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The world of boxing has been vigorously tweeting this weekend. One of its most famous promoters, Frank Maloney, announced on Sunday that she was now Kellie Maloney, a woman. And the reactions were not what those of us outside the boxing world might have expected. One former world champion from the States tweeted to Kellie “ignorance is the problem of others not yours. It’s your life.” And Kellie’s most famous boxing protégé, Lennox Lewis said “the world is not always black and white. All people should be allowed to live their lives in such a way that brings them inner peace”. The Christian tradition talks about God as the Creator of the world and all that is in it. That doesn’t necessarily mean creationism but could be described as an endlessly creative, loving, dynamic presence that underpins the universe and that Christians call God. If, quoting from Genesis, man and woman are made in the image of God, does that mean that this God has made a mistake when people say, as Kellie has said “I was born in the wrong body. I’ve always known”. Discussion amongst Christians about creation is, for these reasons, vivid and lively. And the more scientific knowledge increases, the more we learn about ourselves and about the variety of human beings that have been made. One of the more dangerous mechanisms of religion is that it can encourage in us a tendency to want to neaten, to purify, to distil. When people ask me why I’m a Christian, I find myself saying that for me, Christian faith is fundamentally about loving people as they are, because of the incarnation of God in Christ in the world as it is. Jesus found, in people that other people rejected, beauty, goodness, truth. He spent his time with people other people not only ignored but often despised or said were unclean. The fundamental thrust of the gospels is the deep love of God for humanity – not restricted to one ethnicity, or gender, or I believe sexual, identity. The path that transgendered people tread is one often of great turmoil, of harrowing conversations with people they love, of the overcoming of shame and self-rejection. I hope that the church’s vision of society is consonant with Jesus’s often repeated description of the banquet in the kingdom of heaven; where anyone, anyone was welcome to sit and eat at the table. Perhaps I’ll leave the final word to Lennox Lewis himself, who when asked recently in relation to bringing up his young son, how the world could become more tolerant and understanding, he replied “one person at a time”.