Reasons to give thanks

I know that people traditionally use the period before Thanksgiving to express the things they are thankful for. I had to get through Thanksgiving weekend first, but having done so I want to pause and reflect on the many reasons I have to give thanks. The past year has been quite a journey, much but not all of which I’ve shared with you on this blog.

• I am thankful that I can finally live freely and openly as myself, that I know longer have to hide or be ashamed of my identity. I am thankful for finally being able to look in the mirror and love the person I see.

• I am thankful for the many friends who have walked this journey with me. Some are old friends, others are newer. Each of you means more to me than words can ever express. You have sustained and strengthened me more than you may ever know.
• I am thankful for my parents, my children, and my siblings who have also supported me as I made this transition. As I listen to stories from others in the transgender community I hear so many of pain because they do not have that family support. What a powerful, life-giving difference it makes.
• I am thankful for my job and my co-workers. I feel so fortunate to work in a place that actively affirms and supports diversity, a place I look forward to going each morning. I am thankful to be engaged in work that supports the growth of positive community in my city and region.
• I am thankful for my dance community – most of whom fall under the category of friends as well. J I am thankful to have this second home, a place where I can express myself freely, creatively, without fear of failure or ridicule. I am thankful for the benefits dance has brought me physically, socially and emotionally.
• I am thankful for those in the LGBTQ+ community who have gone before me, whose lives and sufferings have made it possible for me to live as freely and openly as I am able to today. We still have much to strive for, but thank you to all who have worked so hard to reach the place we are at today.
• I am thankful to live in a community that by-and-large affirms diversity. In a country that has given free rein to hatred, fear and intolerance, I am thankful to live in a community that chooses to welcome everyone. We’re not perfect, but things could be a whole lot worse.
• I am thankful for my children. As they grow into adulthood I am proud of the people they are and who they are becoming. Their journeys have had many challenges as well, and through those challenges they have been shaped as beautiful, talented, amazing people who also affirm diversity and acceptance.
• I am thankful for life. I am thankful for each breath I take, for the opportunity to walk on this planet, to interact with others, to impact their lives in a positive way. Life is a precious gift that can be snatched from us so suddenly. I want to embrace each moment of it.

I can think of plenty of reasons to worry, to be anxious, fearful, depressed and discouraged. Believe me, those moments come as well. But I want to remember regularly the many reasons I have to give thanks, only some of which I have listed here. They strengthen me in those times when the darkness threatens to engulf me.

I hope that each of you also has reasons to give thanks, not only in this Thanksgiving season but each and every day. May be stand together and support one another as we face the challenges that lie ahead, knowing that we are not alone.

Losing my religion

My old acquaintance Stuart (not his real name) responded to my post last week in which I rejected the shame he had tried to cast on me for who I am. I didn’t release his response because I want to respond to it more fully here and not in a comment to the earlier post.

Stuart chose to cite several verses in his effort to demonstrate that I am out of line with god’s created order (he avoided the use of the word “sinful” but that was definitely implied). My first response was to engage him at that level and cite other verses back at him, such as Deuteronomy 22:11 which states that we are not to wear clothes of wool and linen together. Thankfully my wardrobe has little of either so I avoid that sin, but if we are to interpret it as a broader principle of not having multiple types of fabric in our garments, I think many of us are in trouble, probably including Stuart himself. My point here would be that the bible is an ancient manuscript and everyone who says they believe in it chooses rather arbitrarily which parts of it apply to modern life. The bible can be and is interpreted by Christians in a variety of ways, some of them mutually exclusive. We could have a lengthy discussion here on that issue. But that’s not where I want to go with this.

After considering pursuing the discussion down the path of biblical interpretation I realized that doing so would not be pointless. Because the simple fact is that I have ceased to view the bible as god’s divine word. I would not describe myself as Christian at this point, except maybe in a very broad sense and in the cultural sense that it has formed much of my background and perspective on the world. I don’t believe any longer. I have wrestled for a long time with acknowledging this, because it’s another significant step away from who I was, and I have feared how people might respond. But I refuse to live life out of fear any longer.

I’m not going to try to argue with Stuart about what the bible says about who I am, because I don’t see the bible from his perspective. I don’t see it as the rule book by which I must live, therefore I don’t have to try to argue based on it that my life is moral and valid. I don’t believe that my life is invalid from a biblical perspective, and others who still see the bible as god’s word have argued and continue to argue for acceptance of LGBTQ people based on that understanding. I appreciate that they do so. I view them as allies. But this is a battle I’m not going to fight any more.

The problem for Stuart, and christians like him, is that they want to enforce their interpretation of the bible on society as a whole. In a pluralistic society, this is not acceptable. You may believe what you want, but you may not force me to conform to those beliefs in the public sphere. I think this is one of the reasons so many conservative christians voted for a man who is so emphatically not a christian: they recognize that they cannot dictate the narrative of society exclusively according to their worldview any longer and they are fighting to not lose that control which they have exercised for so long. You don’t have to accept me Stuart, but you cannot deny my right to live freely and fully as a fellow citizen and fellow human.

My rejection of the Christian religion comes not solely, or even primarily, as a result of the recent election, though that certainly did it great harm in my eyes. Nor does it arise purely out of my journey to find myself, though the two are closely intertwined, for how can I believe in a god who is supposed to be love, when so many of that god’s followers say that god hates people like me? My issues with religion go much deeper than this. I have read and studied the bible pretty much my entire life. I have gone to seminary. I have read and studied theology. I served as a missionary for almost ten years. And in the end I found it empty. I found that the so-called promises of god cannot be relied on. I can no longer put aside fundamental theological issues that have troubled me for a long time. I am not going to describe them here, as it would take far longer and become far more complex than appropriate for this blog. I have issues with basic theological beliefs in Christianity (and in fact with most any religion) that I can no longer answer, and which are compounded by the expression of this religion I see from so many so-called followers in my country.

If you are inclined to try to argue me back to faith, please save your time and energy. I know all the arguments. I’ve used them myself. Don’t cite bible verses at me. You’re not going to convince me by appealing to a book I probably know as well as you do and which I no longer believe in. If I ever find my way back to this faith, it will be through the continuing expressions of love and grace I find in those whose lives are shaped by the one who is called the “Prince of Peace.” Acts of love, mercy and compassion are the only currency that have any value with me. I am, from this point forward, declaring myself to be areligious and agnostic. I’m not writing off the possibility of god, but I’m definitely not seeing convincing evidence for god either. I am not denouncing all Christians either, for I know many whose lives affirm the fundamental values of love, grace, mercy and compassion. I’m not trying to convince anyone that they should not believe. I’m simply letting you know that I no longer do.

A Center of Hope

Our dance studio will lose its home in the coming months – and I’m really glad. I’m glad, not because I want us to find a new home, which will bring challenges and opportunities. I’m glad because we are losing our space to something equally as wonderful as our studio. In the coming months the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation (SAAF) will be transforming our studio into a new drop in center for LGBTQ youth. I cannot think of a better reason to lose our space.

I’ve shared over the past few months how much my dance studio has meant to me, particularly in the past year, and continuing to this day. The owner and teachers and dancers have created a unique place where people are safe to explore and develop and express themselves. This second family has been a source of strength and support to me repeatedly. I have also been fortunate to have the support of my parents and my children. The support I have has sustained me through many a difficult time on my journey.

Unfortunately not everyone has such a support network. As an adult with support it’s difficult. As an adult without support it’s very hard. I cannot imagine how overwhelming it would be as a youth. I cannot imagine what challenges you face when your parents don’t support you, when maybe they actively reject you, perhaps even kicking you out. Where do you find that support when your school may feel like a hostile environment, when your church is not a sanctuary? We all need a place we feel safe and welcome, where we can form relationships with people who accept and affirm us, who remind us of our value and worth. We need a place we can go where we have the support we need to face the challenges of life. As an LGBTQ youth such spaces can be difficult to find, and in our current political climate they may become even harder to find.

For these reasons I am thrilled at the plans for this youth center. I had the privilege to attend a gathering Friday evening to help raise awareness and financial support, for such things do cost money. I may not have abundant resources, but this center shall certainly receive what I can give. I hope in the future that I might also be able to serve the youth in this center in some manner with my time and energy, sharing from my experience and offering an encouraging, supportive voice in a world that may feel quite hostile.

If you would like to learn more about this new center, or if you would like to contribute whatever you are able to make it a reality, please contact SAAF at www.saaf.org or (800) 771-9054. I cannot think of a time when a center like this is more necessary and I look forward to seeing it open next year. The light will shine in the darkness.

Not ashamed

In the aftermath of last week’s election fiasco and my engagement with some of my acquaintances about the role of christians in bringing it about, I had an old acquaintance state that my lifestyle is shameful, that God didn’t make me as I am. I won’t deny that these words hurt. I’ve spent a lot of energy this past year confronting and overcoming the shame baggage that my background loaded on me. To have the word shameful thrown in my face was perhaps the most hurtful label one could use against me.

Working on confronting shame though has also helped me strengthen my shame resilience. In the light of this accusation I reminded myself of the truths I have come to understand and embrace: I am worthy of love and acceptance. I am beautiful. I am enough as I am, without having to fulfill someone else’s expectations of me. You may believe that God didn’t make me as I am, but I know I was made as I am. I fully know who I am for the first time in my life and I am not ashamed.

As for my lifestyle, I have nothing to be ashamed of here either. I do not claim to be perfect, but the core values by which I live stem from my Christian roots: to love others as myself, to do justly, to love mercy. If you want to challenge my behavior in regards to these, I will gladly and actively defend myself, and I’m confident my friends would as well. If you want to judge my life on some other criteria, well that is your right, just as it is my right to deny your judgment validity.

I used to judge people just as I was judged by my acquaintance. If you didn’t conform to my limited worldview you clearly needed to get your life straightened out. I spent most of my life avoiding people who were “different,” to my own loss. Having stepped outside the hallowed halls of a narrow American evangelical worldview I’ve found a beautiful, wonderful diversity. I’ve found life. I’ve found liberty. I have found amazing friends who demonstrate love and acceptance without regard to identity or appearance. I’m not interested in re-entering that box of judgment that limits myself and others. 

I will not surrender joy

I wanted to feel joy this morning. It snuck up on me as I ate my breakfast and watched my colorful fish peacefully swim in their aquarium. Then I stopped myself. How could I feel joy in light of the great darkness that has come upon my country? How can I celebrate when I still simultaneously am grieving for myself, for my country, for my friends and even strangers whose lives stand to be so negatively impacted in the coming years? It seemed wrong, inappropriate, immoral.

Until I reflected on this a bit more and realized that it isn’t. To stop feeling and expressing joy, amazement, wonder, delight and hope just because my country will be led by people who spew hatred, fear and division would be to grant them another unearned victory. I will not allow Donny Drumpf and his sidekicks to steal my ability to experience the whole range of human emotion. I will not give him that power.

This does not mean I celebrate his election. I most certainly do not.

It does not mean that I will not grieve the injustices that he and his government will perpetrate upon so many people. I most certainly will. And I will stand against them.

It does not mean I will not feel, and as appropriate express, my anger towards those who discriminate against others, who seek to exclude those who are different, who act with violence toward them, who try to establish an environment in which only straight white people are welcome. I will certainly feel that anger.

But I will not let it control me. I will not let it own me. I will not become consumed by the same narrow-minded fear that DD has expressed throughout his campaign.

So I will dance. I will allow room for joy, and hope, and wonder. I will celebrate beauty. We’re going to need all of those and more to get us through the coming years.

DD may have won the electoral vote, but he did not win the right to take away my joy. He did not win the right to keep me from enjoying the beauty and goodness in life (even as he seeks to squash so much of it.) He did not win the right to rob me of peace and hope. I will not give him that right.

Do you stand with me?

I feel safe tonight, safer than I’ve felt since the election results came in.

I feel safe because my boss stated directly and unequivocally that my job and my person are safe.

I feel safe because of my co-workers who have expressed their unwavering support for me and for the people in our community who stand to be negatively impacted by this new government.

I feel safe because of my friends who cried with me and embraced me Wednesday evening and spoke to me of my worth and value and declared that they will stand with me regardless of the changes in our society.

I feel safe because I live in a community that has chosen to value diversity, to exalt love over hatred, inclusion over exclusion.

But I still don’t feel like I am welcome in my own country. I don’t feel that I could travel around my country with the expectation that my rights and my personhood would be respected. I don’t feel safe from the new government of my country, because I do not believe that they are committed to upholding my civil, my human rights. Because I don’t fit their definition of an acceptable person. Because as an old acquaintance said bluntly to me, my lifestyle is shameful.

And even if I am feeling safe at the moment, my heart aches for my friends who still fear for their safety: for women in general, because we have a new leader who has said it’s okay to violate women’s bodies as a man; for people of color, against whom violence by those who are supposed to protect them will now be further legitimized; for my Latinx friends, especially those who fear that they or family members will be deported regardless of the fact that they contribute so much to this country; for my LGBTQ friends, many of whom do not enjoy the safety net that I have and against whom discrimination has become acceptable; for people who do not identify as Christian, and particularly those who are Muslim, who are labeled as potential terrorists simply because of their faith.

Many Trump supporters, including some acquaintances, will protest that they do not hate me. They do not hate minorities or immigrants, etc. And probably most of them don’t. I know my friends and understand that they are not hate-filled people. If they were, they wouldn’t be my friends. But they fail to understand how their vote for a man who used hatred and fear as a (sadly effective) campaign strategy has made it acceptable for those who do view people who are different with actual hatred and who act against them with violence, both physical and psychological. You have elected a candidate who has said heinous things about people from so many groups, basically against everyone but straight white men. And you cannot understand why we are afraid?

Some have protested that Trump didn’t say he hated all these groups, that it’s just the way the media has portrayed him. But his own words condemn him. His own actions condemn him. The plans he has for policies and legislative and executive action immediately upon taking office condemn him. This is not a man seeking to unite a diverse nation. This is a man who represents and acts on behalf of those who want to make America great by making it a country controlled by straight white people again.

People say I just need to get on with life. That I need to accept the results and stop protesting. But I will not stop protesting. I will oppose this immoral man with every fiber of my being as long as he is in office. I will give him no more respect than so many conservatives gave to President Obama, a man of far superior moral character, throughout his eight years in office. I acknowledge that Donald Trump was elected president, but I don’t respect him and I do not acknowledge him as having legitimacy. He is not my president. I respect this nation, but I do not respect a man who would turn this nation back to a darker past.

Above all I will oppose him by acting to stand together with those who will suffer from his government’s policies and actions. I will stand by the immigrants: undocumented or documented, refugees and economic immigrants, Muslim and Christian and Buddhist and atheist and any other flavor. I will stand with my fellow women as we face an erosion of our rights. I will stand with my LGBTQ brothers, sisters and gender fluid siblings. I will stand with those who find themselves in poverty because their government cut funding for the services that helped keep them out of it. I will actively demonstrate that love conquers hate, that the future of our society rests in embracing our diversity, in welcoming those who are not just like us, in standing with the marginalized, outcast and disadvantaged.

And if you voted for Trump but want to demonstrate that you do not support his message of fear and exclusion, of discrimination and hatred, then I challenge you to stand with me, not just in word but in deed, because otherwise your words will continue to ring empty and your assertions of love for us will ring untrue.

Holding on to Hope in the Midst of a Nightmare

I awoke this morning to the worst hangover I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t because I drank too much last night. No, this hangover is going to last the next four years (or at least two). I had gone to bed last night fearful for the outcome of the election as things were not trending well, but I tried to remain optimistic that the western states and late results would swing things favorably. Alas, it was not to be. Enough of my fellow Americans (though not actually a majority!) voted for a man who has consistently displayed his disdain for minorities, for LGBTQ+ people, for immigrants, for differently-abled people, for women, for anyone who didn’t fit a narrow definition of normal. Whatever else they may have wanted to communicate, they communicated that we have no place in this society from their perspective. Our rights matter not. Our safety and well-being are irrelevant. We are not free to live our lives openly and authentically in this country. We are not welcome here. We should cancel all anti-bullying programs in schools immediately, because we just showed our kids that we really think bullying is okay, at least as long as you are a wealthy, powerful white man. I have wrestled with depression and despair since waking up.

I have spent the past year overcoming fear, confronting my own internal fears, daring to live authentically and openly. Now I feel an overwhelming fear, one that feels beyond my control. I fear the laws that this new government will try to pass to exclude me from society. I fear the laws they will pass that will impact dear friends. I fear for the hatred that has been given full and free voice. Yes, I am afraid. I am afraid to leave the relatively safe nest of the city I live in. Even here I have wrestled with feeling safe in public. How can I travel to other parts of my own country when so many regions in it have sent the message that I am not welcome there, that I am not acceptable? Yes, I am afraid.

But I will not give in to that fear. I will hold on to hope, because I still believe that love conquers hate. I still believe that enough of us are committed to creating an open, inclusive society that we will prevail. I hold on to hope because I see the faces and hear the words of my co-workers today who, even as they grieve along with me, assure me that I am wanted and welcome here, that they will stand alongside me in the darkness to come. I hold on to hope because of words like these, written by the daughter of a friend. I believe in a better future, mostly because I have to believe, but also because I see the rays of light, such as the workshop I attended yesterday in which several local businesses committed their time and energy to learn how they can create a more welcoming, equality-focused workplace for transgender people. I think of all my wonderful friends and know that we need to support one another now more than ever. We will need to create communities and networks of change so that we do not allow our country to become a place of hatred and discrimination. Together we will continue to radiate light.

As much as I want to respond to all this with hatred of my own, I will not. I cannot. Where there is darkness, let me bring light. Where there is hatred, let me bring love. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The future belongs to us.

Why this election matters to me personally

Like many of you I am eagerly awaiting the end of this presidential race which has been, well, less than presidential. I have avoided writing about the election because I wanted to focus on more personal things. But with only days left until we choose a new president, I want to speak about the choice before us from a personal perspective.

There are so many things that concern me about the outcome of this election, so many aspects of the stark contrast between the two primary candidates, that it’s hard not to write a lengthy exposition. But I want to stick to one primary issue: for me this election is about whether we will move forward as a country in which I am free and safe to live openly as the person I am, or whether we will move backward and embrace a mindset that excludes, discriminates against and dehumanizes people like me and anyone who is different from some idealized norm. Will I wake up on Wednesday facing a future in which my identity will expose me to increased rejection and abuse, or to one that will see growing acceptance of the amazing diversity present in our society? It doesn’t get any more personal than that. Are we going to choose to be a society that makes room for transgender people, for lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, queer and gender divergent people? Are we going to embrace immigrants, people of color, people of different faiths?

Recently a friend tried to convince me and others that Donald Trump represented the best choice for LGBTQ people. I could hardly contain my shock. A look at the Republican platform alone puts the lie to this argument. If that weren’t sufficient, the choice of the fundamentally anti-LGBTQ Pence as vice-presidential candidate adds further weight to the argument against the Republican ticket as pro-LGBTQ. Trump’s pledges clenches the deal. This ticket and this party are no friends of the LGBTQ community and will not receive my vote. The choice is clear. If I didn’t have a hundred other reasons to oppose Trump/Pence, the threat they pose to my basic identity alone would be sufficient reason.

I don’t have the option of moving to another country, nor do I want to. This is my country. This is my home, and as I cast my vote I will do so for the candidate who will most actively supports the full equality of all Americans, regardless of orientation, identity, ethnicity, or place of birth. I remain hopefully confident that the majority of my fellow citizens will make that choice as well. Regardless of the outcome I will continue to live proudly and openly. I just hope I can do so without greater threat to my personal safety or loss of my basic rights.