Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, U.S. Law, and Womanist Theology for Transgender Spiritual Care

This book is a response to the Trump-Pence Administration’s reversal of transgender rights. Pamela Ayo Yetunde offers an intersectionally-robust turn in pastoral and spiritual care—pastoral and spiritual care as religious freedom law literacy, public advocacy, East-West integration, and systems agitation. In this book, Yetunde draws on the works of Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn; black queer Buddhists Rev. angel Kyodo Williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Dr. Jasmine Syedullah; the Christian solidarity of Brita Gill-Auster; and the Christian witness of scholar and television host Melissa Harris-Perry. Her data comes from surveys with pastoral and spiritual care providers and educators, and Boston Medical Center’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery’s medical director and chaplain. This book brings chaplains out of their closets of non-confrontation into the streets of public practical theology.