Priest verbally attacks transgender-woman, forbids her soup kitchen meals

With vulgar comments and in outrage a priest in a suburb of southern Athens denied a transgender woman with financial problems to get meals from the parish soup kitchen.

The woman had been going to the soup kitchen of a parish in Kallithea suburb for the last two weeks, when over the weekend, the priest attacked her with vulgar comments like “creature of the devil” and “man with tits” and forbad her to participate in the parish charity meals.

The woman turned to RED UMBRELLA ATHENS (RUA), a community-led service project for sex workers. The RUA filed a lawsuit against the priest at the Police Department for racist crimes.

Speaking to gay rights website antivirus, the victim’s lawyer said that the trans-woman was at some point asked by the parish from some documents (ID, PPC and others) in order to confirm her vulnerability.

He lawyer underlined that “although she herself has made use of legal gender identity, the process has not been completed due to the delays that emerged because of the pandemic.”

When the trans-identity was confirmed, “the priest started the transphobic attacks. With vulgar expressions such as “man with tits”, “creature of the devil” etc., the priest denied her participation in the soup kitchen and expeled her.”

According to reports, the priest went so far as to invoke the Holy Synod in order to justify his behavior, arguing that the church accepts homosexuals, but not sin. He reportedly went so far as to intimidate other people who participated in the meal in order to prevent them from giving the woman food.

Some TV channels reported that the priest claimed that he had received information that the transgender-woman was not poor.

“This legal action is only the beginning,” RUA said in a statement. “We will continue to support it until justice is done.”