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A Sermon for Ash Wednesday

3/7/2025

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Ash Wednesday: Isaiah 58: 1-12, 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Preached at Good Shepherd, Berkeley
Rev. Weston Morris
March 5, 2025
 
In 2021, my wife and I moved from Denver sight unseen to North Berkeley so that I could pursue my Masters in Divinity at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the next step in the path toward priesthood. We were blessed to land in this wonderful, living, active neighborhood. Immediately, after we moved here, we fell in love with this place. It wasn’t long before we became volunteers at the community garden and began to invest in building relationships around the neighborhood. Over time we made friends with a couple of our neighbors and established a rhythm which included late afternoon walks around the neighborhood. We spent a lot of time sitting on the bench near our apartment. In seminary there is a lot of thinking to do, so we came to call that bench the thinking corner.

Around this time last year we went on our usual evening walk, stopping at the thinking corner. Parked in front of the thinking corner was a man who was living in his car. We had seen him a few times before, since he had parked there for a while because he couldn’t pay $300 to get his flat tire replaced. He cooked dinner with a camp stove on the sidewalk and I always made an effort to say hi to him and make sure he had food and water. One evening we were at the thinking corner as the sun was setting and we began to talk to our neighbor who lived there. I don’t remember how we started chatting but we invited him to stay with us for a while. We talked about a lot of things: his frustration about the state of the world. Rage at obvious genocide. The books he liked to read. We got on the topic of religion and talked about Islam and Christianity. He named his disillusionment with religious leadership these days and we agreed that Christians could do better. He was formerly incarcerated for violent crimes but was starting over again. He was proud that he knew where he could find weapons and drugs but that he hadn’t gone for them. The way that he talked about his beliefs and goals made me proud of him too. We talked for so long that the stars came out. I looked up and thanked God for being good and providing this encounter. There was a period of profound peace in silence.
 
But in that silence there was a pivot. Our neighbor started to do what some cisgender men do when they don’t know what else to say around each other. He lamented loudly the weakness of masculinity in this sensitive country. “Isn’t it crazy that some people think that men can be women and women can be men? What a shame it is that they are doing sex change surgeries on kids in school! How disgusting is it that doctors give people all those dangerous sex change drugs!”

I was so shocked that for a while I didn’t cut in as he ranted. Little did he know that as he ranted to me he was ranting to a transgender person - me. We all were silent praying that he would lose the plot, but he kept going and going and going. The line for me was when he likened gender affirming care to child abuse. Finally, we spoke up kind of all at once and I said, “I’m going to have to stop you right there. It seems we agree on a lot of things but this is one thing that we fundamentally disagree about. You are speaking to a transgender person right now and it is clear to me that you don’t know what you are talking about.” He began to argue and I said, “Man, we’re going to have to agree to disagree.” He stood in flustered silence for a few seconds before murmuring something about not coming out here to fight and returned to his car. We sat in silence at the thinking corner… thinking about what had just happened and what to do next. After a few moments of silence, we stood up and walked away from him, the opposite direction of our home, just in case. As we walked away I remembered he said he knew where there were weapons. I wondered if he would go back for those weapons and that my name, our names, would be added to the Trans Day of Remembrance list. I was filled with fear, a fear all too familiar these days.

In 2024 there were at least 32 murders of trans and gender non-conforming people in the United States, 350 recorded in the world. Murder is an extreme and obviously illegal form of violence that is lethal to transgender people. But it’s not the only form of lethal violence used against us. A recent study showed that anti-trans laws - bathroom bills, sports bans, bans on gender affirming care, etc. - cause up to a 72% increase in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary young people. Let me say that again: Anti-trans laws cause up to a 72% increase in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary young people. Suicide attempts. Not suicidal ideation. Not bullying. Not harassment by parents. Not condemnation from religious leaders. Suicide attempts. Between 2018 and 2022 alone, 48 anti-trans laws were enacted in 19 different states. Now in the year of our Lord 2025, I wonder how many transgender children want to die before they have even really lived.

And now here we are, by the complicity and prejudice of Christians all over the country, the US Government sanctified the oppression of transgender and gender non-conforming people. Make no mistake, no transgender person is surprised by this. This is the sanctification of a decades-long tradition of harassing gender non-conforming people, whether they are non-conforming by virtue of sexuality, gender identity, culture, or disability. No, we are not surprised. We are not surprised because we have endured through afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger. Sound familiar? Paul’s letter to the Corinthians speaks to me of the transgender community that I know and love so dearly:

“We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;
as unknown, and yet are well known;
as dying, and see–we are alive!
As punished, and not yet killed
As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,
As poor yet making many rich
As having nothing and yet possessing everything.”

Last night the President of our country stood in front of millions of Americans and said the following words:

“A few years ago, January Littlejohn, and her husband, discovered that their daughter's school had secretly socially transitioned their 13 year old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband while encouraging her daughter to use a new name and pronouns. They/them pronouns, actually. All without telling January, who is here tonight, and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse. January, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Stories like this are why shortly after taking office, I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth. And now I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie. And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.”
 
Exactly the way God made you…
 
Ash Wednesday is a day that we think about our frail reality. Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. We posture our bodies in prayer, lamentation, and repentance opening the transitional time of Lent – a time where we move through the reality of our existence, turning away from our death dealing ways to the way of life everlasting, the way of love. One way we do this is through fasting: we mark the holiness of Lent and our focus on God by denying ourselves of the things that take us away from the love of God. There are certainly personal, individual sins, things that we do to one another that we could repent from. But I don’t know if you have noticed all the chaos in the world recently. It seems like a lot of it has more to do with collective, systemic failure to live the ethic of love that Christ lived and died for. Isaiah tests our fast, and we are found wanting. This “Christian” nation has sanctified injustice, tied the thongs of the yoke, stolen bread from the hungry, evicted poor from their homes, stripped the vulnerable, and hidden from the goodness of our common humanity.

I read the portion of the president’s speech to emphasize how it is that the politics of this is our business. When God’s name is invoked in a political speech from the highest pulpit in the country it is inherently the business of all Christians. This kind of theology, this kind of God talk, is a perversion of the message of the Gospel and should be condemned with urgency. For the freedom that God promises us is not for a few, but for all, and the oppression of one robs the freedom of another. Yes, our world is burning. Yes, our neighbors are being stolen. Yes, our children are being bullied, tortured, and killed. But there is hope still.

We are not dead — we are alive! We are still part of God’s creation, and we have a responsibility to the most marginalized in our society to stand against injustice including the injustice of anti-transgender violence. We know the end of the story – we need not wait for the resurrection, for “Today is the day of salvation.” So during this season of Lent:

“Should this not be the fast we choose? To loose the bonds of injustice and undo the
thongs of the yoke to let the oppressed go free?”

May it be so.

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Stand With Us: Defending the Dignity of Trans, Non-Binary, and Two Spirit People

1/27/2025

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In the wake of the executive orders being released this week and last targeting our community, including yesterday’s order seeking to restrict access to gender affirming care for anyone under the age of nineteen, we want to highlight the January 13th webinar "Building a Fighting Church, Part 1: Defending the Dignity of Trans, Non-binary, and Two-Spirit People." This webinar was organized by the Episcopal Church’s Gender Justice Officer Aaron Scott, and co-sponsored by TransEpiscopal. Over 400 people attended via Zoom, with another three hundred registered to attend. 

Video of the webinar can be viewed here, and we highly recommend watching all of it. 

In one section of the webinar, one of our steering committee members, the Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, spoke on anchoring our commitment to trans justice in our Episcopal identity. His remarks, shared below, underscore the commitments the Episcopal Church has made over the past fifteen plus years at its highest level – the General Convention – to support and stand with trans, non-binary, and Two Spirit people, a stance that directly opposes what has been unfolding this week.
 
We share the webinar link and these remarks as an urgent call to stand with our community. Please watch this space for opportunities to connect and get involved with TransEpiscopal and other supportive groups around the church as we respond to all that is unfolding. Please particularly stay tuned for the Building a Fighting Church Part 2 webinar, focused on reproductive justice, with huge thanks to Aaron Scott for his leadership!

​***********
 
This is a time of urgency and precarity for all of us who are trans, non-binary, and/or Two Spirit; and for all of us who are connected to this community: spouses and partners, parents, siblings, friends, community members. We’ve heard about our call to be a Fighting Church from Canon Carla Robinson. I want to underline that call for us as Christians and as Episcopalians. Many of us reaffirmed our Baptismal Covenant yesterday, as we celebrated the First Sunday after the Epiphany, traditionally centered on the baptism of Jesus. Among the promises we reaffirmed was our call to persevere in resisting evil, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and to strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being.

This is a moment in which the basic dignity of trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit people is being widely disrespected, undermined, and demeaned for political gain. Such action is happening at local levels in the form of schoolboard actions to ban particular books or flags, or to prevent trans people in general and trans girls in particular from accessing sports teams or other gender specific activities and spaces. This disrespect is happening at state levels with bans or attempts to ban access to gender affirming care, as well as sports bans.And it is happening at the federal level, as we just saw in the massive money spent on transphobic, transmisogynistic commercials aired particularly during sporting events this election season. This is part of a widespread pattern of anti-trans violence intersecting with racism, classism and sexism. This pattern is unfolding in so-called blue states as well as red states. It is happening in my own state of California. This avalanche of demeaning anti-trans activity has an impact that is serious and widespread. Not only on our laws, our spaces, the activities we may be barred from participating in, our basic safety and well-being. But there is also a spiritual danger of this pattern seeping into our hearts, of lowering the horizon of our expectations; squelching what we imagine is possible for our living and thriving. I think this is especially the case for the youngest trans, non-binary and two-spirit people among us, who hear of the violent rhetoric second hand if they haven’t already experienced it firsthand, and may feel the horizons of their own lives being foreclosed, even if they are in supportive families and friend groups. As we persevere in resisting this life-limiting evil, trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit people are counting on the Episcopal Church to honor its commitment to our community to respect not only our basic dignity but our presence, our creativity, our lay and ordained leadership, and our full flourishing as members of Christ’s body in this church we love.

The Episcopal Church has been on an intentional path to fully embrace, uplift, and honor the gifts of trans, non-binary and Two Spirit people for well over fifteen years now. At the churchwide level we began specifically affirming trans people in 2009 when the General Convention passed legislation encouraging churches to create flexible and expansive language church forms, allowing people to share their pronouns and their names. We went on record supporting a fully trans inclusive version of what came to be called the Equality Act – then the Employment Non-Discrimination Act – as well as state and local nondiscrimination legislation efforts. We went on in 2012 to add gender identity and expression to our own non-discrimination canons for lay and ordained leadership (first access to the ordination process, and then in 2018 expanded to employment and deployment opportunities) and underlined in 2022 that these canons include non-binary people. We named the epidemic of the bullying of young people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and called upon one another to support the LGBTQIA youth among us. In 2022 we – the General Convention – specifically called upon the Episcopal Church to “advocate for access to gender affirming care in all forms (social, medical, or any other) and at all ages as part of our Baptismal call to ‘respect the dignity of every human being.’” We came out in official opposition to so-called “conversion therapy” in 2015.  We called for and later incorporated into the Book of Occasional Services a Rite for changing one’s name. And to support the journey of this call to fully embrace our community, we have called for and are increasingly taking up formation programs so that congregations, dioceses, and wider groupings of the church, can learn more about how to be supportive and actively affirming. (A comprehensive list of the Episcopal Church policy positions I have been describing is on TransEpiscopal’s website.)

Looking through the work our church has been engaging over these last fifteen plus years, the Episcopal church at the highest levels of its collective authority has a very clear, unambiguous stance of support for trans, non-binary, and Two Spirit people. That stance is founded upon a theology of the human person that is comprehensive, not complementarian or rigidly binary in its conception of gender; that honors the complexity of the human within the wide-ranging beauty of God’s creation; that makes space for the discernment of gender identity and the unfolding of its expression in various cultures and contexts. We have committed as a Church to the ongoing work of equipping ourselves to answer our call to respect the dignity of this community in our congregational life, and in the public square. Now more than ever, it is vital that we step forward and into this work.
 
Closing Prayer
Holy One, we give you thanks for this community, for its commitment, its questions, its energy and urgency. Fire our hearts as we leave this space, that we may take our learnings and connections out into our communities, into the world, strengthened by God’s transforming love. Amen.
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Transgender Day of Remembrance - a Reflection by the Rev. Kori Pacyniak

11/19/2024

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This piece by TransEpiscopal Steering Committee member the Rev. Kori Pacyniak first appeared in the November 2024 issuer of Justice Jottings, the monthly newsletter of the Marianist Social Justice Collaborative.
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Every year, on November 20, communities around the world come together to remember transgender and gender non-conforming people who have been lost to violence within the last year on Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). These vigils are often marked with the reading of names and candles, honoring our transcestors who are no longer with us. I attended my first TDOR vigil on a chilly night in November of 2009, with light drizzle coming down. It started out at the Episcopal Church that I was interning while doing my MDiv. As the church filled up with a gender diverse community from all around Boston, some looked uncomfortable due to the harm often caused to trans people by religious institutions. Soon a candlelit procession begins from the church down Brighton Avenue to near where Rita Hester, a Black transgender woman whose death in 1998 prompted the first vigils in Boston and San Francisco, lived. Candles to brighten the way, to remind us all of hope in the midst of despair. As we reached our destination, I realized that we had moved from one sacred space to another; the street corner has become just as sacred as the church. Slowly, reverently, the names of all the transgender people lost to violence within the last year were read. It became a litany, a prayer for those we’ve lost, and a voice echoing through my soul to bear witness. To not turn away. It reminds me of the passion, of the witness of the women at the foot of the cross. The moment when Jesus turns to his mother and says, “Woman, there is your son.” And then Jesus turns to the beloved disciple and says, “There is your mother.” Every year on Trans Day of Remembrance, as a too long list of names is read, I hear Jesus’ voice: “Bear witness for me. This is your kin. Your sister. Your brother. Your sibling. These are my beloved. Do not let any one of these be lost. For they are precious to me.” 
 
Right now, in the wake of the 2024 election, the trans community is shaken and afraid, because of anti-trans rhetoric cloaked in religious values coming at us from all sides. Afraid because of the 664 anti-trans pieces of legislation that have been proposed in 43 states in 2024 alone. Afraid because we do not know if our faith communities are safe places for us to live authentically as ourselves. 
 
This Trans Day of Remembrance offers an opportunity for transgender allies, accomplices, and co-conspirators. To learn about the history of Trans Day of Remembrance. To learn about local legislation and policies in your area and how they affect trans adults and youth. To listen to the stories of trans folks. To stand side by side with us in our grief, fear, and anger. To remind us that we have allies in the battle for our survival. To remind us that we are loved and beloved by God and by our communities. Paraphrasing the words of theologian Sallie McFague, “Great action requires great faith.” Both great faith and great action will be needed in the days ahead, as we face the unknown. We must protect trans children so that they are able to grow into trans adults. We must recognize the face of God in the face of our trans siblings. These are our siblings, friends, lovers, children, grandchildren, parents. It will require all of us, working together in solidarity, to stand up to the injustice of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation and help bring about a world where our trans siblings are not merely tolerated, but where they can flourish to the fullest. 
 
On this Trans Day of Remembrance, I offer this prayer: 

God of grief and lament. God who hears our cries and knows our innermost hearts. Be with us in our grief and sadness. Be with us in our anger and lament. Remind us that every one of us, in all our gender diversity, reflects Your boundless wonder. Help us to listen with open hearts, to be transformed by Your love, and to never cease working for justice in Your name. Amen.  
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Take Away the Stone: A Charge and a Prayer for Election Day

11/5/2024

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Jesus said, "Take away the stone." – John 11:39

This past Sunday, many of us celebrated the Autumn Triduum of All Hallows, All Saints, and All Souls. The veil between the living and the dead is thin in these days, and we are grateful for that great cloud of witnesses who stand here beside us, as some of our All Saints litanies repeated. We need the strength of that communal cloud as election day unfolds across the United States today. 

As trans and nonbinary people, together with our closest companions, today’s election feels especially fraught and downright dangerous for our community. Truly, the stakes have never been higher. We have watched, grieved, and raged as at least 662 pieces of anti-trans legislation have been filed in this country thus far in 2024. These efforts seek to take away our access to gender affirming care and constrain our bodily autonomy; to block our legal protections and our ability to change our legal documents; to erode our access to education and to gender specific activities and spaces in educational settings; to increasingly erase us from public life.  

The Trump presidential campaign has also exploited anti-trans sentiment in the electorate with an advertising campaign that is viciously transphobic and trans misogynistic. Just yesterday the Daily Podcast discussed this strategy in an analysis of both major party campaigns’ advertising. Sporting events broadcast on live TV have been a favorite venue for these commercials. We grieve this dehumanization and exploitation of trans people for political gain. It is a pattern of political violence that has built over several years and is now surging, as the Trans Legislation Tracker documents. Regardless of the election results, we recognize that this pattern of rhetorical and legislative violence against trans people is a deathly strategy that will continue. 

In the gospel passage assigned for the Feast of All Saints this year, we heard a portion of the raising of Lazarus (John 11:32-44). The scene is one of grief, anger, stench, and decay out of which a new chapter begins to emerge. Jesus stands with Mary and Martha outside the tomb and tells the crowd to roll away the stone. It seems ill-advised. What could possibly emerge but more death, given all that had already unfolded? And death does emerge at first. Lazarus, whom Jesus had called to “come out” (our queered ears appreciate), is still “the dead man.” He remains bound by grave clothes. As our new Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe preached at his investiture on Saturday, Lazarus needed the community to “unbind him and let him go,” which is exactly what Jesus called them to do.

In a very real sense, the political rhetoric has left us for dead, treating us as things and not people. In the Lazarus story, it is indeed God who raises Lazarus from the dead, but humans who are given the task of rolling away the stone and unbinding him. We put our trust in our liberating God who, as the womanist theologians say, makes a way out of no way, but we call upon those who would aspire to be allies to actively seek out opportunities to roll away the stones and unbind those of us rhetorically (and sometimes far worse than rhetorically) slain by policy and discourse.

We pray that this election will help roll back and unbind obscene oppression stoked against so many marginalized communities in this country – immigrants, Black and Brown people, women, poor people, incarcerated people, trans and nonbinary people, including and especially in intersectional combination. We do not imagine that the violence against these communities will stop on a dime, regardless of election results. In the meantime, we long for the Word of life to meet us where we are, to begin to lead us forward, collectively unwinding the structures of death. As Presiding Bishop Rowe imagined, “we will stand together, sometimes afraid, sometimes bewildered, looking for life, hoping for wholeness in all things.” 

To do just that, next Monday, November 11 we will hold a Zoom space for trans and nonbinary people and our allies, to gather in prayer and support, to begin to process what results of this election are known to us at that point. We will hold the space from 5:30-7 PM pacific / 8:30-10 PM eastern. You can register to attend here.

We also encourage you to access the emerging spaces around the church that are affirming and equipping our lives, such as the Gender Justice Jam series organized by Aaron Scott, the Gender Justice Officer for the Episcopal Church (which Episcopal News Service reported on today). Its next session will take place right before ours. We are inspired by the rich offerings and communal support being shared in that space.

Another opportunity is coming this evening, as the Episcopal Public Policy Network will host a virtual space for prayer from 5-7 PM pacific / 8-10 PM eastern, led by leaders from around the church, including our own steering committee member Sarah Lawton. 
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Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Today that charge is our prayer. 
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It's Supposed to Be Safe Here

7/7/2023

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I am a trans priest living and serving the Episcopal Church in a state that is supposed to be one of the “good ones” to be in as a trans person. It’s supposed to be safe here. 

And yet. Like trans folks living in all but one state (New York, for the curious), the state I live in is not exempt from anti-trans legislation being introduced. 

We are not exempt from politicians trying to hide behind “religious beliefs” as a way to give adults license to harm children. While the legislation introduced here this year has stalled in committee, and no one really believes the bills will pass, it still hurts to know that there’s politicians in my state who would vilify me and people like me to make a political point. 

Parents here have approached school boards about banning LGBTQ books, the same kind of books that saved my life when I was in middle and high school. 

But most cisgender and heterosexual people in my state don’t think any of that happens here… that anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation and book bans and school board fights only happen in the “hard states.” 

​Here, transphobia is much more insidious, especially in the church. It’s an extra interview about my gender while applying for church jobs. It’s being assured that this diocese is fully ready to support trans clergy…but that many churches aren’t ready yet (or might never be) and that’s just the way it is. It’s diocesan leadership forgetting every year at clergy conference and convention that there needs to be a safe bathroom option for me and other trans and non-binary folks who might attend. It’s preaching a sermon on trans or broader LBGTQ issues and being accused of “only preaching about gay stuff” when it’s one or two sermons a year, sermons that also name the oppression of racism, classism, and ableism. 

I know that compared to my colleagues and friends and trans and non-binary siblings in the hard states that I have it easy. But playing the oppression olympics produces no winners, only losers. It takes the attention off the fact that so many people are hurting, and distracts us, causing us to fight among ourselves rather than fighting the system that put us here. I am grateful that I’m living in one of the “better” states, that I don’t fear for my life every day if I don’t pass well enough, if I confuse too many people, or choose the wrong bathroom. But the constant misgendering, the micro (and macro) aggressions, and really just reading the news, is still painful. My heart still breaks and my soul is getting ragged around the edges. It’s supposed to be safe here, but it’s only somewhat safer–none of us are free until all of us are free. And there’s a whole lot of work needed to get there. 
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Life in the Hard States - reflection from a trans priest

5/19/2023

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I write this as a trans priest who lives in one of those states that has passed sweeping bans on gender affirming care for youth. I prefer not to share my identity, in order to share my full range of emotions and experiences.

I moved to this area from another state that has shifted radically red since 2016. I’ve spent the majority of my life in these areas. I have learned the art of finding your people and sharing your voice. I took a job in this area because it wasn’t any worse than where I came from. I enjoy the small town atmosphere and the quality healthcare found a couple hours away in our neighboring state.

There’s also a small university here and my job came with campus ministry duties. Having a university in town is a major perk for trans people in conservative states. Even here, where the local state senator and state representative eagerly voted for restrictions on healthcare for trans youth, you can go to the university and find all sorts of young adults with pronoun buttons, a small but mighty Pride center, and professors from across the United States and the world who have experience with trans people. There are more queer people of all ages here because of the university buffer. The university is a happy space to go when the opinion page of the local newspaper equates trans people with pedophiles and feeds people the idea that we’re all just a bunch of woke sexual perverts. Young adults give me hope for this country.

Even then, the university isn’t perfect. My wife, a trans woman, came out about six months after we moved here and just started hormones not that long ago. She is trying to navigate bathrooms. We recently went to a musical at the university. She needed to pee, but didn’t because she saw a university official eyeing her as she walked towards the lady’s room. The closest gender neutral restroom on campus was in a locked building several blocks away, so she just held it and cried afterwards. We travel two hours each way for our healthcare and there are no safe restrooms for her between home and the larger city. We worry about her getting harassed or interrogated by police for using the women’s room. She holds it a lot and we worry about UTIs.

All the recent attacks on trans people on a legislative level have made things very hard. The decision of Missouri’s Attorney General to restrict trans adults from gender affirming care has us shaking in our boots. We can see how that kind of restriction would be appealing to the legislative and executive branches in our area. There is a race for governor happening, and one of the primary candidates, who was not elected, openly said that they don’t want trans people in their state. What they don’t seem to realize is that there are already trans people in their state, even the smaller communities. I walked into a church where I was the fourth openly trans person they had as part of the congregation. I know local parents who are trying to figure out what to do because right before the legislature banned gender affirming healthcare for minors, their sixteen year old had started hormones and was the happiest they had ever seen him.

My wife and I can’t make plans that involve settling down here because we don’t know what the government will do and how that will affect our family. Who will be the governor? What might the legislature do? What happened in Missouri is very possible here and it scares us. I want to live within a certain driving distance of my parents, but there are so many limited options. Do I potentially give up full time parish ministry to live in a state that is enacting trans protections but has a tiny Episcopal presence? Do we move further away from my family and try to establish ourselves in areas of the country I’ve never even visited? Do we stay where we are and take the risks?

What if the whole United States gets worse? Where is our safe space then? We talk about Canada as a place that would take my orders, but the truth is I don’t want to live there. I want to live close to my family. We want to live in peace, with access to care for our medical needs. But legislation makes it hard. We are tied to following the news in different ways than the majority of cis people. We’re waiting for the sign that it’s time to flee. Some of our friends from Florida have already done so. We don’t know if it will be our turn soon.
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But I also live in hope that things can and will get better. Maybe not soon, but I don’t think this discrimination will last once younger people take office. Even if our government doesn’t improve, I still believe that every day is a gift. My wife and I both agree that living our true selves is worth it, even if persecution comes soon. We live as witnesses to youth that they are not alone. I’ve had several conversations with young adults who think they are trans. I’ve seen the joy on their faces when I tell them that it’s okay and that they can take one day at a time. And living with someone who is removing the mask they’ve held onto for so long, seeing my wife smile and dance in her new flowy skirts? It’s all worth it. We will live our lives in authenticity, no matter what the government does. Even in the midst of struggle, there is great joy. I’ve learned to hold onto the joy in the midst of persecution because that’s part of our Christian tradition. Biblical witnesses and saints help me live out even the toughest days. Even if we are crucified, yet shall we live.
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Transgender Day of Visibility 2022

3/31/2022

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Today, March 31, is Transgender Day of Visibility, an international celebration of the transgender and nonbinary community. The day was created in 2009 by Rachel Crandall-Crocker to uplift our lives, bring visibility to our accomplishments, and support communal solidarity in the midst of the oppression we face. 

This year we come into Transgender Day of Visibility amid a wave of legislation targeting transgender and non-binary people. Over a dozen states are currently deliberating multiple anti-transgender bills and regulations including sports bans and health care restrictions. Unfortunately, 2022 is shaping up to exceed 2021 in anti-transgender legislation, which was the worst year to date. 

One of the most egregious examples is Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s order to treat gender affirming care as child abuse and to investigate parents for supporting their children, as we wrote about last month. www.transepiscopal.org/blog/in-a-time-of-fear-solidarity-and-love

Another horrible tactic in this legislative wave is to ban transgender athletes, especially transgender girls and transgender women, from participation in sports. Arizona, Oklahoma, and Utah are the latest states to ban transgender athletes in girls’ sports. Meanwhile, Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who swims for University of Pennsylvania, and who won the NCAA women’s title in the 500 yard freestyle, has been the target of horrific transmisogynistic criticism. This pattern of criticising transgender women arthletes and/or seeking to bar them from women’s sports continues a longstanding pattern of gender policing in women’s sports that has been aimed especially at transgender women and cis women of color. From the medical ”femininity certificates” in the 1940s and 1950s to scrutiny of testosterone levels today, the governing institutions of sport have sought to define what constitutes an acceptable woman’s body.

In the midst of this ongoing wave, we are buoyed by the support of leaders and communities across The Episcopal Church. The Rev. Gay Jennings, The Presidient of House of Deputies, in a letter decrying Gov. Abbott’s anti-transgender regulation wrote, “No matter where transgender children of God are under threat, the Episcopal Church must stand with them in love and solidarity.” And in their March Meeting, the House of Bishops decried anti-transgender and nonbinary legislation and “voice[d] our love and continued support for all persons who identify as transgender or non-binary and their families.” We give thanks for the people and communities of the Episcopal Church who stand in solidarity with us, who celebrate us for who we are, and who support us in the struggle.

On this day TransEpiscopal lifts up the beauty, courage, audacity, and strength of transgender and non-binary people. We celebrate that we are are made in God’s image. We reject actions aimed at our erasure. We reject theologies based in rigidly binary, complementarian ideas of the human person and uplift the whole spectrum and goodness of our genders. We celebrate transgender and non-binary lives in all our multiplicity of shapes, sizes, ethnicities, races, abilities, and ages. Today we stand up in love!
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In a Time of Fear, Solidarity and Love

2/24/2022

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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. 
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Running the Race Set Before Us

11/1/2021

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TransEpiscopal stands with trans, nonbinary, and/or two spirit youth in the wake of Texas HB 25, signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott last Monday, in yet another example of the legislative wave attempting to undermine our community’s basic human dignity. The law, which goes into effect January 18, bases participation in public interscholastic sports on the sex that students were assigned at birth regardless of whether that sex aligns with their gender identity. Whereas under a 2016 law, trans high school athletes could still play competitively if their birth certificates were amended (a process not all trans youth necessarily could or would want to undertake), now even that route is no longer available. 
 
The reasoning written into the legislation that such a law would safeguard athletic opportunities for cisgender girls “to remedy past discrimination on the basis of sex” is especially galling to us. Excluding trans girls from sports remedies nothing for anyone. Certainly not the history of sex discrimination in and beyond the world of athletics. The only thing a law such as this does is to intensify transmisogyny and transphobia more broadly, and to target it at trans, nonbinary, and/or two spirit youth, particularly trans girls. It legislates stigma. Intensifying such stigma is the last thing youth need in a world in which LGBTIQ+ youth already face disproportionately higher mental and emotional health challenges.
 
In this moment, we call out to trans, nonbinary, and/or two spirit youth in affirmation of our shared human dignity. We invite people of all ages and gender identities in our community to breathe deeply together, to know ourselves to be surrounded by what the Letter to the Hebrews calls “a great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1). This great cloud includes all manner of folk, people of various genders, races, ethnicities, abilities, economic statuses, people who have lived in all times and all places. They are people who have made their way before us through ordeals we can barely comprehend, but that we especially honor on this Feast of All Saints. As we face new difficulties in this moment, the people of that great cloud, that Communion, stand with us. They surround us. They honor us. They cheer on all the young trans, nonbinary, and/or two spirit people struggling in schools and societies that do not understand or affirm us. They send all of us their strength. They say, “let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us” (Heb 12:1).
 
The earliest Christians often referred to the challenges of their lives – their struggle simply to live in societies that did not affirm them - as an agon, a contest. The whole of their spiritual lives was interwoven with their efforts to carve out spaces to grow into the full stature of their God-given humanity. As we continue to struggle against forces in this world that would deny the humanity and dignity of trans, nonbinary, and/or two spirit people – and all too often do so in the distorted name of our own Christian faith—let us remember the supportive presence of that great cloud with us in the agon. Let us continue to run with perseverance the race that lies before us. 
 
We are not alone in this moment. Together, with God’s help, we can push back, indeed we can overturn the oppression that seeks to squelch us. The very heart of God calls us together “to reshape the world around,” as the hymn “Will You Come and Follow Me (The Summons)” puts it. We thank supportive families of trans, nonbinary and/or two spirit youth for standing with and advocating for us, in and beyond Texas.  We thank the wider church for standing with us, as two diocesan Conventions the Episcopal Church have done over the last several weeks. Last weekend the Diocese of California passed a resolution, “Affirming Non-binary and Transgender Identities." And on September 24th the Diocese of South Dakota passed four resolutions in our support, including one “Officially Opposing Legislation that Harms Transgender/Non-Binary Children and Youth.” It targets legislation that would restrict “access to public facilities, including locker rooms, bathrooms, and other educational facilities, and athletic and other activities.” The resolution also opposes laws that impact “access to health care” specifically including “fair and equitable access to physical and mental health care; access to gender-affirming treatments, including puberty blockers; and respect for the relationship between transgender, non-binary, and/or two-spirit children and youth, their families, and their doctors.” 
 
Thank you, Dioceses of South Dakota and California, thank you supportive family and friends, for standing with trans, nonbinary, and/or two-spirit youth. Thank you for affirming our shared human dignity, for pointing to the power of the Communion of Saints, for running the race with us.


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What Is To Prevent Us?

5/10/2021

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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? 
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