Additional information
by Pamela Ayo Yetunde (Author)
This book, written with hospital spiritual care providers in mind, investigates how to expand the field and scope of compassion within the hospital context, for the spiritual care and safety of transgender patients. Written by a law-educated pastoral counselor, it advocates for chaplain legal literacy, and explains the consequences of spiritual care providers not knowing more about the law. It explores the current political and legal situation transgender hospital patients find themselves in, and especially how these new policies put transgender people at risk when they are in a hospital setting. Pamela Ayo Yetunde offers Buddhist-Christian activist interreligious dialogue methods to promote deeper understanding of how spiritual practices can cultivate empathy for transgender patients.
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"This overtly political practical theology provides chaplains and other healthcare workers with concepts and practices to hate-proof hospitals on behalf of trans people. Yetunde draws on the Christian New Testament, Buddhist sacred texts, and womanist theology to articulate the Parable of Our Collective Survival as a touchstone for effective public pastoral theology and trans advocacy."
-Duane Bidwell, Professor of Practical Theology, Spiritual Care, and Counseling, Claremont School of Theology, USA
"Integrating passionate socio-political engagement and legal acumen with spiritual insight from Buddhist and Christian traditions, Pamela Ayo Yetunde makes a convincing case for welcoming and full inclusion of the vulnerable among us who tend to be despised by many in society, making an appeal for disobedience, resistance, and eventual transformation of oppressive laws designed to exclude 'the least of these (Mt. 25:40).'"
-Ruben L.F. Habito, Professor of World Religions and Spirituality, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, USA
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.
Author Biography
Pamela Ayo Yetunde is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Yetunde is also the author of Object Relations, Buddhism, and Relationality in Womanist Practical Theology (2018).
