Celebrating Victory, Pursuing Truth

Speeches in the Senate Reading Room

By the Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge
cross-posted at Walking with Integrity

On this bright January morning, as the hour of 11am neared, I emerged from Boston’s Park Street T stop, turned left and began walking up the hill toward the State House.  Today (or rather, at this late hour, yesterday) marked the ceremonial signing of the Transgender Equality bill here in Massachusetts.  This legislation, first filed in 2007, passed on November 15^th, and officially signed on November 23^rd, adds gender identity and expression to the state’s existing hate crimes law and the nondiscrimination statutes in the areas of housing, employment, education and credit. In a fitting twist, the week of its official passage was also Transgender Awareness Week, a time of educational and community events leading up to the eleventh annual observance of Trans Day of Remembrance on November 20th. 

The Senate Reading Room, where today’s signing took place, was packed with observers, a joyful crowd savoring the celebration.  Lawmakers were clearly also buoyed, as their inspiring comments demonstrated.  “You have no idea how beautiful you are as you stand here beaming,” said state Auditor Suzanne Bump.  “Remember that you are powerful,” offered Senator Brian Downing, followed by fellow Senator Sonia Chang Diaz: “it's days like this that remind us why we ran for office... Thank you for reminding us [legislators] of our own power, in addition to showing us your power.”  Representative Byron Rushing, who joined Representative Carl Sciortino in co-sponsoring the bill from its very first days, declared, “this hasn't just been a discussion of gender identity but of the identity of Massachusetts, and hopefully it will become a discussion of our national identity.” 

Representative Rushing, photo from masstpc.org

In his Episcopal Church context, as a longtime member of the Diocese of Massachusetts’ deputation to General Convention– Deputy Rushing inspires us to  pose that question of church identity.  Faith communities can ask, and indeed are asking, what do we stand for as people of our respective traditions?  In the Episcopal Church we might well ask—and have asked at the 2009 General Convention and various diocesan conventions before it– what does it mean to declare in our baptismal covenant that we strive for justice and respect the dignity of every human being? In 2009 the Convention passed resolutions putting The Episcopal Church on record in support of transgender equality in the civic sphere (D012 and C048), and pledging within our ecclesial life to make administrative forms accessible to gender identities beyond male and female and to protect transgender lay employees from discrimination (D090 and D032, respectively).   As our collective conversation continues, we might allow the varied lives of transgender as well as intersex people – communities and individuals whose lives are textured not simply by complex embodiments of gender but also by race, class, sexuality and ability-- to deepen our understanding of the human person.  How do we interpret and live out the mystery of being created in the image and likeness of God?

At the signing this morning, I was reminded of a startling moment in the November 15 debate that I watched on my laptop. Representative Sciortino was speaking movingly in support of the legislation when he began to describe the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) held at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul the year before.  He made a point of detailing the apology that my bishop, the Right Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, had offered on behalf of Christians who had condemned trans people and in the process had “misrepresented God to” us.  The apology had been stunning enough in its own right, but to hear it reported, in some sense repeated, on the floor of the House of Representatives, was positively astounding.  As I sat there dumbfounded—actually, calling out to my partner to come see this!--  receiving these words afresh in an unimagined context, I was reminded of a strangely parallel moment at General Convention three years earlier.  The Convention had managed to pass D012, the Trans Civil Rights Resolution, on the same day that the Massachusetts Judiciary Committee was holding a hearing on its own Trans Equality legislation—an earlier version of what has now finally passed.  As a team of trans people and allies worked toward the resolution’s passage in Anaheim, a fellow Episcopalian in Massachusetts learned about it (on his laptop, while waiting to testify in the stultifying heat) and shared it in the course of his testimony three thousand miles away.  The Episcopal Church supports this bill, he was proud to be able to say.  It all came full circle.

Also on my mind today were the words (viewable here as blurry video), offered by Bishop Shaw at this year’s TDOR.   Speaking at the end of the program, he welcomed us to the Cathedral and then offered a word of gratitude that felt almost like a meditation: “because of your honesty, because of your integrity, because of the way you so pursue the truth of your identity, you tell me about the nature of God, because that is how I think God is.  And so I thank all of you not only for the way that you enlighten my understanding of God but how much you preach to the rest of the world about courage, and about bravery, and about truth and about perseverance of identity.  We owe all of you a huge debt of gratitude.  Thank you.” 

I got the sense people were both honored and stunned by his words, working to digest and contemplate them— I know I was.   His comments about perseverance in pursuit of the truth of identity—language I had not heard him use before— reminded me of words from the Gospel of John that I first really took in at a middle school summer Bible camp: “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (Jn 8:32). 

From this chair, at the end of this day, looking out at the striking vista of falling snow, it strikes me how the process of knowing the truth and being freed by it is both lifelong and communal—by turns grueling and wondrous, and inextricably relational, even as it is distinctive to each person. 

Governor Deval Patrick signs the bill, photo from masstpc.org

An important truth about the MA trans equality law is that it is far from perfect: it does not include protections in public accommodations—access to public gender segregated spaces.  Everyone was resolved to come back and get that done.  And as I think about how far we have come, how much more free we are than we were just a few short months ago, I know that what we need more than anything else is the will, the support, the conviction to keep pursuing the truth.

CP

MA Bishops Send Letter to Legislators in Support of Transgender Nondiscrimination Bill

Bishops M. Thomas Shaw and Roy ("Bud") Cederholm of the Diocese of Massachusetts this week sent letters to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo pressing them to pass the state's Transgender Civil Rights bill. "An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes" (House Bill #1728 and Senate Bill #1687) is slated to either make it out of the Judiciary Committee or die there for a third straight year this Friday, May 7th.


The bishops' letter follows unprecedented coverage of the bill by Boston area newspapers (including a supportive op ed by the Globe), after Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker announced that he would veto the legislation if it crossed his desk. His team handed out fliers referring to the legislation as "the bathroom bill," taking up the rhetoric of the virulently anti-LGBT group Mass Resistance (and groups battling similar legislation in other states) which tries to stoke fears that such legislation will make women and children vulnerable in bathrooms and locker rooms.

The bishops' letter (posted with permission) follows:

April 30, 2010


The Hon. Deval L. Patrick
Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
State House, Room 360
Boston, MA 02108

Dear Governor Patrick,

We write to express our strong support for an act to add gender expression and identity to our Commonwealth’s antidiscrimination and hate crimes laws, and to ask you to work to ensure its passage.

As bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, our eyes are open to the realities of transgender people and their families. Many of them serve faithfully in the congregations and ministries of our diocese, as lay people, as deacons and as priests. They are dedicated and loving parents, children, siblings, friends and community leaders. Again and again, we hear how they have struggled against incredible odds and pressures to be true to their identity as beloved children of God, made in the image of God.

It pains us that even as transgender people claim their identities and step into newness of life, they face discrimination and violence that undermines their human dignity. A November 2009 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force found that 97 percent of respondents had been harassed or mistreated on the job, and 26 percent had been fired for being transgender. You will recall that in November 1998, an Allston transgender woman, Rita Hester, was murdered and her killer never found. This local tragedy led to an annual Nov. 20 international Transgender Day of Remembrance, for transgender people who have died, especially those who have been killed or taken their own lives. It is fitting that our state should model amendment of life and hope for a future that is better than this sad past.

Adding gender identity and expression to the state’s nondiscrimination and hate crimes laws is no isolated concern of a special interest group. The disproportionate suffering of transgender people should grieve the hearts of all who love justice and liberty. Both the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church are on record in support of full equality for transgender people (resolutions attached).

So many of the arguments against the full inclusion of transgender people in our society are driven by unfounded fear. Transgender people are simply seeking the removal of barriers that prevent them from flourishing as full members of and contributors to society. One need not fully comprehend what it is like to walk in their shoes to provide them with the protections every citizen—every person—is due. Please act to ensure their rights.

Faithfully,



The Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE
Bishop

The Rt. Rev. Bud Cederholm
Bishop Suffragan

Enc.

Resolution D012: Support of Transgender Civil Rights

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church supports the enactment of laws at the local, state and federal level that a) prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or the expression of one's gender identity, and b) treat physical violence inflicted on the basis of a victim's gender identity or expression as a hate crime; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of Convention convey this resolution to appropriate congressional leadership to the Chair of the National Governors Association, the President of the National Conference of State Legislatures, and to the President of the U. S. Conference of Mayors.


Voted by the 223rd Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, Nov. 7-8, 2008, Hyannis:
Resolution in support of transgender civil rights and inclusion in the ministries of all the baptized

Resolved, that the 223rd Convention of the Diocese of Massachusetts supports the enactment of laws at the local, state and federal level that a) prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or the expression of one’s gender identity, and b) treat physical violence inflicted on the basis of a victim’s gender identity or expression as a hate crime; and be it further

Resolved, that the Secretary of Convention convey this resolution to the Massachusetts State Legislature, and the Massachusetts representatives in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives; and be it further

Resolved, that this Convention submit to the General Convention the following resolution: Resolved that the words “gender identity and expression” be inserted into Title III, Canon 1, Sec. 2 directly following the words “sexual orientation” and before the words “disabilities or age.”

A November to Remember for LGBT Episcopalians in the Diocese of Massachusetts

I wrote this piece for the Walking with Integrity blog

November in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachsusetts has been quite the month on the LGBT front with big ticket items during our Diocesan Convention, to Transweek and Transgender Day of Remembrance, to this weekend’s announcement about the role of clergy in same sex marriage.

At our Diocesan Convention during the first weekend of November, a resolution was overwhelmingly passed expressing our hope that Bishop M. Thomas Shaw III would give clergy permission to legally solemnize same sex marriages. +Tom has long been a supporter of LGBT people in general -- – and speaking as a trans priest whom he ordained, I mean it when I include the T – and equal marriage in particular, stepping out in support of equal civil marriage during this state’s protracted battle over it.

But once gay couples were legally allowed to wed, Episcopal clergy were still limited to blessing said couples. And while I realize just being allowed to do blessings would be a coup in some dioceses, here being limited to blessings felt like a pastoral nightmare. I can’t tell you how many clergy have had repeated conversations with couples about how they could solemnize some marriages but not others. Some clergy have refused to solemnize any marriages in the in-between time of the past five years. And so, while the conversation about whether we should even “be in the marriage business” as legal representatives of the state goes on, that is a conversation that I suspect will take this church a long time to sort out. It’s a lot more difficult to disentangle than I think people on all sides of the debate realize. In the meantime, to me it has made no sense to refuse to let same sex couples in the solemnization door while we figure out whether we want to restrict our involvement in all marriages to blessings.

Another way I have personally faced this issue is in doing trans marriages. We who are trans also face limitations in our ability to wed. Much depends not only on whether our partnerships are gay, bi, or heterosexual – just like everyone else -- but also on whether our legal documentation (e.g. drivers licenses) accurately reflects our gender. And when I say accurate, I mean whether it reflects our identities, not the meanings that others might write on our bodies. In some states changing appropriate identification is easier than in others (for instance, Ohio is notoriously difficult). So when a couple with a trans member has approached me to do their wedding (and I have now done several), one of the things I have had to ask at some point is what the gender markers their drivers licenses say. In some cases I have been able to bless only and in others I have been able to bless and solemnize. Each time I have been aware that I am part of the ongoing transformation of marriage in this time and place. Because, as I see it, marriage is not now and has never been static. Its meaning and form has long been changing. What was the miracle that Jesus undertook at Cana? The transformation of water into wine. Our relationships are to be sacred vessels in which we walk together through the changes and chances of this life.

But I have to say—and I say this as someone who obviously cares a lot about the marriage debates -- all the energy we pour into marriage can get pretty irritating to the trans community. Because even though we are impacted by the rules regarding marriage as well, marriage is not the most important thing to the trans community (insofar as we can say there is a single trans community—there are indeed numerous communities). Protecting our most basic human rights are. Keeping members of our community safe from violence – as our sisters of color most often experience – and free from often blatant discrimination on the job, in schools, housing, credit, and medical care, is what we are most concerned about. And so we are pleased that the Matthew Shephard Hate Crimes Act is finally now law, but we wait eagerly for the passage of a fully inclusive Employment Nondiscrimination Act and the passage of local and state laws that safeguard us in our various communities.

November is a month that the trans community around the globe is increasingly claiming as its own. The main impetus for this is Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) which takes place every year on November 20th. Fourteen years ago, an African American Bostonian named Chanelle Pickett was murdered here in Boston on that date. I remember it well because I was a first year MDiv student interning at the Victim Recovery Program at the Fenway Community Health Center at the time, and it was also my birthday. Three years later, on November 28th, 1998 another African American woman named Rita Hester died in Brighton, MA, three blocks from the congregation I now serve, St. Luke’s and St. Margaret’s. This murder sparked a vigil on Brighton Avenue across from the place she was last seen. One year later, the trans community in San Francisco marked that anniversary with the first ever Transgender Day of Remembrance. And so the TDOR tradition, which is now international, was born.

Last year for the first time Boston’s TDOR was held at St. Luke’s and St. Margaret’s, in a secular event that packed the small church. This year, once again, we were asked to host this event (read about it here in the Allston/Brighton TAB; photos by Marilyn Humphries are here). It was a particular honor to be able to share with the gathered community that at its General Convention this past summer The Episcopal Church went on record in support of our full civil rights. And in another important demonstration of support and encouragement, the Crossing, the emergent church style congregation at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, held a special service in honor of TDOR on Thursday evening, November 19th, also hosting Transcriptions, the local trans/queer themed open mic. More and more Episcopal congregations are opening their arms to trans people.

And then yesterday lay and ordained leaders in Diomass received a beautifully clear letter from our bishop declaring that as of Advent I clergy in this diocese are indeed authorized to solemnize the marriages of same sex couples (read about it in the Boston Globe or Bay Windows) . No more do gender markers on licenses As I talked about it on the phone with a friend and fellow trans priest, I said, “what a relief!” He replied, “I know—now I wanna run out and find a gay couple to marry!”

And so life here in Massachusetts continues to move forward with blessings amid all our complexities. But to me the greatest gift of all this November is my son who was born in mid-October. Today, literally as I wrote this piece, he smiled at me for the first time. God is so good.

CP

Diocese of Massachusetts Passes Resolution on Transgender Inclusion

I’m sitting in the living room reflecting on the end of a long, long week, and listening to a cd called “Songs @ the Crossing” that I bought at diocesan convention yesterday. It has a chanting, soulful quality, kind of like Taizé, but with a jazzy feel-- a nice backdrop for sifting through a wildly intense week.

Between the death of a longtime parishioner, giving a paper at the American Academy of Religion meeting in Chicago last weekend, the elections, and the parishioner’s funeral Friday morning, it was already packed.

Then, with hands still dirty from casting earth on the coffin, I drove to Hyannis, Massachusetts, where the annual diocesan convention of the Diocese of Massachusetts was taking place this year. I was anxious to get there as quickly as possible, since I was co-sponsoring a resolution on transgender civil rights and inclusion in the non-discrimination clause of the national church canon on ministerial discernment.

(Eastern) Massachusetts is not the first diocese to consider such a resolution. Prior to us, the Dioceses of Newark, Michigan, Maryland, New York, and California have all passed similar resolutions, while the diocese of Connecticut rejected one about three years ago. The diocese of Michigan passed additional resolutions on October 24-25, calling for a transgender-inclusive federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and transgender inclusion in the national church, non-discrimination ministry canon. While previous conventions here have included resolutions on gay and lesbian people, including the question of blessing and/or solemnizing same sex marriages, trans issues have never before been on the table at the Diocese of Massachusetts' annual convention.

In addition to the resolutions from other dioceses that have gone before it, the MA resolution flowed naturally out of an evolving national and international context. This has been an extraordinary year for the transgender community in the United States, with a number of public conversations dovetailing on issues connected to our lives. I also sense a growing interest and ability within faith communities to talk about trans people in their midst and the implications of our presence and, conversely, within trans communities to talk about faith and spirituality (e.g. the For Such a Time As This event which was to take place in New Orleans this fall). Even beyond the United States, transgender topics have been increasingly emerging into public conversation (e.g. the ‘Listening to Trans People’ panel at the Lambeth Conference, and several posts re: trans African voices in July and August on this blog). The Employment Non-Discrimination Act debacle last fall has galvanized people in the trans community like never before. And here in Massachusetts, a non-discrimination and hate crimes bill was introduced last year. While it met an untimely death in a study committee, it will be reintroduced in 2009. It would be huge to be able to say that the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts supports the passage of such a bill.

Shortly after I arrived in Hyannis Friday afternoon, resolutions had to be introduced. I had three minutes to explain the resolution, after which there was time for discussion. Voting would happen Saturday. I began my explanation by talking about the murder of Rita Hester 10 years ago in Allston/Brighton, MA, where my parish is located. I talked about how trans women of color, in particular, are vulnerable to anti-trans violence. Bringing up recent cases of anti-trans discrimination that have been in the news, I explained that currently there is neither state (MA) nor federal protection against discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression, and I talked about how pervasive the stigma against trans people remains, even as we are now making amazing gains as a community. And I concluded by saying that although already there are trans clergy around the country, myself included, it would be helpful to name our intention that trans people, like all people, be free to take up their vocations to various ministries in the church. Then time was called and I stood back from the microphone.

Two people then stepped up to microphones in the assembly of about 800. The first was a young woman from the Diocesan Youth Council. She explained that she has friends who are trans as well as lesbian, gay, and bi, whom she has in the past assured would indeed be welcome in the Episcopal Church. She felt strongly that we as a diocese should pass the resolution; otherwise she felt she would have been lying to her friends about the wideness of our welcome. The next speaker was a woman who shared that she is the mother of a trans person. She talked about how it was hard to have a son or daughter who is trans (in my overwhelmed state, I didn’t catch details about her adult child’s identity), and how important it was for us as a diocese to support trans people and the families connected to them. As I listened, I felt overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude at the completely unexpected witness of these two people. And, particularly while listening to the mother, I felt a huge lump grow in my throat as I thought about a family member whom I lost when I transitioned. After those two comments, the convention moved on to the next resolution.

As I made my way through the convention after that Friday session had ended, I was amazed at how people, both friends and people I’d never met, came up to me and said positive things about the resolution and/or what I had said. Then, shortly before dinner, I ran into a group of friends and acquaintances. One was a woman I had met when I visited a parish with a bishop years earlier. She asked if I was the Cameron who had co-sponsored the resolution, and when I said yes, she shared with me that her son is trans. I asked to make sure, but, no, she wasn’t the same mother who had spoken earlier that day. And before the convention would end, I would be approached by yet another person, this time a priest, whose congregation includes the parents of a trans person. The more such encounters I have (and I have had several others with parents of trans people, both through priests and through outside groups), the more obvious it seems that this resolution, and other faith-based outreach regarding trans people, may actually have the most quantitatively large impact on the families, and especially parents, of transpeople. I left the convention that evening exhilarated about the impact of the resolution, even with the actual vote yet to come.

The next day, after officially ‘moving’ the resolution to the Convention’s floor, I again gave a three-minute explanation of it. This time I added to the previous day’s comments that because the murder of Rita Hester had taken place in the vicinity of my parish, and because the Day of Remembrance this year will include a vigil walk recreating the one that took place a decade ago, my parish was asked if it could be the site of this year’s Boston Transgender Day of Remembrance. I talked about how proud we are to be able to serve as that site this year. And I talked about how the resolution speaks not only to the experience of trans people but to all those connected to us, especially family and friends, as had been movingly witnessed in the previous day’s comments.

In the discussion period, this time, there were no comments or questions. When Bishop Gayle Harris asked if we were ready to vote, she didn’t have time to specify that those in favor of the resolution should signify a yes by raising their yellow cards. Yellow cards just started rising, beginning with the left side of the hall. “Hey, what if I had started with the nos?!” she said. But the avalanche was unstoppable: a sea of yellow cards filled the room. When Bishop Harris asked those against the resolution to raise their red cards, I saw no more than 10, again, in a room of about 800 people. I imagine there were some quiet abstentions, but based on that sea of yellow cards, there can’t have been many.

So the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts has now gone on record in support of transgender civil rights here in Massachusetts as well as at the federal level, and it has asked the General Convention next summer to augment its non-discrimination canon to include transgender people as part of the ministry of all the baptized. I am incredibly grateful for all the supportive comments and spirit shared this weekend, and I look forward to the further connections that this resolution may yet foster. Thank you, Diomass.

*********************************************************

Here is the text of the resolution:

In Support of Transgender Civil Rights and Inclusion in the Ministries of All the Baptized

Name of Submitters
Rev. Cameron Partridge, Rev. Christopher Fike, and Rev. Canon Ed Rodman

Resolved that the 218th Convention of the Diocese of Massachusetts supports the enactment of laws at the local, state and federal level that a) prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or the expression of one’s gender identity, and b) treat physical violence inflicted on the basis of a victim’s gender identity or expression as a hate crime; and be it further

Resolved that the Secretary of Convention convey this resolution to the Massachusetts State Legislature, and the Massachusetts representatives in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives; and be it further

Resolved that this Convention submit to the General Convention the following resolution:

Resolved that the words “gender identity and expression” be inserted into Title III, Canon 1, Sec. 2 directly following the words “sexual orientation” and before the words “disabilities or age.”

Explanation:

The Diocese of Massachusetts has long been committed to social justice and to the eradication of discrimination in all its forms both in civil society and within the church. Although the "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community" are often referred to as a group, lesbian and gay people have made considerable advances over the last two decades, while transgender people — transsexuals and others who differ from societal gender norms — are still without legal protection for their basic rights in areas that include employment and health care. In 2007-8, Massachusetts House Bill 1722, "An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes" failed to pass and will be introduced again in 2009. On the federal level, the Employment Non Discrimination Act of 2007 passed the House of Representatives on November 7, 2007 after it had been amended to remove “gender identity and expression.” The United States Senate did not take up the Act. Next session, it may be reintroduced with transgender-inclusive language.

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs has reported that since 1997, transgender people in the United States have experienced, on average, 213 hate crimes per year. 321 such crimes were reported in 2004. Slowly, states and municipalities are passing laws protecting transgender civil rights. Currently, 13 states have statutory anti-discrimination protection covering gender identity and expression, compared to 20 that have prohibited discrimination against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. Massachusetts does not yet have such protection at the state level and at the local level only three of our cities do (Boston, Cambridge and North Hampton).

Despite this profound vulnerability, transgender people are increasingly visible as productive participants in workplaces and communities of all types, including Episcopal congregations. By passing this resolution, the Diocese of Massachusetts would stand with the Dioceses of Newark, Michigan, Maryland, New York, and California, continuing to strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being. Furthermore, by calling for a revision of Title III, Canon 1, Section 2, this Diocese would encourage transgender people, as it does all of God’s people, to bear witness to God’s transforming presence in their lives, and to discern the various ministries into which God may be calling them. Finally, the passage of this resolution would invite the Church to open its eyes afresh to see God’s hand at work in the world about us, and to deepen its inquiry into the holy mystery of the human person.