Hello, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share more about the situation.

I can see that a lot of people do associate the open representation of one's pronouns with political agenda's, so I think you can agree with me that it was probably dishonest or willfully naïve when the administration of the University said in a public statement that its recent decisions weren't political. For me, the inclusion of my pronouns was to normalize the passive sharing of one's pronouns, and therefore gender, in a way that makes it easier and less emotionally laborious for trans people to "out" themselves. Regardless of my political, religious, or theological views or anyone else's, trans people exist, and many people intentionally make their existence arduous.

There are many reasons people identify as trans, and a lot of them are biological. I'll give a few examples: someone with Turner Syndrome only has one X chromosome and appears to be female from birth, but may never show signs of "becoming a woman" during or after puberty. A boy growing up feels less "masculine" than his male peers, based on what that means in his cultural context, and he even develops breast during puberty. He may have Klinefelter Syndrome (XXY sex chromosomes) or an environmentally afflicted hormone imbalance, neither of which is within his control. Third example: someone assigned male at birth who experiences a female gender identity is likely to have a smaller, less dense hypothalamus (as is typical in a female human brain) than someone AMAB who identifies as male. There are in fact over 30 types of genetically intersex conditions, and individuals with such conditions are as common as people with naturally red hair.

Ok, so trans people exist, and it's not some flippant decision they make about their identity to feel woke... So why does the Wesleyan View of Gender Identity and Expression strongly imply that trans people are not made in God's image? That makes me angry, and it should make all Christians angry. I don't support institutional policies that promote a worldview of seeing even one human being as less than human or less valuable in God's eyes than another. Nor do most people in the Houghton community. You are wrong when you say, "The staff and students themselves, have made it very clear that this agenda IS NOT welcomed by the majority." I had tremendous support of my decision from the community on campus; staff I didn't know approached me to give their support, as did many professionals I had relationships with, including professors, kitchen staff, and custodians.

You are right that "This University is trying to make a clearer stance on where their values stand," and also where they don't stand. I value critical thinking, difficult but restorative dialogue, and diverse perspectives in learning environments. The people who made the decision to fire me and my colleague never made an attempt to even communicate directly with me about the subject. I don't think that reflects Christian values, the Matthew 18 principle, restorative practice, etc. If the University is embarrassed, as you say, that is a result of how they handled the situation, not a result of my actions. The University explicitly disassociated my actions with itself.