TransPreacher

Presentation given at Stonewall Columbus on June 11, 2024 as part of the Interfaith Prayer Service.

Pride seems to be busting out everywhere this year. This is my seventh pride event of the month so far and there are many more to go.

It is easy to get caught up in all of the celebrations and forget what church people like to call “the reason for the season.”

What is the reason for our season? What is the meaning of pride? Pride is about showing up.

Pride began with protests, people showing up to say we are not going to take police abuse any longer.

Pride grew with the AIDS epidemic and people showing up demanding to be seen and to receive access to life-saving healthcare.

Pride is showing up and standing tall and fabulous and saying here I am.

Here I am, a beloved child of God.

Here I am, a person queerfully and wonderfully made.

Here I am, as a transgender woman–a living embodiment of the fact that God is ever at work to make all things new. God has made me new. God has given me a new name, a new life, a new family, and so many new opportunities.

I once thought my hair was straight and lifeless, I now show up celebrating that nothing about me is straight and I am more alive than I ever have been before.

I once hid my face behind a beard that served as a mask to cover the shame I felt about myself, I now show up adorned in makeup and jewelry that brings out the feminine divine within me.

I once dressed in the clothes assigned to me at birth–drab polo shirts and black pants. I now have a closet bursting with pinks and purples. I used to brag about not being a materialistic person, but I now show up in chiffon and lace and they give me life.

For me, pride as a transgender person is about showing up as my full, authentic self for the first time in my life.

And I get to do all of this as a pastor and as a person of faith.

This can make showing up somewhat uncomfortable—both for me and for others.

Last week I attended a conference with 1,000 United Methodist church leaders from across the state of Ohio and of that thousand I saw one other out, transgender person. Many church people don’t know what to do with me. If I am lucky, even if they don’t know what to do with my gender or have been raised to believe that God will condemn people like me, they see my heart and work through it.

But not everyone shows that much grace.

My social media feed is filled with the hateful responses of people who believe they are operating out of their faith when they tell me that the angel Lucifer has possessed me and that I will burn in hell.

So then I run to my queer family and they aren’t always so sure what to do with me either. How can I be a pastor, a leader in the church when the church has done so much harm to us queer ass folk? The church has called unclean the people who God has called good and very good. I will be the first to confess the church has earned its reputation of being judgmental, hypocritical, and homophobic.  After all, the author of so much of the anti-transgender legislation in Ohio is a Baptist minister.

So, I often find myself in a place where the church doesn’t know what to do with this queer and the queers don’t know what to do with this pastor.

So what do we do in situations like that?

We keep showing up.

I show up in the church world and by my mere presence I am making the statement that I am a beloved child of God and all of my queer siblings are too.

I show up in the queer world and by my mere presence I am making the statement that yes, God loves you not in spite of who you are and who you love… but because of who you are and who you love. God celebrates you. When you show up, you are a witness to the world that God doesn’t operate in binaries but God is a God of diversity and our rainbow flags and glitter testify to the richness of God who made us queer.

Pride is about showing up.

Not just here at Stonewall Columbus, not only at the parade on Saturday, but to embody our pride origins and show up for justice.

There are currently 12 anti-trans bills bouncing around the Ohio legislature that are designed to take away access to basic human rights such as healthcare, education, legal recognition, and even the right to exist.

Last week the House held a hearing on the proposed anti-drag bill, which defines a drag performer as someone who wears clothes, makeup, or jewelry different from their gender assigned at birth. According to the proposed bill when I lead a church service and kids are present my very presence is a felony.

While so many people might see us like these legislators, we show up anyway because we know that we are the ones who are blessed.

Let me close with a blessing that is a paraphrase of the Sermon on the Mount:

‘Blessed are the lesbians, for theirs is the feminine divine

‘Blessed are those who are gay, for they have found who they are

‘Blessed are the bisexual and the pansexual, for they have embraced the diversity of creation

‘Blessed are the transgender, for they have experienced transformation

‘Blessed are the queers, for they have defied the limitations of what is called normal

‘Blessed are the intersex, for they bear unique dignity and divine worth

‘Blessed are the asexual, for they have found internal joy

‘Blessed are the polyamorous, for they have loved broadly

‘Blessed are you when you show up as your full, authentic self. For when you show up and shine you make space for others to show up in their authenticity.