Of Knots and Narratives

In the Acknowledgments section of her novel Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name Vendela Vida says, “Thanks to… Galen Strawson, whose essay “Against Narrativity,” published in Ratio, made me curious about the kind of person who would see their past as unconnected to their present. In trying to answer that question, this novel emerged.” Now I'm curious to read Strawson's essay.

But Vida’s novel, which I finished reading earlier this week, is about the search of a young woman named Clarissa Iverton for her biological dad. Her quest lead her to Scandinavia where unexpected answers raise new questions as well as stories that refuse narration. In part this refusal stems from literal language barriers, translation difficulties from Norwegian into English. But more fundamentally the gap between experience and story emerges out of trauma. The closer Clarissa gets to those who know from whence she came, the less narration is possible.

When I came upon Vida’s comment about “the kind of person who would see their past as unconnected to their present” I couldn’t help but think of another group who for a long time were actively encouraged to view their lives in just that way. Historically, those of us who transitioned were told to leave our cites and towns, to get rid of old photos, even create false narratives of origin in order to start completely afresh. When I first heard about such practices in the course of my research and discernment about transition, I was horrified. My personal and family history has long been extremely important to me, the idea of leaving it behind anathema. That remains true for me, and thankfully I never experienced any official pressure to think or behave otherwise.

But what strikes me now, about six years post transition, is how ruptures between past and present need not be consciously practiced to appear in one’s life. I had no idea how challenging it would be to find narrative patterns for some experiences. Some of these occurrences are mundane. Maybe in the barber shop the man telling me about raising his son will reference something that of course we both know from growing up (only I don’t). Or I’ll overhear dads in the locker room pronounce boys so much easier to raise and girls infinitely more complicated (I think of my CPE supervisor’s line about those who assume). I once even had a fellow priest—a man who knew I was trans—remark to me, as I bungled the knot in my cincture, “Come on, you should remember this from the Scouts!” I’m 99.9% sure he didn’t mean the Girl Scouts, which I left after one year in which we learned exactly two knots, the Square Knot and the Granny (the latter of which is, tellingly, an imperfect version of the former).

The everyday gaps can be profound enough, but to me the biggest chasms can characterize certain sorts of memories. The ones that pertain to having grown up a tomboy, and later, a young woman who dared to do things that men did and was proud of it. At different times in my life I have made meaning of the disjunctions between myself and my contexts in different ways. Is being a tomboy a precursor to being a butch lesbian? To being a strong woman (regardless of sexual orientation)? To being a genderqueer man? Certainly, when asking such a question about any little girl the answer can be any of the above. But when in one’s own, single life the answer is in fact all of the above, any one narrative of meaning can prove a bit challenging. There can be a temptation to overwrite each successive interpretive wave: I thought I was just a burgeoning feminist but really I was a lesbian (like one of my favorite Allison Bechdel cartoons of a girl decked out in baseball finery, “G is for Gretchen who knew at age seven”); I thought I was a lesbian but really I was a transman. I refuse to overwrite the ways I have made meaning of my life in previous years—or meanings I have yet to make. They are all present like layers of sedimentary rock, to use a Judith Butler concept I find clarifying.

Jennifer Finney Boylan struggles magnificently with the past-present gap in her most recent memoir I’m Looking Through You. The discontinuities of her memories appear as ghosts whom she literally sees (but doesn’t believe in) at various points. One ghost even images the disconnected quality of her memories: as the spectre approaches her bed, it “clicks” on and off, appearing in a space, then disappearing, emerging a bit closer, and so on, until it hovers before her. Particularly given the melancholic trajectory of her narrative(s), Boylan's pause, early on in the book, to distance herself from gender theory is odd and counterproductive.

Sedementation and haunting both make a great deal of sense to me as ways to render disconnects between past and present, but I need more. I need vehicles that can create space for the unfolding of life, in all its twists and paradoxes, as a narrative vessel—indeed, part of a much broader craft. That’s where I find religious traditions a help. Such traditions often have repositories of narratives, some of which may contradict one another or contain strange gaps even as they overlap and/or fit into a wider whole. The concept of “Midrash” in Judaism, for instance, refers to a kind of narrative embroidery of gaps or inconsistencies in a biblical story. The four canonical gospels in Christianity (not to mention the numerous other gospels) also contain aporia. In broad-brush strokes, they tell the same basic trajectory of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, but not all of the accounts line up. Each gospel is founded upon what are called “passion narratives,” originally oral traditions shared among community members grappling with political oppression, unfathomable loss and—before long-- irrepressibly strange newness of life. You can try to create a single narrative of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection—and in fact early Syriac Christians had such an attempt in Trajan’s Diatesseron—but if you do, you will be favoring some vignettes over others, overwriting the slippages. I find the simultaneity of narrative continuity and incommensurable discontinuity both fascinating and helpful. Rendered in that way, the good news can become a kind of wailing wall, a body both wounded and raised, a repository for the lost stories of one’s life, the ones that refuse anything approaching linear representation. I certainly don’t begrudge anyone the right to overwrite or turn away from a history too painful to bear. That’s exactly what Clarissa Iverton does, like her mother before her. I myself prefer to preserve actively a view—or views-- backwards as well as forwards, despite the gaps and chasms, seeking to locate paradoxes of truth as slivers of a much larger, Passion-filled, Mystery.

Goodbye HRC

The following is a copy of a letter forwarded to me for posting in this Blog. It represents the sentiment of many Trans Folk and is similar in intent to many letters written to HRC after their betrayal of the Trans community on the ENDA legislation.
The Rev. Michelle Hansen, blog moderator

To Whom It May Concern:



It is with sadness, not anger, but sadness, that I no longer consider myself a member of HRC. I will not be contributing any funds to your organization. As a transwoman, to do so would be to cooperate in the continued exclusion of myself and my brothers and sisters from our full humanity.

The decision to exclude trans people from ENDA was a political decision. I understand political decisions. They can and should be difficult to make. They are also sometimes necessary. The adage is correct, half a loaf is better than none, however odious some may find that mindset. Therein lies the problem.

No one in the GLBT community will be getting half a loaf. If the neutered ENDA passes the Senate, Bush will veto it. Back to square one. It would seem trans people were excluded for no good reason. After considering the decision, my conclusion is that it was made in either ignorance or arrogance. I find neither option worthy of my support or my funds.



The Rev. Gari Green
Kenosha , WI

Christmas Blessings

Just a pause now in the busy Holiday preparations, so I will take the chance to wish everyone a VERY BLESSED and MERRY CHRISTMAS! The event that we commemorate in this Holy Day has very little to do with feasting, Santa Claus, or presents. It has everything to do with the birth of Jesus. Jesus birth and Christmas is also called the Feast of the Incarnation (God becoming flesh.) In all the celebrating please remember that underneath all our festivities there is something very real to celebrate. God, the creator of the Universe, cares enough about us, God's creation, to become one of us. Not only did God become one of us, but God came into this world as a small and vulnerable child, just as we all do. This is the miracle of Christmas, that God cares!

Peace and Love,
Shel (The Rev. Michelle Hansen)

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Tuesday, Nov. 20, brings in many places the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). One might legitimately wonder at the need for such a remembrance. I would have been in that condition just five years ago. Although I have been transgender all my life I was "in the closet" for much of that life. That meant for me not being in touch with other Trans people, not in touch with Trans issues, and not really in touch with myself very much. I also grew up in a rather privileged white middle class environment and did my undergraduate education at the University of Rhode Island and graduate work for two masters at Yale University. I worked as a parish priest for many years in the "elitist" Episcapal Church and then for many more years made good money in the computer industry.

Five years ago it barely dawned on me that I might be in jeopardy of social violence for being transgender (possibly from a terrorist, it was just after 9/11/2001.) I have learned much in the last five years! Last night I attended a public service for TDOR in Springfield, Massachusetts. I will be unable to attend the services in Hartford on Tuesday. I experienced many feelings during the service, extreme sadness, much concern and fellowship with the others there. I also was shocked and horrified at the stories of those whose lives ended so prematurely at the hands of others. You see, this day of remembrance is for those Trangender people who have been murdered (eleven in this current year alone.) In the service people read some of the stories of those murders. It was all horrifying and shocking to hear of people being stabbed to death with twenty or thirty knife wounds or being killed and then having their bodies mangled. It is all so far from my personal experience, yet somehow all too personal.

What shocks me the most, though, is the general indifference and acceptance in the general population of this treatment of Transgender people! One of the stories recounts the fact that a bunch of bystanders cheered as a trangender woman was beaten to death. Another story tells that the police recorded a Transgender death (murder) as being accidental (she was actually killed and then run over four times, accident?) Many of the murders are listed as unsolved. Even the solved ones often show light sentences for the murders. If you don't believe me visit the Remembering our Dead Web site.

Being a religious woman I could say to you pray for the dead. That certainly would be fitting. I am however going to say to BE OUTRAGED! Don't accept this violence. Being Transgender isn't bing less than human. All these Transgender men and women who were murdered were people worthy of their right to life. Fight with me and those like me for justice and the right to life without terror and violence. By all means please pray but do more. Tell your Doctors, your Police forces and your legislators that you will not accept discrimination and violence against any one! Don't accept violence against your Transgender brothers and sisters!

God's Love to you all,

The Rev. Michelle Hansen, S.T.M., M.Div

Tags: TDOR, violence, rembrance

In Support of Rev. Drew Phoenix

For Immediate Release:

TransEpiscopal, an organization made up of Episcopalians who are transgender, as well as allies and family of transgender loved ones, extends its support and congratulations to the Reverend Drew Phoenix. Rev. Phoenix, by all accounts, is doing an outstanding job at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Baltimore, Maryland. As several members of TransEpiscopal are also ordained clergy who are transgender, and as we serve in various ministries throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, we know something of the struggle Rev. Phoenix is going through, and we offer thanks to God for his ministry and the opportunity he has to engage in it.

For additional information, please visit our website at www.transepiscopal.blogspot.com, or contact the Rev. Cameron Partridge at cepart@yahoo.com, the Rev. Gari Green at ggreenjay@aol.com, the Rev. Michelle Hansen at hansen_michelle@sbcglobal.net, or Ms. Donna Cartwright at donnacartwright@earthlink.net.

Thoughts on the HoB

I haven't posted directly to the blog before, but I feel obligated to offer some reflection on the recently concluded House of Bishops meeting. I believe the meeting was a watershed time especially for trans folk in the Episcopal Church. This assessment has nothing to do with what the bishops did, since the actually did nothing. My categorization has to do with the fact that the same time the bishops were meeting in New Orleans, the Consultation was meeting in Newark. This meeting of the Consultation was the first meeting in which there was an official trans representation. Cameron Partridge and I were both honored and pleased to serve as representatives to this meeting. A friend of mine, another transwoman, asked me what accomplishments I hoped would come out of the Newark meeting. I told her the very fact that our part of the Body was represented was accomplishment enough for me.

 

During our meeting we monitored the House of Bishops, eventually crafting a well worded reminder to them regarding their responsibilities to the rest of us. Cameron has posted that document. I have no idea what kind of response it received in the bishops meeting. We are now three weeks past what Susan Russell has called the "day after". I feel calm enough to offer some thoughts.

 

My partner has assured me that the bishops did the only thing they could. They agreed to that which had already been decided at the most recent General Convention. I have come to see the wisdom in that assessment. However wise the assessment may be, I am left wanting more from those to whom I look to for leadership. What more could they have done?

 

Well, the could have acted like leaders, now couldn't they? They could have stated categorically that, as the House of Bishops, they could neither accede to nor turn down the requests(demands)of the Primates. Our polity requires us to make decisions together, not unilaterally.

 

I believe the bishops wanted to pour oil on the troubled waters of the Anglican communion. They failed in this. Conservatives felt the Bishops response to be inadequate. Those of us in the GLBT community felt scapegoated yet again, if only by reliving the betrayal foisted upon us at the most recent General Convention.

 

So, the bottom line is everyone lost. Everyone but the Bishops that is. They apparently congratulated themselves heartily for their efforts in saving the Anglican Communion for at least another season. Bishop Robinson may get to attend Lambeth, where he should have been invited to begin with.

 

So, we spent a lot of money to get the purple shirts to New Orleans for the great meeting, which is certainly good for the economy of New Orleans, to arrive at the same place we were before the "great meeting". Somewhere I can almost hear a small voice saying, "pay no attention to the man behind the screen, the great and powerful OZ has spoken".

 

 

The Rev. Gari Green

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