In My Lifetime

Transgender Day of Remembrance

It was yesterday.  I was so busy and frantic it hardly crossed my mind.  I'd thought about it for weeks before and today woke up with it on my mind.  But like the lives of those we remember it often is washed away in the day to day of living in a complicated busy world.

Today I want to give thanks for all the trans people in my life.  I want to share some names:  Lane, Abigail, Eta, Cameron, Lauryn, Kate, Iain, Katheryn, Sarah, Denise, Chris, Laurie... you have all enriched my life in ways I cannot express. I love you for teaching me, loving me, letting me in.

Lauryn Farris has very recently entered my life.  She made a big impression on me.  We share a love of photography.  She has a smile that can light up a village.  She's tireless and bright and energetic and generally wonderful.  Today I found her very first blog posted on another blog called Jaysays.  I'm putting a link to it here.  Click on it and read her remarks.  And bookmark Jaysays for the future because she'll be writing more there. Let us remember that even when we win some battles like the hate crimes legislation recently signed, there will always be someone who is "other" and is ostracized.  Let's remember our trans family and use whatever privilege we have to stand for them.  They are the boundary crossing heros of our time.

Read Lauryn's blog here: www.jaysays.com

Walking the Talk, Marching the Rhetoric

 

If you don't know about Knights Out, go to their website Knights Out.org and find out more. These are men and women who are walking the talk of repealing DADT (Don't ask, don't tell),  a directive that relegates LGBT soldiers in the US military to hiding their sexuality.  Perhaps the most well known of the group is Lt. Dan Choi, who after outing himself on the Rachelle Maddow show, was thrown out of the military even though he is a dedicated soldier and Arab linguist.

Here's what you can do:

1. Go to the website and join. Yes people who are not military or West Point grads can join.

2. Make a donation to support the organization, put them on your holiday gift giving list.

3. Pray for them, think about them, send them white light... whatever it is you do when you love someone. They need the support of our collective concern.

The repeal of DADT is important for our country.  Our military is simply too stretched at this point in history to risk discarding talented, loyal service people who are LGBT people simply because who they love is not the "norm" for society.  Military leaders now agree that the policy has become destructive to our forces.  Please check out this great organization and support them any way you can.

This is Thanksgiving week.  I'm giving thanks for ALL those who serve the United States in the military.  No matter what we think or write or how we critique the military-industrial complex, we can all agree that the individuals who serve do so at great risk and with the love of our country at heart.  We owe them our thanks, our prayers and our support.

The Stroke of a Pen

  I wanted to write about President Obama signing The Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. I've been thinking about it all day... thinking about the significance of it, thinking about the victims of hate crimes based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity that I've known about, heard about, researched over the years.  Thinking about their faces, their stories.  I'm very happy this law passed and is signed in my beloved USA.  I'm so grateful that my country seems to be returning to it's best self and beginning to once again manifest its destiny as a great country based on equality and justice grounded in the rule of law.  Late this afternoon I received the official public statement of my friend and colleague Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches.  It is so eloquent and so well written that I've decided simply to reprint it here for your edification.  Thanks be to God we have arrived at a day when there is a minimum protection for people to look the way they want to look and love who they love.  This law will not stop hate crimes from happening just as desegregation laws did not desegregate society.  But it will at least severely and significantly punish people who perpetrate them on a wider basis than before.  And I have to believe that will ultimately make a difference in how our society understands gender identity and sexual orientation. 

Click here to read Nancy's statement.  It's worth the time to read it.

Public Statement by The Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, Moderator, Metropolitan Community Churches