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Healing Waters

7/12/2012

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By Anderson C.

Tuesday morning in the shower, it hit me – the full weight of what had happened over the previous two days at General Convention.  My emotions rose up, mixing tears with the warm water streaming down my face.

I was thinking about how the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies  had both passed resolutions D019 and D002 that incorporate “gender identity and expression” into the non-discrimination canons for access to the ordination process and lay participation in The Episcopal Church.  The positive comments and arguments given by supporting and allied deputies were on my mind, as well as the final vote tallies.  An entire Christian denomination had just recognized and accepted trans people as valued members of the Church and removed barriers for their participation at all levels.  The enormity and impact of the outcome of these events were best summed up by my friend Vivian who, when I asked her for the reason behind her own emotional response, said, “Oh, just this business of changing the direction of American Christianity.” 

I was also remembering the previous evening, when trans people played a significant role in the Integrity Eucharist.  When I and other trans folks walked into the large room where the service was being held, we were directed to the first two rows of the center section of seating, where we found on each chair a printed piece of paper that said, “Reserved for VIPs and Transgender service participants.”  We also lead the procession to the stage, two columns of trans people leading TransEpiscopal members Reverend Cameron Partridge, Invocator of the service, and Reverend Carolyn Woodall, Deacon of the Eucharist, as well as Bishop Mary Glasspool, the Bishop Presiding and Bishop Gene Robinson, Preacher.

For his sermon, Bishop Robinson preached about the day, the passing of the two trans-inclusive resolutions and, in the House of Bishops, the passing of the trial liturgy for same gender blessings.  For me, the remarkable aspect of the Integrity Eucharist was the high level of trans inclusion, including in Bishop Robinson’s sermon.  

Clearly, these events could not have been realized without the support of friends and allies, including and perhaps especially members of IntegrityUSA and gay men, bisexual people and lesbians in the Church.  I considered that as I stood there in the service, surrounded by hundreds of supportive people, listening to Bishop Robinson telling us in the trans community that our work is not finished, with the promise, "We'll have your back."

This last sentiment was a new concept for me, not so much in intent because I have heard similar sentiments often enough before, but in action.  Since entering the GLBT community at the peak of the contentiousness around Rep. Barney Frank’s and the HRC’s 2007 actions to remove trans people from the protections of the Federal Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), I am afraid to say that I have been repeatedly disappointed by the “support” of our GL colleagues.  My painful experiences in this regard have not been with the majority of the GL people with whom I have interacted, but there have been enough of them to render me jaded and cautious about overtures of support.  I have spent too much of my energy in GLBT activism engaged in educating people in the GL community whom I always expect will know better but who too often do not.  At times the behavior of well meaning allies has felt patronizing, and at times, attitudes have seemed dismissive or even downright hostile. 

Fortunately, that has all been turned around at this General Convention and during the Integrity Eucharist the other night.  I believe that Bishop Robinson is aware of the need for education of the “GL’s” about the “T’s” – he gave me hope during his sermon when he spoke twice to the non-trans people at the service, "Don't underestimate what there is to learn on this."  In addition, the overwhelming support that was extended toward us trans folks was palpable.  We were included, we were part of the collective spirit, and we were loved.  I believe the Holy Spirit moved through everyone in that room that night, and I felt in communion with the hundreds of people there.  When Bishop Robinson said, “We'll have your back,” I believed him. 

What rose up in me in the shower and since then has been an overwhelming pride in The Episcopal Church for remembering, supporting and being inclusive of some of her most vulnerable members.  Even though we trans people are few in number in the Church, we have been rendered significant by our non-trans Episcopal gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight brothers and sisters.  For this, I am grateful, I have begun to heal, and I am proud to be a member of The Episcopal Church.

** Photos by Anderson C. 

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Truth to the Table

6/12/2012

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From Historic Trans ENDA Testimony to the "Stalling" of a 2006 Antibullying Guide in MA  

Today has been a historic day for transgender people in the U.S. Kylar Broadus, founder of the 
Trans People of Color Coalition, became the first openly transgender person to testify before the U.S. Senate. The subject of his testimony was the Federal Employment Nondiscrimination Act – ENDA — that has been stalled in Congress for several years now. At our last General Convention in 2009, The Episcopal Church passed resolutions D012 and C048, putting us on record in support of an ENDA inclusive of gender identity and expression as well as of sexual orientation. 

In his testimony, video of which can be viewed here, and a transcript of which can be found here, Broadus spoke of his transition (from female to male) as well as his work history. Transition was for him “a matter of living the truth, and sharing the truth with the world, rather than living a lie and pretending to be somebody every day that I was not…. [I decided to] bring my full self to the table and to the world.” 

He explained that as he came into a fuller sense of himself in the late 1980s-early 1990s, his work attire gradually shifted from women’s to men’s business attire, and his haircut significantly shortened. His colleagues treated him well, but within six months of telling management of his decision to transition, he “was ‘constructively discharged’…. While my supervisors could tolerate a somewhat masculine-appearing black woman, they were not prepared to deal with my transition to being a black man.” He concluded stating, “it’s devastating, demoralizing, and dehumanizing to be put in th[e] position” of being denied work because of being trans.

As it also emerged today, the same thing can be said for an anti-bullying guide produced under the Romney administration here in Massachusetts in 2006. The Boston Globe reported this morning: “Former governor Mitt Romney’s administration in 2006 blocked publication of a state antibullying guide for Massachusetts public schools because officials objected to use of the terms ‘bisexual’ and ‘transgender’ in passages about protecting certain students from harassment, according to state records and interviews with current and former state officials.” While at the time aides to the governor publicly attributed the delay to a standard review process, in fact an email from May, 2006 revealed otherwise: “Because this is using the terms ‘bisexual’ and ‘transgendered,’ DPH’s name may not be used in this publication,’’ wrote an official in the Department of Public Health.

In other words, the governor did not want to be associated with a guide for protecting youth who might grow up to be like Kylar Broadus, or any of the participants in Integrity’s new video Voices of Witness: Out of the Box. Gay and lesbian youth might be one thing, but bisexual and transgender youth were something else entirely. 

A year and a half removed from the devastating landslide of LGBT suicides last fall, that covert distancing and delay looks even more unconscionable. This afternoon Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley commented, “For the Romney administration to block a discussion on the impact of bullying on LGBT students was to fail to protect some of our most vulnerable children.’’

As General Convention draws near, one of the major priorities of both TransEpiscopal and IntegrityUSA is for The Episcopal Church to pass a resolution on the problem of LGBT bullying. As Harry Knox recently reported, Integrity will be showing the film "Bullied" on July 8th. Today's Senate testimony and Globe stories underscore the urgency of this work, particularly for bi and trans people, that, as Broadus put it,  all of us might be empowered to "liv[e] the truth and share [that] truth with the world."

​- The Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

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Hope for Trans Folk from Harvey Milk

5/22/2010

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I've just returned from a rally for transgender equality in front of the Massachusetts State House organized by Join the Impact Massachusetts.Today's event was part of a week-long celebration of the legacy of Harvey Milk, who would have turned eighty years old today, had he lived.

I was one of several people who spoke on a range of topics related to pending trans legislation, from an overview of the national and state movement for trans equality, to how we are all impacted by the gender binary, trans or not. After the speeches, we marched down from the State House, to Government Center, to Downtown Crossing and then back up the State House, providing Saturday shoppers with an unexpected interlude.  

I pray and, in the tradition of Harvey, hope that our legislators will hear us and finally get ENDA and the Massachusetts Trans Civil Rights Bill out of committee and passed. 

CP

JTIMA Harvey Milk Day Rally for Transgender Equality
State House Steps, Boston, MA
Saturday, May 22, 2010

Hope from Harvey Milk

In his book The Mayor of Castro Street: the Life and Times of Harvey Milk, openly gay journalist Randy Shilts (may he rest in peace) described a San Francisco Sunday morning scene in 1978 when, with Harvey Milk sitting in the back pew, the Reverend William Barcus, priest of St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church, got up and denounced Proposition 6. This “Briggs Initiative” called for the removal of gay and lesbian people and possibly even their supporters from working in the California public schools. In an unusual move for a priest in that context, Barcus not only spoke of the God who stands with the marginalized, not only berated the fear-mongering, dehumanizing rhetoric of the Initiative and its backers, but he also witnessed to these truths with his own life, coming out as a gay man. He challenged people to, as he put it, “morally put yourself on the line, not after the fact, not after November 7th, but now” (pp. 241-242; for more on Rev. Barcus's sermon, see this LGBT chronology for the Episcopal Diocese of California by Rev. Kathleen McAdams).  

On that morning I was across the Bay in Berkeley where I grew up, possibly in Sunday school, possibly sleeping in. I had no idea of the import of what was going on across the Bay and around my state. I was a shy new kindergartener, a little girl growing up to be a trans man, a spouse, a dad, an academic and an Episcopal priest. What Harvey Milk inspired in William Barcus and countless others, I too came to appreciate as one who also knows something of what it feels like to be dehumanized.  

What Harvey Milk goaded us into remembering with relentless wit and grit is the crucial importance of hope.  Hope. “You gotta give ‘em hope,” he said again and again. He wasn’t the biggest fan of organized religion so-called, but by God he knew how to preach. Hope, he knew, is as essential to human life as the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink. Without hope we shrink into ourselves, our capacities squandered, our stature cut short. Our ability to hope, as human beings, is intimately tied to our dignity.  

When others deny transgender people our dignity, they attack the heart of our humanity. This happens as much in quiet, behind the scenes ways as in the bold, openly violent ways we mark every year at Trans Day of Remembrance. I am thinking of the violence of intentionally identifying us with wrong names and pronouns; the violence of quietly tossing our resumes in the proverbial circular file; of falsely telling us the apartment is already rented; of telling us we must wait our turn to ensure being treated with dignity and respect; and particularly in this climate, of shamelessly labeling legislation that would safeguard our basic civil rights a “bathroom bill.” 

I’m honestly not sure how much transgender people were on Harvey’s radar in the late seventies, but I have no doubt that our struggle today would inspire and galvanize him. He would tell us that no matter what indignities we have suffered, no matter who might have rejected us, we do not have the option of giving up hope. In his Hope Speech, he said, “if there is a message I have to give… it's the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it's a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope.” Harvey knew his election was a foot in the door for all who are marginalized. But he also knew that the hope he inspired was not automatic. It was something he called on each person in his audience to give. And I would submit, Harvey’s legacy renders that hope as something we must also claim.  

The program for his memorial service at the San Francisco Opera House contained a line from Victor Hugo that he had recently hand-copied and posted on the wall of his office: “All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come” (Shilts, 286). Trans people of Massachusetts, from around the nation and indeed the world, partners, allies, families and friends, lawmakers, people of all faiths: the time for full equality for transgender people has indeed come. The time is now for all of us — and particularly, I would say, for religious leaders of all traditions— to “morally put ourselves on the line,” as Reverend Barcus put it, for the dignity that is our birthright. The time is now for our legislators beneath this gleaming dome to finally take up the Massachusetts Transgender Civil Rights Bill, and for our legislators in Washington to take up ENDA, and pass them. Thank you.

CP
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“Do That Which Scares Me:” Fear and Transgender Equality in Massachusetts

1/22/2010

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For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
-Rom 8:38-39


A lobby day for transgender equality yesterday capped off what has been, to put it mildly, an extraordinarily intense week here in Massachusetts.  

I attended the lobby day in support the H1728/S1687 “An Act Relative To Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes” bill with my partner and our three-month-old son, and delivered a brief invocation at the end of the speeches in my capacity as Co-Chair of the locally based Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality.  

The mood in the historic Nurses Hall at the State House was tense, energetic, and laced with anger in the wake of Republican Scott Brown’s Tuesday defeat of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Martha Coakley. Brown’s win removes Senate Democrats’ sixty-vote supermajority and imperils the passage of national health care reform legislation.  

Coakley had been widely backed by the state’s transgender community, as Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition Executive Director Gunner Scott forcefully expressed in a Bay Windows opinion letter* last September: “as State Attorney General, Martha Coakley came out early for transgender civil rights as the first statewide elected official to publicly support ‘An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes.’” Coakley also “sought civil rights injunctions in numerous cases involving hate crimes against LGBT victims” including one “against two men who attacked a transgender teenager in a Dorchester pizza shop.”

Meanwhile, as Chuck Colbert reported in Bay Windows* yesterday, the Massachusetts LGBT community was angered this election by “anti gay-baiting robo calls” that began plaguing Massachusetts phone lines three days before voters hit the polls. Originating “in a 202 area code from the Washington, D.C. [area], a recorded male voice asks residents if they view marriage defined as ‘only between one man and one woman.’ If they indicated ‘Yes’ they were urged to vote for Brown, ‘the only candidate with a proven track record’ of supporting traditional marriage. The call also labeled Coakley as a ‘radical’ same-sex marriage supporter who opposed letting the people vote on the issue and who used taxpayer dollars to support a same-sex marriage ‘agenda.’”

With the Supreme Court just yesterday approving by a 5-4 margin that corporations and labor unions can spend unlimited amounts on federal elections, the floodgates of such robo-calls and other methods of bombardment would appear to be opening at the national level. The majority opinion, penned by Justice Anthony Kennedy, argued that to prevent such spending is to censure free speech. “When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought,’’ he wrote. 

Add to this mix the continuing cloud of grief and anxiety hovering over the many intersecting communities devastated by last week’s 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. Numerous people in New England had connections to the events in Haiti, including members of the large Boston Area Haitian community, the Sisters of Saint Margaret, and medical teams from Boston based Partners in Health.  

And add to that list the trans community which learned last weekend of the death of Flo McGarell, a visual artist and trans man from Newbury, Vermont, who lived in the city of Jacmal for the past six years, serving as director of the FOSAJ, a non-profit art center. The New England Cable News** did what struck me as a very respectful interview with McGarrell’s grieving parents and, perhaps without meaning to, gestured toward the complexity of McGarrell’s gender identity and expression. In an in-depth interview with the art 21 blog about his wildly creative art, Flo described himself as “a total gender mash up” which was “a constant and humorous topic of discussion” in Jacmal. When asked about what guided his artistic vision, Flo answered:

“Don’t hide, don’t lie.
Do that which scares me.
Resist the urge to settle.
Be as many things as possible in this lifetime.”

His loved ones are organizing memorials and tributes at this site.  

With such losses along with the sour economy on the minds of lobby day attendees yesterday, a fundamental question emerged: how can we help return a sense of confidence to lawmakers who may be afraid to fight for any legislation considered “controversial” right now? How can we break through this late-January crust of fear?

Fear may be eroding Massachusetts’s transgender nondiscrimination legislation, just as it is at work in the stalled Employment Nondiscrimination Act in Washington. D.C. How is it that over 105 state lawmakers (out of a total of 200) have signed on as co-sponsors of the MA bill, that a poll conducted last November by Lake Research Partners showed that 76% of Massachusetts residents and 80% of Massachusetts women support it, that Governor Deval Patrick has signaled his enthusiastic support, and still this bill has not gotten out of committee? We cannot let the events of this week, devastating as they are, deter us from this crucial task.  

As I think and pray about all of these swirling currents, as I watch the dynamics of fear playing out all around me, I can’t help but think of McGarrell’s conscious ethic of fearlessness. And that sentiment, in this week’s context, draws my mind to the Apostle Paul writing to communities in Rome about the eager longing with which creation waits to be set free from its bondage. We may groan inwardly now, he says, and we may feel alone in our labor, but the Spirit indeed intercedes for us, and urges us onward, never, ever separate from the love of God, as we collaborate in building God’s glorious dream. 

As the three of us emerged from the State House, we were dazzled by a brilliant, cold blue sky and streams of sunlight. 


****************************************************************************

Here is the invocation, which uses language tailored for a group of numerous religious (and nonreligious) traditions:

Nurses’s Hall, State House 
Boston, Massachusetts 
January 21, 2010

An Invocation for Transgender Lobby Day

May the Holy One of all our traditions bless, protect and empower us, illumining us with insight, calm and unfathomable fortitude.

May we be reminded of the remarkable strength that lies within us, urging us onward even in face of the steepest odds. 

May our hearts be filled with gratitude and awe for the sacred community gathered here today: trans people, partners, allies, families of all configurations, people of all races and ethnicities, sexual orientations, national origins, religious and spiritual traditions, professions and vocations.  

May the Divine Spirit flowing among us stir up our prophetic anger at the evils of apathy and expediency as much as of bigotry and ignorance.  

And may we go forth with boldness, empowered to bear witness to the truth of our lives and the birthright of our human dignity. 

All this we ask in the name of the All-Holy One who urges us into life and love, and sets us free. Amen.

​-The Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

* The publication Bay Windows no longer exists, but Gunner Scott's letter has been archived on a Transgender News public google group and Church Colbert's article, "Dems lose critical 60th Senate seat in Mass" is archived at Keen News Service.  

** The New England Cable News has removed this post from its website  

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A November to Remember for LGBT Episcopalians in the Diocese of Massachusetts

11/30/2009

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Picturecandles ready for Boston's 2009 Trans Day of Remembrance. St. Luke's and St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Allston.
November in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachsusetts has been quite the month on the LGBT front with big ticket items during our Diocesan Convention, to Transweek and Transgender Day of Remembrance, to this weekend’s announcement about the role of clergy in same sex marriage.

At our Diocesan Convention during the first weekend of November, a resolution was overwhelmingly passed expressing our hope that Bishop M. Thomas Shaw III would give clergy permission to legally solemnize same sex marriages. +Tom has long been a supporter of LGBT people in general – and speaking as a trans priest whom he ordained, I mean it when I include the T – and equal marriage in particular, stepping out in support of equal civil marriage during this state’s protracted battle over it.  

But once gay couples were legally allowed to wed, Episcopal clergy were still limited to blessing said couples. And while I realize just being allowed to do blessings would be a coup in some dioceses, here being limited to blessings felt like a pastoral nightmare. I can’t tell you how many clergy have had repeated conversations with couples about how they could solemnize some marriages but not others. Some clergy have refused to solemnize any marriages in the in-between time of the past five years. And so, while the conversation about whether we should even “be in the marriage business” as legal representatives of the state goes on, that is a conversation that I suspect will take this Church a long time to sort out. It’s a lot more difficult to disentangle than I think people on all sides of the debate realize. In the meantime, to me it has made no sense to refuse to let same sex couples in the solemnization door while we figure out whether we want to restrict our involvement in all marriages to blessings.

Another way I have personally faced this issue is in doing trans marriages. We who are trans also face limitations in our ability to wed. Much depends not only on whether our partnerships are gay, bi, or heterosexual – just like everyone else -- but also on whether our legal documentation (e.g. drivers licenses) accurately reflects our gender. And when I say accurate, I mean whether it reflects our identities, not the meanings that others might write on our bodies. In some states changing appropriate identification is easier than in others (for instance, Ohio is notoriously difficult). So when a couple with a trans member has approached me to do their wedding (and I have now done several), one of the things I have had to ask at some point is what the gender markers on their drivers licenses say. In some cases I have been able to bless only and in others I have been able to bless and solemnize. Each time I have been aware that I am part of the ongoing transformation of marriage in this time and place. Because, as I see it, marriage is not now and has never been static. Its meaning and form has long been changing. What was the miracle that Jesus undertook at Cana? The transformation of water into wine. Our relationships are to be sacred vessels in which we walk together through the changes and chances of this life.

But I have to say—and I say this as someone who obviously cares a lot about the marriage debates -- all the energy we pour into marriage can get pretty irritating to the trans community. Because even though we are impacted by the rules regarding marriage as well, marriage is not the most important thing to the trans community (insofar as we can say there is a single trans community—there are indeed numerous communities). Protecting our most basic human rights are. Keeping members of our community safe from violence – as our sisters of color most often experience – and free from often blatant discrimination on the job, in schools, housing, credit, and medical care, is what we are most concerned about. And so we are pleased that the Matthew Shephard Hate Crimes Act is finally now law, but we wait eagerly for the passage of a fully inclusive Employment Nondiscrimination Act and the passage of local and state laws that safeguard us in our various communities.

November is a month that the trans community around the globe is increasingly claiming as its own. The main impetus for this is Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) which takes place every year on November 20th. Fourteen years ago, an African American Bostonian named Chanelle Pickett was murdered here in Boston on that date. I remember it well because I was a first year MDiv student interning at the Victim Recovery Program at the Fenway Community Health Center at the time, and it was also my birthday. Three years later, on November 28th, 1998 another African American woman named Rita Hester died in Brighton, MA, three blocks from the congregation I now serve, St. Luke’s and St. Margaret’s. This murder sparked a vigil on Brighton Avenue across from the place she was last seen. One year later, the trans community in San Francisco marked that anniversary with the first ever Transgender Day of Remembrance. And so the TDOR tradition, which is now international, was born.  

Last year for the first time, Boston’s TDOR was held at St. Luke’s and St. Margaret’s in a secular event that packed the small church. This year, once again, we were asked to host this event (read about it here in the Allston/Brighton TAB; photos by Marilyn Humphries are here). It was a particular honor to be able to share with the gathered community that at its General Convention this past summer The Episcopal Church went on record in support of our full civil rights. And in another important demonstration of support and encouragement, the Crossing, the emergent church style congregation at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, held a special service in honor of TDOR on Thursday evening, November 19th, also hosting Transcriptions, the local trans/queer themed open mic. More and more Episcopal congregations are opening their arms to trans people.

And then yesterday lay and ordained leaders in Diomass received a beautifully clear letter from our bishop declaring that as of Advent I clergy in this diocese are indeed authorized to solemnize the marriages of same sex couples (read about it in the Boston Globe or Bay Windows). No more do gender markers on licenses matter. As I talked about it on the phone with a friend and fellow trans priest, I said, “what a relief!” He replied, “I know—now I wanna run out and find a gay couple to marry!” 

And so life here in Massachusetts continues to move forward with blessings amid all our complexities. But to me the greatest gift of all this November is my son who was born in mid-October. Today, literally as I wrote this piece, he smiled at me for the first time. God is so good.

- The Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

This piece was originally written for the Walking with Integrity blog.

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Boston's 2009 TDOR packed St. Luke's & St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, a few blocks from Rita Hester's home.
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Today, in Your Hearing

9/22/2009

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As Congress gears up to begin hearings on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) tomorrow (September 23, 2009), I am grateful to recall how decisively The Episcopal Church declared its support for transgender civil rights in general, and a fully inclusive ENDA in particular, this summer at its 76th triennial General Convention.  

I remember the various stories that came out over the course of the Convention about trans people, our vulnerability to discrimination and violence as well as the progress we are making in all areas right now. The stories came from TransEpiscopal members, several of whom testified at General Convention hearings, and on the floor of the House of Deputies. Stories came, seemingly out of the blue, from people I had never met. And I remember how bishops rose, one after another, to speak in support of anti-discrimination protections such as ENDA. It was incredibly moving.

But what’s incredibly sad is, as the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force recently learned in a joint study, 97% of those who are gender non-conforming and/or transgender identified have experienced mistreatment, harassment, or discrimination in the worplace. As long as there is no federal Employment Nondiscrimination Act, that statistic is in danger of staying right where it is, because gender identity and expression are not protected categories in most states.  

But even more important than a statistic is the impact of that statistic, and the experiences underlying it, on a community that so needs hope. How many trans people give up on their dreams because they fear not simply discrimination itself but the lasting emotional impact of discrimination? I’m talking about a sense of self worth, a sense of confidence in oneself and the knowledge that one has an important contribution to make in this world.  Hope is as much at stake in ENDA as the concrete issue of job retention or opportunity.

That’s exactly where The Episcopal Church’s actions add a small contribution-- hope and solidarity. We cannot make nondiscrimination a reality simply with our words. What we can and did do is to add our voice to a growing chorus, specifically a chorus of people of faith.  

And I think those words, that chorus, can do more than we might imagine.

If you are trans, and you are reading this, I invite you to imagine yourself, as the gospel of Luke portrays it (Lk 4:16-20), in the synagogue at Nazareth, as Jesus steps forward and reads from the prophet Isaiah (61:1, 2):

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”


Imagine Jesus rolling up that scroll and sitting down. Imagine your own eyes fixed on this person who read this proclamation of hope with such intensity. And then hear him say to you: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Imagine that today, in your hearing, you are released from the weight not only of discrimination and violence itself, but also from the fear generated by it. Imagine that you can simply be yourself as God has created you and calls you to be. 

Passing ENDA is absolutely essential, and will go a long way toward alleviating the pressure that weighs on all whose gender identity and/or expression does not conform to social norms. But even ENDA cannot by itself put an end to that pressure with which we wrestle every day.

Religious bodies have a crucial part to play in freeing us from this captivity, because it is so often religious traditions that are invoked to undermine our sense of human worth. And because of their role in creating anti-transgender messages, one of the important modes for this work is proclamation. In many and various ways, trans people need to hear: today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. You are set free from stigma and stereotypes, you are released from prisons of gender conformity, you are invited to hear this as the year of God’s favor. 

Religious bodies, including the Episcopal Church, have only just begun to take up that work, but when they do, it is powerful. 

And so, tomorrow the voice of ENDA renews its cry in the wilderness-- prepare the way.

But today, today may we hear words of hope.

- The Rev'd Dr. Cameron Partridge

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A Trans Perspective on General Convention 2009

7/22/2009

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CONCERNING EXPECTATIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

PUTTING TOGETHER A TEAM AND A PROGRAM  

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

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

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

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

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

HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE SPIRIT TAKES WING  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A SPECIAL EUCHARIST

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

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

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

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

- the Rev'd Deacon Vicki Gray

*​actually, in 2009 only Donna Cartwright had been to a previous General Convention (2006)
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"Naming, Naming is Very Important"

7/19/2009

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PictureCameron 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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Trans Pride in Passage

6/12/2008

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This past Saturday, June 7, Northampton, Massachusetts hosted the first New England Transgender Pride March and Rally. North Hampton’s LGBT Pride event had taken place in May, and Boston’s LGBT Pride parade is happening this coming weekend, but trans folks wanted to take a moment to lift up people across the spectrum of gender identities and expressions, and more specifically to take, as the event’s website put it, “a visible and positive stand for transgender rights.” Dedicated “to diverse representation among organizers and participants,” the event sought “to educate and build awareness of the movement against gender-based discrimination.”  

As we celebrate the milestones increasingly achieved for equal marriage across this country, it’s important to remember that in thirty-seven states — as well as at the federal level -- trans folks don’t have the assurance of basic civil rights. And in one state, Maryland, recently gained protections are under threat. We still have a long way to go.

That ongoing and upcoming journey reminds me of the first reading we heard this past Sunday, June 8th, which was from Genesis 12:1-9. In it God tells Abram — the forbearer whose name and identity God would change —“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” Abram and Sarai made their way to the land that God promised to them, and when God pointed out that land to them, they stopped and built an altar to God. As they made their way through this land, in fact, they stopped at several points, marking the stages of their progress with altars.  

In a way, that’s what this New England Transgender Pride was doing — it was a day to stop, assess where we have been, to take pride in who we are, in how far we have come, and to strengthen ourselves for the various stages of the journey ahead. And it was a day to claim the promise — the promise that our unique human dignity will be honored and that this very humanity will take its place — is even now taking its place — amid all the interweaving strands of creation’s tapestry, as a blessing.

That I can sit here and type these words today, as someone who wasn’t even able to make it to this event, is because of the blessing of others’ witness. There are numerous descriptions of New England Trans Pride out there, but I came across one today that stopped me in my tracks. It turns out that Jendi Reiter, author (especially of poetry) and self-described straight ally, made her way to Trans Pride last weekend and ended up marching in the parade. As she describes, “The first-ever New England Transgender Pride March took place this weekend in Northampton, and I was there with my ‘Episcopal Church Welcomes You’ rainbow tank top and a digital camera to capture the pageantry. I was hoping to blend into the MassEquality contingent, but they were scattered around other groups this time, so I just milled around looking like I knew what I was doing, and took lots of pictures. Next thing I knew, someone had handed me a bunch of purple and white balloons, and I was marching behind the lead banner, shouting ‘Trans Pride Now.’”

Now how many of you fabulous allies out there might have hopped into a trans pride parade wearing an Episcopal Church Welcomes You rainbow tank?!  

Reiter observes, “Whereas the main Northampton Pride March in May had a family-oriented, carnival atmosphere, Trans Pride was more bohemian and political. From their placards and speeches, it sounded like many trans folks felt they'd been sold out by the mainstream gay and lesbian activist groups, particularly the Human Rights Campaign's decision to support the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act even though protections for gender identity and expression had been eliminated. Some speakers seemed concerned that groups like HRC were selling a more sanitized, bourgeois image of gay and lesbian life that ignored the poor, prisoners, people of color, and those whose sexuality and gender identity defied easy labeling. Maybe I was in the right place after all.”

It seems to me that Reiter was in just the right place, with observations right on target, and not only for the ‘secular’ struggle for trans rights. Indeed, these questions struck me as particularly timely for Anglicans as July’s Lambeth Conference draws near:

“Is being queer a state of mind? Is queerness, like Protestantism, inherently self-fragmenting, as the need for a perfectly authentic personal identity clashes with the equally real need for affinity groups? The more precisely you draw your doctrinal statement (or define your gender), the closer you get to becoming an army of one.”  

These questions challenge those who view gender as infinitely refracted as much as those who would define it in strictly dualistic terms. In a sense, we have on our hands a twenty-first century version of the one and the many. To float an answer to the question about self-fragmentation (with its fascinating link between queerness and Protestantism), I believe that as we name and embody our differences with ever-greater precision we will fragment to the extent that we base our alliances mainly on the degree of our similarity. But what happens when our bonds are based not only upon similarity of experience or embodiment – “who we are” -- but also upon principle, which, for Christians, would be the good news? Upon the radicality of God’s dream in which all -- all for real, not all ‘whose manner of life’ doesn’t ‘pose a challenge’ to me – are not only welcomed but expected, listened-to, even delighted-in, and ultimately drawn into God’s ongoing project of creation? As we already know, the stages of our passage will be marked with struggle, and sometimes by fragmentation. At points we, like Abram and Sarai, will need to pause and mark with gratitude how far we’ve come, and then continue on. If ours is a mission bent on love, the journey will bring us – all of us – home. And in this process, somehow, we will all become a blessing to one another.

- The Rev'd Cameron Partridge

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Thank you, Bishop Gene Robinson

4/19/2008

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I’ve just listened to an amazing interview of Bishop Gene Robinson by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, I recommend it. Hearing him on the radio immediately took me back to the summer of 2003 when the confirmation of his election as the bishop of New Hampshire came before the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (an event that takes place once every three years). The summer of 2003, as the confirmation of Bishop Robinson's election ushered in a new chapter in the Anglican Communion sexuality wars, I was also at a transitional moment within an already transitional year. I had begun gender transition the Spring of ’02 in Massachusetts and had decided I needed a year away from the two other processes I was in the midst of: that toward priestly ordination (“The Process,” as it’s often labeled, which cracks up my non-Episcopal friends) and my doctorate. My partner was finishing a post-doctoral fellowship in my hometown, the San Francisco Bay Area, in 2002-3, and with all the changes in our lives we had decided I needed to take time out and be with her and other members of my family. At the end of this strangely magical year in California, we were now preparing to return to Massachusetts where other major life “processes” would come back to the fore. 

Part of the lead-up to this re-entry involved a summer language course at Cal Berkeley, preparation for a German language exam for my doctoral program back in MA. Three mornings each week, shortly after dawn, I would drive from the South Bay up to Berkeley in “Mo,” a “Great White Whale” of an “Olds Eighty-Eight” hand-me-down received from my dad a couple years earlier. As Mo’s cavernous, blue velour interior bore me up the highway in oceanic heaves, I would listen to radio reports on Bishop Robinson and General Convention. Some of the extreme comments from the right wing of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion were hard to listen to, but Bishop Robinson's courageous calm, accompanied by a refusal to be a doormat, endeared him to me forever. Thank God for him, I thought then and, indeed, now. When he was judged, I couldn’t help but take it quite personally, as did so many LGBTQ people. I identified with Bishop Robinson particularly because of the ambiguous place in which my ordination process stood at that time – I was out to my bishops, the Commission on Ministry and the Standing Committee, but the following year I would be meeting with them all again. All had been very respectful and supportive, but I also knew that there were no guarantees. As the controversy over Bishop Robinson's process intensified, I couldn’t help but wonder if my own ordination process would grind to a halt. That November of ’03 after our return to Massachusetts, I was ecstatic when he was made a bishop. I wasn’t in New Hampshire that day, but my heart was with him. It helped carry me through the intensity of re-entry and toward a joyous Spring: in June of 2004, I was ordained to the diaconate. Priestly ordination would follow in January of 2005. 

The Autumn between my ordinations I heard Bishop Robinson speak at a packed forum at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He shared the stage with Rabbi Steve Greenberg, author of Wrestling with God and Men and interviewee in the film Trembling Before God. Both were extremely moving and articulate. After the event, I made my way through the crowd to meet Bishop Robinson. I told him how much I was inspired by his honesty, courage and faithfulness. I also asked him to please pray for transgender people in the Episcopal Church and beyond. He gave me a big hug and assured me that he would.

This week all of this came back to me as I listened to the interview with Terry Gross. At one point (at about 17:20 in the 38-minute-long interview), Bishop Robinson says, “on behalf of gay and lesbian people, bisexual and transgender people, I’m not willing to let myself be used as a doormat or as some meaningless symbol just so someone can say they included me…. I’m not willing to be treated as less than human.” Terry Gross immediately asks him about his inclusion of bisexual and transgender people, not only in that instance of the interview but also in his new book In the Eye of the Storm: “and, in a way, a lot of people probably think you’re making your case even more difficult by including transgender people, because even a lot of people who accept homosexuality would draw the line at transgender — that would just be too much for them — so I think it’s interesting that you’ve been inclusive of them too in your statements about sexual orientation and gender, and I’d like you to explain why.” Bishop Robinson responds by saying, “in Jesus’ day people would have made the argument that, you know, all of this is nice words, Jesus, but you know we have to draw the line at lepers. Or, you know, I really like the way you deal with everyone, and you’re so kind but, you know, we just have to draw the line at prostitutes. Jesus was always in trouble for including everyone in God’s love and he spent most of his time with people at the margins — people who were oppressed, people who had been told for countless generations that they were not loved by God. And almost everything he did was related to bringing that good news to them. Which, by the way, didn’t sound like good news to the religious authorities of his time. But it did sound good to those who were marginalized.” He continues, “the fact of the matter is, gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are among those who have been marginalized both in the culture and in the church. You know, we’ve got a lot further to go, frankly, around issues of bisexuality and transgender folks, simply because they are less known to us, and so I’m not willing to jettison those two more perhaps controversial, or certainly less known categories of people just because it would keep me out of trouble. Jesus was always getting into trouble—he said, expect to get into trouble if you follow me, and so I think I’m in pretty good company.”

I very much appreciate that response, particularly in these months in which the transgender community continues to smart with anger from being dropped from Employment Nondiscrimination Act (which didn’t pass congress anyway). In fact I wonder if Terry Gross would have asked that question had the ENDA crisis not occurred. But what strikes me the most is Bishop Robinson's insistent acknowledgment of bisexual and transgender people. He is certainly right that we are “less known” than our (non-transgender) gay and lesbian counterparts; we are just emerging into public discourse both within and outside faith contexts (e.g., a previous blog entry ‘Transgender Moment?’). Those of us who contribute to this blog do so – not without trepidation for the amazing hostility that can be present in the church as well as outside it – precisely so that we may be more known, and that our voices might join ongoing ecclesial conversation. So thank you very much, Bishop Robinson, for your witness, inclusion and support. I continue to pray for you, and would very much appreciate your continued prayers as well.

- the Rev'd Cameron Partridge
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Transgender Moment?

2/24/2008

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A parishioner recently asked me, “so, how does it feel to be in ‘The Transgender Moment’?” She was referring to the title of an article recently published in Christianity Today, a conservative evangelical magazine. I laughed and told her I didn’t quite know. On the one hand it seemed oddly presumptuous of Christianity Today to declare this the transgender moment (it kind of reminds me of that Newsweek cover story from the summer of 1993, "Lesbians: what are the limits of tolerance?"). On the other hand I thought, you know, over the last year there has been some serious momentum in transgender concerns both within and outside of faith contexts. A year ago there was a first of its kind Summit for Transgender Religious Leaders at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. Then there was the controversy over Rev. Drew Phoenix’s status in the United Methodist Church, which seems to have brought the reality of ordained transgender ministers newly into the public eye. Add to that the ENDA crisis this fall and it does begin to feel like “the Transgender Moment” may be, so to speak, at hand.

Apocalyptically tinged title aside, and upon further reflection, the article does not strike me as nearly as negative as it could have been. It seemed to aim for education and pastoral sensitivity, to de-demonize us—which I certainly don’t begrudge. Unfortunately its pastoral angle didn’t stop the story from pathologizing. I’m not going to belabor the article any more at this point, though. What strikes me more than anything else is the rather carefully pointed attention this magazine has given us. It makes me wonder, what might this “moment” mean and where might it be going?

This sense of “the moment” also resonates with me at the end of a weekend that-- quite unusually-- boasted not one but two special services in greater Boston celebrating queer Christian lives. The first was a dance performance my partner and I attended last night called “Converge/Collide: a Queer Catholic Journey.” It was the performance component of a Master of Divinity thesis written and choreographed by Kate Long of Harvard Divinity School. It was awesome and exhilarating to watch the dancers moving to a combination of church hymns, hip-hop, and sobering readings of Roman Catholic documents on homosexuality, all of which were woven into a narrative about a teenager’s process of coming out as both Catholic and queer. The dance ended with an exuberant declaration that there are many, many queer Catholics whose worlds not only collide with one another but also converge. Then, this evening—after doing services this morning—we attended an event called “Transpire: An Ecumenical Celebration of Transgender Lives Breathing Spirit into Community.” It was a special service of Cambridge Welcoming Ministries, a United Methodist LGBTQS community. As with Converge/Collide, the service was strikingly well attended—I’d guess there were maybe 70 + people there. It was also especially gratifying to gather with transfolks of many different stripes for an event other than Transgender Day of Remembrance. So often when we and our families and allies gather it’s to remember those who have died-- clearly an important witness we need to continue to bear each year. But this was simply to celebrate our lives. It was a joy to do that.

Here in Massachusetts the time is also drawing near for transgender rights to be protected by the state’s hate crimes and non-discrimination codes. Over the summer several of us formed a coalition called the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality. Our aim is simply to show that people of faith can be supportive of transgender equality and that transgender people can be people of faith. Some of us will be testifying before the Judiciary Committee soon in favor of the proposed legislation.

So in many ways it does feel like a “transgender moment” is dawning (converging and colliding?). I pray that God will bless it.

- The Rev'd Cameron Partridge
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Goodbye HRC

1/17/2008

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The following is a copy of a letter forwarded to me for posting in this Blog. It represents the sentiment of many Trans Folk and is similar in intent to many letters written to HRC after their betrayal of the Trans community on the ENDA legislation.

- The Rev. Michelle Hansen, blog moderator


To Whom It May Concern:

It is with sadness, not anger, but sadness, that I no longer consider myself a member of HRC. I will not be contributing any funds to your organization. As a transwoman, to do so would be to cooperate in the continued exclusion of myself and my brothers and sisters from our full humanity. 

The decision to exclude trans people from ENDA was a political decision. I understand political decisions. They can and should be difficult to make. They are also sometimes necessary. The adage is correct, half a loaf is better than none, however odious some may find that mindset. Therein lies the problem. 

No one in the GLBT community will be getting half a loaf. If the neutered ENDA passes the Senate, Bush will veto it. Back to square one. It would seem trans people were excluded for no good reason. After considering the decision, my conclusion is that it was made in either ignorance or arrogance. I find neither option worthy of my support or my funds.

The Rev. Gari Green
Kenosha , WI
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ENDA: A View from a Trans Episcopalian

10/12/2007

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by Meredith Bacon

In the ninety degree heat and beating sun, most of us who demonstrated in front of the Washington Convention Center last Saturday afternoon glistened with perspiration. “No ENDA without gender,” which can be made to sound like a rhyme, was the recurring chant. We handed out Equality Federation stickers which read “Equali_y.” Many of the arriving invitees for the Human Rights Campaign’s National Dinner reluctantly took the sticker but never put it on their cocktail attire. Some of the LGBT glitterati, who paid $250 for the evening, were clearly uncomfortable because of the temperature and the additional heat generated by the demonstrators reminding them that the HRC’s position on an Employment Non-Discrimation Act which would include protection based on “gender identity” was less than consistent.

That inconsistency resurrected doubts that the transgender community has harbored since the August 2004 HRC Board decision to commit itself and its immense political and economic power to trans-inclusive federal protective legislation. Ironically, along with the rest of the LGBT community, the trans community had celebrated the passage of the hate crimes amendment to the Defense Authorization Act just days before. We were included in that bill which has still to go to the President for his signature. He has threatened to veto it.

Also ironically, three weeks before at the Southern Comfort Conference, the world’s largest gathering of transgender people, HRC President Joe Solmonese had promised not only to support a trans-inclusive ENDA but to oppose an ENDA which was not inclusive. I was at Joe’s luncheon table just prior to the speech but had met him on a number of other occasions and had even been a guest on his XM radio program. Joe is one of the most charming and politically astute people I have ever met. For the most part he has lived into the HRC’s 2004 commitment. Officially, he still is and has urged the greater LGBT community to push for an inclusive ENDA. However, that part of his Southern Comfort speech which promised to oppose a non-inclusive ENDA has been placed into doubt, not because Joe is not an honorable man leading a great organization, but because Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are prepared to send a non-inclusive substitute to the floor (HR 3685). HRC’s largest visible constituency and the core of its financial support is gay men. To deny gay men and lesbians employment non-discrimination in order to fulfill his promise to transgender people puts Joe in a difficult situation. I don’t envy him. Achieving such a laudable goal at the expense of others poses, or should pose, a moral dilemma of the highest order.

Two days before, Donna Rose had resolved her personal dilemma by announcing her decision to resign from the HRC Board. She had been its first and only transgender member, our articulate and influential voice inside the HRC. Her principled and courageous decision stands in sharp contrast to that of others who in their silence appear to acquiesce to our further marginalization

At the urging of other National Center for Transgender Equality Board members, I had abandoned my plans to boycott the HRC dinner and had entered along with three other Board members. We had hoped to lobby HRC Board members and staffers to rethink their decision of October 1 not to oppose HR 3685 should the trans-inclusive ENDA, HR 2015, appear to have failed to garner the 218 votes needed for passage in the House of Representatives. The senior staff and HRC Board members whom we approached were courteous, if somewhat condescending, but unbending in their belief that something was better than nothing, although their confidence that ENDA in any form would become law under this administration was fanciful. Still inspired by the demonstration, I sat, my back toward the stage as Joe Solmonese spoke and referred to us as “the elephant in the room,” never once pronouncing the word “transgender.” That was left to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi whose announced sympathy for us belied the Democratic leadership’s willingness to drop us from ENDA “for now.” As I suggested to the Advocate reporter, incremental civil rights usually means a fifteen year wait.

However disappointed we may be that some of our friends in Congress and in the larger LGBT community seem ready to sacrifice our protection from discrimination in order to achieve theirs, we are going to have to work with them in the future. Our justifiable anger must give way to a reenergized determination to realize our equality which will mean, whether we like it or not, patching up our differences with those who have so recently abandoned us. As Christians we are called to forgiveness. As Episcopalians we see God’s hand in our relationships. With God’s Grace, our community will be one again.

Dr. Bacon is Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, 
Board member of the National Center for Transgender Equality, and member of TransEpiscopal
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