Today is the Feast Day of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, trail-blazing Episcopal priest, gender nonconforming, multiracial Black lawyer, civil rights advocate, labor organizer, poet, and feminist. The Rev. Dr. Murray, who was born in Baltimore, Maryland, raised in Durham, North Carolina, was ordained to the priesthood at Washington National Cathedral nearly fifty years ago on January 8, 1977. Throughout their life they had broken ground, pressing back against racism, sexism, and their intersections through advocacy, activism, legal scholarly analysis, and teaching. They died on this day in 1985 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania shortly after finishing their autobiography Song in a Weary Throat.
Today we are also one day removed from the release of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. The decision upheld two state bans prohibiting trans girls from participating in school sports, reversing a lower court decision. Importantly, this decision does not force all states to ban trans girls from competitive sports – states without such bans can continue to protect their trans students, as the journalist Erin Reed has emphasized. As civil rights attorney and LGBTQIA+ advocate Sam Ames has written, “Given the Court’s current makeup and recent history, many of us were wary it could rule that intersex and transgender students are exempt from Title IX protections against sex discrimination altogether. It could also have ruled that states can pass laws making classifications based on gender identity under a level of analysis that provides virtual impunity under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It could pretty easily have issued a broad opinion cementing the status of a disfavored group, written by a historically conservative Court. It did not.”
We are also relieved that in a separate 6-3 decision released yesterday, Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court struck down an executive order that had sought to end birthright citizenship in the United States. This executive order was among a multitude of efforts to target immigrants to this country, in a pattern of scapegoating and othering that is also being directed at the trans community.
While the court’s decision on West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox was not unexpected, it remains deeply disappointing, painful, and angering. Amid a wave of political attacks against the trans community, this decision lands in a context in which our lives are increasingly framed and portrayed by respected mainstream news media as a “debate.”
But we are not a debate. We are human beings. We are tired of being the projection screen for irrational fears, scapegoated for political failures, spoken about rather than engaged with.
Trans, nonbinary, and Two-Spirit people of all ages, particularly our youth, deserve to play on sports teams that align with who we are, to explore athleticism with joy, curiosity, and active agency. We are grateful for the advocates across this country who have created resources clearly explaining why access to sports is so important for our community. We deeply appreciate the states, localities, and communities – including our congregations - that actively safeguard and celebrate our full participation.
To our youth, our elders, our supportive family members and friends, our coaches and teammates, our lawmakers, congregations, ecclesial leaders and all those who stand with us: thank you. We need and appreciate you. We remind ourselves and all of you: we are in this together.
Let us run the race that is set before us. Pauli Murray’s witness and legacy urges us on.
Liberating God, we thank you for the steadfast courage of your servant Pauli Murray, who fought long and well: Unshackle us from the chains of prejudice and fear, that we may show forth the reconciling love and true freedom which you revealed in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Today we are also one day removed from the release of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. The decision upheld two state bans prohibiting trans girls from participating in school sports, reversing a lower court decision. Importantly, this decision does not force all states to ban trans girls from competitive sports – states without such bans can continue to protect their trans students, as the journalist Erin Reed has emphasized. As civil rights attorney and LGBTQIA+ advocate Sam Ames has written, “Given the Court’s current makeup and recent history, many of us were wary it could rule that intersex and transgender students are exempt from Title IX protections against sex discrimination altogether. It could also have ruled that states can pass laws making classifications based on gender identity under a level of analysis that provides virtual impunity under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It could pretty easily have issued a broad opinion cementing the status of a disfavored group, written by a historically conservative Court. It did not.”
We are also relieved that in a separate 6-3 decision released yesterday, Trump v. Barbara, the Supreme Court struck down an executive order that had sought to end birthright citizenship in the United States. This executive order was among a multitude of efforts to target immigrants to this country, in a pattern of scapegoating and othering that is also being directed at the trans community.
While the court’s decision on West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox was not unexpected, it remains deeply disappointing, painful, and angering. Amid a wave of political attacks against the trans community, this decision lands in a context in which our lives are increasingly framed and portrayed by respected mainstream news media as a “debate.”
But we are not a debate. We are human beings. We are tired of being the projection screen for irrational fears, scapegoated for political failures, spoken about rather than engaged with.
Trans, nonbinary, and Two-Spirit people of all ages, particularly our youth, deserve to play on sports teams that align with who we are, to explore athleticism with joy, curiosity, and active agency. We are grateful for the advocates across this country who have created resources clearly explaining why access to sports is so important for our community. We deeply appreciate the states, localities, and communities – including our congregations - that actively safeguard and celebrate our full participation.
To our youth, our elders, our supportive family members and friends, our coaches and teammates, our lawmakers, congregations, ecclesial leaders and all those who stand with us: thank you. We need and appreciate you. We remind ourselves and all of you: we are in this together.
Let us run the race that is set before us. Pauli Murray’s witness and legacy urges us on.
Liberating God, we thank you for the steadfast courage of your servant Pauli Murray, who fought long and well: Unshackle us from the chains of prejudice and fear, that we may show forth the reconciling love and true freedom which you revealed in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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