Poway Pride Fair Reflection


Thank you all who attended the Poway Pride Resource Fair at the Poway Library last Sunday! Thank you Rosemary, Debbie, Ryan, Vicki, and anyone I forgot for making this happen. Along with the fun stickers and crocheted hearts at our table, we handed out church information and resources to teach about how churches like ours can embrace LGBT+ people as full members of our community and children of God. We let Poway know that God loves all, and all are truly welcome at our church. We also enjoyed a San Diego Women’s Chorus performance and visited other tables from the community, including faith groups like Poway Interfaith Team (POINT) and St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal.

Want to continue celebrating who you are or supporting others? Let Autumn know (in person or at autumnhankinson4@gmail.com) if you would like a ride to the Interfaith Pride Celebration at St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, Wednesday July 15th at 7pm! Find out more: sdpride.org/lightup

Links from Sunday’s resource page: openandaffirming.org, gaychurch.org, reformationproject.org/case 



Blessings,

Autumn

The lovely shrub pictured at the top of this email is a Laurel Sumac, a native plant found here in San Diego, as well as up and down the southern California and Baja California coast. It blooms in late spring/early summer and, in the words of Wikipedia, "the flowers give off a 'woodsy-herbal' smell that is likened to both green apples and turpentine."

Check back here for interesting information about this lovely local plant during the month of July.

June Basket of Hope

Greetings from the Outreach Ministry!!!

For the month of June, we've worked to fill our Basket of Hope with all the ingredients to make 100 sack lunches for Interfaith Community Services in Escondido. It has been our mission here at the Community Church of Poway to help them with their mission to feed the homeless and to make life easier for those on the streets. Together, we can make a difference in another’s life. Here is a list of the items we are requesting:

• Peanut butter (small jars preferred)
• Jelly (small jars preferred)
• Chips (single serve)
• Soft granola bars or fig bars
• Fruit snacks
• Bottled water (single serve)
• Napkins
• Plastic sandwich bags

Day of packing (July 5th)

• Fresh Clementine tangerines or apples
• Fresh bread

On July 5, we will have a “Do Church” to put the sack lunches together for our neighbors in need. During church, we will make 100 peanut and jelly sandwiches and after church we will pack 100 sack lunches with all the goodies.

We are looking forward to this mission of service. It’s a lot of fun and it does so much good😊Thank you as always for supporting your Outreach Ministry.

Greetings from Outreach,

We’d like to start off by saying thank you to our amazing church family, and friends!! You made the Basket of Hope Sack Lunches for Interfaith Community Services such a success. Your generosity was overflowing. Thank you for sharing Jesus’ love with our neighbors in need ❤️

This month Our Basket of Hope will bring a smile to the faces of our neighborhood children at Solara. We will be collecting backpacks and school supplies to bring joy to 12 children who need our help.

Next to the basket of Hope, we will have a board with slips that have the specific school supplies needed. Please choose from those slips what items you will be gifting and then return your gifts to the basket.

Thank you in advance for helping with this Outreach Mission. I know that it really means a lot to the children. To start school with a nice clean backpack filled with brand new school supplies is a blessing to them.

So, please stop by the Basket of Hope and bring a smile to our neighborhood children!

Blessings from the Outreach Ministry

Centering Prayer

Tuesdays at 6:30pm

Contact Colleen Clementson at powclem@yahoo.com or on

her cell at 858-663-6584, for the ZOOM invite



If you haven't seen it yet, there's a sweet video clip showcasing the recent graduates from Fundamaya's basic sewing program and thanking all of us for our contribution. Graduates receive sewing machines upon completion of the course and the machines can be seen stacked on a table, ready to be handed out.

I promise I didn't mean to write this much! It's a double feature this week as I wrap up this little Pride series I've been working on. At first, I was disappointed to not have neatly finished this in the month of June, but as we approach the 4th of July, it actually seems like the perfect time to reflect on these topics while we also consider the past, present, and future of this land we live on.

The Stonewall Riots

I've mentioned the Stonewall Riots quite a few times and it's time I finally describe the events themselves.

On June 28th, 1969, around 1:20 AM, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a New York bar frequented by young folks, trans folks, cross-dressers, and lower class folks. Some patrons attempted to escape the bar, but police barred the doors. Typically, in this sort of raid, the police would check people's identification and even take them into the bathroom to verify if the gender they presented with outwardly matched what was on their ID card. Any drag queens or trans folks would then be arrested. Patrons this night refused to give ID and refused to be taken to the restrooms. Police began to assault the people there. They released some patrons to leave the bar, but kept others they suspected of cross-dressing to be arrested. Instead of dispersing, the folks who were released gathered in front of the bar and other folks joined them, amassing a crowd of 100-150 people within minutes. As word spread of the police assaults, the crowd became outraged and started throwing pennies and beer bottles at the cops. When a butch woman being escorted to a police wagon was struck on the head with a baton, she shouted to the crowd, "Why don't you guys do something?" They sure did do something. They started a riot - six nights of riots, actually.

I could say so much about these six nights, but I only have so much time and energy. A year after the riots, their first anniversary was commemorated with Pride marches in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Notably, the transgender women and women of color (such as Marsha P. Johnson, Stormé DeLarverie, and Sylvia Rivera) who played important roles in the riots, weren't welcomed or lauded in these marches, a pattern that continues to play out today.

Decolonizing for Pride Futures

As we can see in the Stonewall riots, the events of the past set the stage for the future we live into. The violent oppression of LGBTQPIA+ folks today bears resemblance to the violence experienced by patrons at the Stonewall Inn, and also echoes the violence visited on the Indigenous people of this land centuries earlier. We can look to the past to see how oppression is carried out. We can also look to the past to see how people have resisted. History is rich with examples of people building lives and cultures that move towards liberation on Turtle Island (you will see me use Turtle Island in place of the name United States, as it is a pre-colonized name that is used by some Indigenous peoples).

Firstly, it's essential that I point out my whiteness. I don't have lived experience as a Native person, nor am I a historian of Indigenous topics. I'm a settler. It's also crucial to note that an enormous amount of Native history has been lost due to colonial violence and erasure - violence and erasure that proceeds to this day (see Missing and Murdered Indigenous People San Diego).

We do know, however, that pre-colonization, a great deal of Native cultures here on Turtle Island afforded greater freedom for people of diverse gender and sexual orientations.

Indigenous social practices by and large cannot and should not be generalized because each tribe is unique, so I won't generalize but will provide an example from the Diné tribe (also known by the colonized name, Navajo):

"Prior to European intervention, the Diné had a non-binary social structure incorporating four gender identities: women, men, feminine Nádleehi, and masculine Nádleehi. Nádleehi gender identities were determined as a person grew up and were typically not a birth assignment. A child in these cultures discovered how they wanted to express themselves based on their interests or “gifts” and partook in society in ways that suited them individually. Nádleehi tribe members were highly regarded and often held high social positions." Homosexuality in the Pre-Colonial Americas

When colonizers arrived on Turtle Island, they brought repressive gender/sexuality ideology with them, which they implemented with violence. Settlers enforced a strict gender binary, enforced gendered clothing, cut Native hair.

"In light of this (or in spite of this), Indigenous people have been embracing ways of life that were stolen from us and in doing so, have been reclaiming our languages and the way we perceive ourselves in the language forced upon us. A common term was created for people outside of colonial gender and sexual expression within pan-Indigenous culture - Two-Spirit. The integral difference between the Two-Spirit identity and the western labels of LGBTQ+ is that it is not just a sexual or gender-based identity; it is a spiritual identity." Pre-Colonial Gender Expression and Identity in “North America”

"The term Indigequeer (now more often spelled as Indigiqueer) was created by Theo Jean Cuthand to title the Vancouver Queer Film Festival’s Indigenous/two-spirit program in 2004. He used it as a way to acknowledge that not all LGBTQIA+ Indigenous people feel that two-spirit describes their identity." Indigenous Studies: Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer

Indigenous culture continues to evolve today. Indigenous people continue to find ways to move towards autonomy and liberation. I believe we benefit from understanding the past and present resilience of gender/sexuality diverse Native people. I hope that we can create more welcoming futures for LGBTQPAI+ people, for Indigiqueers, for Two-Spirit folks, and in doing so, create a more nurturing future for all people on Turtle Island.

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Image Credits:
Laurel sumac photo by emerkt on iNaturalist
Sandwich photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash
Floral background photo from Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash 
Floral playlist photo from the Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
School supplies photo by shraga kopstein on Unsplash
Two-Spirit Pride flag photo By Dragon401k on Wikimedia Commons
Police raid photo By Rhododendrites - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0