Religion
IRS Awards Tax Exempt Status to Transphobic Lesbian-Run 'Pussy Church'
The cisgender women-only faith requires adherents to provide "evidence of a consistent lesbian life" to join.
August 06 2018 12:27 PM EST
August 06 2018 2:06 PM EST
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The cisgender women-only faith requires adherents to provide "evidence of a consistent lesbian life" to join.
Pussy Church of Modern Witchcraft, a lesbian house of faith, has been recognized as a 501(c)(3) organization and church by the IRS, reports Forbes. But before you sign up for its Sabbath, the PCMW, an openly anti-trans organization, has many qualifications to join.
"The Pussy Church serves Women and Girls only. Males are not permitted to participate, regardless of how they identify. We expressly reject the concepts of gender identity, transgenderism, and gender as being meaningful to defining what a Woman or Girl is," PCMW says on its website. "A woman is an adult female human. A girl is a minor female human."
"We come together to form a congregation of adherents to our female born, lesbian-feminist-based religions beliefs and traditions," it reads. "At Pussy Church, we serve Women and Girls and our emotional and spiritual needs. We cannot serve these needs in the presence of men, as men as a class are the cause of the harm that women experience globally."
In Pussy Church's Articles of Incorporation, it requires that in order to vote for leaders or to become one, congregants must present "evidence of a consistent lesbian life," "testimony to an experience of the "new birth" in lesbian feminism, and "willingness to contribute regularly to the financial support of the church." It claims to base its tenets of faith on The Lesbian Heresy by Sheila Jeffreys, Gyn/Ecology The Metaethics of Radical Feminism by Mary Daly, and Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde.
All women and girls can join, but only lesbians can lead.
"A church in which the gospel is aversion, anxiety, and animus towards trans people will likely appeal to a few folks, and I have no doubt they will recruit a good 100 or so members. Radicalization, no matter who does it, though, is never a positive thing," Antonia Elle D'orsay of The Trans 100 told Forbes in reaction to the Pussy Church.
She believes that the IRS should not have granted church recognition to PCMW.
"This church is relying on a religious belief founded in secular materials which are often explicitly hostile to religion as a whole," she said. "It would be like the IRS recognizing a group which promotes slavery texts as a basis -- there is no genuine religious belief there."
But the IRS also recognizes Scientology and Reason Alliance Ltd which sponsors the After School Satan program.