Category: Donna Cartwright

Lost and Found: TransEpiscopal at the 2006 General Convention

6/2/2015

by the Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

TransEpiscopal looks forward to being at the 78th triennial General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City June 25-July 3. There, as in the past several years, we aim to collaborate with several groups and individuals to continue being agents of transformation in and through the Episcopal Church, that trans folks – and indeed all people-- might be empowered in and by this Church to be the people God is calling us to become. Already we have come a very long way, even as significant work remains to be done.

As we turn toward Salt Lake City, we wanted to take a moment—a few posts—to recall the history of TransEpiscopal’s legislative advocacy at GC.

TransEpiscopal’s first such effort was about a year after our founding, in 2006 at the 75th Convention in Columbus, Ohio. This was an especially intense, emotional Convention. The House of Bishops elected The Episcopal Church’s first ever woman Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. The Convention rejected a resolution that intended to place a moratorium on openly gay bishops, three years after Bishop Gene Robinson had been consecrated in New Hampshire (A161 which can be found here). And then, not long after that rejection, the Convention passed a slightly different version of that resolution (B033) which essentially sought to do the same thing with vaguer language (which was later essentially overturned at the GC of 2009). The GC of 2006 was incredibly difficult, especially for LGBT people.

Amid all this, there wasn’t much awareness of or advocacy for trans people in The Episcopal Church or, really, much specific language to help name our experiences and identities. Take, for instance, the difficulty of even locating a digital record of the one resolution touching on trans people in the life of the church that did, in fact, come before the 2006 General Convention: resolution C030. This resolution, which originated in the Diocese of California, sought to do what the 77th General Convention eventually did in 2012: to add “gender identity and expression” to the nondiscrimination language in Canon III.1.2, on access to the discernment process toward ordained ministry. You can find its legislative record here. Here is an image of it as well.

Once recognized by the General Convention, and given a number (C030), the resolution got referred to the Committee on Canons. When that committee held a hearing on this and its other resolutions, TransEpiscopal’s founding member Donna Cartwright testified in its support. Donna had driven on her own to General Convention and was a lone voice speaking out in support of this resolution. As the legislative history reports, the committee ultimately “presented its Report #14 on Resolution C030 (Amend Canons: Title III, Canon 1, Section 2) recommending discharge, and re-referral of the resolution to the Committee on Ministry.” This decision was communicated to the House of Bishops. But this sentence really tells the story: “Resolution Died With Adjournment.” Or better, as the abstract of C030 puts it, “The 75th General Convention rejects a resolution to amend Canon III.1.2 regarding access to the discernment process.”

The funny thing about this is that for years several of us have been trying to locate a digital record—or, really, any official record—of this experience that Donna Cartwright had shared with us as it was happening. It felt important, a kind of signpost saying we were there. But none of the key terms – words like “transgender” or “gender identity” or even just “gender” – were generating anything in the digital archives. What ultimately did lead to its location, finally, was an advanced search targeting the year 2006 and typing the word “rejected” under “Action taken.” Among the sixty-six other rejected resolutions, C030 was easy to pick out. In other posts, narrating other encounters at later GCs, we have commented on the importance of naming, of specificity. Without that naming, even as language can still so often fall short, it can be easy to lose traces of our histories, to forget aspects of our journey.

But, in the person of Donna, we were indeed there, and we knew we needed to return in greater numbers. And so, in 2009, we did….

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Easter People in a Good Friday World

5/1/2011

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Cross-posted from the Walking with Integrity Blog:

Retired Bishop Barbara C. Harris has a saying that we are “an Easter people in a Good Friday world.” That’s what I find myself pondering as I think of the current state of affairs for trans people in the U.S. right now. If we are an Easter people—an Easter body—we are, as tomorrow’s passage from John 20 so strikingly depicts it, a risen body marked by wounds that remain open.

The U.S. trans community got some good news this week when the Department of Labor announced it has added "gender identity" to its equal employment statement. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's press release on the addition can be found here.

We also got some good news two weeks ago when the state legislature of Hawaii sent legislation to Governor Neil Abercrombi that would protect trans people in the area of employment. On Monday, April 18th, Hawaii’s House of Representatives passed Bill #546 which, as the Star Advertiser explained, “would bar employers from discriminating on the basis of gender expression, bringing Hawaii's labor law in line with similar protections in the areas of housing and public accommodations.” The governor is widely expected to sign this legislation.

That Hawaii already protects trans people from discrimination in several areas, particularly access to public accommodations, is also significant. In other states, public accommodations access is being hotly debated, with opponents of equal access often caustically terming such legislation “bathroom bills.” The specter these opponents raise in such debates is of vulnerable women and children being open to attack in women’s restrooms—if not by trans people, then by people posing as trans. With such fear tactics, they seek either to prevent the passage of laws that would safeguard trans access to public accommodations, or they seek to repeal legislation already on the books.

The state of Maine is currently considering just such a repeal, as shown by Integrity Maine member Ben Garren’s recent testimony against that repeal effort.

As of Monday, Texas became the home of another repeal effort, this one attempting to prevent trans people from marrying. As Bay Windows reported earlier this week, “The legislation…. would prohibit county and district clerks from using a court order recognizing a sex change as documentation to get married, effectively requiring the state to recognize a 1999 state appeals court decision that said in cases of marriage, gender is assigned at birth and sticks with a person throughout their life even if they have a sex change.” In addition to preventing future marriages, this legislation may well undermine the legal standing of existing ones—my own, for instance, if I lived in Texas.

Meanwhile on April 11th in Maryland, the Gender-Identity Discrimination Act (House Bill 235—which addressed employment but left out public accommodations) was effectively killed for the current legislative year when it was narrowly voted back to the state’s Judiciary Proceedings Committee. As the Baltimore Sun reported, “While the bill was being debated on the House floor, one delegate alluded to Cpl. Klinger, a comic-relief character from the TV show "M*A*S*H" known for wearing women's clothes while trying to get a psychiatric discharge from the Army. The delegate wanted to know if his colleagues wanted Klinger leading a day care center.”

On April 18th, one week after the bill was killed, a young trans woman named Chrissy Lee Polis was attacked by young non-trans women as she tried to enter a bathroom in a Baltimore MacDonald’s. The story of the beating, including a video taken by a MacDonald’s employee -- in which Polis can be heard asking “what bathroom am I supposed to use?!” -- went viral in the days that followed (youtube has now removed it). This story has been covered everywhere, from this call to action by Chris Paige of TransFaith online to an NPR story yesterday and a Washington Post piece earlier this week. A Baltimore Sun story from earlier today considers whether perhaps this horrifying event may be a moment we look back upon as a turning point.

As TransEpiscopal co-founder Donna Cartwright put it in a letter to the editor of the New York Times today, “Defiance of rigid cultural gender expectations still makes many people uncomfortable, and all too often we pay the price for others’ discomfort.” Nevertheless, she continues, “we can create new cultural space by being who we are, without apology.”

When I think about the process of creating that “new cultural space,” I can’t help but be reminded of the mystical theology of Julian of Norwich, whose feast day falls on May 8th. I think of her vision of the body of Christ, its side mystically opened to all as to Thomas in the upper room—opened in a strangely infinite capacity as a place of refuge, a body of transformation, a passage of rebirth.

An Easter people in a Good Friday world indeed.

-The Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

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Coverage of Trans Gains at General Convention 2009

8/27/2009

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The following article, the first journalistic coverage of collective efforts in support of trans people in The Episcopal Church, was published in the Bay Area Reporter on August 26, 2009.

Episcopal Church adopts trans-inclusive policies
by Chuck Colbert

They were a party of eight, four transgender women, two transmen, a gay man, and straight woman ally. They told friends, "We're going to Anaheim," not too far away from Disneyland.

They were also change agents. By the end of their church's triennial gathering last month this band of sisters and brothers made Episcopalian history with the advent of trans-inclusive action and convention-floor testimony from a 19-year-old man believed to be the first openly transgender deputy.

"Members of TransEpiscopal made an incredible difference by giving incarnational witness to the "T" in LGBT and – in the process – moving the Episcopal Church further toward its goal of being a truly inclusive and welcoming church," said the Reverend Susan Russell of All Saints Church in Pasadena, California.

Russell is president of Integrity, the denomination's LGBT advocacy group.

Dedicated to spiritual enrichment and empowerment, TransEpiscopal ( http://blog.transepiscopal.com/) serves as a support and advocacy group for the denomination's transgender members and significant others, families, friends, and allies.

Altogether, the 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, held July 8-17, adopted four resolutions. Two of them support enactment of civil sector anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation protecting transgender people at local, state, and federal levels.

Voting in separate legislative bodies, the House of Delegates and the House of Bishops, convention deputies – lay persons, clergy and bishops – also adopted two other resolutions, one adding "gender identity and expression" to its non-discrimination policy for hiring lay employees and another calling for the revision of church paper and electronic forms to allow a wider range of gender identifications.

Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the California Episcopal Diocese, an outspoken advocate against Proposition 8 last year, enthusiastically supported all four trans-inclusive resolutions.

A fifth resolution, an effort to add "gender identity and expression" to the church's non-discrimination canons, or church laws, passed in one house and was amended in another house by striking various categories – for instance, race, age, and ethnicity, among others – and substituting "all people."

That move "puts us back to square one in explaining 'all really means all' to those who want to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, etc, etc, etc.," explained Russell. "So we opted to let the resolution die by not bringing it back to the floor of the first house for concurrence."

"Anyway," she added, "we'll come back around that one next time out. I am convinced that by doing the education in the next three years, it will get passed in both houses."

Nonetheless, the trans-inclusive steps already taken are a remarkable turnaround from the last triennial gathering.

"We're taking the 'T' out of LGBT and letting it stand alone," said Dante Tavolaro, a convention deputy and college student from Lincoln, Rhode Island. Three years ago, an effort failed to bring even one resolution out of committee, he explained.

This time, however, Tavolaro, along with straight ally Sarah Lawton and Massachusetts state Representative Byron Rushing, successfully co-authored two resolutions, both of which were adopted. Tavolaro even testified in favor of trans inclusion at a committee hearing, as well as on the floor of the House of Deputies.

"For the church to take [trans-inclusion] on in such a supportive way gives me hope that the church I love so much has in a very clear way said that it does care about me and what those in the larger society think and say," he said.

For secular society, Tavolaro added, "The church sends to the LGBT community such a wonderful message that we are an inclusive church, not perfect, but we're trying hard."

A self-described "overall church geek," Tavolaro has served in Episcopal parishes in music, youth, and acolyte ministries. This summer he is a staff member for vacation Bible school. Tavolaro is also considering – "discerning" in church language – a vocational call to the priesthood.

Not the first
Comparatively speaking, the 2.1 million-member Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion, is not the first to advance trans-inclusive denominational policy. And yet, with the adoption of four transgender resolutions in Anaheim, the Episcopal Church, often considered a denominational bellwether, is now the largest American church to go officially pro-trans.

For a church "most people think of as the closest to mainstream Protestantism," said national transgender activist and Episcopalian Donna Cartwright of Baltimore, the Anaheim convention is a significant development for the transgender community.

"It tells [us] that our stories and journeys can be honored in a religious way," said Cartwright, who was part of the eight-person group in Anaheim. "The body that grappled with sexual orientation is now doing so with gender identity. There is a path for all of us to full acceptance in the body of Christ."

By comparison, the United Church of Christ at its 2003 General Synod passed a lengthy resolution in support of transgender people. In 2007, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations adopted two trans-inclusive resolutions at its General Assembly.

Two years ago, Reform Judaism included several prayers for sanctifying the sex-change process in its publication "Kalanu," (Hebrew for "all of us.") First published in 1996, the original version of "Kalanu" was a 150-page collection of texts and resources for gay and lesbian inclusion. The 2007 update is comprehensively expanded, including liturgy for same-sex union ceremonies, a divorce document for same-sex couples, and a prayer for coming out.

Meanwhile, back in Anaheim, the power of personal story – its ability to transform abstract concepts like gender identity and expression into concrete human reality – seemed to win over hearts and minds.

"What blew me away," said the Reverend Cameron Partridge, a transgender priest and TransEpiscopal leader, "was how many people came out of the woodwork. More people are connected to the transgender community than one might imagine."

As Partridge, originally from the Bay Area, now serving as vicar of a Boston parish, explained further, "When we brought up the [resolutions] people stepped forward to say, 'My neighbor is trans, or my son or daughter is.' In other cases, and random places, people came forward and told me, 'I am so glad that you testified at that committee hearing. I would never have thought about [transgender concerns] before.'"

In sum, Cameron, another among the party of eight, added, "People were amazing."

For straight ally and convention deputy Lawton, gender identity and expression is all in the family. Her sister is a transgender woman, and Lawton spoke to delegates from the convention floor for two minutes, telling some of her sister's story.

"When someone comes out transgender in a family," Lawton said recently during a telephone interview, everyone "goes through a process. I know that my parish church was helpful to me in my own transition because you have to go through this as a family."

St. John's the Evangelist, located in San Francisco's Mission District, Lawton went on to say, "offered me as well as my sister pastoral support. I know how helpful that was. I rejoice in how much progress we made at this convention through education and visibility, and in raising our voices in welcome."

08/26/2009

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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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