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Life in the Hard States - reflection from a trans priest

5/19/2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

What if the whole United States gets worse? Where is our safe space then? We talk about Canada as a place that would take my orders, but the truth is I don’t want to live there. I want to live close to my family. We want to live in peace, with access to care for our medical needs. But legislation makes it hard. We are tied to following the news in different ways than the majority of cis people. We’re waiting for the sign that it’s time to flee. Some of our friends from Florida have already done so. We don’t know if it will be our turn soon.
​

But I also live in hope that things can and will get better. Maybe not soon, but I don’t think this discrimination will last once younger people take office. Even if our government doesn’t improve, I still believe that every day is a gift. My wife and I both agree that living our true selves is worth it, even if persecution comes soon. We live as witnesses to youth that they are not alone. I’ve had several conversations with young adults who think they are trans. I’ve seen the joy on their faces when I tell them that it’s okay and that they can take one day at a time. And living with someone who is removing the mask they’ve held onto for so long, seeing my wife smile and dance in her new flowy skirts? It’s all worth it. We will live our lives in authenticity, no matter what the government does. Even in the midst of struggle, there is great joy. I’ve learned to hold onto the joy in the midst of persecution because that’s part of our Christian tradition. Biblical witnesses and saints help me live out even the toughest days. Even if we are crucified, yet shall we live.
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Transgender Day of Visibility 2022

3/31/2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

8/3/2020

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by the Rev'd Gwen Fry

Last week I read an article from CTV News reporting on a trans woman, Junia Joplin, who is, well was, the pastor of a church in Ontario. It threw me back six plus years when, while serving a parish in Arkansas, I too came out as a trans person who would be socially transitioning. Junia’s story was all too familiar. Well at least this part of her story was my story as well. You see, Junia came out to her congregation during her sermon a little over a month ago. I suppose she was lucky that her parish took a month to discern and vote on whether to keep her or fire her for being transgender. Sitting on this side of my history, I’m not sure if it was a blessing or an abominable curse that they spent a month “discerning” Junia’s worthiness to be the spiritual leader of the congregation. In the three days it took for my parish to come to a decision to “dissolve the pastoral relationship” I had to bear the burden of tv news stations camping out in front of our house and being in the news cycle for five days. I received nasty threatening emails and text messages from strangers I didn’t even know both locally and nationally. They threatened my safety just because I am a trans woman. I pray Junia didn’t have to run the gauntlet that I did in that month leading up to the vote to fire her because she is a pastor who just happens to be a trans woman. 

In the story Junia said, "I had a wonderful friend who took me out to dinner just to keep my mind off what might be going on and I had a cry but I tried to almost immediately start thinking about what comes next.”

Junia was already thinking about what would come next even before the votes on her future at the church were tallied. We transgender people in the church know what that’s like better than most. We clergy who are trans have made a great deal of progress in just a few short years. A great deal of progress has been made in the church since my coming out. The church has passed many resolutions at General Conventions since 2009, making it possible for trans people to be protected and incorporated more easily in the church at all levels and this is so very good. The challenge for the church now is ensuring those resolutions that have been passed make an impact all the way to the parish level. While transgender clergy are being accepted more and more in the church, that acceptance seems to be weighted much more heavily in the favor of lay members who are transgender and clergy who identify and express themselves as trans men. But that shouldn’t be surprising should it? Everyone in the church knows that women clergy have a much more difficult time being hired in the church than male clergy. There are even Facebook groups dedicated to women breaking the glass ceiling in the church. And even as difficult as it is for women to be hired for parochial positions in the church, it’s is even more difficult for a trans woman clergy person to be called to a church position. So, Junia’s question is an important one. What does come next for trans clergy, and especially clergy who identify as trans women, in a church where we have been given legislative equality but yet strive for acceptance and inclusion at the local parish level? What will it take for us to become the beloved community we all yearn to experience?
 
The bias and discrimination toward trans women is very real. I believe that the only way to get beyond this is to broaden the experience of the wider church with those of us who identify as trans women as well as clergy who identify as nonbinary, of which we have a growing number in The Episcopal Church. It isn’t easy hearing a bishop say, “the church isn’t ready for you yet.” And yet, this is where the church is at this time. I often joke with folks by telling them that my ministry in the church is now applying for positions as a trans woman so search committees are exposed to trans people in the clergy. But seriously, I do think one of the missions and ministries I can offer the church is to make myself available to those seeking to create a church where the ministries of all people are raised up and celebrated. By being vulnerable enough to meet others face to face and show them the unfathomable love of God I have experienced in my journey, I pray that some day the church that has nurtured me to become the authentic person I am will truly come to accept, embrace and celebrate all the children of God. Particularly those of us who identify as transgender.

​We in the transgender community are resilient and can persevere. As individuals we often get knocked off of our feet only to get back up time and time again. I am a living example of this as I sit here in Maine writing while my spouse is in the home office writing her sermon for next Sunday. The transgender community has made great strides in the church and society and we are thankful for the progress we have made. But we have so far to go before we are accepted and celebrated in our communities. The transgender community has so many gifts the church desperately needs and we will be standing and waiting right here while the church continues its discernment of where we might fit in as leaders in The Episcopal Church in your neighborhood.
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