Blog Archives

Transgender Faith Leaders Support Inclusive Federal Hate Crimes Act (HR 1913)

4/28/2009

Earlier this week several TransEpiscopal members signed the following letter, written by Rev. Malcolm Himshoot, which was released this week during the National Transgender Lobby Day in Washington, D.C. You can also find it online here.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Dear Decision-maker,

We the under-signed support an inclusive federal hate crimes bill (HR 1913) because we think it is good for the community to take seriously crimes such as the brutal murder of Angie Zapata in Colorado this past year. Reflecting upon the past weeks of Allen Andrade's court trial, we are grateful for responsible investigators, prosecutors, and a jury who invalidated a harmful and re-victimizing "trans-panic" defense. No one is responsible for their own beating, bashing or killing. When some people are especially targeted for being different or for being queer, it makes sense that the community will act to especially protect them.

We wish that such a law could have protected Angie before her death. But in reality a great number of supports in a community are needed to reduce our vulnerability – namely, social and economic justice for all.

The `guilty' verdict reached in a court of law dignified, but could never repair, the value of Angie's life and the gravity of her loss. Yet, our experience in ministries that work toward nonviolent alternatives, reintegration and rehabilitation of offenders does not allow us to believe we can achieve safety by disposing of people behind bars. They are still with us. They are still part of us. We will be praying for the gay men and transgender inmates who face violence while they serve their time, who may even be serving their time in the same facilities as Allen Andrade. We will be praying for Allen as well, now cut off from the prospect of wholeness and reintegration with his community.

We who lead faith traditions hold to a story of justice that does not end with retribution, but rather with restoration. In the struggle against violence and deprivation, we applaud not only the work of the National Center for Transgender Equality to raise specific issues like hate crimes law, but also the work of Senator Webb (S.714) in raising a commission to address a general issue: criminal justice reform. It is high time.

We support legislation today that honors human dignity and possibility. Diversity is a fact of God's creation -- except for poverty, which is our own creation. Where there is personal or systemic hate and disregard, we urge lawmakers to respond. Not only with indignation but with moral imagination.

Sincerely,

•The Rev. Malcolm Himschoot (Commerce City, CO)
United Church of Christ

•Nicole Garcia (Louisville, CO)
Transgender Representative, Lutherans Concerned/North America

•Mr. Barb Greve (Hamden, CT)
Co-Founder, Transgender Religious Professional Unitarian Universalists Together

•Rabbi Levi Alter (Malibu, CA)
President, Female-To-Male International (Human Rights Gender Non-Discrimination Organization)

•The Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge (Allston, MA)
Priest, St. Luke's and St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Co-Chair Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality, TransEpiscopal

•The Rev. Dr. Julie Nemecek (Spring Arbor, MI),
Co-Director of Michigan Equality

•Chris Paige (Philadelphia, PA)
Founder, TransFaith Online

•Seth Donovan (Denver, CO)
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America Full Inclusion Committee

•The Rev. Sean Parker Dennison (Salt Lake City, UT)
South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society

•Barbara Satin (Minneapolis/ St. Paul, MN)
Executive Council, United Church of Christ and Institute of Welcoming Resources and Faithworks Associate of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

•Noach Dzmura (Berkeley, CA)
Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity

•Senior Minister Carmarion D. Anderson (Dallas, TX)
Living Faith Covenant Church

•Minister Monica Joy Cross (Berkeley, CA)
Pacific School of Religion

•Angel Celeste Collie (Chapel Hill, NC)
Metropolitan Community Church

•Rabbi Elliot Kukla (San Francisco, CA)
•The Rev. Megan Rohrer (San Francisco, CA)
Director, The Welcome Ministry

•Richard Juang (Cambridge, MA)
Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality

•Rebecca Anne Allison, MD (Phoenix, AZ)
President-Elect, Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, United Church of Christ

•The Rev. Pat Conover (Silver Spring, MD)
Minister, United Church of Christ
Steward, Seekers Church

•The Rev. Allyson Robinson (Gaithersburg, MD)
Associate Director of Diversity, Human Rights Campaign, Alliance of Baptists

•Jakob Hero (Berkeley, CA)
Pacific School of Religion

•Kate Bowman (Denver, CO)
Board Chair, The Gender Identity Center of Colorado

•The Rev. Vicky Kolakowski (Berkeley, CA)
New Spirit Community Church

•The Rev. Paul Langston-Daley (Glendale, AZ)
Minister, West Valley Unitarian Universalist Church

•The Rev. Michelle Hansen, S.T.M., M.Div. (Waterbury CT)
Episcopal Priest (Retired), TransEpiscopal, Treasurer and Moderator of the Twenty Club

•Aidan Dunn (San Francisco, CA)
Stanford University

•Joanne Herman (Boston, MA)
Old South Church, United Church of Christ

•The Rev. G Green (Kenosha, WI)
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

•Ari Lev Fornari (Boston, MA)
Rabbinical Student

•Diane DeLap (Wilmington, MA)
Co-Spokesperson, Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns

•The Rev. Sarah J. Flynn (Burlington, VT)
All Souls Ministry, American Catholic Church of New England

•The Rev. Dr. Erin K. Swenson (Atlanta, GA)
Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, Presbyterian Church, USA

•The Rev. Sky Anderson (San Jose, CA)
Minister of Community Life, M.C.C. (Metropolitan Community Church)

•The Rt. Rev. Dr. Lynn Elizabeth Walker (Brooklyn, NY)
Orthodox Catholic Church of America

•Kelli Anne Busey (Dallas, TX)
Metropolitan Community Church

•Dr. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott (Paterson, NJ)
Professor Emeritus at William Paterson University and founding memer of the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus

•Mycroft Masada Holmes (Boston, MA)
Co-Chair, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality
Chair, Keshet Transgender Working Group (TWiG)

•The Rev. Rik Fire (Warminster, PA)
Ecumenicon Fellowship

•The Rev. Laurie J. Auffant (Lowell, MA)
Unitarian Universalist Association

•Reuben Zellman (San Francisco, CA)

•Stephanie C. Battaglino (Cliffside Park, NJ)
Commissioner, The Oasis - the LGBTi Ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, NJ

•Donna M. Cartwright (Baltimore, MD)
TransEpiscopal

•Kate Bornstein (New York City, NY)
Buddhist

•Woody Camacho (San José, CA)
The Metropolitan Community Church of San José

•The Rev. Jay Wilson (San Fransisco, CA)
The Welcome Ministry & Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries

•Jeremiah Gold-Hopton (Atlanta, GA)
Worship Ministry, Northwest (Atlanta) UU Congregation

•Randall E. Klein (Walnut Creek, CA)
Founder, Light in the Closet Ministry, Hillside Covenant Church

•The Rev. Jake Kopmeier (St. Petersburg, FL)
King of Peace MCC

•Jake Nash (Cleveland, OH)
Minister of Worship, Emmanuel Fellowship Church
Executive Director, TranFamily of Cleveland

•Lauryn Farris (San Antonio, TX)
Lay Leader, United Church of Christ
President, San Antonio Gender Association

•Joni Christian (Kent, OH)
Visionary Kent UCC

•Elder Andrea' V. Boisseau AIS (Waltham, MA)
First Presbyterian Church Of Waltham

•Elder Sara Herwig (Waltham, MA)
First Presbyterian Church Of Waltham

•Elder Alanna Block-Butler (Waltham, MA)
First Presbyterian Church Of Waltham

•The Rev. Drew Phoenix (Baltimore, MD)
Ordained MInister, The United Methodist Church

Institutions are included for identification purposes only.

0 Comments

A Holy Trans Week

4/8/2009

0 Comments

Earlier this week I got an email from the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) detailing "Transgender Rights Week in New England," an amazing confluence of events: in Connecticut today there was a Gender Identity and Expression Lobby Day in support of their non-discrimination bill; in Rhode Island this evening there was House Judiciary Committee hearing about their hate crime definition; tomorrow (April 8th) New Hampshire is possibly holding a second vote on its transgender non-discrimination bill. And at the State House in Boston, MTPC held a rally in support of the Massachusetts non-discrimination bill, "An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes".

And as if the stars weren't already apparently aligning, Iowa's supreme court unanimously legalized equal marriage last Friday (April 3), and this morning, Vermont's legislature overrode it's governor's veto, making Vermont the latest state to claim equal marriage.

I arrived with fellow members of the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE) at 10am. What an amazing sight it was to emerge from the main stairs and see so many people gathered-- at least as many as last year, and likely more. MTPC has now put up a number of photos from the event (source of the photos in this piece).

I was honored to speak briefly as one of the co-Chairs of ICTE (the other being Mycroft Holmes) and to introduce two other clergy speakers, Rabbi Stephanie Kolin (photo below) of Temple Israel in Brookline, and Rev. Will Green (photo also below), Pastor of St. Nicholas United Methodist Church in Hull. I'm hoping to be able to reprint their remarks in the coming days. In the meantime, what struck me about Rabbi Stephanie's comments was her strong claim that the work we are all doing is holy work, and that the place in which we were standing was a holy place. Pastor Will passionately underscored how supported we are in our struggle by communities of faith-- much more than we know.

In our own ways, each of us reflected our convictions that religious traditions and communities of faith *should not* be assumed to be anti-trans, despite the terrible reality that many transgender people have been betrayed by communities of faith. Nevertheless, some of our strongest wellsprings of support can, do, and should come from precisely communities of faith and the rich traditions they sustain.

One particularly firey speaker-- whom I had to follow directly (!)-- was the Honorable Byron Rushing, a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He spoke of how we weren't gathered to gain the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, because we already have those rights. Massachusetts has failed to live up to its obligation to guarantee those rights, he said, for which the state has no excuse. We were there to hold the state to account. Amen!

We heard several speakers who shared stories of discrimination and extreme difficulty. One such story was told, haltingly, by Ken Garber, the father of a transgender son, CJ, who died a couple of months ago. I remember Mr. Garber speaking in support of his son at the hearing last Spring, and it was so devastating to hear of CJ's death. I attended this young man's funeral a couple of months ago, and my heart has been with the Garber family ever since. Even incredibly supportive parents cannot finally protect trans young people from the pervasive toll of the cruelties that lie outside a home's door.

As I look back on this incredibly long day, the overall pattern is of border walking, crossing in and out of contexts and communities that often misunderstand one another. As a clergy person at the trans lobby day-- and quite visibly clerical at that-- I felt like an emblem, a living, breathing progress report on how far religious traditions in general and my own in particular have come in their support of transgender people, and the distance they still have to travel. And so it was important to me to state quite clearly the truth for which the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality stands: that people and communities of many faiths support transgender people, and that transgender people come from and claim many faith traditions. I talked about how proud I am that my own diocese, the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts passed a resolution in support of exactly what we were doing at the State House today. The audience interrupted me at that point to clap, which really moved me. I was reminded of moments at Trans Day of Remembrance and Diocesan Convention last November, when the intersections of my particular faith and gender journeys felt not only present but in some sense uplifted.

I then said that for Christians, this week is Holy Week, the most significant, and indeed holy, week of the entire liturgical year. And I said that, for me, being at the State House and doing what I was doing right then was a spiritual practice, a fitting complement to the several other spiritual practices of prayer and worship that I will be doing as this week continues. These practices are of a piece for me, I explained, because of the narrative that propels the events of Holy Week: the movement from bondage to freedom, from fear to hope, from death and despair to transformation and newness of life.

After the conclusion of the event, a parishioner and I made our way first to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul where a service of "the Blessing of the Holy Oils" was in progress, and then to the university department where I am teaching a one-on-one course ("Junior Tutorial") this semester. When we got to the cathedral, Bishop Tom Shaw was in the midst of his sermon, sitting in the central aisle. As we stepped into the cathedral, directly opposite him, he was in the middle of saying, "gay, lesbian, bisexual..." I felt like something of a transgender jack-in-the-box, with my "trans rights now" sticker still stuck to my lapel from the rally. I imagine Tom was saying something celebratory about the Vermont override, the announcement of which had elicited prolonged cheering during the rally.

The theme of the service was healing-- the various ministries of healing, lay and ordained, taken up by people throughout the diocese. There was a moment in the service when people in healing ministries were invited to come forward for the anointing of the palms of their hands. I walked forward with my parishioner, who recently started a queer, non-sectarian spirituality group at my church (called "BEND"). I loved seeing people with whom I work in the diocese in this context, in the middle of this intense week. And particularly after being at the rally, it felt good to walk across the Boston Common and into the cathedral. I felt both a sense of difference between how I spent my morning and how I imagine most people in the cathedral spent theirs, and a sense of affirmation that I was indeed walking from one holy space and activity to another.

From the cathedral, I made my way to a coffee shop, where I finished preparing for my class. Somewhere between the Statehouse and the classroom, I divested myself of both the "trans rights now" sticker and the clerical collar, aware of myself crossing into yet another communal space, this one academic. The course, "Thirty Years of Trans Studies" is a blast to teach, and also very much of a piece with the morning's activities.

What a day it was. And the holiness of the week continues.

- The Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

0 Comments

A trans ad in Episcopal Life

4/5/2009

0 Comments

Collaboration between TransEpiscopal, Integrity and Claiming the Blessing has resulted in a new advertisement in the April issue of Episcopal Life. With photo(s) supplied by Vicky Gray, content culled by Gari Green and Donna Cartwright, text written by Cameron Partridge, editing and layout by Jan Adams of Claiming the Blessing, and funding provided by Integrity/Claiming the Blessing, this ad not only lays groundwork for General Convention but is also a first in its own right.

0 Comments

Transgender Faith Leaders Support Inclusive Federal Hate Crimes Act (HR 1913)

A Holy Trans Week

A trans ad in Episcopal Life

Archives

Categories