Sunday Service @ 10:0AM
Margie Allen, Summer
OPENING WORDS
For our opening words this
morning, I have a quick test.
According to this test:
This
is a third grade playground gender test, probably used mostly to torture
tom-boy girls and little boys seen as effeminate. This test has many analogues
in the grown-up world. Some of us fail these tests regularly. Some of us invest
a large amount of energy into making absolutely sure we always “pass.”
Here
is our UU gospel, our good news. Whether you look at your fingernails this way
or this way [demonstrate both]; whether you look at the bottom of your foot
this way or this way [demonstrate both]; whether you strike a match this way or
this way [demonstrate both]—YOU ARE WELCOME IN THIS SANCTUARY!
In the year 1997, the Unitarian Universalist
“Be
inclusive and expressive of the concerns of bisexual, gay, lesbian, and/or
transgender persons at every level of congregational life—in worship, in
program, and in social occasions, welcoming not only their presence but the
unique gifts and particularities of their lives as well.”
[http://uuca-md.org/welcome/welcomecong.html]
Now
the Welcoming Congregation process that some of you experienced here did not ad
§
Cross-
§
Third gender,
people whose understanding of “their” gender identification transcends
society’s polarized gender system.
§
Transexuals, people
born in the body associated with one gender who believes internally that they
are of another gender.
§
Intersexuals, people
(about 2% of the population) born with mixed sexual physiology, ambiguous
genitalia. Such persons are often “assigned” a gender in their infancy, usually
the female gender, through surgical intervention.
These definitions are always in transition and often contested even
among the people they describe, but we have to start somewhere. I have a
handout for you on a table by the front door which contains these definitions
and other useful information. It is called “Transgender 102.” Grab one on your
way out this morning [http://www.uua.org/obgltc/resource/tg102.html].
Now, the sexuality of
these folks is a different matter from their gender. Transgender persons can be
gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, or even in transition in that department too.
This brings up some interesting issues about how ridiculous our proclivity for
labeling people can be. Kate Bornstein, the author of the reflection at the top
of your order of service, was a heterosexual man, who remained heterosexual,
really, when she transitioned to being a woman—i.e., she was still attracted to
women—but acquired, in the process of that transition, the sexuality label
“lesbian.”[Kate Bornstein, Gender
Outlaw,
Those of you in touch
with the feminisms of the last ten or twenty years will be familiar with the
idea that, though there are certain biologically-determined factors involved in
gender assignment, the gender we are is largely the gender we perform in day to
day life, the gender people see when they watch our show. We can do it well or
we can do it badly according to the extremely strict (and sociologically
arbitrary) standards of this culture. I had mixed results in the 3rd
grade gender test [Cynthia Eller, Am
I A Woman?
The gender
police have been after me all my life. Women in public bathrooms, waiters, and
cashiers often “Sir” me, and I don’t know who gets more embarrassed, I or they.
I wore this very outfit (earrings and everything) to an outdoor, home baby
dedication a few weeks ago. I was introduced to a guest as “the minister who is
going to do the blessing,” as she said “Oh, is he?” “Yes,” I said, “My name is Margaret
Allen.” So I am a gender outlaw of sorts. I have chosen, for a long period of
time, to perform this kind of in-between-but-mostly-female gender for the
world. I choose it because it feels natural to me. In my body I feel the
fluidity of my gender identity. And this is how it settles out most of the
time.
The theory I hold about welcoming people whose gender
identity is unclear or shifting is this. The more sure we are that we ourselves
are a) a man or b) a woman, the more conscious and subconscious energy we
invest in gender-appearance-maintenance, the more likely it is that folks of
ambiguous or shifting gender are going to make us uncomfortable and often,
therefore, unwelcoming. A good way to become more welcoming is to purposefully
and fearlessly explore our feelings about gender expression and identity, to
begin to notice the extremes to which we go in our own lives to make sure that
we are perceived as the gender we believe ourselves to be. My experience is
that we can only welcome in others that which we have confronted as a
possibility within ourselves. And to entertain something a possibility in life,
we have to have information.
Therefore the “booster
shot” today is coming at us in the form of education, discussion, and
story-telling. Today I welcome to our pulpit two beautiful and courageous
people: Linda , a member of our congregation, who is willing to talk to us a
little, as she did earlier this year to a group of our youth, about her
experiences as person whose gender identity is changing, and in particular
about her experiences as a part of this church community; and
After the service,
Linda would love it if you would grab something to eat and drink and come join
her down here by the piano for a coffee-hour Question and Answer session. She
assures me that she has been asked just about everything in such sessions in
the past, and though she reserves the right to pass on any question, she has
never yet chosen to do so. I hope you will take this opportunity to hear
Linda’s perspective about what it is like to be a transgender person in the
world today.
Welcome to our pulpit,
Linda.
Part I: [UUCA Member Linda
spoke from notes. Check out the CD
of the service to hear what she had to say.
Here is a cool web-page with pictures and accounts of male-to-female
transgender success stories:
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TSsuccesses.html]
Part II: The
remarks of
This
year at General Assembly I attended a workshop entitled “Will They Come
Back? Creating a Culture of
Hospitality.” The room where this
program took place was large – seating for 250 – it was a full house, with
standing room only, which testified to the interest in this question. Every
week our congregations across the
When
Linda first visited the church in March 2001 she introduced herself to me as
“Tod.” He came to Sunday services
Seven
months later, in October, Tod signed the membership book. It was at that time
Tod indicated he wanted to be known to the church community as “Linda.” She requested two nametags - one for Tod and one for Linda . I’m happy to say that
today we will be retiring the “Tod” nametag.
She filled out her new member forms as “Tod or Linda .” People who had not met Tod/Linda thought Tod
and Linda were two separate people – a husband and wife couple. When I would
explain that Tod and Linda was a transgender person, people seemed to accept
it, even if they didn’t fully understand it.
When someone joins the church, I ask them to complete our
Gifts & Talents Survey. The Survey is often very helpful for matching new
members with volunteer opportunities in which they might be interested and to facilitate
connections between people and church programs or the wider community. Linda indicated an interest in several areas
– one of which was “Sunday Greeter.” Now, I love it when people want to be
Greeters. It’s a good way for new members to learn who people are and to let
them know who they are. Warm and friendly Greeters are essential to Sunday
mornings and usually create the first of many first impressions a newcomer has
when they come to the church. So when Linda checked the box next to “Greeter,”
I should have been thrilled. I was, in fact, very impressed that Linda was
willing, asking even, to be in a highly visible place in our church, but I had
to admit I had some reservations about her in that role and that bothered me! I
had always thought of myself as open-minded, liberal, a free thinker. Our first Unitarian Universalist principal,
belief in the worth and dignity of every human being, reflects the values my
parents instilled in me and is one of the main reasons I’m a UU. I knew I had
to identify the source of my own discomfort; that doing so would be a
challenge, but one that would lead to personal spiritual growth.
Part
of it had to do with my own gender identity of Linda – having first known her
as a male, as “Tod,” then making the transition in my own mind that Tod is now
Linda. At this point in time I had yet to see the complete physical
transformation. When she came to church, Linda was applying makeup and styling
her hair in a feminine fashion, but she was still wearing clothing that had a
masculine edge.
The
other part had to do with my work here, which includes meeting and talking with
people who are new to our church or Unitarian Universalism. I was asking myself
questions like:
“What will newcomers think about our church;
when they are greeted by someone whose gender identity is not completely
clear?”
“If
they feel uncomfortable around this issue, will they still feel welcome here?”
“Am
I really as comfortable with all types of gender identity, as I think I am?”
Ironically,
it did not occur to me that if a transgender person walked through our doors,
Linda’s presence might ease any anxiety they might have about coming here.
In
an effort to understand, I did a little research on what it means to be a
transgender person. I also knew that as
a Welcoming Congregation we are committed to include and affirm bisexual, gay,
lesbian and transgender persons in every aspect of our community life. As a UU
and as a member of this church I am called to be proactive about affirming
their presence in our church.
I
called Linda and asked her to greet the following month. She came to church
that morning looking completely femme for the first time since I met her, just
as she does today. She was
Of
course, it is probably easier to be open to and accepting of someone different
from ourselves when we are within the safety of this beloved community. How
might we react to that same person when we are I the big wide world beyond
these walls? A couple months ago, Linda and I ran into each other in Hecht’s.
Linda had her chil
I am
thankful for Linda’s presence in our congregation. I know through her living
example and patience with one another we can all learn and grow.
CONCLUDING WORDS (Margie Allen)
I would guess that
most of you who hold any kind of notion about a God, have an image of a God
which is transgender—beyond ideas of gender or inclusive of all ideas of
gender. Few of us still believe, if we ever did, that we are created in the
image of God: “male and female created He them.” Maybe an idea of a creator God
or a God immanent in nature which expresses all the possibilities for gender
and sexual expression in human beings will help us in our struggle against the
rigidity of societal prescriptions regarding gender and sexuality. Whatever we
can do—theologically, philosophically, practically—to lighten up on ourselves
and others in terms of judgments and expectations is a step towards an
enlightened future in which we do not deprive ourselves of the gifts and
blessings of individuals just because they seem different or because they break
the rules, or because we cannot interpret them easily. Our mantra might be
“flexibility with integrity.” We choose to find the “yes” of welcome inside
because we have made room in our own choosing for a wide range of
possibilities. We choose to bend before difference into a position of
respectful curiosity which need not threaten the integrity of our own identity,
but which asks us to be always ready, when confronted with new information and
with human difference, to revisit and gently interrogate the decisions we
ourselves have made about how we will be in the world.
When I think about
flexibility and integrity, the image of dance comes up for me too. There was a
time when I was an avid contradancer. I danced weekly with a mixed up group of
hippie-back to nature-intellectual-artsy-types with some true oddities of
humankind thrown in for good measure. Contradancing is the kind of traditional
dance that is done in two long rows of people facing one another—“contra” means
“against or facing.” In the fourth grade in
There are gender
roles. The figures are made up of square dance like elements such as swinging
and do-si-do and promenade. The boys do certain things in a “figure” and the
girls do certain other things. Your gender is proclaimed not by your
appearance, but by your position in the line. I used to switch genders in the
course of an evening. I learned a whole lot about gender fluidity and my own
internalized gender stereotypes doing that, and I feel I am a better dancer for
it. A “swing” feels really different when you are the “swinger” than it does
when you’re the “swung.” This lesbian had to work hard to relax in the arms of
a man, to really let myself rely on his strength to hold me against a fierce
centrifugal force. I wore skirts sometimes because I discovered how wonderful
it feels to have your skirt swirling in the dance, how feminine that feels, and
how beautiful skirts down the line and across the room look in all their colors
moving in the patterns of the dance.
As a man dancing I felt protective of the women I
held, gallant, chivalrous in a way. Yet I saw how resistant some of the women
were to encountering a woman in the man’s role. Disgust would be a strong word,
but sometimes I felt them wanting to step out of the dance instead of allowing
me to be their next partner. These were the women who broke the contradance
rule about looking into the eyes of your partner. It keeps you from getting
dizzy—yes—but it is, more importantly, the etiquette of the dance—polite,
respectful, and welcoming. That’s how the dancing community knits itself
together, through the real connection that grows between two people whose eyes
offer the only steady rest and reassurance in a reeling world.
Contradance etiquette
makes a good model for welcoming. First, relax and be yourself. Reconcile
yourself to the fact that you are going to be partnered with every single
person in the room at one time or another. Smile and honor each partner with
your presence as your eyes fix upon one another. If you are the one more
familiar with the dance, help your partner through the steps. If you are the
novice, be all eyes and ears, smiles and ready arms and legs. Be reliable and
forgiving in either role. Know that you have lots of chances to get it right
because the nature of the dance is that the same figure happens over and over
and over again with each different set of partners. At the end of the dance bow
(or curtsy) to one another in acknowledgment of the pleasure of your partner’s
company. Above all, take a moment or two to admire the beauty of a room full of
dancers, to take delight in the synchronous progression of the whole colorful
constellation.
I have seen you
dancing this Unitarian Universalist welcome, all of you. You are a welcoming
people. You have warmly welcomed me, your first gay intern. You have welcomed
all kinds of families here, all colors of people, all kinds of love, a range of
gender expressions. You are a gracious and giving people. Keep on growing this
welcoming congregation. It is work and it is fun, and it is a tenet of our
faith that everyone is welcome to join the dance.
“Let it be a dance.
Every body turn and spin, let your body learn to bend, and, like a willow in
the wind, let it be a dance.” [“Let It Be A Dance,” #311 in Singing the Living Tradition] Integrity
and flexibility. Or as Linda’s song puts it: “When you get the choice to sit it
out or dance, I hope you dance…. I hope you dance [LeeAnn Womack, ‘I Hope You
Dance’].”
AMEN.
© Margie Allen, Summer
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