The Listening Process Compared

By the Rev. Dr. Christina Beardsley of Changing Attitude

This afternoon I attended the hearing of the Ministry Committee considering Resolution D002 which would add the category ‘gender identity and expression’ to the non-discrimination canon for the ordination discernment process, and D019 which would add the same wording to the Episcopal Church’s canon on access of the laity to all levels of church participation and representation. These additions, as one speaker remarked, were a necessary enhancement to the standard of welcome - at policy level at least - in the Episcopal Church.

Forty-five minutes was set aside for testimonies, with each person assigned two minutes for their contribution. No one had signed up to oppose D019 and only one person spoke against D002. Indeed, so many people had signed up to testify in favour of D002 that the forty-five minutes was reached before everyone had a chance to speak. I had signed up to testify about the Church of England context, which is not that different from that of the US, and I’ll append the testimony I had prepared below (in italics).

The testimonies over, I stayed on in the committee room to hear the discussion by the deputies and bishops and to await their outcome. The process is entirely open, not behind closed doors. I’m merely a visitor to the Convention, from another Province altogether, but I could have testified had there been time, and was, with others, privy to how the decision was made. It was very easy really. The deputies and bishops were appreciative of the courage of all who spoke – including the individual who spoke to the minority position - and there was a commitment on both sides to mutual listening. When it came to the vote there was hardly any discussion – the rightness and justice of full inclusion for trans people was almost unanimous. Now the Resolutions must go to the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies where there is likely to be much more debate, but this is a wonderful start.

What a contrast between my experience today and what happened to Colin, Keith, Jenny and Rob in their meeting with the Pilling Committee at Church House. I wasn’t there so I don’t know the tone in which the chair’s comments were made, but this is a working party that is supposed to be reviewing the listening process in the Church of England. Ought it not to be modelling listening to LGB&T people rather than lecturing them about how things are done in the Civil Service? Or was this intended as avuncular advice to an organisation that was once considered safe by the church establishment, but that now, in the face of an intractable culture, has become increasingly edgy, radical, and ready to say exactly what we think rather than what people would prefer to hear? Whatever the motives it sounds quite bruising for those who were there.

Changing Attitude, England, like the other organisations which have been called so far by the working party, has had its allotted hour. What happens next? I’m sure we won’t be privy to the discussions of the working party as I was to those of the Ministry Committee at General Convention today. As a delegate to the Triennial Women’s the Triennial Women’s Convention – which runs parallel to General Convention – observed to me this afternoon, the protocols of General Convention are modelled on those of the United States Senate and Congress. The model for the central bodies of the Church of England, as Sir Joseph reminded Colin today, is the British Civil Service. Excellent as that may be for purposes of government, in the context of the listening process it doesn’t seem to be creating a safe space for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people to be heard. So, London or Indiana? I know where I would rather have given my testimony today, and here it is:  

My name is Christina Beardsley.  I’m a visitor from the Diocese of London, England. I’ve been a priest for thirty-three years. I transitioned eleven years ago so I’ve spent a third of my ministry as a trans woman working throughout that time as a hospital chaplain. I’m now the Head of a Multi-faith Chaplaincy team and manage more than twenty people. 
  
I’m aware of seven trans clergy in the Church of England who have transitioned – exactly the same number as in the United States. Two are parish priests, one has an active ministry in retirement, three are in secular employment but involved in their parish and diocese, and I am in a sector ministry.
An English House of Bishops working group’s reflections on trans people in the life of the Church, including ordination, were published in 2003 as Chapter 7 of ‘Some issues in human sexuality 


In 2002 the English House of Bishops discussed the discernment process for trans candidates and the outcome can be found in the Handbook for Diocesan Directors of Ordinands, Section 2.16, which sets this out in detail.


You might expect me, as an English person, to say that it was ‘time for t’ but by that I don’t mean time for a cup of tea: I mean it is now time for the letter T -  for Trans -  and I urge you to add ‘gender identity and expression’ to your non-discrimination canons.

Dessert in the Wilderness

We got our first snow of the season here in Boston on Saturday, that magical first couple of inches before the January days when people go nuts over street parking. It was the perfect accompaniment to a day filled with drama and wonder as the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles followed the election of its first woman (suffragan) bishop, Diane Jardine Bruce, with a second woman, Mary Glasspool, who is also openly gay. Both of these elections, like all such elections, must now be confirmed by Standing Committees across The Episcopal Church. And if that does indeed happen, Gene Robinson will no longer be the only openly gay bishop to have been elected as such in the Anglican Communion.

I was even more excited about this election because Mary Glasspool is the former rector of the congregation I serve, St. Luke's and St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Allston. She was there from the late 1980s to the early 90s. During her time at SLAM, as it is affectionately known, the congregation became one of really only two parishes in the Diocese of Massachusetts to be truly welcoming to LGBT people at that time (the other was St. John the Evangelist on Bowdoin Street in Boston). Now many congregations here are welcoming.

Mary has been the Canon to the Bishops in the Diocese of Maryland for the last several years after serving a congregation in Annapolis. When she did a sabbatical fellowship in the Boston area in 2006 I was glad to have a chance to have lunch with her, as I'd heard a lot about her from folks around the diocese and in SLAM itself.

We met at the Casablanca restaurant in Harvard Square and chatted about her time at SLAM and some of my experiences up to that point, having just started earlier that year, as well as about Harvard Divinity School where she was doing her fellowship.

But what I really remember is the dessert. Or, rather, the arrival of dessert. For some reason I can still remember what I had for lunch (this is unusual for me)-- it was a salad with pears, carmelized pecans and crumbled blue cheese. And more weirdly still, while I can't tell you what I had for dessert, I remember clearly the moment our server put our desserts before us. They looked absolutely incredible (whatever they were), and I remember an odd thought flashing through my head: we should say grace all over again. Again, not my usual train of thought. But then Mary actually said, "I almost feel like we should say another grace!" We didn't, but dessert was certainly eaten with gratitude.

Throughout Saturday, in between errands with my partner around town, I checked the election results on my laptop. Around 5pm, as I was bringing parcels in from the car, Donna Cartwright (of TransEpiscopal and the Diocese of Maryland) called and shared the news with me. Needless to say, I was ecstatic and, after reading up on the happenings, sent out an email to folks at SLAM. The next day, the second Sunday in Advent, as I preached about the ways in which hope comes to us in the wilderness, I couldn't help but talk about Mary's election. I only wish I had thought to include the dessert-arrival vignette.

Because, the more I think of it, that's how that moment felt to me: like being offered an oasis of hope in the midst of the wilderness. Perhaps you've heard the saying, "save your fork, the best is yet to come?" I obviously don't know what will happen with the consent process, with this ongoing Anglican conflict, etc. But I do think we should save our forks, and not simply for "pie in the sky by and by" but also for dessert in the wilderness in the here and now.

CP

Narrating a Transgender Presence at Episcopal General Convention

Three years ago, TransEpiscopal had one representative who could attend the Episcopal Church’s General Convention (GC). Donna Cartwright, then of the Diocese of Newark, NJ, went for about a week and testified at a committee hearing in favor of the one transgender-related resolution that had come to Convention. The resolution never made it to the floor.

Last summer, I attended the Lambeth Conference, joining Rev. Dr. Christina Beardsley along with three other transgender people on a panel called (appropriately enough, given the ongoing Anglican Communion “listening process”) “Listening to Transgender People.”

But this July, I will join several other members of TransEpiscopal in Anaheim; indeed, we are hoping that as many as eight of us will be present for part or all of the nearly two-week span. This is truly an unprecedented representation.

We come with such numbers this year to support an equally unprecedented number of transgender-related resolutions: four of them call on the Church to support transgender people both in its own life and in the civic arena. As we draw nearer to Convention, we will report more details on those resolutions, and on TransEpiscopal’s presence at GC.

In the meantime, from where I sit, two plus weeks from Convention’s start, I wonder how our presence will be received, not simply in person but in communications about the Convention. I wonder because it is not clear to me how, or even whether, those who write about the Episcopal Church – whether official Episcopal communicators, bloggers, or secular media representatives – will incorporate transgender people and concerns into well-entrenched narratives about the debates of the Episcopal Church.

Narrative is a particularly interesting lens through which to look at the Convention this year because GC is actively inculcating the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Public Narrative Project during its two weeks. What I wonder is how much this narrative project will interface with—perhaps offer insight into, complicate, or disrupt -- the already existing narratives about human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular that have roiled the Anglican Communion for years now.

Meanwhile, the Episcopal Church itself is preparing for GC with a series of narratives about what is coming up. If your congregation included an insert about the Convention in its bulletin this Sunday, you may have noticed that nothing to do with sexuality was listed anywhere among the Convention’s work (at least, the one in our bulletin only briefly mentioned resolutions that seek to get "Beyond B033" and never actually used the word “sexuality”). As the Convention nears, my guess is that Episcopal communicators around the country will be under pressure to emphasize anything but Anglican Communion conflict over the Episcopal Church’s increasingly progressive consensus on human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular.

On the other hand, I imagine the secular press may be keen to report exactly that aspect of the General Convention, and not always in the most thoughtful, nuanced manner. Which is, of course, why ecclesial communicators will be working hard to open the media’s eyes to the many other stories of Convention.

I admit that as an academic as well as a priest, I’m wary both of sound bites and of the avoidance of stories, especially of people, that need to be acknowledged. Narratives can have a way of overly smoothing rough edges. The truth is often complicated – sometimes more than words, or indeed narratives, can convey – but it’s worth trying to articulate, even if it takes time. And as a transgender man, I’m also highly aware of how sensationalistic and objectifying media (including new media) stories on trans-related topics can be (though I do think there have been major improvements over the last few years).

And so, as I look out over this emerging Episcopal intentionality about narrative, and as I take in the familiar, frustrating dynamic of stories about — and in avoidance of — the sexuality debates, I wonder how to productively incorporate transgender people into the mix. Will our work be completely overshadowed by the secular-ecclesial media cycle of endless, narrow focus on sexuality debates, on the one hand, and determined aversion to anything sexuality-related, on the other? Will we be patched into that narrative cycle, sensationalistically reported as the latest emblems of church schism? Will people truly listen to some of the amazing stories of faith and resilience, as well as of heartbreak, that we have been sharing with one another on our communal listserve since 2004? Will people listen as we seek to clarify how, as trans people, we are distinct from and yet also connected to what is at stake in the current sexuality debates?

We cannot simply add transgender to the same old stories. We must tell our stories anew.

But, you know, I look forward to the telling, because as wary as I can be of narrative, I also love it. I am, after all, a person “of the book” in more ways than one. And so I look forward to the give and take of listening and telling. I pray that the anxiety that has long accompanied our Anglican/Episcopal conflicts might not overwhelm us, trans or cisgender, that we might truly find ways to open our hearts to one another, and that the Spirit —whom the Gospel of John pointedly calls the Spirit of Truth — might blow us where it will, telling (and, as the hymn puts it, "singing") a new Church into being, and inspiring people beyond its borders.

Cameron Partridge

From Nia Nikasimo: We Are Transgender and We Are Proud

My name is Mia Nikasimo. As a volunteer for Changing Attitude at the Lambeth Conference I found myself in an opportune position to reflect from a translesbian (i.e. a transsexual woman who identifies as a lesbian not to be confused with above or beyond “lesbians,” or a transgender man) standpoint on the Anglican Communion and attempts to exclude the LGBT. I have purposely mentioned my trans status here because “transgender,” as an umbrella term (for transsexual female, male, sister, brother, mothers, fathers, any of whom might choose to cross dress, are intersexed, queer, kings, drag queens and more), can easily lose its identity in the mix. I also specify this identity because I can only share this reflection as a translesbian in the full awareness that some, like my LGBT African brothers, sisters and the rest of us, cannot. As the founder of an online support group called Transafro (which can be found on Facebook), I aim to give voice to our various narratives, Anglicans or otherwise, to promote, empower and raise consciousness in Africa, the Diaspora and allies.

Transgender, contrary to what is often believed to be the case, is not about sexual orientation. Rather it is about gender identity, as, for instance, in the case of transsexuals (i.e. who identify as female or male). Sexual orientation is something that happens gradually for transpeople, who understand it far more than heterosexuals are able to fathom. Even some transsexual people do not fully understand this distinction so I am not surprised that most members of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community do not understand the “T” or transgender enough to change their attitudes towards us never mind the wider Anglican Communion, which is why education, dialogue and reflection is important.

I am particularly grateful to Katie Sherrod and Rev. Dr. Cynthia Black of Integrity U.S.A., Davis Mac Iyalla and Colin Coward of Changing Attitude, and their voices of witness… Christina Beardsley, ‘…the conversation should not be about gay men at the expense of women, Lesbians, Bisexuals and transgender people…’ Cameron Partridge, ‘…the situation for transpeople in the US is not as dire as in Nigeria. Transgender people are becoming more visible than ever…’ Stephen, ‘…transgenderism is not fixable…’ Stephanie, ‘…I always knew and the church helped me realise who I am…’ and I, Mia Nikasimo, ‘…transgender people exists everywhere, and Africa is no exception: murder, violent attack, torture, rape or slurs against our names will not erase our experience…’ We are all ready to take on the responsibility of sharing our very unique transgender voices with Changing Attitude, with all our allies within the communion, and beyond with compassion, love and understanding. The consensus will always be that: WE DO EXIST, WE ARE TRANSGENDER AND WE ARE PROUD!!!

Primarily, in conjunction with members of Changing Attitude, this stance is saying that I am here, a transsexual woman and a lesbian of African origin (Nigerian, in my case) but also as a member of the wider lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community here to reaffirm our identity in the face of attempts to erase our presence from the Anglican Communion. However, the organisation’s mission statement which states that we are: ‘working for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender affirmation in the Anglican Communion’ is well intentioned we need to be proactive in our efforts.

On reflection, I have found that one significant question in particular seemed to manage to escape our attention. Although we have raised the stakes immensely in changing the bishops' attitudes, what are we as attitude changers doing to bring the same rigour to bear on ourselves? Before we can change attitudes among the bishops we have a lot of education, dialogue and reflection work to in our community (i.e. the LGBT) especially with regard to bisexual (although I cannot speak for them I am aware that they have little or no representation) and transgender people. Simple definitions (such as "what is a transsexual woman/lesbian?") still manage to confuse some lesbian and gay men who then amusingly or otherwise call a transwoman or a translesbian a gay man robbing her of her trans identity and of her sexual orientation simultaneously just for a laugh. Likewise, referring to a transgender/transsexual man as a woman denies him his status as a man. Attitudes within the Anglican Communion cannot be changed in an atmosphere of homophobia or transphobia because of deep rooted fear which is why there is a call for more education, dialogue and reflection.

Although my mother is an Anglican, which meant I could easily have chosen Christianity, I opted for Buddhism and this is not to say that Buddhists are without similar conditioning as the Anglicans but because it was a religion I chose with a full understanding of what I was doing. Rather than the impositions and guilt ridden disposition of the Anglican Communion towards gender identity (i.e. as a transsexual woman) and sexuality (i.e. as a lesbian), I left Christianity and became a Buddhist and found peace of mind, albeit formative. With a committed and concentrated practise of meditation, I was more able to get on with my life. This suited me. I read broadly about Buddhism, finding solace in the stories of practitioners like Tenzin Palmo and Milarepa, to mention just two. With meditation practise I also found a sort of peace of mind that meant I could let go of hatred, guilt and fear and approach the world from a position of compassion, love and understanding. I even wanted to become a Buddhist nun and spend the rest of my life in spiritual contemplation in a cave out in the wild somewhere, but I quickly realised that that would be indulging my desire to escape it all. Somehow, the city became my cave practise based on Plato’s Cave allegory. I began to see anew and in seeing saw the Anglican Communion and the human condition as both locked horns. I wondered where all the compassion, love and understanding had gone. At the Lambeth Conference, I followed the Anglican Communion-- as it observed its rituals, I did mine with Buddhist ones evoking the essence of compassion, Tara and/ or the Boddhisattva of fearlessness, Amoghasiddhi, and shared the experience at every opportunity in social engagement.

On a final note, I feel the service of the bishops is not about celebrity or notoriety. Rather their service is about the cultivation of the seeds of compassion, love and understanding in all the Anglican Communion and not just some of its parts. This must include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people too or the shepherd fails in his duty to all his flock of sheep. But this mantle is not for them to bear alone. We have our part to play in the affirmation of the LGBT without excluding the “T” as can happen and continues to.

Mia Nikasimo / July 2008.

Beyond the Fringe

I’d been looking forward to the Lambeth Conference and our seminar ‘Listening to Trans people’. Months ago now Colin Coward, Director of Changing Attitude, encouraged me to apply to the Conference Fringe organisers to include the seminar in its programme and we were delighted when they agreed, though somewhat surprised to find ourselves among just a handful of LGBT events. Perhaps we were included because Trans voices had not been heard at a pan-Anglican conference before. Whatever the reason our participation caught the imagination of journalists, some of whom attended the seminar, though the event was not widely reported – presumably because there have been bigger issues to cover.

In his latest post Cameron has described the incredible range of meetings that took place at Lambeth. Once the Bishops’ programme was published on the internet I began to realise that we would be very fortunate indeed if any bishops were to turn up at our seminar as their official day seemed packed and relentless. In addition, the bishops were faced with the Self-Select options, at 16.00 each day, a choice of one from about ten topics, many of them dealing with the Listening Process, though none, as Cam rightly says, appeared to involve actual listening to real LGBT people, which was confined to the Fringe, so we were extremely grateful to those bishops who made the time to attend our seminar and other Inclusive Network events.

The concept of the Conference ‘Fringe’ seemed to be based on major arts festivals in the UK, like the Edinburgh Festival, or the Brighton Festival,where there is a main programme of concerts, theatre, ballet, and opera with world-class performers, and a fringe programme that is more experimental and alternative, and a show-case for new talent. When one of the Lambeth Conference Fringe organisers wrote to me afterwards for feedback he thanked me for arranging a ‘colourful’ event – a word that revealed a perception of Trans (or LGBT?) as exotic, or experimental, like a performance artist at an arts festival fringe. Often though a show or performer from a festival fringe will transfer to the West End stage in London, and what was once considered avant-garde becomes accepted as mainstream; so I replied to the organiser that our seminar ought to have been one of the Self-Select groups, and he conceded that the programme had not enabled many bishops to engage with an important topic such as ours.

Archbishop Rowan has called for a focus on ‘the centre’ but often, a centre implies that there is also an edge, or fringe, and when it comes to church politics, even LGBT church politics, Trans people can sometimes find themselves on the margins, or at the edge, but what an exciting, creative, and yes, ‘colourful’ place that can be; and from it we can move to the centre, and to the sides, and back again to the fringes: to wherever, in fact, God would have us be. Yesterday was LGBT Pride in Brighton. I can remember when it was attended by a handful of people; nowadays it is mainstream, a family day out that attracts many thousands. After Lambeth it felt good to be at Pride, enjoying the colour, the whacky costumes, the music, the festivity, and the sense that the movement for our inclusion is quite unstoppable.

Christina Beardsley

In a Rising Storm, African Voices

It's been an intense last thirty-six hours here at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England. Monday afternoon the bishops held a press conference in which they announced that the Windsor Continuation Group, a committee appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to recommend a way to hold together the various fractured provinces of the Anglican Communion. For more on the specifics of this report, see this report from Episcopal Life Online. The basic proposal was for a moratorium on consecrating any more gay bishops and on blessing same sex unions, on the one hand, and for a cessation of progressive diocesan boundary violations by conservative parts of the Communion. This report is now being discussed by the bishops as they meet daily in their small, relationally oriented Indaba groups.

What the bishops seek to do with this report remains to be seen, but whatever they do, it is important to remember that the power of the Lambeth Conference, while persuasive and significant, is not finally juridical. In other words, this Conference does not declare church law for the whole Communion, regardless of how much leaders in various parts of the world may wish it were so. We are an autonomous collective of churches around the world, descended from the Church of England, who value our common heritage and prayer as well as the variety of our contextual experiences and identities, very highly.

Nevertheless, Monday's report was very angering for the LGBT coalition here-- and galvanizing. That night, this coalition, including TransEpiscopal, released a response which you can find here. Printing it out and interpolating it within our already completed daily paper, the Lambeth Witness, made for a late night. By the end of the evening it had started to rain, marking a break in the warm, humid weather pattern that has added to the increase in tensions here over the last few days.

But yesterday morning I awoke to a fresh, cool breeze, and a feeling that the tide could turn yet again. That feeling increased at an amazing event Tuesday afternoon called "African Voices." Like "Listening to Trans People," this was a panel, officially accepted by the organizers of the Lambeth Conference as a "Fringe Event" to which bishops could come. The event drew seven bishops as well as several episcopal spouses, not to mention numerous members of the media and other supporters. Prior to the panel, several LGBT people from Africa gathered on the lawn outside Eliot College where, accompanied by drummers, they danced exuberantly for about an hour. Several of us stood behind them holding a huge rainbow flag and a large yellow sign that read, "We're Here! lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Anglicans."

One of the dancers and panelists was also one of our panelists on Friday, Mia Nikasimo. Mia, who identifies as a trans lesbian, is a woman of quiet, razor-sharp insight whom I have enjoyed getting to talk with over the last few days. In today's panel, as in our panel Friday, Mia talked of how transgender people particularly in Nigeria, but also in other countries on the African continent, struggle with extreme oppression. Because of a technical problem, the filming by Integrity on Friday did not capture Mia's presentation, but she has agreed to write something that I can post here, speaking particularly to her spirituality as a Buddhist as well as the group she has founded called Trans Afro.

Davis Mac-Iyalla (pictured between me and Christina Beardsley, below) was another participant in both the dancing and the panel. Davis, a gay man who heads Changing Attitude Nigeria, made news earlier this week when he was granted asylum in the UK because of death threats and attacks leveled against him in recent months. Davis's major point, which he says and lives with great power, is that he and his comrades are living proof against the claim often made by conservative bishops from Africa, that there are no LGBT people in their countries.

After Davis, another panelist, Sokari, added a crucial contribution to the conversation concerning critique of African bishops. LGBT-positive Anglicans need to be careful not to racialize homophobia, as if homophobia is somehow simply an African issue, which it clearly is not.

Later in the evening yesterday I heard from Mia again, along with Sexual Minorities Uganda leader Viktor Juliet Mukasa. They were interviewed as part of a film called Voices of Witness Africa, by Katie Sherrod and Cynthia Black, a preview of which was shown here last night (and can be seen at the Walking With Integrity Blog here-- definitely watch it). Bishop Mark Andrus of the diocese of California showed the preview to a packed room. I was so moved by the stories of strength and courage shared by all the incredible people in this film and on the panel yesterday. I thank God for their life-giving witness as the mood here continues to cycle between hope and anxiety.

CP

Trans Panel Surrounded By Prayer

by the Revd Dr Christina Beardsley

Thank you for your prayers for Friday’s Lambeth Conference Fringe event ‘Listening to Trans People’ which Cam has already reported here. These are some of my impressions:

Once we’d set up the seminar room in Darwin College (at the University of Kent at Canterbury, where the Lambeth Conference is happening) the panellists – Cameron of TransEpiscopal; Mia, a Nigerian now based in England; and Stephen, Stephanie and myself from Sibyls (UK) – spent time together in prayer as we awaited the bishops.

Grateful that people were praying for us, we wanted the event to be surrounded by prayer so that we could find the courage to ‘speak the truth in love’ - to banish, not just the usual nervousness prior to public speaking, but the fear that we might be condemned for opening our hearts in this way. Some of us still recall the unhappy image from the last Lambeth Conference of a bishop attempting to exorcise ‘the demon of homosexuality’ from Richard Kirker of the UK Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement, which fed our anxiety that this conference too might be unsafe for LGBT people; especially for us as Trans people, since our journeys are not always understood by LGB people, let alone the Church community.

These apprehensions were completely unfounded, and both the seminar and the conference (during the two days that I was there) felt relatively safe. Presumably we had been included in the Fringe programme because we represented experience that had not been heard much during the Listening Process. Only four bishops attended, but this was the highest number to participate in an Inclusive Network seminar thus far. One of them told me afterwards that he and his wife were both committed to the listening process, and how deeply moved he had been by what he heard.

With room to spare, we took advice and opened the seminar to journalists, including conservative blogger Hans Zeiger, who posts for David Virtue. Although most of the comments on his post condemn us, his posting is mainly factual (there are just one or two errors), and my own conversations with conservative bishops whom I met around the campus, and the representatives of conservative organisations I spoke to in the marketplace, left me feeling hopeful that the faith which unites us is bigger and stronger than the issues that currently divide us.

Open Us, God

(Photo Credit: John Clinton Bradley)

It’s the end of my second full day here in England, and what a day it was: this afternoon I participated on the panel "Listening to Trans People." I was one of five people total: two transmen (female-to-male), three transwomen (male-to-female); one woman from Nigeria, one American, three British people; one Methodist, one Buddhist, three Anglicans. As I mentioned in my previous entry, the panel was organized by Rev. Christina Beardsley and sponsored by the Sibyls, a group that fosters Christian spirituality for trans people.

As it turned out, the bishops had a time conflict with our session, which curtailed their attendance. Nevertheless, we did have at least four bishops along with several other interested people, including some reporters. We only had an hour, a challenging limitation with four different panelists.

Christina, who served as M.C., began by introducing herself. She had been ordained in the Church of England for twenty-three years prior to her transition in 2001. She now serves as a hospital chaplain in London, but in the first years after transition, she felt as though her bishops were being cautious with her, leaving her with the feeling of having to prove herself to them. Working in a hospital has gone smoothly because equal opportunity policies must simply be followed and gender is not an issue, which makes it easy for her to get on with her job. Christina also reported that although the Anglican Communion Listening Process has officially focused upon homosexuality, it has included a few interviews with transgender people, including herself (I also participated in a Listening Process event with Canon Phil Groves in New York City last June).

Stephen then did a half-hour long presentation that emphasized how sex, gender and sexuality each exist on a continuum and interact with one another. By the end of his presentation, I sensed that people in the audience might have been reeling with information overload. But then the second half-hour emphasized stories, placing Stephen’s framework in context and humanizing what might otherwise seemed abstract and overwhelming.

Stephanie spoke movingly about her experience growing up and coming into her own as an evangelical Christian and transwoman in England. She spoke of how God has lifted her up through a number of challenges, being, as she put it, “a compulsive gambler who no longer gambles, and a stammerer who no longer stammers.” God’s uplifting has carried her through her transition, “to come into my gender identity, to live in truth, and be a true disciple of Jesus.”

Mia Nikasimo, who was born in England but grew up in Nigeria, spoke of how horrifically oppressive living in Nigeria is for trans people. She left twenty years ago, and returned to England where she has lived ever since, when she realized that not only her own life but also that of her family, might be in danger if she stayed. She spoke of "trans women and men who have to live underground," lest they loose their lives.

I spoke last. John Clinton Bradley of Integrity was able to video my comments and shared them with me (see below, and also his post on the Walking With Integrity blog). I ended by saying that I could understand if those listening to us were overwhelmed at the thought of adding transgenderism to a Listening Process that has, as I discussed in my last post, revolved around the issue of human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. But if adding transgender into the mix turns our attention to how varied and complex both gender and sexuality are, in an array of contexts around the world, that could actually help deepen a conversation that has gotten stuck in an overly black-and-white loop.



After all the presentations were finished, Christina asked if one of the bishops would end our meeting with a blessing. This was an unexpected request—the inspiration for it came to her in a flash, she later told me. There was a slight pause. And then my heart soared as my bishop, Tom Shaw, stood up and prayed (in words I'm grateful to have taped),

“Gracious God, we praise you and we bless you for the gift of life. Thank you, God, for all life. Especially we thank you for the lives of the people that we’ve listened to this afternoon. Open us, God. Open us to the whole of your creation. And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be with you this day and always. Amen.”

"Listening to Trans People" at the Lambeth Conference

I'm sitting here in Massachusetts, ready to head out the door to Logan airport, where I'm catching a flight to England to go to the Lambeth Conference.

A couple of weeks ago in Integrity Witness, Rev. Susan Russell posed a question to those of us heading to the Conference: Why are you going?

First, for readers not steeped in Anglican politics, the Lambeth Conference is a meeting of bishops from around the Anglican Communion which takes place once every ten years. As this May press conference underlined, the meeting is not a parliamentary proceeding but a chance for bishops from around the Anglican Communion to gather for counsel and relationship-building. And Integrity, of which Susan is the president, is the national LGBT coalition within the Episcopal Church.

As is well known, there are Anglicans around the globe who want to curtail the participation of LGBT people in sacramental life. When Gene Robinson became bishop of New Hampshire, a decades-old conflict flared with new intensity. Meanwhile, beginning with the 1978 Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Communion has declared its need to listen to the experience of LGBT people. The most recent manifestation of that desire is an official "listening process." Despite this process, and the existence of things like study guides for bishops and other church leaders, Bishop Robinson himself was deliberately not invited to this Conference. Lest LGBT people simply be talked about or around and not actually heard ourselves, groups like Integrity and Changing Attitude have planned a number of events to make certain that our voices will be present.

And that's why I'm going: to be among those voices as a transgender person. More specifically, a transgender man who is also an Episcopal priest and representative of transgender Episcopalians across the United States (though I am also quite clear that I cannot speak for all of them).

On Friday, July 25th, I along with three others will be on a panel entitled "Listening to Trans People." The panel is part of a series of official Lambeth "Fringe" (a term that has a less pejorative meaning in England than in the United States) events, whose schedule you can view here. While bishops are not required to come to this panel, I hope that those who do come will listen with open hearts, carrying with them the spirit of learning and relationality that is the keystone of this Conference. As far as I know, this panel represents the first time that a transgender-specific event has ever taken place at a worldwide Anglican Communion meeting, and I'm proud to be part of it.

The panel was organized by Rev. Christina Beardsley of Changing Attitude UK, who has written a substantial resource for Clergy and Congregations re: transgenderism. The panel is officially sponsored by the UK-based Christian Transgender group called the Sibyls.

Jumping In

As I sit here, about to leave, listening to the rain fall out the window, I'm excited about the new possibilities, the people I will meet and the stories I will hear. And at the same time I can't help but feel overwhelmed as I ponder the challenge of trying to include transgenderism within the context of conversations that have been revolving around sexuality-- human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. In a way, I feel like someone standing next to one of those huge jump ropes-- the kind where two people stand turning the rope and you have to jump in. It's a lot easier when you get to turn your own rope-- there's no mistaking the rhythm-- you can slow down, speed up, or stop when you need to. With a rope not of your own turning, you have to time your jump. You stand there for a moment, kind of swaying as you figure out the pace, and then jump in, hoping you don't snag the ropes.

Perhaps this anticipatory experience is common to anyone poised on the threshold of this conversation, regardless of demographic particulars. But as I prepare to bring a trans perspective, it sometimes feels like I and my other trans comrades are bringing another rope. A single jump rope, turning and turning around the topic of sexuality does not give us tools to talk about transgenderism; we need another rope for gender. Double Dutch, anyone?

But wait, we already have a gender rope. It entered the Anglican fray most famously in the mid-1970s debates about women priests, and in the late '80s with the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris in my home diocese of Massachusetts. In 2006 the gender jump rope got renewed attention with the election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and within the last month the Church of England has voted that women can become bishops in England. Over the years, this gender rope has continued to turn in our debate, but in the last two decades, as sexuality has become an increasingly dominant theme, the role of the gender in our discussions has become obscured. In the wake of the Church of England's recent vote, I have hope that the gender rope will regain its crucial place in the collective Anglican conversation with more clarity and emphasis than it has recently received.

Only, as gender comes back into our collective conversation, I believe we need to think about it differently. Gender should not simply refer to women. Nor, for that matter, should gender simply equal transgender. Our "gender rubric" should be more complex, more flexible. As Bishop Gene Robinson and numerous others have argued, gender needs to be understood in the complicated ways that it interacts with race, class, ability, and sexuality, particularly in the wake of Anglican colonial legacies. What's more, our rubric should understand that gender is neither rigidly binary (male and female only) nor static (always experienced, expressed and embodied in the same way). Gender has so many forms in so many different cultural contexts that categories don't always overlap. What it means to be gendered-- to be labeled, for instance, as a man, as a woman, as another category of gender, of which there are a number around the world-- is highly contextual. Even within the same geographical region, the rules for how genders are to be enacted -- how to "be a man," for instance-- may change depending on one's other demographic features. As is true with sexuality-- indeed, as is true of God-- no language can finally express or contain the idiosyncratic gender vernacular of a fellow human being.

And so a new facet of our journey as Anglicans, it seems to me, is to truly recognize that our conversation is not simply a matter of gay or straight, black or white, male or female. There isn't just one jump rope, nor should there simply be two. I'm not convinced we could ever add enough ropes to account for the myriad dimensions of humanity, and I also worry about the challenge of who turns the ropes and who jumps. Much as I like the image, jumping rope might not be the best way to attend to our distinct but interlocking differences and our common goal of empowering the full dignity of our humanity.

The image that pops into my head -- an imperfect, nascent analogy, to be sure -- is of a game I remember playing in P.E. that involved a parachute. All the kids would stand in a circle -- many of them -- and would hold onto the outside of the chute. What we did with the parachute varied. Sometimes we'd wave the parachute rapidly and watch the fabric ripple toward us. Sometimes an object of some sort would be placed in the middle-- we would all lift up the chute and watch the object bounce. I even remember the object sometimes being a person who got quite a ride (perhaps that's what's happening to Bishop Gene?!). But my favorite part was when we'd all, suddenly, lift our hands upward, holding tight to the chute edge, watching the fabric puff up into a huge balloon. Then, quickly, we'd all duck inside and sit on the edge, chute fabric behind our backs. Suddenly the fringe had created a new center. All had access to it, and it belonged to no one in particular; in fact, if anyone left the edge for the center, the air current might change and the balloon might quickly deflate. And so we'd sit there, laughing with delight as we spied one another inside this new, collectively created dome, seeing people suddenly a bit more clearly, reveling in this strangely sacred space. Slowly and steadily, the dome would deflate. Eventually, when our views were obscured, the parachute exercise would end and P.E. would be over. But not before, together, we'd done something somehow quite magical.

As I prepare to embark on this journey, my prayer is that the fringes of the Lambeth Conference might witness to the Anglican Communion a renewed, clarified vision of human complexity. I pray that the God who is always doing a new thing might re-empower us in the ongoing task of creating church anew, that somehow, amidst ongoing conflict, we might be able to delight in the unique incarnation that each of us was created to become.

Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge

Thank You, +Gene

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 +Gene’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 +Gene 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 +Gene’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 +Gene 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 +Gene’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 +Gene 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 +Gene 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 +Gene. 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), Gene 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.” +Gene 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 +Gene’s insistent acknowledgment of bisexual and transgender people. He is certainly right that we are “less known” than our 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 that we may be more known, and that our voices might join ongoing ecclesial conversation. So thank you very much, Bishop Gene, for your witness, inclusion and support. I continue to pray for you, and would very much appreciate your continued prayers as well.

CP

Waiting

This has been a day of tremendous tension in the Anglican Communion. Our House of Bishops are finishing up a six day meeting in New Orleans at the beginning of which they received a visit from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The bishops and the Episcopal Church in general are under enormous international pressure to bow to demands that we unambiguously stop blessing same sex unions and lifting up openly gay people as bishops. The media has been reporting on our denomination to an unprecedented degree because of the intense fear of schism. Everyone Episcopalian I talk to is exasperated by the situation. I too get irritated, particularly regarding coverage of our governance as a denomination. Admittedly, it’s a confusing system with elements of hierarchy and democracy. The most important factor in the present circumstances is that in the Episcopal church bishops don’t actually have authority to declare a national church policy on their own. We include all orders of ministry—bishops, priests, deacons, and baptized laity-- in that sort of decision, and we meet in a kind of congress every three years to do so. In between such meetings the highest level of authority in the Episcopal Church is actually the Executive Council which, again, is composed of all orders, not just bishops. In other parts of the Anglican Communion, governance structure can bestow more authority on bishops than we do. What’s frustrating is when other parts of the Communion expect our bishops to operate as theirs do. I imagine those kinds of expectations can be seductive to our bishops, especially those who instinctively a) want to reign in a chaotic situation and b) keep everyone happy. A situation like this requires strong spines and level heads. Thankfully, this past Spring, our bishops made a clear statement resisting what others would have them take on. As the pressure continues, I pray they’ll do that again.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress gets closer to passage of the Matthew Shepherd Act, legislation that would enable the Justice Department to support the investigation of crimes based on hatred of particular groups, including gay and transgender people. A version of this bill has passed the House of Representatives and now looks as though it will come up for a vote tomorrow in the Senate. I called my senators this afternoon to tell them I support it. This morning I noted a Boston Globe op ed by Cornel West and Sylvia Rhue that calls to task clergy who have been claiming that this bill would infringe on religious freedom in any way. It won’t.

As it so happens, late last week it came out that Marvin Nissin, a man serving a life sentence for his role in the 1993 murder of Brandon Teena, as well as Phillip DeVine and Lisa Lambert, now claims that he, not his accomplice John Lotter, did the killings. The case of John Lotter, who is on death row, may now be reopened. Brandon Teena, who inspired the film Boys Don’t Cry, was murdered when his female birth sex was discovered. That kind of discovery also catalyzed the murder of Gwen Araujo in Newark, California ten years later and numerous similar murders have happened between and since. It is for precisely these kinds of cases that this federal legislation was written.

And so on this day, as Anglicans—especially LGBTI ones—look for affirmation of our denomination’s polity and direction, and as LGBTI people of the U.S. await federal protection of our basic human dignity, I pray for an end to the fear on which division and hatred is based.

Rev. Cameron Partridge