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I AM - A Sermon for Trans Day of Visibility

4/13/2025

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On Monday March 31st, a group of trans folks from the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania organized a special Trans Day of Visibility Eucharist hosted by Trinity Memorial Church in Philadelphia. The preacher was Shane Keefer (they/he) who attends the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral and works on its digital ministry team. They were also one of the 2024 Ecojustice Fellows for the Episcopal Church. They are transgender and non-binary, and they have passion for promoting inclusion of gender diverse groups in the Church and finding the Divinity in every person.
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In the Name of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.

About seven years ago, I was considering different names to give myself. I was overwhelmed by the many options. I went through name generators and baby name lists. I spent hours looking up the meanings of all the names which spoke to me. At the same time, I was dealing with many challenges, one of which was the pain of alienation from my family and community that I had known all my life. I fell upon the name “Shane,” an Irish name that means “God is gracious,” a message I desperately needed at that time.

When Moses asked God for their (sing.) name, God responded, “I am who I am.” Any time we say, “I am,” we are participating in a divine act. “I am” is a proclamation of existence, a revelation of who we are. When I say, “I am Shane,” I announce myself, my existence, through this divine action. I am who I am before hormones and surgeries. Depriving me of medical care cannot deprive me of who I am. Preventing me from changing legal documents cannot prevent me from participating in the divine act of saying, “I am.”

We are living in tumultuous times. Through book bans, “Don’t say gay” laws, and the war on DEI, there are those who want to erase the language that allows trans people like me to express ourselves in this divine act. I am transgender. I am non-binary. I am genderqueer. I am trans-masculine. I am Shane. However, if this language is constantly used, if we continue to say, “I am,” no law or statute seeking my erasure can prevail. “I am” is always with me and is the source of my strength. It is through this divine act of saying “I am” that I am able to resist, but also, I am able to celebrate my own existence.

For a long time, churches, both conservative and liberal, have struggled to confront the reality of trans existence. Trans visibility directly challenges the traditional ways we have thought about gender within the Church. Unfortunately, many of my siblings in Christ have decided to outright deny trans existence and pursue a politic of erasure. Meanwhile, others among my siblings have found it safer to avoid the topic as much as possible. Still, it is heartwarming to be surrounded by siblings who stand by me and my trans siblings as we celebrate trans visibility.

While we have made progress, the Church has such a long way to go. While I am trans, I am also a Christian and a member of the Church. We as the Church can do so much better. If we want to know what the Church can do during this difficult time, then let's start with language. Do we recognize and affirm someone whenever they say, “I am?” Do we use the correct pronouns? He, she, they,xe, etc.? Remember, every use of a trans person’s correct pronouns and name is an act of resistance against erasure and a celebration of trans visibility. Of course, the Church should not stop here, but it is a very good and important first step. Just noticing and adjusting language goes so far in helping trans folks feel less alienated in the
pews, to feel like we genuinely are a part of the community.

Trans friends of mine outside the Church have sometimes asked me why I continue with the Church between having periods of profound doubt and the alienation I have felt as a trans person within the pews. One of the reasons I give is that I want to make sure transness is not absent from those pews. I want trans existence to be directly visible. I want the Church to not talk about me as an abstract hypothetical, but to know that there are trans people in their congregations and communities when discussing my existence.

This is not something that I recommend all trans people do. We should not be expected to be ambassadors within our congregations. Not every trans person finds it safe to be fully visible. So, the Church needs to do more to recognize the divinity of the “I am” in all transgender and gender-expansive communities, creating safe places for us to be visible. My message for my fellow trans siblings to not be afraid to practice the divine act of saying, “I am,” even if it is only to yourself. Always know God’s grace and love is embodied in every proclamation of “I am” that you make. “I am” is always with you now and forever. Amen.
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Trans Day of Visibility Sermon - The Rev. Canon Carla Robinson

4/12/2025

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On Saturday, April 12, the Diocese of Olympia’s first Trans Day of Visibility liturgy was held at St. Peter’s Episcopal Parish in Seattle. As the Rev. Nat Johnson wrote in their parish newsletter, “It was a powerful service, and we were blessed and challenged by the incredible word brought by The Rev. Canon Carla Robinson…. Trans Day of Visibility is a day that provides time and space for the celebration of personhood and belovedness, particularly for folks who society tends to ignore. In our present moment, when so many in power across our government and society are attempting to erase and punish trans-identity, our liturgy offered a powerful resistance by honoring the beauty and gifts of our Trans, Non-Binary, and Two-Spirit siblings. Thank you to all who participated in the service, and thank you to the allies who joined us for this incredible liturgy!”
​
Watch the Rev. Canon Carla Robinson’s powerful sermon below!
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Easter + Trans Day of Visibility Blessings

4/2/2024

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Easter and Trans Day of Visibility coincided this year for only the second time since the inception of TDOV in 2009, and the last time until 2086. In congregations around the globe, the inspiring power of this overlap was lifted up by and for trans and non-binary people and our beloveds even as other corners of the U.S. criticized positive, public acknowledgments of this overlap, as various news stories – e.g. here and here – reported. As the Washington Post noted, "it isn’t just that Easter and Trans Day of Visibility fell on March 31. They fell on March 31 during a [United States] election year, one that is underway as the trans community becomes a more frequent target of the political right."  

At the close of his Easter Sunday sermon at St. Aidan's in San Francisco, the Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge lifted up the inspiring overlap of these days. Describing an experience of attending the pre-dawn Easter Vigil at the SSJE Monastery in Cambridge, Massachusetts several years ago, he shared,

"Exhausted and shivering, I stood in the courtyard and observed the lighting of the New Fire... Then came the Paschal Candle. As the presider traced the Alpha and Omega, and the year on the candle, declaring Christ the beginning and the end, a sense of sacred temporal layering, the presence of deep time, washed over me. Then the presider pressed into the candle red nails, their wax encasing grains of incense – marks of the wounds that are present in Christ’s risen body, as next week’s gospel reading emphasizes (Jn 20:19-29). I was so struck by the sentence that was then spoken: “By his holy and glorious wounds, may Christ our Savior guard and keep us.” In that moment, gazing upon that candle and taking in these prayerful words – the same we prayed in our vigil last night – I took in this holy, physical presence that burns throughout the Great Fifty Days of Easter, accompanying our most profound moments throughout the year, from baptism to burial of the dead. But I didn’t just see a candle. I saw a body. A Paschal body. A risen body, resplendent in all its waxen plasticity as all bodies are. I saw in its layered depths all the stories we have passed through and over. It is a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. It is a light to all peoples. It is marked by wounds the prayer so rightly names as glorious, as one of the Wesley hymns invites, “with what rapture gaze we on those glorious scars.” In that predawn moment, I thought of my own journey, all the pathways I have traveled, losses and delights, mysteries yet to unfold. I thought of the marks on my body as a trans person, the stories I have lived. There in that candle all of it was lifted up as glorious. On this Trans Day of Visibility I share with you this sign of glory that I have seen. I say to you, you who are trans, you who are non-binary, you who are cisgender: in you, in your body, Christ is revealed in glory. And we, all of us together, reaching across our chasms of experience and understanding, in solidarity and hope, in the face of death and denunciation, are invited to be changed by that sight. We are called to make our way back out into the world as Christ’s fiercely compassionate gardeners, as people on whom the Spirit of resurrection life is breathed even now, even in a world so full of toxicity spewed at our fellow humans and at our planet, targeted to tear us apart. See and believe. Believe and see. Show to the world around you – your neighbors and friends, your family, your work, your layered communities: resurrection life is profoundly present even as it also awaits us in final fulfillment. Christ is among us in glory. May we declare with Mary: I have seen the Lord." 

The whole sermon is linked here.

In the comments, feel free to share other sermons you know of that celebrated this Easter / TDOV overlap.

As we make our way through the 50 Days of Easter, may we uplifted by resurrection joy.

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
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TDOV: Walk with Us

3/31/2023

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​On this Trans Day of Visibility, we of TransEpiscopal pray in love and gratitude for trans and non-binary people in all our created goodness. We thank God for creating us in God’s infinite wisdom and for inviting us, calling us to become the people God launched us into the world to become: people of genders both simple and complex, steady and changing, radiantly reflecting the mystery of God’s image. We give thanks for the gift of life on this beautiful, fragile planet, and for the abounding love that delights in the gifts we bring into this world. We pray that this wave of love would surround and uphold us in these difficult days, energizing us for the work that we and so many minoritized communities are called to do together. 
 
In reflection on Palm Sunday, which is approaching this weekend, the historian Benedicta Ward has written,“We have to come to the place where we know who we are. This feast affirms the goodness of creation: to be who you are” (​In the Company of Christ, 26). We who are trans and non-binary, we who accompany our trans and nb beloveds, have traveled far and discerned carefully: we know who we are. We make our way forward together, in pilgrimage. Ward’s description of our living tradition truly resonates: we are “a crowd of friends” in a great “procession of love” (24). 
 
On this Trans Day of Visibility, here is a prayerful invitation: join us in that procession. Celebrate all that God has done, is doing, and will do in and through non-binary and trans people in this world. Stand with and by us. Walk with us. We are in this together.
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Transgender Day of Visibility 2022

3/31/2022

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

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

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

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

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

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