I'm sitting here in Massachusetts, ready to head out the door to Logan airport, where I'm catching a flight to England to go to the Lambeth Conference.
A couple of weeks ago in Integrity Witness, Rev. Susan Russell posed a question to those of us heading to the Conference: Why are you going?
First, for readers not steeped in Anglican politics, the Lambeth Conference is a meeting of bishops from around the Anglican Communion which takes place once every ten years. As this May press conference underlined, the meeting is not a parliamentary proceeding but a chance for bishops from around the Anglican Communion to gather for counsel and relationship-building. And Integrity, of which Susan is the president, is the national LGBT coalition within the Episcopal Church.
As is well known, there are Anglicans around the globe who want to curtail the participation of LGBT people in sacramental life. When Gene Robinson became bishop of New Hampshire, a decades-old conflict flared with new intensity. Meanwhile, beginning with the 1978 Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Communion has declared its need to listen to the experience of LGBT people. The most recent manifestation of that desire is an official "listening process." Despite this process, and the existence of things like study guides for bishops and other church leaders, Bishop Robinson himself was deliberately not invited to this Conference. Lest LGBT people simply be talked about or around and not actually heard ourselves, groups like Integrity and Changing Attitude have planned a number of events to make certain that our voices will be present.
And that's why I'm going: to be among those voices as a transgender person. More specifically, a transgender man who is also an Episcopal priest and representative of transgender Episcopalians across the United States (though I am also quite clear that I cannot speak for all of them).
On Friday, July 25th, I along with three others will be on a panel entitled "Listening to Trans People." The panel is part of a series of official Lambeth "Fringe" (a term that has a less pejorative meaning in England than in the United States) events, whose schedule you can view here. While bishops are not required to come to this panel, I hope that those who do come will listen with open hearts, carrying with them the spirit of learning and relationality that is the keystone of this Conference. As far as I know, this panel represents the first time that a transgender-specific event has ever taken place at a worldwide Anglican Communion meeting, and I'm proud to be part of it.
The panel was organized by Rev. Christina Beardsley of Changing Attitude UK, who has written a substantial resource for Clergy and Congregations re: transgenderism. The panel is officially sponsored by the UK-based Christian Transgender group called the Sibyls.
Jumping In
As I sit here, about to leave, listening to the rain fall out the window, I'm excited about the new possibilities, the people I will meet and the stories I will hear. And at the same time I can't help but feel overwhelmed as I ponder the challenge of trying to include transgenderism within the context of conversations that have been revolving around sexuality-- human sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. In a way, I feel like someone standing next to one of those huge jump ropes-- the kind where two people stand turning the rope and you have to jump in. It's a lot easier when you get to turn your own rope-- there's no mistaking the rhythm-- you can slow down, speed up, or stop when you need to. With a rope not of your own turning, you have to time your jump. You stand there for a moment, kind of swaying as you figure out the pace, and then jump in, hoping you don't snag the ropes.
Perhaps this anticipatory experience is common to anyone poised on the threshold of this conversation, regardless of demographic particulars. But as I prepare to bring a trans perspective, it sometimes feels like I and my other trans comrades are bringing another rope. A single jump rope, turning and turning around the topic of sexuality does not give us tools to talk about transgenderism; we need another rope for gender. Double Dutch, anyone?
But wait, we already have a gender rope. It entered the Anglican fray most famously in the mid-1970s debates about women priests, and in the late '80s with the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris in my home diocese of Massachusetts. In 2006 the gender jump rope got renewed attention with the election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and within the last month the Church of England has voted that women can become bishops in England. Over the years, this gender rope has continued to turn in our debate, but in the last two decades, as sexuality has become an increasingly dominant theme, the role of the gender in our discussions has become obscured. In the wake of the Church of England's recent vote, I have hope that the gender rope will regain its crucial place in the collective Anglican conversation with more clarity and emphasis than it has recently received.
Only, as gender comes back into our collective conversation, I believe we need to think about it differently. Gender should not simply refer to women. Nor, for that matter, should gender simply equal transgender. Our "gender rubric" should be more complex, more flexible. As Bishop Gene Robinson and numerous others have argued, gender needs to be understood in the complicated ways that it interacts with race, class, ability, and sexuality, particularly in the wake of Anglican colonial legacies. What's more, our rubric should understand that gender is neither rigidly binary (male and female only) nor static (always experienced, expressed and embodied in the same way). Gender has so many forms in so many different cultural contexts that categories don't always overlap. What it means to be gendered-- to be labeled, for instance, as a man, as a woman, as another category of gender, of which there are a number around the world-- is highly contextual. Even within the same geographical region, the rules for how genders are to be enacted -- how to "be a man," for instance-- may change depending on one's other demographic features. As is true with sexuality-- indeed, as is true of God-- no language can finally express or contain the idiosyncratic gender vernacular of a fellow human being.
And so a new facet of our journey as Anglicans, it seems to me, is to truly recognize that our conversation is not simply a matter of gay or straight, black or white, male or female. There isn't just one jump rope, nor should there simply be two. I'm not convinced we could ever add enough ropes to account for the myriad dimensions of humanity, and I also worry about the challenge of who turns the ropes and who jumps. Much as I like the image, jumping rope might not be the best way to attend to our distinct but interlocking differences and our common goal of empowering the full dignity of our humanity.
The image that pops into my head -- an imperfect, nascent analogy, to be sure -- is of a game I remember playing in P.E. that involved a parachute. All the kids would stand in a circle -- many of them -- and would hold onto the outside of the chute. What we did with the parachute varied. Sometimes we'd wave the parachute rapidly and watch the fabric ripple toward us. Sometimes an object of some sort would be placed in the middle-- we would all lift up the chute and watch the object bounce. I even remember the object sometimes being a person who got quite a ride (perhaps that's what's happening to Bishop Gene?!). But my favorite part was when we'd all, suddenly, lift our hands upward, holding tight to the chute edge, watching the fabric puff up into a huge balloon. Then, quickly, we'd all duck inside and sit on the edge, chute fabric behind our backs. Suddenly the fringe had created a new center. All had access to it, and it belonged to no one in particular; in fact, if anyone left the edge for the center, the air current might change and the balloon might quickly deflate. And so we'd sit there, laughing with delight as we spied one another inside this new, collectively created dome, seeing people suddenly a bit more clearly, reveling in this strangely sacred space. Slowly and steadily, the dome would deflate. Eventually, when our views were obscured, the parachute exercise would end and P.E. would be over. But not before, together, we'd done something somehow quite magical.
As I prepare to embark on this journey, my prayer is that the fringes of the Lambeth Conference might witness to the Anglican Communion a renewed, clarified vision of human complexity. I pray that the God who is always doing a new thing might re-empower us in the ongoing task of creating church anew, that somehow, amidst ongoing conflict, we might be able to delight in the unique incarnation that each of us was created to become.
Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge
"As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise." Galatians 3:27-29 (NRSV)
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Trans Pride in Passage
This past Saturday, June 7, Northampton, Massachusetts hosted the first New England Transgender Pride March and Rally. North Hampton’s LGBT Pride event had taken place in May, and Boston’s LGBT Pride parade is happening this coming weekend, but trans folks wanted to take a moment to lift up people across the spectrum of gender identities and expressions, and more specifically to take, as the event’s website put it, “a visible and positive stand for transgender rights.” Dedicated “to diverse representation among organizers and participants,” the event sought “to educate and build awareness of the movement against gender-based discrimination.”
As we celebrate the milestones increasingly achieved for equal marriage across this country, it’s important to remember that in thirty-seven states — as well as at the federal level -- trans folks don’t have the assurance of basic civil rights. And in one state, Maryland, recently gained protections are under threat. We still have a long way to go.
That ongoing and upcoming journey reminds me of the first reading we heard this past Sunday, June 8th, which was from Genesis 12:1-9. In it God tells Abram — the forbearer whose name and identity God would change —“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” Abram and Sarai made their way to the land that God promised to them, and when God pointed out that land to them, they stopped and built an altar to God. As they made their way through this land, in fact, they stopped at several points, marking the stages of their progress with altars.
In a way, that’s what this New England Transgender Pride was doing — it was a day to stop, assess where we have been, to take pride in who we are, in how far we have come, and to strengthen ourselves for the various stages of the journey ahead. And it was a day to claim the promise — the promise that our unique human dignity will be honored and that this very humanity will take its place — is even now taking its place — amid all the interweaving strands of creation’s tapestry, as a blessing.
That I can sit here and type these words today, as someone who wasn’t even able to make it to this event, is because of the blessing of others’ witness. There are numerous descriptions of New England Trans Pride out there, but I came across one today that stopped me in my tracks. It turns out that Jendi Reiter, author (especially of poetry) and self-described straight ally, made her way to Trans Pride last weekend and ended up marching in the parade. As she describes, “The first-ever New England Transgender Pride March took place this weekend in Northampton, and I was there with my ‘Episcopal Church Welcomes You’ rainbow tank top and a digital camera to capture the pageantry. I was hoping to blend into the MassEquality contingent, but they were scattered around other groups this time, so I just milled around looking like I knew what I was doing, and took lots of pictures. Next thing I knew, someone had handed me a bunch of purple and white balloons, and I was marching behind the lead banner, shouting ‘Trans Pride Now.’”
Now how many of you fabulous allies out there might have hopped into a trans pride parade wearing an Episcopal Church Welcomes You rainbow tank?!
Reiter observes, “Whereas the main Northampton Pride March in May had a family-oriented, carnival atmosphere, Trans Pride was more bohemian and political. From their placards and speeches, it sounded like many trans folks felt they'd been sold out by the mainstream gay and lesbian activist groups, particularly the Human Rights Campaign's decision to support the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act even though protections for gender identity and expression had been eliminated. Some speakers seemed concerned that groups like HRC were selling a more sanitized, bourgeois image of gay and lesbian life that ignored the poor, prisoners, people of color, and those whose sexuality and gender identity defied easy labeling. Maybe I was in the right place after all.”
It seems to me that Reiter was in just the right place, with observations right on target, and not only for the ‘secular’ struggle for trans rights. Indeed, these questions struck me as particularly timely for Anglicans as July’s Lambeth Conference draws near:
“Is being queer a state of mind? Is queerness, like Protestantism, inherently self-fragmenting, as the need for a perfectly authentic personal identity clashes with the equally real need for affinity groups? The more precisely you draw your doctrinal statement (or define your gender), the closer you get to becoming an army of one.”
These questions challenge those who view gender as infinitely refracted as much as those who would define it in strictly dualistic terms. In a sense, we have on our hands a twenty-first century version of the one and the many. To float an answer to the question about self-fragmentation (with its fascinating link between queerness and Protestantism), I believe that as we name and embody our differences with ever-greater precision we will fragment to the extent that we base our alliances mainly on the degree of our similarity. But what happens when our bonds are based not only upon similarity of experience or embodiment – “who we are” -- but also upon principle, which, for Christians, would be the good news? Upon the radicality of God’s dream in which all -- all for real, not all ‘whose manner of life’ doesn’t ‘pose a challenge’ to me – are not only welcomed but expected, listened-to, even delighted-in, and ultimately drawn into God’s ongoing project of creation? As we already know, the stages of our passage will be marked with struggle, and sometimes by fragmentation. At points we, like Abram and Sarai, will need to pause and mark with gratitude how far we’ve come, and then continue on. If ours is a mission bent on love, the journey will bring us – all of us – home. And in this process, somehow, we will all become a blessing to one another.
CP
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Transgender United Methodists: Behold, I Make All Things New
I wanted to reach out in solidarity with United Methodists who this week are taking on the difficult process of talking within a wider church context about transgenderism. In the Episcopal Church we have had transgender clergy for several years now, in various parts of the country, and so, like you, our denomination is in the early stages of living into this particular newness of life. I give thanks for the witness of those speaking out at your General Conference in support of trans people in all walks of ministerial and familial life, and I pray for a spirit of openness, wisdom and understanding for those just embarking on this learning process. God is with you.
Below I am also reposting a story from the United Methodist News Service about the General Conference in which these conversations are taking place. My one, brief comment pertains to Rev. Karen Booth's argument that "gays and lesbians say, 'God created me this way,' whereas transgender people say, 'God made a mistake.' There's a real inconsistency there." I, for one, would not argue that God made any mistakes. Rather, God called me into transformation: "behold, I make all things new."
peace,
Rev. Cameron Partridge
From NewsDesk
Date Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:46:17 -0500
Transgender United Methodists share stories
April 24, 2008
NOTE: Photographs are available with this report at www.gc2008.org
By Robin Russell*
FORT WORTH, Texas (UMNS)-For three decades, United Methodists have debated at General Conference gatherings whether gay Christians can participate fully in the denomination, including being ordained as clergy.
This year, persons who have changed their gender are adding a new angle to that debate.
The Rev. Drew Phoenix, pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church in Baltimore, said he took "steps toward wholeness" two years ago when he switched his gender to male.
"I can say that I have come home to the child that God created me to me, and I'm very joyful, whole and peaceful," he said at an April 24 press conference sponsored by a pro-gay advocacy group.
Phoenix had been minister at St. John's for five years as the Rev. Ann Gordon. Following surgery and hormone therapy, he changed his gender and adopted a new name.
The press conference was sponsored by Affirmation, an unofficial caucus of United Methodists that are among advocacy groups hoping to gain support during the 2008 General Conference for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people through prayer vigils, rallies and speeches. The event was held near the Fort Worth Convention Center, where General Conference is meeting through May 2.
Other groups that organized public-witness activities on issues of sexuality and sexual identity were Reconciling Ministries Network, Methodist Federation for Social Action and Soulforce.
Gay-rights proponents hope this General Conference will elect a more "moderate" Judicial Council, the church's supreme court, so that practicing gays and lesbians will not be barred from church membership; include a statement in the Book of Discipline that not all United Methodists are of one mind on homosexuality; and allow gay and transgender people to be ordained as clergy, said the Rev. Troy G. Plummer, executive director for Reconciling Ministries Network.
Emerging issue
The issue of transgender clergy came to the forefront in 2007 when Bishop John R. Schol reappointed Phoenix as pastor of St. John's. Schol said the 2004 Book of Discipline did not prevent transgender clergy from serving in an appointment. The denomination's highest court affirmed that decision last October, agreeing that gender change is not addressed in the United Methodist constitution.
While church policy does not permit self-avowed practicing gay clergy to be appointed and bans gay unions, it says nothing about transgender clergy.
Some United Methodists are hoping that will change.
The Rev. Karen Booth is executive director of Transforming Congregations, an organization she says ministers to "sexually confused, sinful and broken people." She believes transgender people exhibit a "deep, psychological conflict." While the church should minister to them, she says, leadership should not be an option.
"We recognize that there are, in fact, people who are unfortunately born with a chromosomal blueprint that is ambiguous. That is a valid medical condition that needs to be addressed," she said. "Most of what we see is more of a psychological state where a person says, 'I don't feel like I'm in the right body.' We believe that's a blurring of the distinct way God created us as male and female."
When transgender people describe a difference between how they feel inside and what their body looks like, Booth said it reflects the Gnostic heresy that "assumes an anti-body dualism-if inner feelings are at odds with physical reality, the latter is insignificant and expendable."
She also finds it ironic, she added, that "gays and lesbians say, 'God created me this way,' whereas transgender people say, 'God made a mistake.' There's a real inconsistency there."
Booth has submitted petitions to the 2008 General Conference that would spell out church policy by stating that neither transgenderism nor transsexuality "reflects God's best intentions for humankind."
Seeking acceptance
Phoenix, however, believes transgenderism is compatible with Christian teaching because "it was in the context of my faith in Christ, led by the Spirit, that I made the transition (of gender)." What's more, he added, his church is thriving in its mission of disciple-making and mission.
"Seeing me become more transparent, honest and authentic in the transition gives them permission to be honest in a way that they couldn't have before," he said of his congregation. "We want to be known as the children God created us to be. That's been my experience with my church, across the board."
Panelists at the press conference also included:
· Tina Seitz, a United Methodist from the Detroit area who considered suicide to spare her children embarrassment of having a transgender parent, but who says making the transition to a woman makes her feel "whole in a way I never did before." She said a United Methodist church gave her the spiritual guidance she needed "as never before."
· Sean Delmore, a doctoral student at Boston University's School of Theology and a transgender man who is pursuing ordination as a deacon in the New England Annual (regional) Conference. He came to faith at seminary and found "radical hospitality" through a United Methodist bishop who asked him, "How can we help?" "That is the history and tradition of The United Methodist Church," he said.
· Diane DeLap, Affirmation spokesperson and a transgender woman who called on General Conference delegates "to reject any attempt to discriminate against transgender persons in ministry and membership. One of the things that concerns me is that the church is interfering in what is a medical decision. When a doctor concludes that medical treatment is needed, it is the church's position to support people through those decisions." She added, "Jesus welcomed the outcast of his day. If he were here today, he would be welcoming us into the church, too."
*Russell is managing editor of the United Methodist Reporter.
News media contact: Marta Aldrich, e-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org.
Phone calls can be made to the General Conference Newsroom in Fort Worth, Texas, at (817) 698-4405 until May 3. Afterward, call United Methodist News Service in Nashville, Tenn., at (615) 742-5470.
Below I am also reposting a story from the United Methodist News Service about the General Conference in which these conversations are taking place. My one, brief comment pertains to Rev. Karen Booth's argument that "gays and lesbians say, 'God created me this way,' whereas transgender people say, 'God made a mistake.' There's a real inconsistency there." I, for one, would not argue that God made any mistakes. Rather, God called me into transformation: "behold, I make all things new."
peace,
Rev. Cameron Partridge
From NewsDesk
Date Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:46:17 -0500
Transgender United Methodists share stories
April 24, 2008
NOTE: Photographs are available with this report at www.gc2008.org
By Robin Russell*
FORT WORTH, Texas (UMNS)-For three decades, United Methodists have debated at General Conference gatherings whether gay Christians can participate fully in the denomination, including being ordained as clergy.
This year, persons who have changed their gender are adding a new angle to that debate.
The Rev. Drew Phoenix, pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church in Baltimore, said he took "steps toward wholeness" two years ago when he switched his gender to male.
"I can say that I have come home to the child that God created me to me, and I'm very joyful, whole and peaceful," he said at an April 24 press conference sponsored by a pro-gay advocacy group.
Phoenix had been minister at St. John's for five years as the Rev. Ann Gordon. Following surgery and hormone therapy, he changed his gender and adopted a new name.
The press conference was sponsored by Affirmation, an unofficial caucus of United Methodists that are among advocacy groups hoping to gain support during the 2008 General Conference for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people through prayer vigils, rallies and speeches. The event was held near the Fort Worth Convention Center, where General Conference is meeting through May 2.
Other groups that organized public-witness activities on issues of sexuality and sexual identity were Reconciling Ministries Network, Methodist Federation for Social Action and Soulforce.
Gay-rights proponents hope this General Conference will elect a more "moderate" Judicial Council, the church's supreme court, so that practicing gays and lesbians will not be barred from church membership; include a statement in the Book of Discipline that not all United Methodists are of one mind on homosexuality; and allow gay and transgender people to be ordained as clergy, said the Rev. Troy G. Plummer, executive director for Reconciling Ministries Network.
Emerging issue
The issue of transgender clergy came to the forefront in 2007 when Bishop John R. Schol reappointed Phoenix as pastor of St. John's. Schol said the 2004 Book of Discipline did not prevent transgender clergy from serving in an appointment. The denomination's highest court affirmed that decision last October, agreeing that gender change is not addressed in the United Methodist constitution.
While church policy does not permit self-avowed practicing gay clergy to be appointed and bans gay unions, it says nothing about transgender clergy.
Some United Methodists are hoping that will change.
The Rev. Karen Booth is executive director of Transforming Congregations, an organization she says ministers to "sexually confused, sinful and broken people." She believes transgender people exhibit a "deep, psychological conflict." While the church should minister to them, she says, leadership should not be an option.
"We recognize that there are, in fact, people who are unfortunately born with a chromosomal blueprint that is ambiguous. That is a valid medical condition that needs to be addressed," she said. "Most of what we see is more of a psychological state where a person says, 'I don't feel like I'm in the right body.' We believe that's a blurring of the distinct way God created us as male and female."
When transgender people describe a difference between how they feel inside and what their body looks like, Booth said it reflects the Gnostic heresy that "assumes an anti-body dualism-if inner feelings are at odds with physical reality, the latter is insignificant and expendable."
She also finds it ironic, she added, that "gays and lesbians say, 'God created me this way,' whereas transgender people say, 'God made a mistake.' There's a real inconsistency there."
Booth has submitted petitions to the 2008 General Conference that would spell out church policy by stating that neither transgenderism nor transsexuality "reflects God's best intentions for humankind."
Seeking acceptance
Phoenix, however, believes transgenderism is compatible with Christian teaching because "it was in the context of my faith in Christ, led by the Spirit, that I made the transition (of gender)." What's more, he added, his church is thriving in its mission of disciple-making and mission.
"Seeing me become more transparent, honest and authentic in the transition gives them permission to be honest in a way that they couldn't have before," he said of his congregation. "We want to be known as the children God created us to be. That's been my experience with my church, across the board."
Panelists at the press conference also included:
· Tina Seitz, a United Methodist from the Detroit area who considered suicide to spare her children embarrassment of having a transgender parent, but who says making the transition to a woman makes her feel "whole in a way I never did before." She said a United Methodist church gave her the spiritual guidance she needed "as never before."
· Sean Delmore, a doctoral student at Boston University's School of Theology and a transgender man who is pursuing ordination as a deacon in the New England Annual (regional) Conference. He came to faith at seminary and found "radical hospitality" through a United Methodist bishop who asked him, "How can we help?" "That is the history and tradition of The United Methodist Church," he said.
· Diane DeLap, Affirmation spokesperson and a transgender woman who called on General Conference delegates "to reject any attempt to discriminate against transgender persons in ministry and membership. One of the things that concerns me is that the church is interfering in what is a medical decision. When a doctor concludes that medical treatment is needed, it is the church's position to support people through those decisions." She added, "Jesus welcomed the outcast of his day. If he were here today, he would be welcoming us into the church, too."
*Russell is managing editor of the United Methodist Reporter.
News media contact: Marta Aldrich, e-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org.
Phone calls can be made to the General Conference Newsroom in Fort Worth, Texas, at (817) 698-4405 until May 3. Afterward, call United Methodist News Service in Nashville, Tenn., at (615) 742-5470.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
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
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
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
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
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
Friday, February 15, 2008
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.
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.
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