Lent 2023
 
A Letter from TransEpiscopal to the Bishops and Standing Committees of the Episcopal Church:
 
Peace and blessings to you in the name of Christ. 
 
We, members of TransEpiscopal, standing alongside the LGBTQ+ Caucus and the Deputies of Color, write to you, the Bishops and Standing Committees of our Church, to urge you to decline to consent to the election of the Rev. Charlie Holt as bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of Florida. We ask you to take seriously the report of a “pattern and practice of LGBTQ clergy…not being treated equally with similarly situated clergy” by the Court of Review concerning the November 2022 bishop election in Florida, which found a serious pattern of violation of our Church’s non-discrimination canon. That canon states:
 
“No person shall be denied access to the discernment process or to any process for the employment, licensing, calling, or deployment for any ministry, lay or ordained, in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, immigration status, national origin, sex, marital or family status (including pregnancy and child care plans), sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disabilities or age, except as otherwise provided by these Canons. No right to employment, licensing, ordination, call, deployment, or election is hereby established.” (Canon 3.1.2; see also Canon III.9.7a and Canon III.9.3a). 
 
The Court of Review named the existence of a long-term, systematic pattern of mistreatment and exclusion of LGBTQIA+ clergy in the diocese resulting in the hindrance of their capacity to vote in the election of a bishop coadjutor. The testimonies included in the report are palpably heartbreaking. These serious findings, which have implications beyond even the specific election process irregularities named in the report, were investigated and reported upon by an elected official body of The Episcopal Church, and reveal the election itself to be fundamentally unfair. We urge you to decline to consent to this election to bring pastoral care and healing to this diocese and begin to reform diocesan systems of ordination access and deployment. 
 
We also urge you not to default to an easy framing of this conversation as a referendum on the idea of “Communion Across Difference,” of the Episcopal Church as a “via media,” or “big tent,” and as a statement on whether theological conservatives truly belong in The Episcopal Church. At best such framing is a distraction, a red-herring argument. At worst it deceives from and covers over the structural elephant in the room: the systematic disenfranchisement of LGBTQIA+ people through long-standing pattern and practice, as the Court of Review report and subsequent news reports have underscored. 
 
Communion across difference does not mean allowing cultures of discrimination to exist and it cannot forestall our charge to be consistent with our nondiscrimination canons. Communion across difference means there is room for theological disagreement, but not for bullying, not for controlling a system to keep centering your position, not for obfuscating that control, and not for suppressing votes. A “big tent” Church cannot condone a false equivalency between being discriminated against because of race or ethnicity, national origin, immigration status, sex, marital or family status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability or age – all aspects of who someone is – and being disagreed with because of a theological position (as the Rev. Canon Susan Russell has emphasized for years). 
 
In that sense, the Diocese of Florida is not comparable to the Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003. The issue is not whether a diocese can elect the bishop who best fits their charism; we know of several recent bishops elected who hold conservative theological views, who were easily granted consent; but whether the process of that election fundamentally extends a pattern and practice of discrimination that we have agreed, in our polity, not to uphold. We also note that the bishop-elect, the Rev. Charlie Holt, has been working closely within that same discriminatory diocesan system since last summer. 
 
We believe more is at stake in this dispute than the outcome of one diocesan episcopal election. While the specifics of this situation are distinct to the Diocese of Florida, the issues and power dynamics at play here matter for and reverberate across the whole Church. We agree with the Diocese of Florida’s standing committee president, the Rev. Joe Gibbes, who observed in a recent opinion essay in The Living Church that “if standing committees had to show an unblemished report card for the sitting bishop to be permitted to elect a successor, no diocese would ever be able to elect!” We in TransEpiscopal can tell many stories of discrimination in employment and deployment across the Church effecting trans and non-binary clergy in recent years – although we are glad to be able to highlight growing acceptance as well, and we welcome with joy the recent reaffirmation of support for trans people from the House of Bishops. We know as well as anyone in the Church that we are all still on a journey in this Church to overcome discrimination across many dimensions. The difference in this case is that the Court of Review has made a serious finding of a pattern and practice of such discrimination. As bishops and standing committees, you have a responsibility to take their report into consideration in this case. Otherwise, we as a Church will be saying that this canon does not matter, in the breach. 
 
Our non-discrimination canons, adopted by General Convention, do point to an expansive, non-complementarian theology of the human, including a vision of marriage open to people beyond just heterosexual couples. We know not everyone accepts this theology fully, and we hope and pledge to stay in dialogue and relationship with those with whom we disagree. We, as trans and non-binary members of the Episcopal Church, and their families, fully believe that communion across difference is possible; we choose to take the risky path to see the face of Christ in one another and to love radically in the way Jesus calls us to. But we should also expect as a Church, that our systems will support us, full stop.
 
If your theology is different and if it accords with what the Church taught prior to the establishment of these non-discrimination canons — we reject the use of the term “traditional” to describe such a position, as if our position is somehow “untraditional”— you are still a beloved child of God and you still have a place at the table. We believe that in our journey together with God and each other, relationship is primary. We are called to walk the Way of Love together, for we know that when two or more are gathered in God’s holy name, God will be there. We are called to listen to each other in openness and walk alongside each other to the best of our abilities.
 
We are not called, however, to be tolerant of disrespect, bullying, intimidation, or being treated like doormats. Trans and non-binary people, the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole, and all historically marginalized communities, are done simply being tolerated and we are done tolerating theologies of the human that dehumanize us. The Church doesn’t get to dictate the terms of our presence nor to marginalize us. That’s what the canons say. Those are the terms in which we walk together. We are willing to do the work to walk as One. 
 
We understand that the current bishop of Florida, the Rt. Rev. John Howard was elected before some of this canon language was adopted and that the Church’s positions on these issues have shifted during the past 20 years. That is all the more reason, in this time of transition, to examine how diocesan systems match the canonical expectations of the wider Church. This should be true for any diocese in transition. 
 
Making these canons real is important, and it matters to us, deeply and personally. TransEpiscopal has been an integral part of the struggle to expand our non-discrimination canons. In 2009, we successfully advocated with a legislative committee and the House of Deputies that we should add language for gender identity and expression to Canon 3.1.2. However, when the House of Bishops voted to amend our resolution to wipe out all the specific language in the canon to instead say something like “all means all” but without specificity, we chose to ask the House of Deputies to reject their amendment and kill the resolution altogether for three years, because we believe so strongly that the particularity of that canonical language matters. We brought the resolution back in 2012 and we celebrated when it passed that General Convention in Indianapolis. 
 
We ask you to uphold these canons of our Church. The Rev. Joe Gibbes says in the aforementioned opinion piece in The Living Church that “the question of whether there has been a pattern of discrimination against LGBTQ people in the Diocese of Florida cannot be ignored, but neither is it properly addressed through a review of our election process.” We in TransEpiscopal profoundly disagree with this assertion. It is precisely in this moment of transition and high stakes for the whole Church that the canons must be upheld. Otherwise, they are just words.
 
As a Church, we have repeatedly affirmed that LGBTQIA+ people are beloved children of God, made in the Imago Dei, and that we have a place in God’s vision of the world. Consenting to an election conducted under processes and systems which denied this truth would be a step away from the Beloved Community we are called to be and to build. That is not the Beloved Community to which our Church has committed itself—as written into our canons, and hopefully, as well, practiced in our lives, day by day. 
 
We pray for your discernment and work.
 
In Christ,
 
Members of the TransEpiscopal Steering Committee:

The Rev. A.J. Buckley
Oregon

Donna Cartwright
Maryland
 
The Rev. M. E. Eccles
Chicago
 
The Rev. Gwen Fry
Maine
 
The Rev. Dr. Vicki Gray
California
 
The Rev. G. Green
Milwaukee
 
The Rev. Michelle Hansen
Connecticut

The Rev. Lauren Kay
Maine
 
The Rev. Rowan Larson
Massachusetts
 
Sarah Lawton
California
 
The Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge
California

The Rev. Carla Robinson
Olympia
 
The Rev. Iain Stanford
California
 
Tieran Sweeny-Bender
Olympia
 
The Rev. Kit Wang
Maine

On this Trans Day of Remembrance we lift up the memory of trans and non-binary people whose lives were taken from us this year. Today we also mourn the loss of five people who were killed in a mass shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado last night. The club had advertised a musical drag brunch, slated for this morning, to observe TDOR. As our community wades through waves of violence – lives lost and lives targeted through legislative efforts – we stand together in affirmation of our dignity, our resilience, our strength and our determination. 
 
We lift up those who have died in 2022: 
​
Amariey Lei – Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania
Duval Princess – Jacksonville, Florida
Cypress Ramos – Lubbock, Texas
Naomi Skinner – Highland Park, Michigan
Matthew Angelo Spampinato – New Castle, Delaware
Paloma Vazquez – Houston, Texas
Tatiana Labelle – Chicago, Illinois
Kathryn “Katie” Newhouse – Canton, Georgia
Kenyatta “Kesha” Webster – Jackson, Mississippi
Miia Love Parker – Chester, Pennsylvania
Ariyanna Mitchell – Hamptonn, Virginia
Fern Feather – Morristown, Vermont
Ray Muscat – Independence Township, Michigan
Nedra Sequence Morris – Opa-locka, Florida
Chanelika Y’Ella Dior Hemingway – Guilderland, New York
Sasha Mason – Zebulon, North Carolina
Brazil Johnson – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Shawmaynè Giselle Marie – Gulfport, Mississippi
Kitty Monroe – Cordova, Tennessee
Martasia Richmond – Chicago, Illinois
Keshia Chanel Geter – Augusta, Georgia
Cherry Bush – Los Angeles, California
Marisela Castro – Houston, Texas
Hayden Davis – Detroit, Michigan
Kandii Reed – Kansas City, Missouri
Aaron Lynch – McLean, Virginia
Maddie Hofmann – Malvern, Pennsylvania
Dede Ricks – Detroit, Michigan
Mya Allen – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Acey Morrison – Rapid City, South Dakota
Semaj Billingslea – Jacksonville, Florida
Tiffany Banks – Miami, Florida

Let us pray.
God of liberation, lift up, we pray, all our trans and nonbinary siblings who have gone before us, people on whose pathbreaking shoulders we stand. Be with us this day as we mourn these, your beloved, lost to violence this year. Bind us together in Beloved Community and strengthen us for the ongoing work of eradicating the intersecting evils of transphobia, transmisogyny, racism, sexism, and classism. May light perpetual shine upon those we have lost, may their names be for a blessing, may we be inspired and energized to join in co-creating a world in which the dignity of all our humanity and of all creation is safeguarded and honored. In your holy name we pray, Amen.

This Transgender Awareness week, TransEpiscopal lifts up the inspiring ministry of the Reverend Carla Robinson, Canon for Multicultural Ministries and Community Transformation in the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia (western Washington state). This is a position whose development the Reverend Rachel-Taber Hamilton helped lead and described in her candidate statement for Vice President of the House of Deputies this past summer. As far as we know, Carla is the first openly trans canon in the Episcopal Church. She was ordained on the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, 2009, and has served in several settings prior to this chapter of her ministry. You can hear her share more of her story on “the Talk” from All Saints Pasadena’s LGBTQ Ministry. We asked Carla if she would be willing to write about her new, pathbreaking position and work. Thank you, Carla, for your ministry and inspiration!

How did the position of Canon for Multicultural Ministries and Community Transformation come into being?

In 2019 the Diocese of Olympia created the position of the Canon for Multicultural Ministries and Community Transformation in the Diocese of Olympia. The position is both new and not so new. Our diocese has had a staff position that focuses on Multicultural Ministries for some time, but it has gone through many changes. Under Bishop Warner the Rev. Jerry Shigaki was the fulltime Canon for Ethnic Ministries and I served as his administrative assistant. Father Jerry retired, and I went on to ordained ministry. A part-time position was created under Bishop Rickel. The Rev. Arienne Davison held that position and later the position was folded into her role as the Canon to the Ordinary. The administrative assistant position was eliminated.
For several years multicultural ministries were not a priority in our diocese. That changed when three things happened:

1. The Covid 19 pandemic disrupted the lives of faith communities, as it did to every other human community.
2. In our diocese people of color longed for connection and began gathering in virtual communities to discuss what was happening to them. This was the genesis of what is now known in our diocese as The Circles of Color.
3. The murder of Mr. George Floyd triggered a nationwide awakening to the issues of racism and that awakening rocked many communities of faith, including the Diocese of Olympia.

As the racial reckoning in the wake of the George Floyd murder washed over the country, the church sought to respond. The Diocese of Olympia sought to respond. In our diocese the Circles of Color were able to work with our bishop and our governing bodies to create a response. Part of that response was the creation of a new position: The Canon for Multicultural Ministries and Community Transformation. 
In April of this year, I was selected to serve in that new position. I am hardly the first person of color to serve in this type of position. However, I believe I am the first transgender woman to serve as a canon on a bishop’s staff. 

What does the Canon for Multicultural Ministries and Community Transformation do?

The job description can be summarized in five points:

1. The Canon for Multicultural Ministry and Community Transformation engages the diocese in becoming a more inclusive community.
2. The Canon is responsible for oversight, facilitation, and implementation of a diocesan strategy to increase diversity in lay and clerical positions, as well as in programming.
3. The Canon supports ethnic congregations, including the development of such congregations.
4. The Canon engages the larger communities on issues of racial justice and reconciliation.
5. The Canon is in active relationship with the Ethnic Ministries Circles of Color (EMCC) network and with the Office of the Bishop.

What inspires me in my work?

It is the many ways in which the work is done and the people I get to work with. I preach and teach all over our diocese. I lead workshops on multicultural ministries and racial justice. I write articles. I draft budgets. I oversee grants for multicultural ministry. I sit with vestries and bishop’s committees. I work with our Standing Committee, Diocesan Council, Commission of Ministry, Board of Directors, and the rest of our bishop’s staff. There is no part of the diocese’s life that I’m not involved in. I’m heartened by the deep commitment in our diocese to racial justice.

I take special joy in my work with the Circles of Color. We are an amazing mix of people: Indigenous people from the America, African Americans and immigrants from Africa, Asian and Asian Pacific Islanders, Latino peoples of many countries, biracial and multi-racial people, and Anglo folk in our Circle of Allies. It can be a spiritual experience just showing up in a meeting and seeing this visible representation of the kingdom of God as Revelation depicts it (…from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages…). 

What challenges me in my work?
​
The challenge I face constantly is the one that Jesus spoke to when he said to his disciples, “the harvest is plentiful, but laborers are few.” There is so much work to be done. This is a moment in the life of the church in the United States when we can make hay. We can show our country that there is another way, the way of Jesus, the way of love, love that brings people who are very different together. The challenge is to step into that work, day after day, led by the Spirit of God.

​TransEpiscopal celebrates the successful conclusion of #GC80 and gives thanks for the inspiring work of this Convention. All of the resolutions we came to Baltimore supporting ultimately passed both houses, becoming acts of this Convention, and we are both grateful for and proud of all the effort and allyship that contributed to that outcome. This includes the following five resolutions on which we particularly focused:

• D029 Affirming Nonbinary Access and Leadership
• D030 Develop Resources and Training for Welcoming and Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary Persons and Families
• D066 Addressing Restrictions on Access to Gender Affirming Care
• D072 Resolution on Gender and Sexuality Training
• A063 Creation of a Director of LGBTQI and Women’s Ministries

 
We are moved that all of these resolutions passed in the context of a Convention that actively extended the crucial work of racial justice, truth telling, and reparations through resolutions, presentations, and testimony. These included A125 (“A Resolution Extending and Furthering the Beloved Community”), which establishes and funds a voluntary Episcopal Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice among dioceses and congregations. Another key resolution, A127 (“Resolution for Telling the Truth about The Episcopal Church's History with Indigenous Boarding Schools”) sets aside funds over the next biennium for investigating The Episcopal Church’s role in Indigenous boarding schools. We heard powerful testimony on the first day of Convention from Indigenous Episcopalians who themselves or whose family members experienced horrible denials of their personhood in boarding school and other racist, anti-indigenous ecclesial settings. We appreciate as well that resolution A126 (“A Resolution Supporting a Comprehensive Review of the Book Of Common Prayer, The Hymnal 1982, and other approved liturgical material”), proposed by Committee 12 (Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music), commits the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to thoroughly review all of The Episcopal Church’s approved liturgical and musical sources for colonialist, racist and white supremacist, imperialist and nationalistic language and content.
 
Speaking of liturgical resolutions, we were very pleased that this Convention ultimately voted to support A059 (“Amend Article X of the Constitution of The Episcopal Church (First Reading)”) the pathway proposed by the Task Force on Liturgical and Prayer Book Revision (TFLPBR) for liturgical renewal, broadening the definition of the Book of Common Prayer to mean “those liturgical forms and other texts authorized by the General Convention.” This new process will allow for the development of liturgies with inclusive and expansive language as well as liturgical marriage equality to receive authorization as part of the BCP, and not be designated as “second class” rites within The Episcopal Church. We are very glad that the TFLPBR-sponsored resolution A060 (“Endorse Guidance for Inclusive and Expansive Language”), which lifted up concerns about binary language in liturgical texts, also passed.
 
Among the resolutions on which we focused our advocacy, we were especially gratified that the House of Deputies concurred with the bishops on resolution A063. We very much look forward to the hiring of the Director of LGBTIQ and Women’s Ministries, and we would love to be part of a community that can gather around this person, supporting and dialoguing with them as they make their way into this important work. 
 
We were inspired by the eloquence of those who spoke in support of this resolution, especially in the House of Deputies. As time ran out in debate, there were others who did not have the chance to speak, like the Reverend Isaac Martinez of the Diocese of Massachusetts. He shared his testimony in a series of Tweets. His witness poignantly speaks to the need for this position:
 
As an Episcopal church planter, my embryonic ministry has been blessed to have professional and prayerful leaders in the office of church planting and redevelopment. This resolution and the draft budget accomplish what other General Conventions before us have failed to do. It provides real and valuable support, in the form of a new DFMS staff position, for the vital and interdependent ministries of combatting the lingering sexism and misogyny in our church and ensuring that every corner of our church fully includes queer and trans people. Yesterday, our Presiding Bishop gave us a good word about closing the gap between the Jesus we know and how we act. The gap isn’t just a product of other Christians’ belief and behavior – we Episcopalians still have a wide gap between what we preach and what we practice when it comes to inclusion and equality for women and queer and trans people. Closing the gap will take clear vision, strong trust, and good, hard work.
            The Gospel reading for last Sunday from Luke chapter 10 – the sending of the 70 disciples into the Lord’s harvest – is a favorite of church planters for obvious reasons, but it has a verse that I particularly love to remind my bishops and canons about: ‘the laborer deserves to be paid.’ My siblings in Christ, the labor of equipping each Episcopalian to fully celebrate the image of God in women and queer and trans people finally deserves the investment of a churchwide director. Without a shadow of a doubt, I know this resolution will bear fruit for my QTPOC church plant and for all of our dioceses, congregations, and ministries – I urge your full support.
 
Thank you, Isaac. 
 
As we close out the 80th General Convention, we give thanks for the many whose labor, both seen and unseen, shapes our church. We celebrate the historic election of Julia Ayala Harris, the House of Deputies' first Latina President, and the Reverend Rachel Taber-Hamilton, the HOD's first Indigenous Vice President. We honor all who offer themselves to serve in the committees, task forces, advisory councils, boards, and yes as deputies. Today we celebrate, and tomorrow we will go back to work committed to walking the way of love. 

​TransEpiscopal celebrates the passage of resolutions D030 and D072, which address the urgent need for gathering and developing faith-rooted training and formation resources, and equipping people across the church, particularly at the congregational level, to engage this formation.
 
As we reported in our overview post on our strategic focus at this General Convention, we came into #GC80 with an emphasis on developing, collecting and equipping the church to do training and formation in support of trans and non-binary members and our families at all levels of the church, particularly the congregational level. Resolutions D030 and D072 respectively support faith-rooted formational and secular training resources to be gathered and/or developed – with staff support (see A063) from the Church Center. 
 
A number of people testified at hearings in support of both D030 and D072 at Committee 14 (Christian Formation and Discipleship). D030 received a hearing in May at which a number of people spoke in support. One was a member of the General Convention’s official youth presence from the Diocese of Dallas who is gender fluid. This was their first time testifying at a legislative hearing, and they did a fantastic job! We also heard testimony from several members of the TransEpiscopal Steering Committee including AJ Buckley from the Diocese of Oregon, Kit Wang of the Diocese of Maine, Rowan Larsen of the Diocese of Massachusetts, and Iain Stanford, Cameron Partridge, and Sarah Lawton of the Diocese of California. In June when Committee 14 held another open hearing, a number of these same people again testified in support of D072, joined by additional supporters, including LGBTQ Caucus leaders Charles Graves and the sponsor of D072, Jan Grinnell. 
 
Committee 14 received all of us warmly and strongly supported these resolutions. They recommended them unanimously to be put on the Convention’s consent calendar and shifted to the budget request amount for D030 from $30,000 to $50,000. Unfortunately, the proposed budget did not include this or any other funding for LGBTQ resolutions with the exception of A063, the staff position for LGBTIQ and Women’s Ministries which was funded at $300,000.
 
Our hope is that even though unfunded, these resolutions can be supported by the staff position, should the House of Deputies concur with the small amendments that the House of Bishops made to A063 this morning. 
 
We thank all who made the passage of D030 and D072 possible, from their proposers and endorsers, to all who testified in the resolutions’ support, to the members of Committee 14 who made clear to all of us that they believe strongly in the urgent need for this work.

TransEpiscopal celebrates the passage of D066 “Addressing restrictions on access to gender affirming care” by both houses of General Convention making it an official act of the Convention. This resolution, proposed by Deputy Evangeline Warren of the Diocese of Ohio, expresses The Episcopal Church’s baptismal call to honor the dignity of trans and non-binary people, made in God’s image, by advocating for our access to gender affirming care “in all forms (social, medical, or any other) and at all ages.” We thank Deputy Warren and all who spoke in favor of the resolution not only on the floor of the Houses of Deputies and Bishops but also last month when it was heard by Legislative Committee Eight (Social Justice and United States Policy). 
 
In the current political climate, the trans and non-binary community is being targeted. In 2021, there were over 290 anti LGBTIQ bills introduced in various states across the county, twenty-five of which became law. Eight of those laws targeted trans and non-binary people. 2022 is on track to surpass this number.
 
Much of this legislation is aimed specifically at trans and nonbinary youth. For example, Texas Governor Greg Abbot in late February directed the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to investigate parents for child abuse who supported gender affirming care to their trans and non-binary children. While Texas courts have issued restraining orders on these investigations, it is far from clear that trans and non-binary youth will have access to care.
 
At the committee hearing for D066, several people testified in support, including trans and non-binary people and our family and friends. Molly Wills Carnes, who lives in Texas, offered testimony as the parent of a trans daughter:
 
Even growing up in an affirming household, by the time our daughter was a teenager and still living as a boy, she was depressed, anxious, and finally suicidal.  Experiencing the wrong puberty often triggers suicide so access to gender care for minors is critical. After coming out as transgender, the healthcare she received saved her life. The results have been lifechanging for our family. I didn’t know how much of my child I hadn’t met yet. She has blossomed into a person with a peace in her countenance and a light in her eyes we haven’t since very early childhood. She is hopeful. She is funny. She is ambitious. She is kind.  
 
The Very Rev. Amy McCreath, Dean of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, testified as the parent of a trans son: 
 
As a parent, I come to you as the mother of a transgender young adult, who began his gender affirmation process in middle school. Although I have long sought to be an ally to LBGTQ youth, until MY child was wrestling for a blessing from laws and insurance policies restricting the age at which he could access various forms of medical care, I had no idea of the power of the forces threatening their emotional and physical health. Like most transgender youth, my son experienced extreme dysphoria - a feeling of being ill at ease in one’s body, and anxiety so strong that it led to periods of suicidality. …
 
Thanks be to God we were able to get him the psychiatric and medical care he needed to make a transition, and his belovedness was affirmed when his new name was blessed using an authorized liturgy from our Book of Occasional Services.
 
We thank The Episcopal Church for standing up for gender affirming care, especially when many of the voices who speak against such care do so as people of faith. 

​TransEpiscopal thanks the House of Deputies for its vote today in support of A063 “Create a Director of LGBTIQ and Women’s Ministries.” We very much appreciate the powerful testimony from the deputies today, as well as the work of many over these last months to support this resolution. Thank you! 
 
As the resolution moves to the House of Bishops we wanted to reiterate why this resolution is urgently needed. As Deputy Tieran Sweeney Bender of the Diocese of Olympia shared so eloquently, The Episcopal Church has “done important work in support of women and LGBTQ people at past conventions,” including many resolutions TransEpiscopal has supported, listed here. “Yet these important past resolutions can only go so far. In the face of systematic attacks on the right to bodily autonomy and attacks on queer and trans people, especially trans kids and youth, we must add to the important statements we have made and take action.” 
 
Action is needed now that can represent the best of The Episcopal Church’s commitment to stand in solidarity with women and LGBTQ people. As Deputy Cynthia Black of the Diocese of Newark said in her testimony, which Susan Russell has quoted in a blog post: “Here’s the deal with this resolution. It may not be the ultimate in perfection. But the time is NOW. It has been now for a long time, but it is especially time NOW as women’s and LGBTQ rights are at risk.” 
 
TransEpiscopal is an all-volunteer organization, with no paid staff and a bare bones budget. We are asked on a weekly basis to assist individuals, congregations, dioceses in everything from training to pastoral care. Outside the church we advocate against the many laws limiting civil rights and bodily autonomy. While all that we do is a labor of love and solidarity, we cannot keep up with the ever-growing need. We need staff support from our church. Not to do everything, but a point person who can help us gather in a network of people to develop resources that are faith-rooted, multilingual, and culturally appropriate for our diverse
communities. We need help connecting with people across various networks and organizations within the church so that we can address issues of gender equity, civil rights, and health care access in a coherent and systemic manner. This position can stand alongside various volunteer networks—not just ours – supplementing and assisting their goals, not supplanting them.
 
This position may not do everything that everyone would want, nor is it a finished job description – indeed, it is not the work of General Convention to perfect job descriptions. A063 represents a first step in supporting the church in the work it is called to do. It is funded in the proposed budget. The church has long needed such a position, and urgently needs one in this moment.
 
In the words of 2 Corinthians: now is the acceptable time (6:2).
 
We urge the House of Bishops to concur on A063 “Create a Director of LGBTIQ and Women’s Ministries.” 

​TransEpiscopal joins its voice with the LGBTQ Caucus in congratulating Julia Ayala Harris on her historic election as President of the House of Deputies. President-elect Ayala Harris, a first generation Mexican American, will be the first Latina to serve in this role and the first deputy of color to serve as President since Charles Lawrence who served from 1976-1985. Her election also marks an important generational shift in the leadership of the Episcopal Church, made possible, as President Jennings emphasized in her sermon this morning, by the fact that this role has finally become a compensated position. In candidate forums leading up to today’s vote, President-elect Ayala Harris spoke strongly of her commitment to being an ally to the LGBTIQ community. We ourselves experienced that allyship when several members of TransEpiscopal’s steering committee presented at the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council last January. We look forward to working with her in the years to come, as the Episcopal Church takes up the work ahead of it to fully support trans and non-binary people at all levels of the Church’s life. 

​TransEpiscopal strongly supports A063 as substituted by Committee 16 that creates a funded, full-time position at the Episcopal Church Center: “Director of LGBTIQ and Women’s Ministries.” As Episcopal News Service reported last week, a line for that position has been included in the budget voted on by the Committee on Budget, Program and Finance at $300,000 over the coming biennium. This position will bring much needed support to LGBTIQ and women’s ministries and programs in a systemic and coherent manner as they seek equity for women and other gender and sexual minorities.
 
We want to emphasize: this is an historic moment. To our knowledge, never before has any position at the Church Center been charged specifically with supporting the ministries of and with LGBTIQ people. There haspreviously been a Director of an Office of Women’s Ministries, a position that was cut in 2009 and has not been restored since, despite an unfunded resolution that passed General Convention in 2015, Establish a Women’s Ministries Staff Position, 2015-A032, proposed by the 2012-2015 Executive Council Committee on the Status of Women (a committee that no longer exists). We are also aware that educational resources supporting and equipping congregations to embrace LGB and especially trans and non-binary people have also not historically been funded (e.g., 2018-C054 and 2018-C022). In fact, this year both D030 and D072 also have budgetary implications and are on the consent calendar but have not been funded. 
 
Deputies Cameron Partridge and Sarah Lawton (California; Steering Committee members of TransEpiscopal; members of Legislative Committees 16 and 9 respectively) collaborated closely with Deputies Laura Russell (Newark; Chair of the 2018-2021 Task Force to Study Sexism in TEC & Develop Anti-Sexism Training, which proposed the original A063, and Chair of Committee 7) and Devon Anderson (Minnesota; Chair of Legislative Committee 16) to construct this new staff position and advocate for it through the budget process. We thank all who listened supportively to our testimony in Committee 14 (where a similar resolution D096 was sent). We particularly thank Devon, who supported A063 as a substitute in Committee 16 when it became clear Committee 14 was taking a different strategic approach to D096 and would not put it forward at this Convention. 
 
We celebrate this opportunity for the Church to approach the equipping of LGBTIQ and women’s ministries in an intersectional way, especially in a time when the civil rights and health access of both groups are under attack, particularly in terms of bodily autonomy. We also see this position as supportive of the crucial work of racial equity across our church, and one of the key reasons we need a staffed position for this work is to have someone who is focused on and accountable in creating and gathering, in cooperation with communities that have this knowledge, resources that are multilingual and culturally appropriate for the many cultures and peoples who are part of the Episcopal Church. 
 
To be sure, we would have loved to see two positions in this budget—one focused on women’s ministries and the other, in connected ways, supporting LGBTIQ ministries. But, as the ENS article underscored, the addition of this one staff position is a very big deal: “Executive Council’s draft budget had recommended freezing churchwide staff positions at 152 [but] the Program, Budget and Finance committee made one exception in its proposed spending plan, to add the position of women’s and LGBTQ+ ministries director.” 
 
We look forward to the hiring of this position and welcome a strongly intersectional community of support to gather around whoever is called to this crucial ministry. Thank you, again, to all who have supported our communities in this historic opportunity. 

​TransEpiscopal eagerly anticipates the 80th General Convention in Baltimore, shortened though the convention is in response to the pandemic. This is our sixth consecutive General Convention, with Donna Cartwright having represented us at our first in 2006. Summaries of our previous General Convention efforts can be found here: 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018. Stories from these efforts as they unfolded can be found on this blog, a multi-voiced archive of our ongoing collective endeavor together with many allies toward the full embrace of trans and non-binary people in and through The Episcopal Church. 
 
We come into #GC80 with a sense of urgency about formation and training for support and advocacy in congregations, particularly amid the wave of anti-trans, trans-misogynistic legislation that has been growing across the United States, increasingly targeting trans girls and non-binary youth and their families. For years members of our community have lifted up the importance of education in support of trans and non-binary members at all levels of the church, from churchwide to diocesan structures, from seminaries to congregations. This year, resolutions D030 and D072 seek funding to support faith-rooted formational resources to be gathered, developed, and staffed by the Church Center. We have testified in support of both resolutions and are glad they have been added to the consent calendar. Resolution A063, as substituted by Committee 16, would add a staff position to the Church Center, “Director of LGBTIQ and Women’s Ministries,” to support training, leader networking and data collection. It, too, has been added to the consent calendar. Never has there been a staff position that directly supported LGBTIQ ministries in this church, and we are thrilled that it has been added to the proposed budget with full funding.
 
Responding to that anti-trans legislative wave is also energizing our support of D066 “Addressing Restrictions on Access to Gender Affirming Care.” Several of us who are trans or non-binary, as well as several of us who are parents or other family members of trans and non-binary people testified in its support. We will share some of that testimony in a forthcoming blog post.
 
And because non-binary people continue to struggle with discrimination within the Episcopal Church, we strongly support D029 “Affirming Non-Binary Access and Leadership” which underlines that the language of our nondiscrimination canons does indeed include people with non-binary genders, and not only those who are male or female. 
 
In this curtailed General Convention, we have been hard at work, and we are pressing forward to complete the work before us in Baltimore.

TransEpiscopal joins the wider Episcopal Church and LGBTIQ+ community in celebrating the pioneering, liberating life of Jim Toy who died at age 91 on January 1st and whose “Celebration of Liberation,” sponsored by the Spectrum Center of the University of Michigan, took place last weekend. “As a queer, Asian American activist, Jim inspired those who knew him and knew of him,” the Spectrum community invitation declared. “He sparked a rebel flame, urging us to continue to question authority, make space for those most vulnerable, and speak out against injustice whenever and wherever we encounter it.” 
 
In 1970, Jim was attending a rally protesting the Vietnam war when he stepped in for another member of the Detroit Gay Liberation Movement (DGLM) who had decided not to speak at the last minute. Jim described himself as an openly gay man in his speech. In so doing, as this PBS overview of his life reports, Jim became the first person in Michigan to come out publicly as gay. A co-founder of the DGLM as well as the Ann Arbor Gay Liberation Front, Jim went on to varied work as a “therapist, counselor, trainer, facilitator, educator, and advocate,” as he wrote in this profile for the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network. When the University of Michigan opened the first university-based LGBTQ center in the U.S. (now called the Spectrum Center), Jim was one of its two coordinators and served in that role from 1971-1994. As Jim says in this video created by the center in 2012, “I’m a Democrat, I’m an Episcopalian, I’m a conscientious objector… I was assigned to what we call the male gender. I identify with that assignment. As it turned out, I happened to be gay.” Elsewhere he elaborated, “My ‘identity’ is a tapestry of many threads — race and ethnicity, color, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability/disability, appearance, age, religious belief, political belief. If one of the threads is plucked, the whole fabric is bound to move.”  
 
Early in TransEpiscopal’s advocacy efforts in the Episcopal Church several of us met Jim at the 2009 General Convention in Anaheim. He immediately embraced us, shared stories, joined in our strategy sessions, and helped us offer a collectively led “Trans 101” for the volunteers gathered to advocate LGBTIQ+ people at that convention. In subsequent weeks Jim joined our email listserve and shared more stories and ideas over the years, always with a characteristically provocative joy.
 
The Rev. Michelle Hansen, a member of TransEpiscopal’s Steering Committee, commented, “Jim was completely dedicated to human rights, LGBTQ rights and full trans inclusion in the life of society and the Church. May he Rest in Peace and rise to God’s Glory!” Donna Cartwright, also on TransEpiscopal’s Steering Committee, added: “Jim really stood up for trans people back when that wasn’t very common in the church, including in church LGBT advocacy efforts. He was a true ally in addition to being an inspiring pioneer.”
 
Indeed, several of us remember Jim advocating for the unusual acronym TBLGQ. As he explained in this 2015 interview, “in the TBLGQI ‘community,’ transgender and bisexual people are at greatest risk of harassment, discrimination, and assault to person and property. Some lesbians and gay men hold transgender and bisexual people in contempt, so placing ‘T’ last in the order of reference results in transgender people being devalued and disregarded. It took the decade of the 70's to convince many groups to say ‘LG’ rather than using the sexist order ‘GL.’”
 
The Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, also a member of TransEpiscopal’s steering committee, recalled how Jim connected the gendered oppression of trans and cisgender LGBQ people in intersectional ways. “I remember Jim sharing how gender norms – what he called ‘the rules of gender’ – had been imposed upon him over the years in particular ways as a Chinese American, gay, cisgender man. He had such a gift for challenging people in ways that could open people’s eyes and draw them together in the process.” 
 
Looking back through Jim’s emailed contributions to TransEpiscopal conversations, several of us noted that his main priority, as far back as 2009, was the need for formation and training to equip trans and nonbinary people and families at all levels of the church’s life. As we head toward this July’s pandemic-compressed 2022 General Convention, we can’t help but think how strongly he would push for the passage of resolution D030 “Develop Resources and Training for Welcoming and Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary Persons and Families.” We are certain that he would consider this effort both long overdue and essential to pass now as trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit young people are rendered increasingly vulnerable by waves of anti-trans legislation.
 
In this moment of tremendous sorrow and anger in the wake of the white supremacist massacre in Buffalo, the targeting of a Taiwanese congregation in Laguna Woods, and this week’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, we give deep thanks for Jim’s fiery, compassionate, wise presence. 
 
As Jim has said: “We’re all in this together… So let’s keep working for liberty, for justice, and for peace. And while we do that I have one injunction: keep misbehaving!” 
 
We will, with God’s help.

This week, in the midst of an unfolding global calamity in Ukraine, news from Texas has exacerbated a climate of fear and division. On Tuesday we were appalled to learn about Governor Greg Abbott’s letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services calling upon the department to consider trans affirming medical care for adolescents a form of child abuse. The letter cites an opinion by the Office of the Attorney General in support of his claim and calls upon the agency to investigate “any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas.” The letter not only heaps further stigma upon trans youth and their families, but also raises the specter of community surveillance. It calls upon people from doctors to teachers, to general members of the public—all of whom are specifically mentioned in the letter — to report trans youth and their families. This threat of splitting trans people and our families off from a wider sense of safety in community—or, worse, of separating trans youth from their supportive families – is precisely the opposite of what our families and communities need.
 
While we appreciate those emphasizing that Governor Abbott’s directive may not be enforceable, we recognize this move as yet another example of how trans people and our families are being used as wedge issues in an ongoing culture war. The letter is an intimidation tactic, designed to foment stigma and instill fear.  We are weary of the waves of anti-trans legislation that have been hitting our community across the United States in recent years. We abhor the targeting of trans youth—particularly trans girls—and their families in these most recent efforts, building on the years of so-called bathroom bills that have been fueled particularly by trans misogyny. 

Trans young people and their families need our support and encouragement. They need upholding in community, to be lifted up, encouraged, and celebrated as the people they are and are becoming. Trans and nonbinary people are made in God’s image and called by God to embody the sacredness of who we are within the full gender spectrum of God’s creation. 
 
We are grateful that, recognizing the fear that trans students and families in Texas are navigating, people of good will are stepping up and speaking out. The Right Reverend C. Andrew Doyle, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, wrote earlier today, “There is no requirement for anyone to report the existence of trans kids or their parents in one of our Episcopal Churches or schools. The gov’s statement has no force of law. ALL people are welcome in churches of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas without fear - we offer only love.”  Thank you, Bishop Doyle. We very much concur: only love.
 
We thank the Reverend Gay Jennings, President of the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church, who issued a letter of strong support for the trans community today. We especially appreciate President Jennings’ declaration, followed by four concrete actions we all can take: “No matter where transgender children of God are under threat, the Episcopal Church must stand with them in love and solidarity. To ensure that we are a church in which vulnerable people are not only welcomed, but also protected, Episcopalians must respond with our voices, our votes and our prayers. Here are four things we can all do:

• Write your senators and tell them to pass the Equality Act, which would for the first time include sexual orientation and gender identity alongside race, gender, religion, national origin, age, and disability as protected classes where federal law bans discrimination.
• Make it clear that your diocese, your congregation and your community welcome transgender people and their families and will strive to protect them. Where this is not the case, work to make it so.
• Advocate against anti-transgender legislation when it comes before your state legislature. Write to your state elected officials and tell them that you support the dignity and equality of transgender people because of your faith, not in spite of it.
• And please join me in praying for transgender children in Texas, for their parents and caretakers, and for all transgender people everywhere who face discrimination, intolerance, and bigotry.”

These statements are signs of hope and communal connection! We join President Jennings, Bishop Doyle, and supporters in and beyond Texas, standing in loving solidarity with trans and nonbinary youth at a time when our world needs more than ever to be bound together in community and love. 

​God of liberation, lift up, we pray, all our trans and nonbinary siblings who have gone before us, people on whose pathbreaking shoulders we stand. Be with us this day as we mourn these, your beloved, lost to violence this year. Bind us together in Beloved Community and strengthen us for the ongoing work of eradicating the intersecting evils of transphobia, transmisogyny, racism, sexism, and classism. May light perpetual shine upon those we have lost, may their names be for a blessing, and may we be inspired and energized to join in co-creating a world in which the dignity of all our humanity and of all creation is safeguarded and is honored. In your holy name we pray, Amen.

Say their names:

Tyianna Alexander
Samuel Edmund Damián Valentín
Bianca “Muffin” Bankz
Dominique Jackson
Fifty Bandz
Alexus Braxton 
Chyna Carrillo
siblings Jeffrey “JJ” Bright and Jasmine Cannady
Jenna Franks 
Diamond Kyree Sanders
Rayanna Pardo 
Jaida Peterson 
Dominique Lucious
Remy Fennell 
Tiara Banks 
Natalia Smut 
Iris Santos 
Tiffany Thomas 
Keri Washington 
Jahaira DeAlto
Whispering Wind Bear Spirit
Sophie Vásquez
Danika “Danny” Henson
Serenity Hollis
Oliver “Ollie” Taylor
Thomas Hardin
Poe Black
EJ Boykin
Taya Ashton
Shai Vanderpump
Tierramarie Lewis
Miss CoCo
Pooh Johnson
Disaya Monaee
Briana Hamilton
Kiér Laprí Kartier
Mel Groves
Royal Poetical Starz
Zoella “Zoey” Rose Martinez
Jo Acker
Jessi Hart
Rikkey Outumuro
Marquiisha Lawrence 
Jenny De Leon

​For over a decade, TransEpiscopal leaders have been walking the halls of General Conventions to advocate for resolutions that support transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse folks within and beyond The Episcopal Church. 
​
We have advocated for opposition to state and federal legislation that harms trans/non-binary children and youth, supported resolutions for equal access to the life of the church for all, from marriage equality to updating the non-discrimination Canons of The Episcopal Church. 

We have even been invited to help our beloved Church grow in learning and love through resolutions passed by General Convention, such as 2018-C054, which specified “[t]hat materials to help promote the Guiding Principles of this resolution be developed and curated by the Office of Formation through partnerships with organizations such as Integrity and TransEpiscopal.” Yet most resolutions like this are passed without a budget line attached to them. Without money in the budget, further action, like that called for in 2018, doesn’t often happen—follow up to 2018-C054 included. We hope to change that, but it takes more resources than we have as TransEpiscopal to make it happen. 

Another resolution passed by General Convention in 2018, C022, called for dioceses to pass similar legislation at the diocesan level and to advocate for the rights of trans/non-binary people in their state legislatures. But with no budget to fund someone to follow up on whether dioceses actually considered this legislation or not, only four dioceses passed anything following the 2018 General Convention. The Episcopal Church in Connecticut, The Episcopal Diocese of Newark, The Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago—we salute your support! 

Diocesan resolutions that refer to trans/non-binary folks at all are few and far between, with only 18 resolutions passed by 11 dioceses since 2004. Two of these resolutions were not meant to be applied immediately at the diocesan level, but were to bring resolutions to General Convention; what would become 2012-D002 (ECCT) and 2018-C022 (DioCal).[1] 

It matters that dioceses have something to say about trans/non-binary people, even if it is only that they exist and are already a part of the Body of Christ. 

We understand that different parts of The Episcopal Church are at different stages in their journey towards love and acceptance of all people, no matter their race, ethnicity, ability, gender identity, gender expression, sexuality, or other minority status. But we have to start somewhere, and in The Episcopal Church, that often begins in legislation at diocesan conventions. Resolutions passed at conventions express what issues the diocese cares about and are willing to act on. By putting forth resolutions to support trans/non-binary folks in the church and in the wider world, through advocacy at the state and federal level, dioceses can show their support. 

If you too are a self-identified Convention Nerd (like me!) or you know that if you speak up, others will listen, we encourage you to submit resolutions to your local convention and then advocate for them![2] If you’re not sure where to start, consider this “choose your own adventure” resolution building tool that includes five issues that TransEpiscopal has identified as good places to start. By making model Resolves and Explanations available, we hope to have lowered the often quite high barrier of where to even begin. This tool will enable dioceses to build resolutions that range from identifying that trans/non-binary people exist in the Church, forming a task force for more research for future legislation (or continuing the work identified!), naming the harm that state legislation that targets trans/non-binary children and youth has done and continues to do, and more. 

We are here to help you on the journey, and are grateful to each and every person who walks the way with us, whether trans/non-binary or allies. Thank you.

————--
[1]: From my own research—a lot of Googling and a lot of reading reports of Diocesan Conventions across the 100+ dioceses of TEC and emailing archivists! While I hope I missed a resolution or two, I’m pretty sure I found them all. If I’m missing one, please let me know! If you’d like to see a full list, click here. 

[2]: Just because your diocese has passed a resolution in the last 17 years doesn’t mean that there’s not still work to do--there are many ways that trans/non-binary people in the Episcopal Church and the wider world still need support that your diocese’s resolution may not have addressed. 

Last Tuesday in Baton Rouge, the Louisiana House Committee on Education held a hearing on House Bill 542, entitled “Fairness in Women's Sports.” Under the banner of “fairness” it proposed to prevent trans women and girls from participating in women’s and girls’ sports in public schools. Earlier in the week, a Senate version of this bill (SB 156, identically titled) was unanimously voted out of committee and is awaiting consideration by the Louisiana senate. The House version, however, failed to advance on a vote of 5-6. It was a significant victory in the midst of very difficult days for the trans community across this country, as a wave of anti-trans bills targeting trans youth, and particularly trans girls, continues to build in at least thirty-three states. In this moment it is so important for Christians to affirm the human dignity, agency, and belovedness of trans and nonbinary people. It is critical for us to resist and refuse barriers that others – all too often in the name of God – put between us and the spaces and activities that allow us to fully flourish as the people God created us to be and become. Particularly in dioceses where anti-trans bills are pending, we ask Episcopalians to come forward in support of our communites, and we thank all who are already doing this crucial work.
 
We thank The Right Reverend Kathryn Ryan, Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of Texas, who wrote on her blog this past Friday about anti trans legislation pending in Texas. “Week after week this spring, trans youth and their parents and other members of the trans community have had their dignity attacked as state lawmakers and others have debated their humanity and rights publicly as if they are not real people and faithful families with their own stories,” she wrote. In the testimony of trans community members and allies, Bishop Ryan observed, “I heard the core of Jesus’ message: All people are loved by God. Full stop. All are made in God’s image and are worthy of the protections and opportunities afforded by our state and country. The Episcopal Church affirms this claim when it calls upon the baptized to ‘respect the dignity and freedom of every human being’ and to ‘seek and serve Christ in all people, loving [their] neighbor as [themselves].’ 
 
We thank the Reverend Tommy Dillon, Rector of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge, who shared testimony opposing HB 542 last Tuesday. “As part of the leadership of Inclusive Louisiana, the LGBT Ministry in the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, and as a priest of the Church, I am here to speak to oppose House Bill 542 because it would harm trans young people across the state,” he said. “We have several congregation members where I serve as a priest here in Baton Rouge who have children and grandchildren who are transgender, and they have expressed concern about this legislation with me. We believe that as part of our Baptismal Covenant we should respect the dignity of all of God's children.” Read more about the hearing in this article from The Advocate.
 
In his testimony, the Rev’d Dilon also referenced a story from the book of Acts about an Ethiopian eunuch, who is the first person baptized into the body of Christ in Acts (Acts 8:26-40). The story occurs along the “wilderness road” running from Jerusalem to Gaza. The Apostle Philip meets the Ethopian Eunuch whom we are told is a “a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ehiopians” (Acts 8:27). The Ethiopian eunuch would have been seen as an outsider, and occupied a marginal status based in what today we refer to as their gender and sexuality. What struck the Rev’d Dillon was the role of the Apostle Philip. During their conversation, the eunuch declares, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” In fact, nothing was to prevent the full, flourishing membership of this child of God in the beloved community. Philip, prompted by the Spirit, made sure of that. The Rev’d Dillon concluded his testimony: “I invite you to have a spirit-filled conversation with our trans siblings like Philip did two thousand years ago and see if the Spirit of God will move you to help break down barriers to help do no harm to God's beloved trans community.”
 
Indeed, that is the question: What is to prevent us from supporting the full flourishing of trans and nonbinary young people in our communities? Plenty of things can, especially when motivated by fear and hatred. These bills across the country purport to support the equality of women and girls. Their supporters often say they seek merely to “create a level playing field” for girls. But as this article importantly points out, these bills assume that bodies assigned male at birth “are born with an innate biological athletic superiority”— an assumption both androcentric and false. In addition, the article continues, these bills are being supported with “messaging that classifies young trans girls as ‘biological boys,’” messaging that “is scare-mongering and unfair, and only seeks to reinforce ugly stereotypes about trans girls and women to an uninformed public.” However vocally their supporters claim such legislation to be about “fairness,” in fact these bills are yet another effort in a longstanding pattern of stigmatizing and dehumanizing trans women.
 
What is to prevent us? What is to prevent us from standing together in full, loving support of trans women and girls, trans femme nonbinary youth, and indeed people of all genders, races, and ages in our communities? What is to prevent us from manifesting together the liberating love of the God who came among us to heal us and set us free? 

As we pass the one-year mark since the Right Reverend Barbara C. Harris passed into larger life on March 13, 2020 TransEpiscopal joins the wider Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion in celebrating her transformative, pioneering life and ministry. We participated in services across the church to honor her life and ministry this weekend in the dioceses of Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts, New York, Los Angeles, and California.
 
Bishop Harris was known not only for being the first woman to be ordained a bishop in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion in 1989, but also for how justice advocacy permeated her ministry at every level. Bishop Harris, who served in the Diocese of Massachusetts from 1989 until her retirement in 2002 and then was an assisting bishop in the Diocese of Washington D.C. from 2003-2007, was a powerful, galvanizing preacher and writer, an inspiring and incisive leader, and a compassionate pastoral presence. She would often begin her sermons with “Let there be peace among us and let us not be instruments of our own or another’s oppression”. That call to recognize intersectional oppression and to resist it, to stand together and uplift one another, was such an inspiration to us. So too was her wonderfully irreverent sense of humor that could cut through the difficulties of any moment, connecting us and giving us hope. We in TransEpiscopal will always be grateful for the support she gave us early on as we began our work in 2007, both believing in and standing with us as we began advocating for trans and nonbinary people in the wider Church. 
 
Bishop Harris also supported some of us individually as we made our way into our various ministries. “I will never forget Bishop Harris sitting in a rocking chair in her office, listening intently and compassionately as I came out to her as trans in the spring of 2002,” commented the Rev’d Dr. Cameron Partridge, TransEpiscopal steering committee member who was ordained in 2005 in the Diocese of Massachusetts and served there until coming to the Diocese of California in 2016. “I was a Candidate for Holy Orders at the time, and I was frankly anxious about how my being trans might impact my ordination process and ministry. She made it clear that she supported me, regardless of how others might respond down the road, and that meant so much. She not only stood with me, she stood with all of us and called upon others to do the same. I’m so grateful for her ministry not only as a prophetic, trailblazing pioneer but also as a pastor.”
 
“Bishop Barbara C. Harris was an icon to me as a younger church leader in the 2000s as my deputation from the Diocese of California was working so hard for inclusion of LGBTQ people in our church,” commented Sarah Lawton, longtime Deputy to General Convention from the Diocese of California and TransEpiscopal steering committee member. “I'll never forget her preaching at the Integrity Eucharist in 2009 – as it happens, the year that we passed the first trans supportive resolution at General Convention, the year we had the first openly trans deputy serving in the House of Deputies – and she told the congregation that ‘God has no favorites .... So to you, gay man, lesbian woman; you, bisexual person; you, transgender man or woman; you, straight person; all of us, the baptized: Let us honor the sacrament of our baptism and our baptismal covenant, the only covenant we need to remain faithful.’ Bishop Barbara was electrifying. For a people so often excluded from church ministry, she pointed the way right to Jesus.”
 
As COVID-19 continues to disproportionately impact Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities across the United States, Bishop Harris’s lifelong advocacy for racial justice and her prayer that we not be instruments of our own or another’s oppression calls all of us to a deeper, insistent solidarity across racial and economic lines. And as a growing legislative wave emerges in statehouses across this country – at least 65 pieces of specifically anti-trans legislation as of earlier this month, aimed at trans youth and particularly at trans girls  – we draw strength from the fearless, heartfelt support Bishop Harris shared with us again and again, as well as her own example of courage. As the Rev’d Kit Wang, TransEpiscopal steering committee member from the Diocese of Maine, remembered, “Bishop Barbara Harris’ consecration was the first I had ever attended. The parade of protests was cringeworthy. It felt as if the whole world converged on the Hynes Auditorium!” That convergence and Bishop Harris’ courage remind us, in the words of the Diocese of Massachusetts’ new collect commemorating Bishop Harris, that the “Everliving God… cause[s] fresh winds to renew, refresh, and refine” us and to “summon us to live courageously as Easter people in an often Good Friday world.”
 
Finally, as we remain physically distant while spiritually connected, we remember what it was like to receive Communion from Bishop Harris. She would put the bread of life in your hand and hold your hand between hers for a moment, looking into your eyes as she said, “the body of Christ, the bread of heaven.” It was such an act of compassion and love. 
 
As Bishop Harris so often prayed:
 
May the blessing of the God of Abraham and Sarah, and of Jesus Christ born of our sister Mary, and of the Holy Spirit, who broods over the world as a mother over her children, be upon you and remain with you always.

Congratulations to TransEpiscopal Steering Committee member the Reverend Kit Wang, whose podcast interview with “Queer Spirit” for “OUT Cast” on WMPG was released on January 25th. In the interview, led by Dr. Marvin Ellison and the Rev’d Tamara Torres-McGovern, and recorded in the fall of 2020, Kit reflects on their experience of race, sexuality, and gender, as someone who identifies as queer, trans, and Chinese American. They also talk powerfully about discernment, not only to the priesthood but also to parenthood. Kit is one of a growing number of openly trans and nonbinary clergy in the Episcopal Church sharing the wisdom of their experience through service on wider church bodies, in local congregations, and in combinations of vocational settings. Kit serves on the leadership team of Arise Portland, is the chair of the Commission on Ministry for the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, and is the President of Province One, a regional body of seven New England Episcopal dioceses. 
 
Thank you, Kit, for your voice and witness!

At the 2018 General Convention TransEpiscopal advocated for the passage of resolution D069, “Gather Annual Deployment and Compensation Data for LGBT and Gender Nonbinary Clergy.” Originally sponsored and endorsed by deputies Vanessa Stickler Glass at that time of the Diocese of California, and M.E. Eccles of the Diocese of Chicago, this resolution called for the gathering of data “using surveys and other mechanisms about: 1) the numbers of clergy who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender or gender nonbinary; 2) the deployment of such self-identified clergy, including whether their positions are part time, full time, or non-stipendiary; 3) their compensation, and 4) to broadly disseminate the report by electronic and other means.” Resolution D037 also called for an expansion of the annual “Clergy Compensation Report” to be able to analyze disparities on the basis of gender identity (specifically naming nonbinary in addition to female and male). We know anecdotally—indeed, from the experience of members of our own steering committee -- that there are LGBTIQ clergy who experience inequities and injustices in deployment and compensation. Stories of such experiences – such as that shared by Gwen Fry in a recent post -- are important and powerful. 
 
We believe that along with such stories, data can help us locate these stories within a larger story, by pointing the wider church to the systemic, structural issues that continue to require change. D069 and D037 complemented resolutions C029 and D005, which called for the maintenance of statistics on the race and ethnicity of those in bishop elections as well as all who are ordained “in order to show trends in ordination, deployment, and compensation by race and ethnicity, and to report broadly by electronic and other means.” This statistical collection and reporting was further described by C029 as part of the wider church’s process of “Becoming Beloved Community,” a framework emphasized by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. 
 
In response to these resolutions, earlier this month an announcement came out: “The Episcopal Church invites all clergy to ‘Be a Part of the Picture’ as it seeks to Become Beloved Community.” The announcement calls for all clergy to participate in a study about the demographics, deployment, and compensation of clergy. 
 
To participate in the study, clergy are asked to go to this page of the Church Pension Group website and fill out a special section, “Information for Church Reporting.” The section heading explains, “the data collected on race/ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation will only be used for analysis and reported in aggregate form and will not be published or displayed on any public facing CPG website or printed in the Episcopal Clerical Directory. Individual data will be separated from data used to administer benefits.” 
 
Gender options in this section, which include an invitation to “check all that apply,” include “male, female, nonbinary” and then a “self-describe” write-in option, allowing for someone to write in trans specific language as best reflects their identity. 
 
Sexual orientation options in the form are more specific and expansive than what we have yet seen acknowledged in General Convention resolutions thus far: asexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, pansexual, unsure, as well as a write-in option.
 
The Church Pension Group has also produced a video featuring leaders from across the church, including Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who explains the importance of participating in this study: “I have a sneaking suspicion there’s an image of who and what the Episcopal Church is that may not conform to the actual reality of who and what the Episcopal Church is today. Having data really does help to inform us in terms of who we are and also in terms of who we want to be.” 
 
TransEpiscopal encourages all Episcopal clergy, particularly those who are trans and/or nonbinary, to participate in this study. We also appreciate all the effort that has gone in to bringing this process to fruition by so many behind the scenes. Aware as we are of trans people in the wider church who do not disclose this part of their history, we additionally appreciate the emphasis on confidentiality in this process, the promise that people’s information will not be shared without their consent. At the same time, several of us noted in updating our information that the Clerical Directory still does not have adequate public-facing, gender neutral options, whether in gender specific designations (e.g. it offers male or female only) or in titles. Particularly for those of us who are nonbinary identified and would like our entry in the Clerical Directory to reflect that truth, we ask CPG to expand the gender options for that public-facing directory. We consider such an expansion to align with resolution D090-2009 which encouraged “inclusive self-identification on all church data forms.”
 
We look forward to seeing the data produced by this study reflect more clearly who we already are and, as the Presiding Bishop put it, help give us more tools to assist the wider church in becoming who we want to be. Indeed, the Beloved Community God calls us to be.

by the Rev'd Gwen Fry

Last week I read an article from CTV News reporting on a trans woman, Junia Joplin, who is, well was, the pastor of a church in Ontario. It threw me back six plus years when, while serving a parish in Arkansas, I too came out as a trans person who would be socially transitioning. Junia’s story was all too familiar. Well at least this part of her story was my story as well. You see, Junia came out to her congregation during her sermon a little over a month ago. I suppose she was lucky that her parish took a month to discern and vote on whether to keep her or fire her for being transgender. Sitting on this side of my history, I’m not sure if it was a blessing or an abominable curse that they spent a month “discerning” Junia’s worthiness to be the spiritual leader of the congregation. In the three days it took for my parish to come to a decision to “dissolve the pastoral relationship” I had to bear the burden of tv news stations camping out in front of our house and being in the news cycle for five days. I received nasty threatening emails and text messages from strangers I didn’t even know both locally and nationally. They threatened my safety just because I am a trans woman. I pray Junia didn’t have to run the gauntlet that I did in that month leading up to the vote to fire her because she is a pastor who just happens to be a trans woman. 

In the story Junia said, "I had a wonderful friend who took me out to dinner just to keep my mind off what might be going on and I had a cry but I tried to almost immediately start thinking about what comes next.”

Junia was already thinking about what would come next even before the votes on her future at the church were tallied. We transgender people in the church know what that’s like better than most. We clergy who are trans have made a great deal of progress in just a few short years. A great deal of progress has been made in the church since my coming out. The church has passed many resolutions at General Conventions since 2009, making it possible for trans people to be protected and incorporated more easily in the church at all levels and this is so very good. The challenge for the church now is ensuring those resolutions that have been passed make an impact all the way to the parish level. While transgender clergy are being accepted more and more in the church, that acceptance seems to be weighted much more heavily in the favor of lay members who are transgender and clergy who identify and express themselves as trans men. But that shouldn’t be surprising should it? Everyone in the church knows that women clergy have a much more difficult time being hired in the church than male clergy. There are even Facebook groups dedicated to women breaking the glass ceiling in the church. And even as difficult as it is for women to be hired for parochial positions in the church, it’s is even more difficult for a trans woman clergy person to be called to a church position. So, Junia’s question is an important one. What does come next for trans clergy, and especially clergy who identify as trans women, in a church where we have been given legislative equality but yet strive for acceptance and inclusion at the local parish level? What will it take for us to become the beloved community we all yearn to experience?
 
The bias and discrimination toward trans women is very real. I believe that the only way to get beyond this is to broaden the experience of the wider church with those of us who identify as trans women as well as clergy who identify as nonbinary, of which we have a growing number in The Episcopal Church. It isn’t easy hearing a bishop say, “the church isn’t ready for you yet.” And yet, this is where the church is at this time. I often joke with folks by telling them that my ministry in the church is now applying for positions as a trans woman so search committees are exposed to trans people in the clergy. But seriously, I do think one of the missions and ministries I can offer the church is to make myself available to those seeking to create a church where the ministries of all people are raised up and celebrated. By being vulnerable enough to meet others face to face and show them the unfathomable love of God I have experienced in my journey, I pray that some day the church that has nurtured me to become the authentic person I am will truly come to accept, embrace and celebrate all the children of God. Particularly those of us who identify as transgender.

​We in the transgender community are resilient and can persevere. As individuals we often get knocked off of our feet only to get back up time and time again. I am a living example of this as I sit here in Maine writing while my spouse is in the home office writing her sermon for next Sunday. The transgender community has made great strides in the church and society and we are thankful for the progress we have made. But we have so far to go before we are accepted and celebrated in our communities. The transgender community has so many gifts the church desperately needs and we will be standing and waiting right here while the church continues its discernment of where we might fit in as leaders in The Episcopal Church in your neighborhood.

“Let the word go forth: God loves us! .... ‘God loves us’ is not an innocuous platitude but a serious faith statement…. God does not make rejects. God does not redeem persons only to say that they were not worth redeeming. God loves us.”
- Louie Crew Clay, Letters From Samaria: The Prose and Poetry of Louie Crew Clay. Ed. Max Niedzwiecki (New York: Church Publishing, 2015), 58.  

TransEpiscopal mourns the passing of Louie Crew Clay, pioneering founder of Integrity USA and a friend and tower of strength to all who sought peace and justice in and through the Episcopal Church. Yesterday Louie died peacefully in a step down unit after having been hospitalized on 11/21 after having a stroke.
 
Louie’s example as a lay leader who, starting in the 1970s, persistently and creatively forged a way forward when forces within the wider Church were hostile to LGBTIQ people, has long moved us. The way he went about that work, with abundant spirit, wry humor, deep encouragement, and palpable joy, has inspired us just as much. 
   
At the turn of the millennium, when trans* people were just beginning to organize ourselves to seek welcome and acceptance in the Episcopal Church, Louie was a mentor, friend and wise counselor. “Even at the most difficult times for gay, lesbian and bi people in the church, Louie pointed the way for trans folk to follow in our own struggle,” commented Donna Cartwright, TransEpiscopal Steering Committee member. “He was undaunted in defeat and magnanimous in victory -- a good friend and we will miss him.”
 
In 2009, when TransEpiscopal first sent a team to General Convention, Louie not only supported the legislation we had come to support and were aware of ahead of time, but also drafted a resolution, 2009-D032. It read, simply, “Resolved, That the 76th General Convention commit The Episcopal Church not to discriminate in employment of lay employees based on race, color, sex, national origin, age, familial status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” The resolution, which passed easily, is arguably just as significant as the canon change resolutions that barred discrimination in access to the ordination process (which passed in 2012) and in deployment (which passed in 2018). Together, with 2012-D019 (“The Rights of the Laity” ) it seeks to safeguard the ministry of trans people among all the baptized. 
 
“Louie Clay was filled with joy and courage,” commented Sarah Lawton, ally Steering Committee member of TransEpiscopal and General Convention Deputy from the Diocese of California. “I learned so much from him. I'm sure he is already numbered among the saints.”
 
Cameron Partridge, also a Steering Committee member and Deputy from the Diocese of California, added, “I will always remember how Louie welcomed the TransEpiscopal community when we first attended General Convention in 2009. He was a true ally, encouraging us as we navigated unfamiliar and overwhelming terrain. Many times over the years Louie went out of his way to reach out to me and others, to offer support and joy-filled messages of encouragement. I am so grateful for him.”
 
“The last time I saw him he gave me a big kiss,” said Michelle Hansen, Steering Committee member from the Diocese of Connecticut. “I thank the Lord for his presence among us in these days. What a loss for the Church! What a gain for Heaven!”  
 
Louie’s life was an emblem of God’s unquenchable, joyous love. When he declared “Let the word go forth: God loves us,” we truly felt it. We give thanks to God for the life, the love, the leadership, and the sheer joy of Louie Crew Clay, and we offer our sincerest condolences to Louie’s beloved husband Ernest. Rest eternal grant Louie, oh God, and may light perpetual shine upon him.