The Anglican Church in the US – TEC – in resolution C061 at the 2009 General Convention, has added gender identity and gender expression to the list of otherwise predictable categories that cannot be used to exclude a person from ministering in what is left of its church.

This reinforces the strange contention that, contrary to all evidence that may be externally visible, the sex of a person internally is something that is determined by them alone, perhaps on a whim, and this determination should be respected by otherwise sane onlookers.

Were it not for the fact that we are in an age of gender chaos and have developed a degree of immunity to its ubiquitous peculiarities, I could not reasonably expect a declaration that I am a man on the outside and a woman on the inside to be take any more seriously than one that says I am a man on the outside and a duck on the inside – and I want my quacks to be treated with respect.

The muddle in the Anglican church is a pathetic reflection of what we find in secular organisations:

A transsexual jailed for strangling her boyfriend has gone to the High Court claiming that keeping her in a men’s prison violates her human rights under European law.

The prisoner, in her 20s and serving a life sentence for manslaughter and attempted rape, is legally female and her birth certificate has been amended accordingly, London’s High Court heard.

Born male, she has had hair on her face and legs permanently removed by laser and has developed breasts after hormone treatment.

Describing her as ‘a woman trapped inside a man’s body’, barrister Phillipa Kaufman said the prisoner was desperate for gender reassignment surgery but medics have refused unless she has lived as a woman for an extended period – only possible if she is moved to a female jail.

I must admit, if Katharine Jefferts-Schori were to come out and expose her inner man, I would not be that surprised.