Category: Anglican Communion

Dessert in the Wilderness

12/9/2009

We got our first snow of the season here in Boston on Saturday, that magical first couple of inches before the January days when people go nuts over street parking. It was the perfect accompaniment to a day filled with drama and wonder as the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles followed the election of its first woman (suffragan) bishop, Diane Jardine Bruce, with a second woman, Mary Glasspool (see video interview below), who is also openly gay. Both of these elections, like all such elections, must now be confirmed by Standing Committees across The Episcopal Church. And if that does indeed happen, Bishop Gene Robinson will no longer be the only openly gay bishop to have been elected as such in the Anglican Communion.

I was even more excited about this election because Mary Glasspool is the former rector of the congregation I serve, St. Luke's and St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Allston. She was there from the late 1980s to the early 90s. During her time at SLAM, as it is affectionately known, the congregation became one of really only two parishes in the Diocese of Massachusetts to be truly welcoming to LGBT people at that time (the other was St. John the Evangelist on Bowdoin Street in Boston). Now many congregations here are welcoming.

Mary has been the Canon to the Bishops in the Diocese of Maryland for the last several years after serving a congregation in Annapolis. When she did a sabbatical fellowship in the Boston area in 2006 I was glad to have a chance to have lunch with her, as I'd heard a lot about her from folks around the diocese and in SLAM itself.

We met at the Casablanca restaurant in Harvard Square and chatted about her time at SLAM and some of my experiences up to that point, having just started earlier that year, as well as about Harvard Divinity School where she was doing her fellowship.

But what I really remember is the dessert. Or, rather, the arrival of dessert. For some reason I can still remember what I had for lunch (this is unusual for me)-- it was a salad with pears, carmelized pecans and crumbled blue cheese. And more weirdly still, while I can't tell you what I had for dessert, I remember clearly the moment our server put our desserts before us. They looked absolutely incredible (whatever they were), and I remember an odd thought flashing through my head: we should say grace all over again. Again, not my usual train of thought. But then Mary actually said, "I almost feel like we should say another grace!" We didn't, but dessert was certainly eaten with gratitude.

Throughout Saturday, in between errands with my partner around town, I checked the election results on my laptop. Around 5pm, as I was bringing parcels in from the car, Donna Cartwright (of TransEpiscopal and the Diocese of Maryland) called and shared the news with me. Needless to say, I was ecstatic and, after reading up on the happenings, sent out an email to folks at SLAM. The next day, the second Sunday in Advent, as I preached about the ways in which hope comes to us in the wilderness, I couldn't help but talk about Mary's election. I only wish I had thought to include the dessert-arrival vignette.

Because, the more I think of it, that's how that moment felt to me: like being offered an oasis of hope in the midst of the wilderness. Perhaps you've heard the saying, "save your fork, the best is yet to come?" I obviously don't know what will happen with the consent process, with this ongoing Anglican conflict, etc. But I do think we should save our forks, and not simply for "pie in the sky by and by" but also for dessert in the wilderness in the here and now.

- The Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

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A Trans Perspective on General Convention 2009

7/22/2009

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CONCERNING EXPECTATIONS

Last year, before I journeyed to Canterbury for the Lambeth Conference, I wrote of my low expectations for that every-ten-year gathering of the Anglican Communion’s bishops. Upon my return, I reported in sadness how it had lived down to my expectations.

In truth my expectations for the every-three-year General Convention of the Episcopal Church – our 76th – were not much higher. Indeed, given the tension and, among some, anger surrounding BO33, a 2006 resolution promising “restraint” on same-sex unions and the consecration of gay bishops, and the threats since by the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning our membership in the Anglican Communion, I was not the only one who feared an explosion of one sort or another this July in Anaheim.

That explosion never occurred. Instead, both the House of Deputies and House of Bishops passed by overwhelming majorities of two-to-one a positive, forward-looking resolution – DO25 – that allowed BO33 to fade into the mists of a fearful past, boldly stated the inclusive truth of the current consensus within the church, and charted a course for moving forward in continuing fealty to the Anglican Communion.

Against that background, the goals and expectations of the transgender community, of which I am a member, paled in comparison. As we gathered two blocks from Disneyland, we probably were not even on the horizon of most deputies and bishops. The hope of our nascent transgender organization – TransEpiscopal – was simple and modest. Of the four trans-specific resolutions originally submitted, our hope was that one would make it to the floor of the House of Deputies where discussion of it would lead to recognition of our existence and begin an education process around the issues that confront us on a daily basis.

Our little team of eight, embedded in the larger and very supportive Integrity team, succeeded, however, beyond our wildest dreams.

What follows is my attempt to chronicle what happened and to describe my feelings as events unfolded and, now, in their warm afterglow.

PUTTING TOGETHER A TEAM AND A PROGRAM

This adventure started for us in the chill of February. Communicating through the spring by e-mail and conference calls, we tracked the several resolutions being submitted by dioceses and obtained the support of non-trans allies such as Sarah Lawton and Byron Rushing, coordinated our efforts with key LGBT advocacy groups such as Integrity and the Consultation, produced a brochure to hand out at convention and elsewhere, raised money, divided up tasks at convention, and steeled ourselves for the unknown.

And there was a lot that was unknown, for this would be the first time that there would be a visible, vocal transgender presence at a general convention. Would anyone notice? Would anyone care? Would there be a hostile backlash?

There were eight of us and we were, despite our common cause, amazingly diverse. We were five trans women, two trans men, and a gay male ally; three priests, one deacon, and four lay people; and one of our number, Dante Tavalaro, a 19-year-old layman, would be the first trans deputy in the House of Deputies. We hailed, moreover, from every corner of the country – Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Wisconsin, and, yes, California – and spanned the age spectrum from nineteen to seventy.

We also brought to the task a variety of skills that included expertise with computers and audio/visual equipment, writing, editing (the New York Times no less), and labor organizing. Leadership flowed rather naturally to The Rev. Cameron Partridge, a Massachusetts priest, ably assisted by Donna Cartwright, the editor/organizer from Baltimore and The Rev. Michelle Hansen, a retired priest from Connecticut. All three had been at earlier conventions and educated the rest of us on the ins and outs of the sometimes arcane legislative process.* Cam and I had also shared the experience of Lambeth last year and, with Michelle, the Pacific School of Religion’s Transgender Religious Summit in Berkeley the year before.

And so we left our homes and families, telling our friends: “I’m going to Disneyland!”

HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING

Our arrivals were only slightly staggered with all of us on the ground for the start of the convention. The only one to drive, I arrived about 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 7, joining up with the others between an ongoing meeting of the National and International Affairs Committee (which had two of our resolutions) and a regular 10:00 p.m. meeting of the Integrity team. The latter, a Lambeth reunion of sorts, was followed by the first of a dozen or so meetings of our TransEpiscopal team.

At that first meeting, we divided assignments for testimony before the two committees that would be hearing our resolutions. The World Missions Committee would, we learned, consider our resolutions on Canon revisions opening up access to the ordination process to the transgendered (i.e., prohibiting exclusion of the basis of gender identity or expression)…and it would do so at 7:30 the next morning.

Getting back to my Travelodge room around midnight, I scribbled some notes on a yellow legal pad and, falling into a bed that would become familiar, enjoyed the sleep of exhaustion.

Four of us testified the next morning – Wednesday. It was the first act in a whirlwind of sixteen-hour days that soon became a blur – 7:00 a.m. committee meeting, bagel, 9:30 House of Deputies and House of Bishops meetings, Eucharist, a hot dog in the exhibit hall food court, 2:00 p.m. meetings of the two houses, 7:00 p.m. committee meeting, a veggie Panini at the Courtyard, 10:00 p.m. Integrity team meeting, 11:00 p.m. TransEpiscopal meeting to lay out plans for the next day. For Cameron, who also had responsibilities with Integrity and the Consultation, whilst all the while blogging non-stop, the schedule was even more intense.

In the “breaks,” there were opportunities to lobby potential allies, to meet folks at the Integrity booth, to make new friends, and to just soak in the Spirit that permeated the place, the people, the proceedings. Whatever exhaustion had crept in evaporated in the growing exhilaration. Running into House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson between meetings, I could honestly answer “Yes!” – to which I added a hug and a “Thank you” - when she asked “Are you having fun?”

And it soon became apparent that our decision to be in place for the start of convention was a wise one, for it was a very much front-loaded affair with regard to the resolutions we had put forward. Already the second morning, for example, we found ourselves testifying before the National and International Affairs Committee which had on its plate our resolutions on hate crimes and employment non-discrimination. The next mornings and evenings were devoted to following the discussion of the resolutions by the two committees.

Chaired by Bishop John Chane of Washington and including around the table familiar faces like Integrity’s Louie Crew and California’s Sarah Lawton and Bishop Marc Andrus, the National and International Affairs Committee seemed the more simpatico of the two groups. It was an impression reinforced by the nods and smiles that greeted our testimony. Despite a mild hiccup concerning the addition of “disability” to the list of protected classes in the resolutions under consideration and the perception of some that that might imply that LGBT people suffered from some disability, both resolutions passed with overwhelming majorities.

It was also clear that the World Missions Committee was an unlikely one to be asked to consider BO33 and our transgender resolutions. The rationale for the assignments seemed to be that BO33 related to relations with the Anglican Communion and that transgender issues related to BO33. That said, some members of the committee found their task awkward and unfamiliar and an early attempt was made to fob off our resolutions to the Commission on Canons…a move that would have been very understandable. The Chair, Gay Jennings, pointed out, however, that to do so would mean bumping our trans issues to the end of the line of a long list of issues facing Canons and losing them in the rush of last minute business as they were in 2006. “We have been dealt these issues,” she insisted, “and it is up to us to deal with them.”

And deal with them they did…in a movingly thoughtful and spiritual manner. There was, to be sure, considerable misunderstanding about what it means to be transgendered and the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation. One bishop, for example, objected that there was no need for our resolution CO61, since “Sexual orientation is already in the canon.” In response, Ian Douglas gave one of the clearest explanations of the differences between identity and orientation, stressing the relational aspect of the latter. (Thanking him two days later, I added that even I, a transgendered person, had learned from what he said.)

Bottom line, the resolution passed 19-8 among the deputies, with the four bishops voting “No,” and, indeed, was strengthened by adding upfront words to the effect that all are welcome.

As our team drifted out into the hallway to take a celebratory breath and plan next steps, we were joined by the committee’s Michael Barlowe, tears behind his eyes, who spoke of how the Spirit had moved in the room we had just left. He then relayed a request from the chair for a list of authoritative definitions that could be handed out in the House of Deputies and a brief statement she could make in presenting the resolution to the House. We readily agreed to take on the task. In the course of the next hours, our Donna Cartwright obtained from Lisa Motet of the Washington office of the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force a list of definitions on NLGTF letterhead and Cameron Partridge produced the desired statement. With a helpful addition by Michael Barlowe, it was used by Gay Jennings in introducing the resolution.

Entering the third day, we had already exceeded our pre-conference goals – three resolutions would make it to the floor of the House of Deputies and two more, introduced by Dante Tavolaro, were wending their way through the committees. The latter concerned non-discrimination in the hiring of lay employees and making ordination forms less gender particular. Time to take a deep breath, savor the moment, and prepare to track what we had wrought.

THE SPIRIT TAKES WING

Literally! Taking a seat for the first time in the visitors’ gallery of the House of Deputies, I was amazed by the solitary pigeon (aka dove) that hovered over the deputies, continuing to fly about the hall the next several days. And, it became clear, the Spirit was stirring not only above, but within the deputies.

First came the overwhelming 2-1 vote for DO25, the action on which then moved to the House of Bishops. Meanwhile those of us in TransEpiscopal awaited in tense anticipation the introduction in the House Deputies of our trans-specific resolutions, the first of which would be DO12 on hate crimes legislation. We waited and waited…and waited through the afternoon of Monday, July 13. Getting the impression that it would not be brought up till the next morning and hearing that the bishops were in the midst of the historic debate on DO25, Donna and I made our way upstairs to the House of Bishops…arriving just in time to hear the impassioned intervention of Rochester’s Bishop Singh who spoke of how the church had been planted and prospered in India among the untouchables, the outcasts. Soon thereafter the vote began. Of all the votes, the one that rang clearest to my ears was the crisp, unwavering “Aye!” of the Presiding Bishop.

The deed was done, the final vote being 99-33. It was as if a festering boil had been lanced. One could feel the tension, the fear, the pain leave the room, leave the church. The doors opened and the people rushed out, too, making their way – in silence – down the long, steep escalator. Bishop Steven Charleston and I shared a silent, smiling high five as he stepped onto its moving corrugated metal.

Making my own way down to the lobby, I made my way back to the House of Deputies, there to learn that our resolution DO12 on hate crimes and violence had made it to the floor and that Dante, Sarah Lawton, and Michael Barlowe had spoken movingly on behalf of it, as had several others. While the omens were good, the vote had been taken by orders and the results, therefore, would not be made known till the next morning.

Sarah, Michael, and other members of the California delegation were in the midst of an impromptu celebration at the back of the hall. It was a moveable feast that made is way through the lobbies of the Convention Center and Hilton and up a freight elevator to Bishop Marc’s seventh floor hospitality suite. From there I caught a glimpse in the distance of Disneyland and its Matterhorn – as close as I would get – as the celebrating gave way to planning the next day’s and, indeed, the evening’s legislative work.

For my part, I had planned to leave first thing the next morning to begin my journey home by way of a visit with my mother-in-law in Ojai. I could not, however, leave without returning to the House of Deputies the next morning to learn the vote. DO12 passed overwhelmingly! The tears welled up. Getting up to leave, I was exchanging farewell hugs with my transgender sisters and brothers, when Dante and World Missions Chair Gay Jennings rushed from the floor to join us. Squeezing out a feeble “Thank You,” I turned and walked through a now silent lobby and, stopping only long enough to share my joy with three new deacons, traced a well-worn path to the Travelodge…my car…and home.

I was home a day on Friday when I got the telephoned news from Cam that the bishops had passed DO12 following what Episcopal Life called a “lively debate” – a debate that included supportive statements by Cam’s Bishop Tom Shaw and my Bishop Marc Andrus.

At home I also learned that our resolutions on ENDA, on non-discrimination in the hiring of transgedender lay employees, and on making church forms more trans-friendly had also been approved with flying colors. I learned, however, that there had been a long and contentious debate about changing Canon III concerning ordinations (our original CO61). The bishops could not bring themselves to add gender identity or expression to the list of classes that could not be excluded from the ordination process. Instead, by a very split vote, they eliminated any mention of any specific group and bounced back to the World Missions Committee and thence to the House of Deputies a resolution that opened the ordination process to “all baptized Christians.” With TranEpiscopal’s support, that was voted down in the House of Deputies in the hope that three years hence, after further education, we might succeed in getting “gender identity or expression” added explicitly to the canon.

Despite this last minute disappointment, we succeeded in getting four trans-important resolutions passed and the canon change is now on our horizon and the bishops’ radar screens. Above all we incarnated an otherwise abstract issue and educated a broad spectrum of the church about the reality of our lives. I have little doubt that, by continuing a visible presence in the councils of the church and ramping up our education efforts, we will, three years hence in Indianapolis, complete the job of fully including transgendered people in the life of the church.

A SPECIAL EUCHARIST

This has been an important, inspiring start for TransEpiscopal and, as we look forward to Indianapolis and beyond, it is worth noting a little noticed Eucharist held in a small Integrity meeting room at the Courtyard Marriott the evening of Saturday, July 10.

Seeking to mark the departure the next morning of one of our team members Gari Green, we decided to hold a first Transgender Eucharist at General Convention. We were encouraged by our Integrity allies, especially Jim Toy, who recalled the first Integrity Eucharist in 1988 attended in just such a room by a handful of people.

And so we gathered – about twenty of us. Gari, assisted by Cam and Michelle, presided, I served as deacon, and Donna read the first lesson. In lieu of a sermon, everyone in the room reflected on the experience of the previous few days and the importance of what had already transpired to their own spiritual lives and to that of the church. We then formed a circle and passed the bread and cup to each other…one bread, one cup, one family.

Of all the splendid Eucharists that graced convention, including the Integrity Eucharist that had grown to 1,500 people, this was the one I will remember most. It is a memory I have carried home and will carry with me the rest of my life. It is a special memory of a time and place in which our lives became more fully a part of the life of the church and an earnest that that communion will become fuller still.

- the Rev'd Deacon Vicki Gray

*actually, in 2009 only Donna Cartwright had been to a previous General Convention (2006)

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"Naming, Naming is Very Important"

7/19/2009

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Cameron Partridge, Donna Cartwright, and Michelle Hansen confer with Bishops Barbara Harris and Tom Shaw. General Convention, 2009. Photo by Jon Richardson

An unbelievable four trans-positive resolutions passed at this General Convention. Two of them (D090 and D032) have been mentioned in earlier blog posts. But what happened with D012 and C048 in the House of Bishops? In the rush of Convention’s completion, grabbing a moment to give a detailed report on the unfolding of their passage proved impossible.

Just to be clear about their distinctions, D012 put the Episcopal Church on record in a broad support of non-discrimination and hate-crimes legislation at municipal, state, and federal levels. C048 spoke to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) currently pending in Congress. Both of these resolutions passed, but in different ways.

I had expected D012, which passed resoundingly in the House of Deputies earlier in the week, to come up in the House of Bishops on Thursday, but that didn’t happen. This made me worry it could slip through the cracks, as some legislation can in the massive crunch of this ten-day event. After the bishops’ session ended on Thursday, I approached my bishop, Tom Shaw, to ask if he might be able to help me locate it. He connected me with Bishop Johnson of West Tennessee who represented the official Dispatch of Business committee for the House of Bishops (the House of Deputies has a parallel person). Bishop Johnson took me to the office of the Secretariat of the House of Bishops, where I ran into two fellow Bryn Mawr graduates, one of whom was working for the office. We took a picture of ourselves in our bemusement. With the help of this office and the parallel office of House of Deputies and Bishop, we found the crack into which the resolution had fallen. And so, after some extra running around, D012 came up during the morning session of the House of Bishops on the last day of the Convention.

As it so happened, I was out of the room when the debate began, and I now know from viewing the notes of my fellow Integrity Legislative Team tracker, that my own bishop Tom Shaw spoke first in support. I so wish I could have heard that. As I walked in, Bishop Love of the Diocese of Albany was speaking against the resolution. He had no issue with the nondiscrimination language, but wanted to remove the language of “hate crimes.” His concern was that preaching against particular “lifestyles” on moral grounds could be construed as a hate crime. He did not, however, move an amendment.

Bishop Marc Andrus spoke strongly in favor of the resolution, as he had with C061. He began by emphasizing how this resolution differed from C061. This was about basic civil rights for transgender people—nondiscrimination in the workplace, access to education and public accommodation, extra resources to law enforcement when investigating a hate crime. He spoke of the vulnerability of transgender people to job loss and violence. He was impassioned and eloquent. Bishop Andrus has been such an amazing ally throughout this Convention.

Bishop Barbara Harris, retired suffragan bishop of Massachusetts and one of my personal heroes, then spoke in favor of the resolution. She underscored the vulnerability of trans people to violence and in particular the high death rate around the globe.

Bishop Catherine Roskam of New York then spoke in favor of the resolution, including the hate crimes language, arguing that it was important for this resolution to have that specific language because of the profound vulnerability of trans people. She went on to say she knew from personal experience that this was not only an issue in the United States but also around the Anglican Communion. She had visited a congregation in India that has a partner relationship with a congregation in her diocese. This Indian congregation has a ministry to transgender people there, and she knows from visiting that they too are a vulnerable population. I have heard of this congregation and its relationship and was so glad to hear the bishop bring it to the House’s attention.

Bishop Catherine Waynick of Indianapolis then rose to speak in support of D012. She began by saying that she had felt some tension within herself about the way their previous discussion of C061 had used the term “all.” "All" does not means "all" to everyone. There was a time, she said, when we thought the word "mankind" meant everyone. Except we all knew when it didn’t. We need to be specific, she said.

Bishop Otis Charles, retired bishop of Utah, then spoke in favor of the resolution. He spoke as an openly gay man, having come out in recent years, after his retirement. From that perspective he underscored both the vulnerability and invisibility of trans people. He called on people to ask themselves what and whom they fail to see. He told of a time when he was dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, when a student had requested not to sing a particular hymn in the chapel. He had no idea what could be wrong with the hymn, only to realize as they went ahead and sang it that it was riddled with masculine pronouns. He had not previously been able to see to what made student object. “I know in myself I have been blind, and naming, naming is very important,” he concluded.

Bishop Charles turned out to be the last speaker. I have no doubt that Bishop Gene Robinson also would have spoken in support, as he did with C061, but he was in bed with a terrible fever for two days, and could not be present.

At this point, someone called the question, and a vote was held. It was nearly unanimous — I could only hear one “no.”

In my notes, I wrote “THANK GOD!!!”

After the session ended, Donna and I tried to personally thank everyone who had spoken in favor of the resolution, as well as others who had helped us in various ways along the road. I thanked Bishop Shaw and Bishop Barbara Harris, as well as my suffragan bishops, Gayle Harris and Bud Cederholm, for their support. Donna thanked bishops she has known from her time in the Diocese of Newark. We looked for Bishop Andrus, who was so very supportive throughout the Convention, but we missed him. We thanked Bishops Charles, Roskam and Waynick, as well as Bishop Chane of Washington D.C. who co-chaired the committee from which this resolution emerged. I was particularly moved when he spontaneously gave us a hug.

After descending the escalators once more, Donna handed me notes for the beginnings of a press release, which I completed later in the day. We then gave each other a big hug before Donna headed off to the airport. Donna is the one who got TransEpiscopal going after beginning to connect with other transgender Episcopalians in 2004, including some who had been involved in previous General Conventions, and this Convention marks a huge milestone in these efforts.

I was even happier to be able to leave her a voicemail later in the afternoon, letting her know that C048, the ENDA resolution, passed the House of Bishops without any further discussion. That marked the fourth and final transgender related resolution to pass at the 76th General Convention.

There was one last stressful moment before it was all over for this triennium, however—a coda of sorts. Resolution C061, as you may recall, had passed by a respectable margin in the House of Deputies, only to be transformed in the House of Bishops a day later. Not only had the language of “gender identity and expression” been taken out of the proposed addition to the nondiscrimination canon, but all the categories already listed in the canon were now threatened if the House of Deputies concurred. Our fear was that there might be some confusion in the House of Deputies about what they should do. We tried to get the word out that our preference was for them not to concur, so that the resolution would essentially die and we could try to add the trans-inclusive language again in three years.

Because the Deputies worked so efficiently, the resolution did indeed come back up in the late afternoon, just before the Convention drew to a close. I didn’t get down the escalator in time to hear the debate but learned that Dante Tavolaro had spoken and clarified our position about the resolution. I also understand that, among other speakers, at least one spoke in favor of concurrence. But the Deputies thankfully did not vote that way.

And that marked the end of our General Convention saga.

- The Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

(with thanks to Deniray Mueller of Integrity's Legislative team for allowing me to check my notes against hers, and to Jon Richardson, also of the legislative team, for the photo of TE folks with Bishops Shaw and Harris)

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We Are Transgender and We Are Proud

8/5/2008

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My name is Mia Nikasimo. As a volunteer for Changing Attitude at the Lambeth Conference I found myself in an opportune position to reflect from a translesbian (i.e. a transsexual woman who identifies as a lesbian not to be confused with above or beyond “lesbians,” or a transgender man) standpoint on the Anglican Communion and attempts to exclude the LGBT. I have purposely mentioned my trans status here because “transgender,” as an umbrella term (for transsexual female, male, sister, brother, mothers, fathers, any of whom might choose to cross dress, are intersexed, queer, kings, drag queens and more), can easily lose its identity in the mix. I also specify this identity because I can only share this reflection as a translesbian in the full awareness that some, like my LGBT African brothers, sisters and the rest of us, cannot. As the founder of an online support group called Transafro (which can be found on Facebook), I aim to give voice to our various narratives, Anglicans or otherwise, to promote, empower and raise consciousness in Africa, the Diaspora and allies.

Transgender, contrary to what is often believed to be the case, is not about sexual orientation. Rather it is about gender identity, as, for instance, in the case of transsexuals (i.e. who identify as female or male). Sexual orientation is something that happens gradually for transpeople, who understand it far more than heterosexuals are able to fathom. Even some transsexual people do not fully understand this distinction so I am not surprised that most members of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community do not understand the “T” or transgender enough to change their attitudes towards us never mind the wider Anglican Communion, which is why education, dialogue and reflection is important.

I am particularly grateful to Katie Sherrod and Rev. Dr. Cynthia Black of Integrity U.S.A., Davis Mac Iyalla and Colin Coward of Changing Attitude, and their voices of witness… Christina Beardsley, ‘…the conversation should not be about gay men at the expense of women, Lesbians, Bisexuals and transgender people…’ Cameron Partridge, ‘…the situation for transpeople in the US is not as dire as in Nigeria. Transgender people are becoming more visible than ever…’ Stephen, ‘…transgenderism is not fixable…’ Stephanie, ‘…I always knew and the church helped me realise who I am…’ and I, Mia Nikasimo, ‘…transgender people exists everywhere, and Africa is no exception: murder, violent attack, torture, rape or slurs against our names will not erase our experience…’ We are all ready to take on the responsibility of sharing our very unique transgender voices with Changing Attitude, with all our allies within the communion, and beyond with compassion, love and understanding. The consensus will always be that: WE DO EXIST, WE ARE TRANSGENDER AND WE ARE PROUD!!!

Primarily, in conjunction with members of Changing Attitude, this stance is saying that I am here, a transsexual woman and a lesbian of African origin (Nigerian, in my case) but also as a member of the wider lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community here to reaffirm our identity in the face of attempts to erase our presence from the Anglican Communion. However, the organisation’s mission statement which states that we are: ‘working for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender affirmation in the Anglican Communion’ is well intentioned we need to be proactive in our efforts.

On reflection, I have found that one significant question in particular seemed to manage to escape our attention. Although we have raised the stakes immensely in changing the bishops' attitudes, what are we as attitude changers doing to bring the same rigour to bear on ourselves? Before we can change attitudes among the bishops we have a lot of education, dialogue and reflection work to do in our community (i.e. the LGBT) especially with regard to bisexual (although I cannot speak for them I am aware that they have little or no representation) and transgender people. Simple definitions (such as "what is a transsexual woman/lesbian?") still manage to confuse some lesbian and gay men who then amusingly or otherwise call a transwoman or a translesbian a gay man, robbing her of her trans identity and of her sexual orientation simultaneously just for a laugh. Likewise, referring to a transgender/transsexual man as a woman denies him his status as a man. Attitudes within the Anglican Communion cannot be changed in an atmosphere of homophobia or transphobia because of deep rooted fear which is why there is a call for more education, dialogue and reflection.

Although my mother is an Anglican, which meant I could easily have chosen Christianity, I opted for Buddhism and this is not to say that Buddhists are without similar conditioning as the Anglicans but because it was a religion I chose with a full understanding of what I was doing. Rather than the impositions and guilt ridden disposition of the Anglican Communion towards gender identity (i.e. as a transsexual woman) and sexuality (i.e. as a lesbian), I left Christianity and became a Buddhist and found peace of mind, albeit formative. With a committed and concentrated practise of meditation, I was more able to get on with my life. This suited me. I read broadly about Buddhism, finding solace in the stories of practitioners like Tenzin Palmo and Milarepa, to mention just two. With meditation practise I also found a sort of peace of mind that meant I could let go of hatred, guilt and fear and approach the world from a position of compassion, love and understanding. I even wanted to become a Buddhist nun and spend the rest of my life in spiritual contemplation in a cave out in the wild somewhere, but I quickly realised that that would be indulging my desire to escape it all. Somehow, the city became my cave practise based on Plato’s Cave allegory. I began to see anew and in seeing saw the Anglican Communion and the human condition as both locked horns. I wondered where all the compassion, love and understanding had gone. At the Lambeth Conference, I followed the Anglican Communion-- as it observed its rituals, I did mine with Buddhist ones evoking the essence of compassion, Tara and/ or the Boddhisattva of fearlessness, Amoghasiddhi, and shared the experience at every opportunity in social engagement.

On a final note, I feel the service of the bishops is not about celebrity or notoriety. Rather their service is about the cultivation of the seeds of compassion, love and understanding in all the Anglican Communion and not just some of its parts. This must include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people too or the shepherd fails in his duty to all his flock of sheep. But this mantle is not for them to bear alone. We have our part to play in the affirmation of the LGBT without excluding the “T” as can happen and continues to.

- Mia Nikasimo / July 2008.

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In a Rising Storm, African Voices

7/29/2008

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It's been an intense last thirty-six hours here at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England. Monday afternoon the bishops held a press conference in which they shared some of the "Preliminary Observations" of the Windsor Continuation Group, a committee appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to recommend ways to hold together the various fractured provinces of the Anglican Communion. The basic proposal was for a moratorium on consecrating any more gay bishops and on blessing same sex unions, on the one hand, and for a cessation of progressive diocesan boundary violations by conservative parts of the Communion, on the other hand. This report is now being discussed by the bishops as they meet daily in their small, relationally oriented Indaba groups.

What the bishops seek to do with this report remains to be seen, but whatever they do, it is important to remember that the power of the Lambeth Conference, while persuasive and significant, is not finally juridical. In other words, this Conference does not declare church law for the whole Communion, regardless of how much leaders in various parts of the world may wish it were so. We are an autonomous collective of churches around the world, descended from the Church of England, who value very highly our common heritage and prayer as well as the variety of our contextual experiences and identities.

Nevertheless, Monday's report was very angering for the LGBT coalition here-- and galvanizing. That night, this coalition, including TransEpiscopal, released a response which you can find here. Printing it out and interpolating it within our already completed daily paper, the Lambeth Witness, made for a late night. By the end of the evening it had started to rain, marking a break in the warm, humid weather pattern that has added to the increase in tensions here over the last few days.

But yesterday morning I awoke to a fresh, cool breeze, and a feeling that the tide could turn yet again. That feeling increased at an amazing event Tuesday afternoon called "African Voices." Like "Listening to Trans People," this was a panel, officially accepted by the organizers of the Lambeth Conference as a "Fringe Event" to which bishops could come. The event drew seven bishops as well as several episcopal spouses, not to mention numerous members of the media and other supporters. Prior to the panel, several LGBT people from Africa gathered on the lawn outside Eliot College where, accompanied by drummers, they danced exuberantly for about an hour. Several of us stood behind them holding a huge rainbow flag and a large yellow sign that read, "We're Here! lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Anglicans."

One of the dancers and panelists was also one of our panelists on Friday, Mia Nikasimo. Mia, who identifies as a trans lesbian, is a woman of quiet, razor-sharp insight whom I have enjoyed getting to talk with over the last few days. In today's panel, as in our panel Friday, Mia talked of how transgender people particularly in Nigeria, but also in other countries on the African continent, struggle with extreme oppression. Because of a technical problem, the filming by Integrity on Friday did not capture Mia's presentation, but she has agreed to write something that I can post here, speaking particularly to her spirituality as a Buddhist as well as the group she has founded called Trans Afro.

Davis Mac-Iyalla (pictured between me and Christina Beardsley, below) was another participant in both the dancing and the panel. Davis, a gay man who heads Changing Attitude Nigeria, made news earlier this week when he was granted asylum in the UK because of death threats and attacks leveled against him in recent months. Davis's major point, which he says and lives with great power, is that he and his comrades are living proof against the claim often made by conservative bishops from Africa, that there are no LGBT people in their countries.

After Davis, another panelist, Sokari, added a crucial contribution to the conversation concerning critique of African bishops. LGBT-positive Anglicans need to be careful not to racialize homophobia, as if homophobia is somehow simply an African issue, which it clearly is not.

Later in the evening yesterday I heard from Mia again, along with Sexual Minorities Uganda leader Viktor Juliet Mukasa. They were interviewed as part of a film called Voices of Witness Africa, by Katie Sherrod and Cynthia Black, a preview of which was shown here last night (and can be seen at the Walking With Integrity Blog here-- definitely watch it).  Bishop Mark Andrus of the diocese of California showed the preview to a packed room. I was so moved by the stories of strength and courage shared by all the incredible people in this film and on the panel yesterday. I thank God for their life-giving witness as the mood here continues to cycle between hope and anxiety.

- The Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

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Waiting

9/25/2007

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This has been a day of tremendous tension in the Anglican Communion. Our House of Bishops are finishing up a six day meeting in New Orleans at the beginning of which they received a visit from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The bishops and the Episcopal Church in general are under enormous international pressure to bow to demands that we unambiguously stop blessing same sex unions and lifting up openly gay people as bishops. The media has been reporting on our denomination to an unprecedented degree because of the intense fear of schism. Every Episcopalian I talk to is exasperated by the situation. I too get irritated, particularly regarding coverage of our governance as a denomination. Admittedly, it’s a confusing system with elements of hierarchy and democracy. The most important factor in the present circumstances is that in the Episcopal church bishops don’t actually have authority to declare a national church policy on their own. We include all orders of ministry—bishops, priests, deacons, and baptized laity-- in that sort of decision, and we meet in a kind of congress every three years to do so. In between such meetings the highest level of authority in the Episcopal Church is actually the Executive Council which, again, is composed of all orders, not just bishops. In other parts of the Anglican Communion, governance structure can bestow more authority on bishops than we do. What’s frustrating is when other parts of the Communion expect our bishops to operate as theirs do. I imagine those kinds of expectations can be seductive to our bishops, especially those who instinctively a) want to rein in a chaotic situation and b) keep everyone happy. A situation like this requires strong spines and level heads. Thankfully, this past Spring, our bishops made a clear statement resisting what others would have them take on. As the pressure continues, I pray they’ll do that again.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress gets closer to passage of the Matthew Shepherd Act, legislation that would enable the Justice Department to support the investigation of crimes based on hatred of particular groups, including gay and transgender people. A version of this bill has passed the House of Representatives and now looks as though it will come up for a vote tomorrow in the Senate. I called my senators this afternoon to tell them I support it. This morning I noted a Boston Globe op ed by Cornel West and Sylvia Rhue that calls to task clergy who have been claiming that this bill would infringe on religious freedom in any way. It won’t.

As it so happens, late last week it came out that Marvin Nissin, a man serving a life sentence for his role in the 1993 murder of Brandon Teena, as well as Phillip DeVine and Lisa Lambert, now claims that he, not his accomplice John Lotter, did the killings. The case of John Lotter, who is on death row, may now be reopened. Brandon Teena, who inspired the film Boys Don’t Cry, was murdered when his female birth sex was discovered. That kind of discovery also catalyzed the murder of Gwen Araujo in Newark, California ten years later and numerous similar murders have happened between and since. It is for precisely these kinds of cases that this federal legislation was written.

And so on this day, as Anglicans—especially LGBTI ones—look for affirmation of our denomination’s polity and direction, and as LGBTI people of the U.S. await federal protection of our basic human dignity, I pray for an end to the fear on which division and hatred is based.

- The Rev'd Cameron Partridge

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Multiple Masks

8/21/2007

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When I was fifteen, the theatre club in my high school put on The Good Woman of Setzuan, a play by Bertolt Brecht. I vividly recall the actors wearing masks that covered half their faces. In particular, I remember identifying with Shen Te, a female character who periodically became the male Shui Ta in order to sustain the shop she’d recently opened. When Shen Te became Shui Ta she put on a different mask. Throughout the play, this dual-character got squeezed more and more tightly by her circumstances.

As I watched, riveted, my stomach bound itself in knots that lasted for weeks. I had no words to describe my struggle as a tomboy striving to find my way into a female adolescence without sacrificing my gender authenticity, an identity I would eventually refer to with such terms as transgender, genderqueer, ftm (female-to-male). Where language was unavailable, images and stories helped a great deal. Although Shen Te/Shui Ta was much more gender polarized than I felt (her femininity much more feminine than mine ever was, for starters), they came to symbolize my own struggle.

This play launched my mom and me into a conversation that continues to this day. At the time my mom, who was doing her doctorate in psychology, wondered if Shui Ta was for me akin to my catcher’s mask (I played catcher in Little League and Softball teams for years—that’s me above catching in my first little league game). The implication was that I somehow used masculinity as a shield. No doubt there was some truth to that. And yet, the fuller truth felt more complicated and inchoate. Being catcher-- mask or no-- felt grounding. I liked being able to survey the whole and help shepherd the action as it unfolded. It felt like home. Yet, if this subject-position was a mask—the logic went-- then it must have been merely expedient, self-denying, defensive or even deceptive. While the two didn’t initially feel very compatible, over time I discovered that they need not be mutually opposed: I could incorporate Shui Ta into Shen Te, vice versa, or both. I could simply be myself, be at home.

The mask metaphor is everywhere in LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) narratives. Take Malcolm Boyd’s powerful memoir Take Off the Masks! which I read as I was coming out as trans. From where I sit now I admit to a certain ambivalence about the mask metaphor. Do I think it’s good to discover and remove them? Absolutely. Liberation is a powerful thing. Yet I think we should also be wary of oversimplifying our journeys and, indeed, our psyches. In his treatise "On the Making of the Human Person" (xi.2), Gregory of Nyssa muses, “who has understood one’s own mind?” I’m with him-- a certain ongoing humility about the extent of one’s self-knowledge is always in order.

Yes, liberation is indeed powerful, but it is also never ending. And if none of us is free until all of us are, we would do well to think about our masks and their removal as always partial and always linked in some deep way to the masks of someone else. There is grave danger in their oversimplification.

I see just such a risk in the global debate—crystallized but by no means exhausted by the Anglican Communion—about homosexuality. The debate has indeed enlarged to take complex and multiple cultural and religious contexts into consideration. But it isn’t just the contexts that are varied. The entity under consideration in these contexts is manifold too. We aren’t just debating ‘homosexuality’, as if the cause of our conflict was simply gay and lesbian people but not women (of any orientation), and not bisexual, transgender or intersex people. Bishop Gene Robinson has often argued that this struggle is the beginning of the end of patriarchy. I agree, and to ignore that truth is to refuse to remove an important mask from this debate.

But I’m not sure even the term patriarchy encapsulates what Robinson is pointing at. His insight should unmask the falsity that sexual difference is always an either/or proposition—that one can be either male or female but nothing else. Built on the foundation of this either/or notion is the ‘complementarity myth’, the idea that, as ‘opposite’ sexes, men and women must only partner with one another. This is exactly the place where same sex relationships overlap with transgender lives—both transgress the sexual polarization of the human person. As long as everyone must be either/or-- or must partner with either/or-- to count as a full human being, all who find ourselves outside these boxes will be accused of inauthenticity or deception. Even inhumanity or monstrosity.

Which is what LGBTI people in Uganda are battling with particular intensity right now. To be openly LGBTor I in Uganda is to put oneself at risk of imprisonment or worse. At the end of last week a coalition called Sexual Minorities Uganda, headed by transgender-identified Viktor Juliet Mukasa, announced, “we step into the public today to give a face to the many who are discriminated against every day in our country. Some of us have brought our faces before you for you to know us. But many of us come before you today with masks to represent the fact that you see homosexuals and transgender people every day without realising that it is what we are. We do not harm anyone. We are your doctor, your teacher, your best friend, your sister, maybe even your father or son.”

The combination at this press conference of masked and unmasked people demonstrates the complex, bewildering matrix that queer people grow up having to navigate. Like Sandi Dubowski’s masterful film Trembling Before G-d, a must-see documentary which tells stories of Orthodox Jewish gay and lesbian people, the masked and unmasked activists of Uganda rendered their own invisibility visible.

Amazing how such intricately shadowed lives are also so very ordinary. It should go without saying—and yet, as Mukasa indicated, it does not-- that LGBTI people take up all sorts of vocations. Over the past two weekends the Boston Globe Magazine has run a two-part story about a beloved physician in Somerville, Dr. Deborah Bershel, who transitioned from male to female. To me, one of the most moving moments was when Bershel described a small but significant gesture of gender affirmation from her rabbi. Would that we all could receive such spiritual support.

As the fall deadline looms for the Episcopal House of Bishops to respond to the requests of the Anglican Primates’ most recent communiqué, these voices rising from Boston to Uganda begin to unmask the polarized concept of sexual difference. What a vast wedge that mask has driven in the Anglican Communion and beyond. Sexual and gender variance is so much more complex and pervasive than the debate has begun to imagine.

Back in Uganda, Mukasa’s fundamental message was "Please, let us live in peace. Stop persecuting us. God created us this way. We are children of God as well."

Leaders from the Uganda Joint Christian Council are already rallying against the outspoken ‘homosexuals’. I wonder how the Anglican Communion will understand this “we”?

The Rev'd Cameron Partridge

For Sexual Minorities Unganda’s entire Press Release, see http://www.genderdynamix.co.za/content/view/281/204/. Gender DynamiX describes itself as “the first (and currently, the only) African based organisation for the transgender community.”

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Dessert in the Wilderness

A Trans Perspective on General Convention 2009

"Naming, Naming is Very Important"

We Are Transgender and We Are Proud

In a Rising Storm, African Voices

Waiting

Multiple Masks

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