend. Layshia had met (her older sister) Jasmine's girlfriend before and saw parts of himself reflected in her. They dressed alike, and Layshia liked her dreadlocks. But Layshia and Jasmine's parents were livid. "It was not good," Layshia says.
The Clarendon family wasn't particularly religious, but Layshia heard a lot about God the day Jasmine was outed.
Sitting on her bed, surrounded by sky blue walls and their Hot Wheels collection, Clarendon couldn't keep the tears from spilling down their cheeks. Eyes closed, they reached out to God for the first time.
Dear God, why did you make me this way?
What sort of beliefs did members of this family embrace? Are they part of a specific congregation of faith tradition? If these parents were upset about homosexuality on religious grounds, they obviously knew enough about their faith to hold to traditional mores on sexuality.
Clarendon progressed to the University of California/Berkeley where she not only starred in basketball, but got involved in a specific church.
While at Cal, Clarendon was invited by a teammate to attend The Way Christian Center. It was in this church that Clarendon explored their relationship with God and developed the deep motivating faith that activates their justice work today.
"Faith is their anchor," says Donna Coletrane Battle (she/her), former pastor at The Way. Michael McBride, the lead pastor at The Way, and Battle both attended a Methodist seminary. The Way, however, is rooted in the charismatic tradition of Black Pentecostalism. It also emphasizes justice.
Just curious, but what is the “charismatic tradition” of Black Pentecostalism?
Pentecostal and charismatic beliefs are practically synonymous. Here’s another question: Is “Methodist” a reference to United Methodism? In Western states, that would almost certainly indicate a doctrinally liberal form of Christian faith. However, Pentecostal Christians are usually quite conservative on moral issues.
"To me being Christian means f---ing s--- up," Clarendon says. "That's what Jesus came to do. It means disrupting and fighting for the most marginalized people."
Battle introduced Clarendon to queer theology -- religious ideas that are inclusive of queer people and the critical exploration of ideas that are exclusive. While majoring in American studies, Clarendon sought book after book on what he refers to as the "clobber passages" -- Biblical verses used to condemn LGBTQ identity, specifically same-sex relationships. Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:21-28, 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:10.
"It was this deep journey of seeking knowledge and answers," Clarendon says. "And then I journaled and just cried."
This leaves one wondering how Clarendon reconciled these passages’ plain condemnation of homosexual practice.
The reporter doesn’t tell us, which leaves a huge hole in the story. Does Clarendon just figure the conflict doesn’t matter and decide to move on? Did the reporter even think to push Clarendon on this point?
Heading into his senior year, Clarendon cut his hair into a blond mohawk. They'd always wanted one. Clarendon also started speaking more publicly about their queer identity. And she led the Golden Bears to the program's first Final Four, which felt like direct affirmation from God. "I think the genuineness and authenticity was, like, coming out because I finally felt OK," Clarendon says. "And I was just shining because I just felt like God was like, 'You got this. Actually, I made you this way.'"
Well, at the level of DNA, God made her female. One begins to wonder if kind of Christianity Clarendon follows is simply self-affirmation of whichever sexual path Clarendon has chosen to take.
Like I said, changing the pronouns several times within one paragraph is head-spinning. There’s a logic in this; the writer wants the reader to question who is actually a woman or a man or both and conclude that it really doesn’t matter. (Of course it does matter, as gay columnist Andrew Sullivan explains here.)
Added to that is the cheerleading the reporter does for Clarendon in paragraph after paragraph until one concludes that this isn’t reporting — this is PR.
The story continues with Clarendon’s career as a 2013 draft pick for the Women’s National Basketball Association for the Indiana Fever. Soon after Clarendon arrived, she was sharing “the story of their faith and queer identity,” so religion was already part of her story by this point.
The story jumps ahead several years to a place where Clarendon has married another woman.
LAYSHIA SAT NERVOUSLY across from her wife, Jessica, at Rico Rico Taco, one of their favorite Mexican restaurants in Oakland. It was the fall of 2019, and Layshia knew it was time to share something with Jessica. It had been nagging at him. But Layshia kept pushing his feelings away. And away.
God, however, unveiled other plans.
Those plans came in the form of God tapping Clarendon on the shoulder with questions Clarendon could barely speak out loud. Do you like your boobs? Are you trans or nonbinary? They had been pushing those questions and that nagging feeling away because adding something else felt like too much. They were already Black. Already gay.
But to Layshia, God was relentless.
"God was like, 'I didn't make you to be anything less than whole,'" Clarendon says.
Being whole means cutting off body parts? According to traditional forms of Christian faith, if God made her, she was already whole, breasts and all. Once again, readers need to know the details of Clarendon’s faith.
This ESPN writer was not about to provide that kind of information of listen to other believers who are involved in these debates. So, the result of this divine message was:
LESS THAN A month after holding their child for the first time, and just over a year after their conversation at Rico Rico Taco, Jessica dropped Layshia off at a surgery center in the Bay Area. Layshia wrapped his flannel shirt around himself as he entered the building. He felt the emotion coursing through him, and the presence of the divine. It was that holy ground again -- an anchor in the emotional ocean crashing over them.
When she unwrapped the bandages to see her chest without breasts for the first time, a smile spread across her face. "I knew you were in there this whole time," Layshia said.
Thanks to the wonders of 21st-century medicine, Layshia was able to correct the errors encoded in her DNA.
Again, the reporter doesn’t press, doesn’t ask questions because again, this is a sermon, not reporting. There is — or there used to be — such a thing as critical distance in good journalism.
I understand how hard this is; how the subject of a profile gets angry if there’s negativity in the story from diverse sources, but the writer owes it to the reader to reveal whether there are less appealing sides to Clarendon that public may not see. Since the story makes such a point about Clarendon’ gender choices being based on her views of God, why not more about some of the tensions I pointed out earlier? Where are her parents at this point? What do they believe?
You can bet that, had Clarendon been a heterosexual white male making these kinds of faith statements about gender and faith, there would have been all sorts of naysayers included in the mix. But a non-binary black female — and the specifics of her faith — cannot be questioned and so many readers will be left wondering how real all this is.
FIRST IMAGE: Uncredited illustration used with a news item at Fast Company.