ENDA: a View from a TransEpiscopalian

My Take
by Meredith Bacon

In the ninety degree heat and beating sun, most of us who demonstrated in front of the Washington Convention Center last Saturday afternoon glistened with perspiration. “No ENDA without gender,” which can be made to sound like a rhyme, was the recurring chant. We handed out Equality Federation stickers which read “Equali_y.” Many of the arriving invitees for the Human Rights Campaign’s National Dinner reluctantly took the sticker but never put it on their cocktail attire. Some of the LGBT glitterati, who paid $250 for the evening, were clearly uncomfortable because of the temperature and the additional heat generated by the demonstrators reminding them that the HRC’s position on an Employment Non-Discrimation Act which would include protection based on “gender identity” was less than consistent.

That inconsistency resurrected doubts that the transgender community has harbored since the August 2004 HRC Board decision to commit itself and its immense political and economic power to trans-inclusive federal protective legislation. Ironically, along with the rest of the LGBT community, the trans community had celebrated the passage of the hate crimes amendment to the Defense Authorization Act just days before. We were included in that bill which has still to go to the President for his signature. He has threatened to veto it.

Also ironically, three weeks before at the Southern Comfort Conference, the world’s largest gathering of transgenders, HRC President Joe Solmonese had promised not only to support a trans-inclusive ENDA but to oppose an ENDA which was not inclusive. I was at Joe’s luncheon table just prior to the speech but had met him on a number of other occasions and had even been a guest on his XM radio program. Joe is one of the most charming and politically astute people I have ever met. For the most part he has lived into the HRC’s 2004 commitment. Officially, he still is and has urged the greater LGBT community to push for an inclusive ENDA. However, that part of his Southern Comfort speech which promised to oppose a non-inclusive ENDA has been placed into doubt, not because Joe is not an honorable man leading a great organization, but because Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are prepared to send a non-inclusive substitute to the floor (HR 3685). HRC’s largest visible constituency and the core of its financial support is gay men. To deny gay men and lesbians employment non-discrimination in order to fulfill his promise to transgenders puts Joe in a difficult situation. I don’t envy him. Achieving such a laudable goal at the expense of others poses, or should pose, a moral dilemma of the highest order.

Two days before, Donna Rose had resolved her personal dilemma by announcing her decision to resign from the HRC Board. She had been its first and only transgender member, our articulate and influential voice inside the HRC. Her principled and courageous decision stands in sharp contrast to that of others who in their silence appear to acquiesce to our further marginalization

At the urging of other National Center for Transgender Equality Board members, I had abandoned my plans to boycott the HRC dinner and had entered along with three other Board members. We had hoped to lobby HRC Board members and staffers to rethink their decision of October 1 not to oppose HR 3685 should the trans-inclusive ENDA, HR 2015, appear to have failed to garner the 218 votes needed for passage in the House of Representatives. The senior staff and HRC Board members whom we approached were courteous, if somewhat condescending, but unbending in their belief that something was better than nothing, although their confidence that ENDA in any form would become law under this administration was fanciful. Still inspired by the demonstration, I sat, my back toward the stage as Joe Solmonese spoke and referred to us as “the elephant in the room,” never once pronouncing the word “transgender.” That was left to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi whose announced sympathy for us belied the Democratic leadership’s willingness to drop us from ENDA “for now.” As I suggested to the Advocate reporter, incremental civil rights usually means a fifteen year wait.

However disappointed we may be that some of our friends in Congress and in the larger LGBT community seem ready to sacrifice our protection from discrimination in order to achieve theirs, we are going to have to work with them in the future. Our justifiable anger must give way to a reenergized determination to realize our equality which will mean, whether we like it or not, patching up our differences with those who have so recently abandoned us. As Christians we are called to forgiveness. As Episcopalians we see God’s hand in our relationships. With God’s Grace, our community will be one again.

Dr. Bacon is Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha,
Board member of the National Center for Transgender Equality, and member of TransEpiscopal

A Letter from The Consultation

The following is a letter written on September 24th by the Consultation, a coalition of justice organizations in the Episcopal Church, to the House of Bishops as they deliberated on their statement. Two of us from TransEpiscopal participated in the Newark meeting and, while the letter has been posted on several other blogs and websites for the last couple of days, we post it here as a sign of a process in which we were proud to take part. Even as we struggle in these difficult days in the Anglican Communion, this kind of collaboration gives us hope.









Integrity

TransEpiscopal

Episcopal Urban Caucus

Episcopal Peace Fellowship

Episcopal Women's Caucus

Union of Black Episcopalians

Episcopal Ecological Network

National Episcopal AIDS Coalition

Province VIII Indigenous Ministries

Episcopal Church Publishing Company

Episcopal Network for Economic Justice

Episcopal Asiaamerica Ministry Advocates

Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission


September 24, 2007


A message from The Consultation to the House of Bishops as it deliberates its message to the Church.

The thirteen constituent members of The Consultation, representative of the independent justice organizations of The Episcopal Church, meeting September 23-24 in Newark, wish to remind the members of the House of Bishops that they represent one house of the General Convention, and one constituency of the baptized in The Episcopal Church.

Any message you make must be mindful of the fact that the Executive Council has made a very clear statement on the matter before you and that General Convention will not speak on this matter until its meeting in 2009.

We have in mind the language of the Baptismal Covenant which calls us to respect the dignity of every human being. It is not respectful of our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender sisters and brothers when we tell them that they are full participants in the church and then place restrictions on their participation at any level of the church’s life.

In the preamble of the 2006 platform of The Consultation we affirm that we see the image of God and the Christ in others and ourselves. We believe that all the baptized are called to share in the governance and mission of the Church at all levels. We see the increase of power claimed by the episcopate as imbalance in The Body.

We urge you to have these things in the forefront of your minds and hearts, as you craft this statement. The sacred vows of The Baptismal Covenant and the tradition and heritage of the participatory governance of The Episcopal Church must not be squandered for a single Lambeth conference.

We urge you as bishops not to walk apart from the rest of the priesthood of all believers in The Episcopal Church, and to embrace the unconditional love of God as made incarnate in the radical inclusion of Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit be with you to guide you in all strength and courage in these difficult days as ordained leaders in The Church.

What to Think? Communications Constructions & Pastoral Pathology

Last night the House of Bishops released a statement of where they are as a body. In part the statement responds to the Communiqué issued by Anglican Communion Primates in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania last February. The media and the Anglican Blososphere are weighing in on it left and right. What I would add for now are two observations and one critical comment:

1) Range of Reactions:

It’s striking to observe the range of reactions among progressives (e.g. see comments to posting on Fr. Jake’s blog). Some people are incensed, while others think this was a decent outcome that clarifies what the next steps need to be. Integrity USA, the organization of LGBT Episcopalians, has issued a quite positive statement, saying that the bishops stood firm, resisting the demands of the Anglican Primates. I have also observed question marks about Integrity’s statement from some progressive corners, a sense of ‘are we reading the same document?’ There can be no doubt that the primary work of the next General Convention, which will be held in Anaheim, California in the summer of 2009, is to repeal the resolution known as B033 (which stated “that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion”). Yesterday's bishops statement points to the language from that resolution as ‘where the church is’ right now. It also stated that the immortally ridiculous phrase, “those whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church”, includes gay and lesbian people.

2) Media Constructions

I’ve been part of several conversations recently about what angles on this story the media may be missing. The aspect about which I hear most is the notion that this split within the Episcopal Church is not happening on nearly as big a scale as the media seems to think it is. This morning, Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe remarked, “The Episcopal Church has repeatedly sought to portray the conservatives who would leave as a tiny minority.” He doesn’t come right out and say he doesn’t buy it, but he does make it clear he detects spin. I don’t think he’s mistaken, but I also agree that the numbers aren’t nearly as high as conservative groups spin them to appear. Nevertheless, the global dimension of our conflict may ultimately make the congregational numbers game irrelevant; the story itself is impacting infinitely more people than we can count, in and out of the Anglican Communion, for good and/or ill. We can’t just count those who are leaving the denomination. There’s a fascinating communications war going on in all of this. If, as I believe, the media does not simply report on but also constructs its subjects/objects, then the entity known as the ‘Anglican Communion’ is now inflected by the increasingly global concept of homosexuality, and—fascinatingly, to me-- vice versa. How often now, when reading about homosexuality in Global South contexts, do we find some reference to the Anglican Communion? It’s incredible.

3) Pastoral Pathology

The bishops made a distinction between “authorizing” same sex blessings and “making allowance” for them for pastoral reasons. Translation: no diocese has written or officially authorized any liturgies for the blessing of same sex unions, but in many places services have long been allowed to take place. A resolution from the 2003 General Convention even acknowledged that reality. Yesterday’s statement says that most bishops are not making such “allowances”. But where they are doing so, they do it for reasons of “pastoral care.” By the end of their statement the bishops affirm the need to respect the dignity of LGBT people, speaking in terms of our civil rights.

What we’re seeing here is an affirmation that the church is willing to fight for full inclusion outside the church, but that within the church that same fight can only take place under the rubric of “pastoral care.” Indeed, Bishop Caroline Tanner Irish of the Diocese of Utah commented, “’I think putting [same-gender blessings] in the context of 'pastoral care' is the critical word,’ she said. She praised the House of Bishops for what she called the hard work and compromise offered by all the members.” It’s a sad day when the very term “pastoral” takes on a patronizing and pathologizing hue, but that’s exactly what’s happened. The pastoral gets to respond compassionately to disorder. As long as LGBTI people remain officially relegated to the ‘pastoral’, we remain contained, and a worship service that should be a sacramental vehicle of transformation ends up implicitly framed (by bishops, not necessarily by the priests who conduct them) as a kind of pat-pat, there-there, I’m-praying-for-you-in-all-of-your-challenges kind of way. To add insult to injury, there are those who are speaking of the need to make limits to the pastoral. Great. Well, I’m not interested in waging this fight on pastoral grounds. I’m fighting for the full flourishing of human beings, called by God to ever-increasing authenticity, ever more true and clear reflection of the likeness of that image in which we were created.

We’ve got our work cut out for us in the 2009 General Convention. And when I’m not utterly frustrated, I’ll be curious to see how the communications construction process evolves along the way.

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

Multiple Masks

August 21, 2007

Multiple Masks

When I was fifteen, the theatre club in my high school put on The Good Woman of Setzuan, a play by Bertolt Brecht. I vividly recall the actors wearing masks that covered half their faces. In particular, I remember identifying with Shen Te, a female character who periodically became the male Shui Ta in order to sustain the shop she’d recently opened. When Shen Te became Shui Ta she put on a different mask. Throughout the play, this dual-character got squeezed more and more tightly by her circumstances.

As I watched, riveted, my stomach bound itself in knots that lasted for weeks. I had no words to describe my struggle as a tomboy striving to find my way into a female adolescence without sacrificing my gender authenticity, an identity I would eventually refer to with such terms as transgender, genderqueer, ftm (female-to-male). Where language was unavailable, images and stories helped a great deal. Although Shen Te/Shui Ta was much more gender polarized than I felt (her femininity much more feminine than mine ever was, for starters), they came to symbolize my own struggle.

This play launched my mom and me into a conversation that continues to this day. At the time my mom, who was doing her doctorate in psychology, wondered if Shui Ta was for me akin to my catcher’s mask (I played catcher in Little League and Softball teams for years—that’s me catching in my first little league game, and below is my beloved mitt ‘Clifford’, whose name was inspired by the children’s story). The implication was that I somehow used masculinity as a shield. No doubt there was some truth to that. And yet, the fuller truth felt more complicated and inchoate. Being catcher-- mask or no-- felt grounding. I liked being able to survey the whole and help shepherd the action as it unfolded. It felt like home. Yet, if this subject-position was a mask—the logic went-- then it must have been merely expedient, self-denying, defensive or even deceptive. While the two didn’t initially feel very compatible, over time I discovered that they need not be mutually opposed: I could incorporate Shui Ta into Shen Te, vice versa, or both. I could simply be myself, be at home.

The mask metaphor is everywhere in LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) narratives. Take Malcolm Boyd’s powerful memoir Take Off the Masks! which I read as I was coming out as trans. From where I sit now I admit to a certain ambivalence about the mask metaphor. Do I think it’s good to discover and remove them? Absolutely. Liberation is a powerful thing. Yet I think we should also be wary of oversimplifying our journeys and, indeed, our psyches. In his treatise On the Making of the Human Person (xi.2), Gregory of Nyssa muses, “who has understood one’s own mind?” I’m with him-- a certain ongoing humility about the extent of one’s self-knowledge is always in order.

Yes, liberation is indeed powerful, but it is also never ending. And if none of us is free until all of us are, we would do well to think about our masks and their removal as always partial and always linked in some deep way to the masks of someone else. There is grave danger in their oversimplification.

I see just such a risk in the global debate—crystallized but by no means exhausted by the Anglican Communion—about homosexuality. The debate has indeed enlarged to take complex and multiple cultural and religious contexts into consideration. But it isn’t just the contexts that are varied. The entity under consideration in these contexts is manifold too. We aren’t just debating ‘homosexuality’, as if the cause of our conflict was simply gay and lesbian people but not women (of any orientation), and not bisexual, transgender or intersex people. Bishop Gene Robinson has often argued that this struggle is the beginning of the end of patriarchy. I agree, and to ignore that truth is to refuse to remove an important mask from this debate.

But I’m not sure even the term patriarchy encapsulates what Robinson is pointing at. His insight should unmask the falsity that sexual difference is always an either/or proposition—that one can be either male or female but nothing else. Built on the foundation of this either/or notion is the ‘complementarity myth’, the idea that, as ‘opposite’ sexes, men and women must only partner with one another. This is exactly the place where same sex relationships overlap with transgender lives—both transgress the sexual polarization of the human person. As long as everyone must be either/or-- or must partner with either/or-- to count as a full human being, all who find ourselves outside these boxes will be accused of inauthenticity or deception. Even inhumanity or monstrosity.

Which is what LGBTI people in Uganda are battling with particular intensity right now. To be openly LGBTor I in Uganda is to put oneself at risk of imprisonment or worse. At the end of last week a coalition called Sexual Minorities Uganda, headed by transgender-identified Viktor Juliet Mukasa, announced, “we step into the public today to give a face to the many who are discriminated against every day in our country. Some of us have brought our faces before you for you to know us. But many of us come before you today with masks to represent the fact that you see homosexuals and transgender people every day without realising that it is what we are. We do not harm anyone. We are your doctor, your teacher, your best friend, your sister, maybe even your father or son.”

The combination at this press conference of masked and unmasked people demonstrates the complex, bewildering matrix that queer people grow up having to navigate. Like Sandi Dubowski’s masterful film Trembling Before G-d, a must-see documentary which tells stories of Orthodox Jewish gay and lesbian people, the masked and unmasked activists of Uganda rendered their own invisibility visible.

Amazing how such intricately shadowed lives are also so very ordinary. It should go without saying—and yet, as Mukasa indicated, it does not-- that LGBTI people take up all sorts of vocations. Over the past two weekends the Boston Globe Magazine has run a two-part story about a beloved physician in Somerville, Dr. Deborah Bershel, who transitioned from male to female. To me, one of the most moving moments was when Bershel described a small but significant gesture of gender affirmation from her rabbi. Would that we all could receive such spiritual support.

As the fall deadline looms for the Episcopal House of Bishops to respond to the requests of the Anglican Primates’ most recent communiqué, these voices rising from Boston to Uganda begin to unmask the polarized concept of sexual difference. What a vast wedge that mask has driven in the Anglican Communion and beyond. Sexual and gender variance is so much more complex and pervasive than the debate has begun to imagine.

Back in Uganda, Mukasa’s fundamental message was "Please, let us live in peace. Stop persecuting us. God created us this way. We are children of God as well."

Leaders from the Uganda Joint Christian Council are already rallying against the outspoken ‘homosexuals’. I wonder how the Anglican Communion will understand this “we”?

Rev. Cameron Partridge

For Sexual Minorities Unganda’s entire Press Release, see http://www.genderdynamix.co.za/content/view/281/204/. Gender DynamiX describes itself as “the first (and currently, the only) African based organisation for the transgender community.”

Tags: masks, transgender, LGBTI, Uganda, Primates

Blog for TransEpiscopal by the Revd Dr Christina Beardsley

Blog for TransEpiscopal by the Revd Dr Christina Beardsley
Thank you for inviting me to write this blog about trans issues in the UK from my perspective as a trans woman and a priest in the Church of England. I thought it might be helpful to begin with a description of the medical and legal context here before commenting on Church matters.

Medical treatment
In the UK treatment for gender dysphoria is available on the National Health Service (NHS), and the Gender Identity Clinic located next to Charing Cross Hospital, London, has been diagnosing and treating people for over four decades. Its leading clinician, until his recent retirement, was Professor Richard Green. Gender Re-assignment Surgery (GRS) takes place at Charing Cross and a number of regional NHS Trusts. Some trans people used to complain that NHS protocols and waiting times were unbearably slow, but one hears this less and less. In the past, however, it often led those who could afford it to turn to private medicine.
The main UK private practice, also based in London, used to belong to Dr Russell Reid, who has treated many trans people, myself included. Highly respected in the trans community as a compassionate, skilled practitioner, he has just emerged from a protracted set of hearings before the British Medical Association, accused of flouting the Harry Benjamin International Guidelines. Dr Reid routinely prescribed hormones to patients as a diagnostic test, arguing that those who are not trans would be unhappy with the changes; and there was criticism of his practice in a few cases, though he was not struck off. He is retired now and Richard Curtis, a trans man and former GP, has taken over his practice.
The NHS GRS surgeons also have private practices, but many trans women go abroad for surgeries, Thailand being a popular destination.

Legal changes
It’s only eight years since the Sex Discrimination Act was amended to protect transsexual people who are ‘intending to undergo, undergoing, or have undergone’ gender re-assignment. Prior to that people who transitioned often lost their jobs (as well as partners, family and friends), so this change has been important for the economic stability of trans people, and has enabled employers and colleagues to appreciate that we are not a threat in the workplace.
This legal support was a great help to me when I transitioned while working as a healthcare chaplain, in the summer of 2001, as the hospital personnel department was familiar with the law and its implications. Unfortunately, the Church of England, as my sponsor, seemed to lag behind, perhaps because it has a habit of trying to negotiate exemptions to equality legislation (despite being the national church ‘by law established’).
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 has been the most significant piece of legislation for trans people in the UK, allowing us to change our birth certificates and to marry in our ‘acquired gender’ (to use the quaint phrase used in the Act itself). Prior to that trans people could change their name and gender on passports, bank accounts and other personal documents, but transition was never quite complete. Now it can be, and the Act also protects the privacy of trans people; though here again, the Church of England, along with other faith groups, has managed to obtain certain concessions, for the time being, at least.

Society and Theology
The legal changes that continue to improve trans people’s lives in the UK owe much to the work of dedicated campaigners, particularly Stephen Whittle, Christine Burns and Claire McNab of the trans campaigning organisation Press For Change. These changes also reflect increasingly sympathetic attitudes to trans people, often promoted by the media, whether through ‘scientific’ documentaries, soap opera storylines, or interviews.
So far churches in the UK have been cautious about these developments, at any rate, in their official statements. The Evangelical Alliance (EA) was the first to comment in its report Transsexuality, published in 2000 (possibly in response to the amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act in 1999). Entirely opposed to transition on the simplistic, and, supposedly, biblical ground, that male and female are immutable, God-given categories, its conservatism was in keeping with the EA’s earlier reports on homosexuality.
The long-standing focus on sexuality in the Church of England and in the Anglican Communion is also the background to Some issues in human sexuality: A guide to the debate (2003). The work of four Church of England bishops, this document attempts to address the inclusion of LGBT people in the Church and has a chapter on Transsexualism. My own contribution to ‘the debate’ was to write an article for the English journal Theology (September/October 2005, Vol. CVIII, No 845) critiquing this chapter, especially its omissions.

LGBT
I have occasionally heard trans people say that we should avoid being mixed up in the sexuality debate in the church; that our ‘issue’ is one of gender, not sexuality; and that the Church seems more ready to accept us than it does lesbians and gays. I can’t go along with that, for while sexuality and gender can be distinguished, they are often linked inextricably; nor would I want to belong to a church that included trans people while rejecting other minorities. Perhaps this has personal roots in that I identified publicly as gay (in 1989) before I accepted myself as a trans person.
Whatever the reason, in 2005 I was pleased to be invited to serve as the trans spokesperson and trustee for Changing Attitude, the Anglican campaigning organisation which has recently broadened its mission from lesbian/gay to LGBT inclusion. Likewise, this summer, it was an honour – especially given the suspicions of trans women in certain lesbian circles – to be elected the female co-convenor of the Anglican LGBT Clergy Consultation. Since taking up these roles I have met with Canon Phil Groves of the Anglican Communion Office, a sign that the listening process in the Church of England is being extended to its trans members.

Finally
The social revolution in which we have been living in the UK during the past few decades has affected the medical treatment and legal status of transsexual people as well as theological reflection about gender and sexuality. There has been a shift from paternalism to participation, from exclusion to inclusion. In many ways it has been the best of times for trans people, even though, in Christian circles, it has sometimes seemed the worst of times, mainly because the Church is often so reluctant to accept what God is doing in the wider world.

Revd Dr Christina Beardsley

Tags: England, transsexual

Freedom and Resistance

I have a friend, a fellow LGBT person, whose very favorite holiday when we were growing up was the 4th of July. I never could quite wrap my mind around that preference—to me Christmas was better by a longshot. I also have to admit I didn’t yet understand how, especially as an LGBT person, one could claim pride to be from a country in which individuals and communities can explore, become, debate and critique freely. To me the 4th of July was bound up with patriotism, and to me the latter evoked Americana, ‘family-values’, apple pie, anti-immigration, anti-change, etc. Not my cup of tea (though I do make a mean apple pie).

But one February about five years ago my partner and I were walking in Concord, Massachusetts near the Old North Bridge. We were in the throes of figuring out what would happen to our relationship as I prepared to transition. I was already using my current name and had some medical procedures on the calendar that had taken a lot of discernment, preparation and coordination. Everyday events—being greeted at checkout counters and receiving mail, for instance-- brought up a strong sense of dissonance between myself as I and those closest to me knew me and the expectations others projected onto me. I was struggling to carve out a place for myself and resisting enormous social pressures to do so. We were in Concord that day because I love the old burial grounds we have here in New England, the ones with the rounded tombstones with medieval-looking skulls and crossbones. There’s something about that raw, yet exuberant, Puritan aesthetic that I’ve come to love, paired up with inscriptions that emphasize embodiment—we’re not talking mere memory, we’re talking ‘here lies buried the body’.

Walking across the Old North Bridge was almost an afterthought, and I don’t think I’d ever before noticed the words below a statue that we passed along the way. Not the famous Concord Minute Man Statue that bears the immortal stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

It was the obelisk on the other side of the bridge that caught my attention, or more specifically, the inscription at its base:

Here, on the 19 of April, 1775 was made the first forcible resistance to British aggression. On the opposite bank stood the American Militia. Here stood the Invading Army and on this spot the first of the Enemy fell in the War of that Revolution which gave Independence to these United States. In gratitude to God and in the love of freedom this monument was erected A.D. 1836.

I was so struck by these words that I took a photo and pasted it on the inside cover of my journal. This action was highly unusual for me. No patriotic words had ever struck a personal chord before. There was something about “resistance” against an Goliath-like aggression, the sense the phrase conveyed of feeling gradually, increasingly squelched and, when it became unbearable, needing to create a space in which to breathe, to live freely. And, movingly, there was an expression of gratitude to God for that freedom.


Two months later on the day of my first shot of testosterone—‘T’, as it’s called in trans circles-- I was celebrating with some friends over beer in Cambridge. My partner was out of state doing a post-doctoral fellowship, and I would be joining her the following year. But that night, as I regaled my comrades with the day’s events, one of them noted the date: April 19th. The state holiday was to be on a Monday, but this was the actual ‘Patriot’s Day’. “Dude!” a friend joked, “yours was the T shot heard ‘round the world!” Who knew? When I got home I looked inside the front cover of my journal. The inscription included the date. On April 19th, 2002 I began a very different sort of journey of resistance.

Transition wasn’t the only journey I was on then. I had started a doctorate that fall, and I was also a candidate for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Just about three years after ‘T-Day’ I was ordained to the (‘transitional!’) diaconate. The day after my ordination I took a friend, visiting from California, to the Old North Bridge. We paused in front of the obelisk. It had already been a long journey, and I also knew it was only the beginning.

What stays with me, and particularly strikes me this week of the 4th of July five plus years after my transition, is the sense that a single act of resistance is never enough. After all, what began as resistance against British oppression also brutally wiped out native peoples across this land and now all too often participates in the oppression of others both within and outside our national boundaries. In the days since September 11th the value of that freedom itself—especially the freedom to critique-- has fallen under steady assault. As someone who now moves easily through those same everyday encounters that used to chafe, who gets offered white, heterosexual male privilege at the drop of a hat—though not in every context, and not as long as my history is known-- I have to keep choosing to resist lest my freedom unwittingly become the instrument of another’s oppression. At the same time what I feel more than anything else is gratitude. I am profoundly grateful to be in a country where I am free to be, and become, myself. In how many places around the globe would that be possible?

Stir up your power, God of Mystery and Might, and grant us the strength to celebrate the freedom with which we are endowed in your image (BCP Catechism, p. 845), and to have the strength always to resist oppression, wherever it may surface. Amen.

Rev. Cameron Partridge

Tags: 4th of July, Transition