ROMANA'S PROCESS THEOLOGY
A TRANSWOMAN'S VIEW

Abstract

Alfred North Whitehead's concise, to the point, definition of philosophy is, "Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity."
The problem with subjective reality is that all rules and measures are relative, and any precision afforded by objective reality is useless for dealing with subjective excesses.
Exactly how do we navigate the complexities of Subjective Reality? Whitehead says that God, not to be confused with any anthropormorphic being, supplies fourteen billion years worth of comparison to help us cope with Subjective Reality. Without this comparison, there can be no enjoyment of life, and there can be no way to avoid obsession with trivial pursuits.

Unfortunatedly, the focus of the struggle of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons for equal rights, has been on psychological, sociological, and biological factors. I intend, instead, to focus on philosophical factors. Philosophy has to do with the reality and the meaning of life, as an integral part of our created Universe. It is ultimately peoples' philosophies (and their excesses) that impact us the most, especially the negative philosophies generated by those who are members of (extremist) Fundamentalist religions.

Reality, both objective and subjective, is wondrous beyond belief, and more fantastic than any fiction. In the modern world, we often pay too much attention to science and neglect philosophy, forgetting that these two aspects of our lives need to work together.
Science has enriched our lives almost beyond measure; however, we do not have a philosophy of life that is practical, meaningful, and logical to go with our science, nor do we properly differentiate which features in our lives are facts that can be explained by science (objective reality,) and which are opinions generated by our feelings and our internal belief systems (subjective reality,) that can only be explained through philosophy. While the scientific method is quite valid, without a good accompanying philosophy, conclusions about observation can be subject to biased interpretation and can also sometimes elicit outright denial, should an observed outcome be in conflict with an observer's preconceived ideas.
Science itself should have validated the existence of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons long ago, especially considering the new understanding of the inner workings of genetics. There are at least five reasons for this failure of validation:

• Darwin's Survival of the Fittest has been incorrectly given a political and materialistic interpretation, which finds diversity difficult to justify. If only robust, culturally-correct lifeforms are fated to survive, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered lifeforms become perverse and serve no useful evolutionary purpose and must be relegated to the messy and wasteful category.
• Scientists have failed to come to our defense, despite the overwhelming diversity in Nature, including endless examples of fully-functional animals that might be characterized as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered. Scientists are often too biased to see the truth, or too timid to report the truth.
• Science has become political to the point, where facts that are properly derived using the scientific method, become debated as if they are philosophical ideas.
• We are obsessed with the deconstruction of life to lifeless matter, or to cultural standards, which ends up throwing away any meaning to life, by ignoring all the flow of energy and information, and all the relationships, which separate life from inanimate matter.
• The status of human beings is constantly being removed farther from Nature. This is not just dangerous to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons alone, but to the survival of our species as well.

Process Theologians are developing a practical and relevant philosophical model that complements the underlying science of all creation. Diversity becomes the rule for animate lifeforms, not the exception; because, while our basic genetic units, DNA molecules, strictly adhere to the rules of chemistry and physics, the DNA molecules themselves are allowed to have an infinite number of variations, and no particular variation is more correct than any other. It is the nature of all lifeforms, including ourselves, to explore the possibilities. In addition, the expressive aspects of lifeforms, especially identity and sexuality, become more important than non-expressive, material aspects, and contribute to an evolutionary process whose aim to to maintain and increase diversity.
Many find it disconcerting that so much self-identification, display, sexuality, enjoyment, fluff, glitter, adornment, art, and music can be major driving forces in life.

Index Preface