One of my favorite things about preaching on transgender issues, is that inevitably folks from the congregation let me know that there are transgender people in their family who I had not known about. As with any effort for inclusion, it is often through knowing someone with a certain identity that we are able to change how accepting we are of that identity. I invite folks then to keep in mind this morning that you are likely connected to more people in your life who are gender non-conforming than you know.
Who do we mean when we talk about trans inclusion? Transgender people are folks who are not cis-male or cis-female. “Cis-gender” means that one’s gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. The term “trans” by itself means all transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming identities, including (but not limited to) transgender, transsexual, transvestite, genderqueer, genderfluid, non-binary, genderf***, genderless, agender, non-gendered, third gender, two-spirit, bigender, and trans man and trans woman.
The majority of folks are cis-gender, that is, our gender identities match the sex we were assigned at birth. For example, I identify as male, and I was assigned the male sex when I was born, so I am a cis-gender man. I am an ally and an accomplice on the issue of trans inclusion. Allies are called to use our voices because lives are at stake; there are much, much higher rates of self-harm and suicide in the trans community than in the population at large, and trans people suffer higher rates of assault and homicide as well. Discrimination from the state and federal government are also continual threats to the well-being of trans folks, and reasons for those of us who are allies to speak out.
One of the earliest memories I have of being aware that someone could be transgender was during my middle school Our Whole Lives comprehensive sexuality education class. One of the members of my home congregation in Waterville, Maine is a trans woman, and she and her partner came to speak to our class about what transgender means, and what her life has been like as a trans woman. I know that it can’t be easy living as a transgender person in a rural part of our country, and I was proud that my home congregation was a place of support for a trans woman in our community. Our congregations are at our best when we can be venues of support for those who are suffering discrimination in our wider communities. Different folks need support as time goes along, and that support may take different forms. I remember the partner saying that people sometimes wanted to know: if her partner was transgender, what did that make her? And she told us that it made her someone who was in love with another person.
When I was in divinity school, I was proud to participate in the Occupy movement, and to support Occupy Boston. One of the things I loved about that movement was that its web presence was started and maintained by a group of transgender anarchists, who jokingly called themselves the “Trans World Order.”
The trans person to whom I have the closest connection is Mr. Barb Greve, who I met at a youth religious education training in 2010. By coincidence, Mr. Barb and I moved to Georgia at the same time in 2012, and he later became my religious education mentor while I was becoming a credentialed religious educator. Mr. Barb is now co-moderator of our Unitarian Universalist Association, which is akin to being the president of a congregation, if our UUA were a congregation. Working with Barb helped me see both the work we have ahead of us to create truly inclusive faith communities, and also why trans equality matters on a real-life, day-to-day basis.
A couple weeks ago, a memo leaked that the Trump administration was planning to narrowly define gender for the federal government in a way that would eliminate some of the rights of trans people. Like with much of the news out of this White House, I’m pretty sure the main goal of this leak was to aggravate people who are caring, and so I mostly tried to not let it bother me. But it’s hard to ignore such a proposal when we have already seen in North Carolina the harm that is caused by discriminatory legislation. HB 2 in North Carolina passed in March of 2016 mandating all people, including trans folks, must use the bathroom that matches the biological sex assigned on their birth certificate. This law was so far behind the times I expected they were going to spell biological with a “k”. I know five transgender UU religious professionals, and I’ve seen that when we gather at a bar, they need to check if there are locks on the bathroom doors, so they will know whether it is safe for them to go to the bathroom there or not. This law means it will never be safe for them to use a public bathroom in North Carolina.
The North Carolina bathroom bill is also an example of intersectional oppression. The same law not only prohibits trans folks from using the bathroom they choose, it also prevents employment discrimination suits from being brought in state court. If a worker is fired because of race, age, sex, religion or disability, now they can only sue in federal court, which is more costly, complicated, and restricted. This bill was not just about LGBT rights, but about worker rights as well. It is another example of the false choices we are faced with in anti-oppression work; to fight against harm being caused to a specific group of people is to stand up to discrimination against all who are oppressed. In this case, that took on a very literal form with this law aimed at harming trans folks as well as workers.
Fighting against oppression is important in all instances, but especially when it affects millions of people. According to the best statistical evidence that has been gathered, about 0.3% of the population is trans. That’s millions of people in the US alone! And, according to Mona Chalabi at fivethirtyeight.com, there are many people who are not out as trans who are not identified in these statistics. That very much rings true in my experience. One of the most heartbreaking statistical trends in recent years is that even as the overall amount of violence against LGBT folks has, over the long term, decreased, violence against trans folks has been on the rise. That has been true both before and after the current administration.
There is only so much control we have over the way folks are treated in the world at large, so let’s shift our focus for a moment to what we have more control over. One of the commitments our Board of Trustees has made in this year’s covenant is to practice Radical Hospitality. Radical Hospitality is the practice of being prepared to welcome everyone, before they even walk in the door. Just as having an ADA-accessible entrance for our buildings is foundational to our being welcoming of people with disabilities, there are certain steps we can take to lay the foundation of being ready to welcome trans folks. We as Unitarian Universalists are fortunate enough to have groups in our movement who have provided guidelines for allies, so here are some actions from Transgender Religious professional Unitarian Universalists Together, or TrUUST, for short.
First, is to use inclusive language. This means that, when possible, we use non-gender-binary language. For example, in one of our most popular hymns, We’ll Build a Land, you may remember the line in the chorus that goes “Come build a land where sisters and brothers,
anointed by God, may then create peace…”. Instead of singing “sisters and brothers,” the phrase “siblings in spirit” conveys inclusion of those who do not conform to the gender binary, and it also works in terms of syllable count and tune. Yes, singing “sisters and brothers” is better than just “brothers”. And, at the same time, we have an opportunity to include even more non-male identities in how we sing this song going forward.
Another specific way to use inclusive language is through non-gender-specific pronouns. Just as people use “he/him/his” pronouns with me because I identify as male, or “she/her/hers” pronouns with someone who identifies as female, there are additional pronouns we can use that are not gender-specific. Using “they/them/theirs” pronouns on a singular basis to avoid gender-specific pronouns is grammatically acceptable and gaining in prevalence. My favorite non-gender-specific pronoun is “per” short for “person”, the declension of which is per, per, per, pers, perself. One of the recommendations from TrUUST is for congregations to use non-gender-specific pronouns in the Story for All Ages sometimes; how would folks feel about having a character with the pronouns “per/per/pers” in a story here?
What I am asking us to do is not easy! No less an intellectual titan than Ursula K. Leguin herself struggled to use non-gender-binary pronouns in a clear and understandable way in The Left Hand of Darkness. Using language we aren’t familiar with takes time and practice, and we are all going to make mistakes with it. When that happens, we have to be willing to call each other in, to practice “calling in” instead of “calling out”. “Calling in” is another part of the Board’s covenant this year, and it means loving each other enough to gently and lovingly pull folks back in when they make a mistake. We are doing a number of hard things right now together as a congregation, and we are going to make mistakes, and we have to be willing to gently call each other in and to receive those corrections and move on.
Another way to show up and support trans people in our community and to learn about their lives is the Transgender Day of Remembrance Vigil. Transgender Day of Remembrance is November 20th, that’s a Tuesday this year, and the vigil will be at the Phillip Rush Center in Atlanta. It’s truly a special event and I very much encourage folks to check out their Facebook page and attend the vigil.
Finally, an important step toward inclusion that we want to be planning for, is having people’s name tags display their gender pronouns. So, you would have the “he/him/his” or “they/them/theirs” or whatever pronouns someone uses for themselves right up there next to their name. And what that does, is it allows anyone who is gender-non-conforming to see that Northwest is a place where they can use gender-non-specific pronouns without feeling out of place.
The truth that is foundational to our work of trans inclusion, and to so much of the work we have in front of us at this point, is that we have to engage in the radical act of loving each other, even when it means pushing beyond our comfort zones. The more we practice pushing beyond our comfort zones to stretch and find new ways to love one another, the more we will be a healthy, adaptable community, welcoming not only in name but in deed, a place where folks can walk in and feel truly at home no matter, really no matter who they are. We need to CULtivate a CULture where each of us as leaders are relaxed, confident and well self-differentiated. Those aren’t just nice things to do, they point the way for how we can live lives of courage and integrity. That’s not easy, and so I leave us with the words I turn to in such times, by Wayne Arnason:
“Take courage friends. The way is often hard, the path is never clear, and the stakes are very high. Take courage. For deep down, there is another truth: you are not alone.”
May it be so, and may we be the ones to make it so.
Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation
November 4, 2018
© Rev. Jonathan Rogers