It has been acknowledged by the Church of England that it lacks a definition of the term “woman.”
The meaning of the word used to be “self-evident,” a bishop stated Monday.
However, he went on to say that there are currently “complexities linked with gender identity” that are being investigated by a church initiative on relationships and sexuality.
It drew criticism last night. The revelation was made in a formal report that was written for the meeting of its governing board this weekend.
It happens despite the fact that Anglicanism continues to forbid same-sex unions and has just lately permitted women to serve as bishops.
Campaigner Maya Forstater stated: “The Church of England could have persisted with its long-established perspective, which makes sense whether your starting point is biology or the Bible,” when the Government redefined women through the Gender Recognition Act.
It is shocking how easily people agreed to the state changing the definition of what a man or woman is, as if this essential truth didn’t matter.
And Rev. Angela Berners-Wilson, the first woman to be ordained as an Anglican priest in 1994, admitted to The Telegraph that she wasn’t quite satisfied with it. Men cannot have children, to state the blatantly obvious, is one of the things I do believe.
She continued, “But I think we need to be extremely sensitive and perhaps re-examine our boundaries.”
It follows months in which the political world has been consumed by the meaning of the word “woman.”
While leader Sir Keir Starmer argued that it was incorrect to say that only women may have a cervix, a number of Labour MPs refused to define it.
Contrarily, Cabinet ministers have made it plain that anyone born a male should not compete against women in sports and that women are defined by biology.
One of the nearly 200 questions posed to the church’s “parliament,” the General Synod, this weekend in York, put the church on the spot.
A lay member of the military named Adam Kendry merely inquired, “What is the Church of England’s definition of a woman?”
The Bishop of Europe, Rt Rev Robert Innes, responded, “There is no formal definition, which reflects the fact that definitions of this kind were regarded to be self-evident, as expressed in the marriage liturgy, until quite recently.”
The church “has started to address the complications linked with gender identification,” he continued.
Mr. Kendry’s inquiry, according to Jayne Ozanne, a member of the Government’s LGBT+ advisory body, was “passive aggressive… meant to disturb the LGBT+ community.”
The Church has faced criticism for its views on gender in the past.
In order to allow transgender Christians to celebrate their new identities, advice for a new kind of baptism rite sparked objections from thousands of clergy in 2019.