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

In Support of Transgender Rights in Massachusetts

I gave this testimony at the Massachusetts State House before the Judiciary Committee yesterday. The Boston Globe reported today that over 300 people were present over the course of the day, and I can report that the vast majority of them were there in support of the proposed legislation. The Judiciary Committee was holding its hearing yesterday to gather information before making a recommendation about the fate of this proposed bill (among several others)-- it is up to this body as to whether the legislature has a chance to vote on it. It was very moving to hear the testimony of numerous other people-- trans people, parents, employers, members of the MA bar association, and on and on. There were only a couple of negative testimonials.

CP

In Support of HB 1722, An Act Relative to Gender Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes
Massachusetts Judiciary Committee, March 4, 2008
The Reverend Cameron Elliot Partridge

My name is Cameron Partridge and I testify to you today as a Massachusetts resident since 1995 and a transgender man. My vocation takes place in two arenas, one as a doctoral student in the Religion, Gender, and Culture Program at Harvard Divinity School and the other as a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts serving in Allston/Brighton, where transgender woman Rita Hester was murdered in 1998. I am here in support of HB 1722 because I care deeply about the need to protect all people from discrimination and hate crimes. I care not only because I myself would be covered by this legislation in my secular work but also because many people I know and work with—friends, family, students, parishioners, fellow clergy and people of various faiths—want these protections to become law.

Since my transition from female to male six years ago, I have learned that although many people are not well informed about transgender people, they are able to learn, able to be respectful, and in many cases able to be supportive, in all sorts of settings. My transition as a first year graduate student interfaced with many different departments of the university, from my doctoral adviser, to the Registrar, to my physicians in the university’s health services, to the people who take photos for campus identification cards. In all cases people were more than accommodating. My favorite moment came from the Registrar who declared “I want to welcome you to the male gender—it’s served me well.” I am proud that since then Harvard has joined the growing group of universities and corporations across the country that are adding gender-based protections to their non-discrimination codes. Protecting people of diverse gender identities and expressions is clearly the right thing to do, and it also need not cause institutional confusion or interpersonal difficulty. The world won’t come to an end because we acknowledge and protect people of various gender identities and expressions.

I am extremely fortunate to have a family that is supportive of me. But on at least one occasion I heard concern that I might be rendering myself “unemployable.” The notion that transgender people are by definition "unemployable" is a poisonous perception, quite ubiquitous, that this legislation can help address. In fact, it need not be a huge deal to employ a transgender person. Thus far I have worked both as a teaching assistant and as a priest with no problems; in both of my lines of work, my experience as a transman has felt like much more of an asset than a liability. The question isn’t—and shouldn’t be—what unusual personal history I may have but whether and how well I can do the job. Some of us who identify as transgender may choose to be open while others may not. Some of us may not have a choice. The fact that I went to a women's college, for instance, will always show up on my resumé. But it shouldn’t matter. Thus while I have been extremely fortunate, I know I may not always be. None of us should have to fear that we may be denied equal access to housing, to education, credit or to jobs because our simple existence happens to challenge other people’s ideas about sexual difference. When we heard the argument earlier that because transgender people are such a small percentage we are less worthy of protection, I was reminded of the parable of the one sheep and the ninety-nine. The implication of the previous speaker's remarks seemed to be that the one sheep should be left out there. First, I disagree with that logic, as does the parable itself: in it, the shepherd steps away from the ninety-nine for a moment to bring back the one. But second, transgender people are connected to so many people, as we have heard from many others today: parents, spouses and partners, siblings, friends, colleagues, communities of faith, all of whom are among the ninety-nine. When one of us is snatched away, the remaining ninety-nine are injured as well. This legislation is part of the ongoing process of making it safe for *all* of us to become and to flourish as the people we are.

I realize that there are people of faith out there who believe that transgender people somehow deny or distort the goodness of our creation. What I can tell you is that for me, coming into myself as a transman has been and continues to be a sacred journey, something for which I give thanks and something that has opened my eyes both to the tremendous diversity of creation and to the many ways in which humans grow and change over a lifetime. I have been blessed to work part time in a parish and in a diocese that really means it when it says it supports all people. So let there be no mistake: there are many people of various faiths who are supportive of transgender people, and there are many transgender people who are people of faith. The baptismal covenant of my tradition calls for us to strive for justice and peace and to respect the dignity of every human being. As I see it, this proposed legislation participates in that ongoing mandate, and I am proud to support it. I urge you to support this legislation and to ensure that the legislature has a chance to pass it. Thank you.

Transgender Moment?

A parishioner recently asked me, “so, how does it feel to be in ‘The Transgender Moment’?” She was referring to the title of an article recently published in Christianity Today, a conservative evangelical magazine. I laughed and told her I didn’t quite know. On the one hand it seemed oddly presumptuous of Christianity Today to declare this the transgender moment (it kind of reminds me of that Newsweek cover story from the summer of 1993, "Lesbians: what are the limits of tolerance?"). On the other hand I thought, you know, over the last year there has been some serious momentum in transgender concerns both within and outside of faith contexts. A year ago there was a first of its kind Summit for Transgender Religious Leaders at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. Then there was the controversy over Rev. Drew Phoenix’s status in the United Methodist Church, which seems to have brought the reality of ordained transgender ministers newly into the public eye. Add to that the ENDA crisis this fall and it does begin to feel like “the Transgender Moment” may be, so to speak, at hand.

Apocalyptically tinged title aside, and upon further reflection, the article does not strike me as nearly as negative as it could have been. It seemed to aim for education and pastoral sensitivity, to de-demonize us—which I certainly don’t begrudge. Unfortunately its pastoral angle didn’t stop the story from pathologizing. I’m not going to belabor the article any more at this point, though. What strikes me more than anything else is the rather carefully pointed attention this magazine has given us. It makes me wonder, what might this “moment” mean and where might it be going?

This sense of “the moment” also resonates with me at the end of a weekend that-- quite unusually-- boasted not one but two special services in greater Boston celebrating queer Christian lives. The first was a dance performance my partner and I attended last night called “Converge/Collide: a Queer Catholic Journey.” It was the performance component of a Master of Divinity thesis written and choreographed by Kate Long of Harvard Divinity School. It was awesome and exhilarating to watch the dancers moving to a combination of church hymns, hip-hop, and sobering readings of Roman Catholic documents on homosexuality, all of which were woven into a narrative about a teenager’s process of coming out as both Catholic and queer. The dance ended with an exuberant declaration that there are many, many queer Catholics whose worlds not only collide with one another but also converge. Then, this evening—after doing services this morning—we attended an event called “Transpire: An Ecumenical Celebration of Transgender Lives Breathing Spirit into Community.” It was a special service of Cambridge Welcoming Ministries, a United Methodist LGBTQS community. As with Converge/Collide, the service was strikingly well attended—I’d guess there were maybe 70 + people there. It was also especially gratifying to gather with transfolks of many different stripes for an event other than Transgender Day of Remembrance. So often when we and our families and allies gather it’s to remember those who have died-- clearly an important witness we need to continue to bear each year. But this was simply to celebrate our lives. It was a joy to do that.

Here in Massachusetts the time is also drawing near for transgender rights to be added to the state’s hate crimes and non-discrimination codes. Over the summer several of us formed a coalition called the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality. Our aim is simply to show that people of faith can be supportive of transgender equality and that transgender people can be people of faith. Some of us will be testifying before the Judiciary Committee soon in favor of the proposed legislation.

So in many ways it does feel like a “transgender moment” is dawning (converging and colliding?). I pray that God will bless it.

CP

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