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Dear LPTS Community,
Every person is of inherent worth and intrinsic value inclusive of sexuality. There is dignity in our difference even as we are more similar than we know. As a people of faith, we affirm these sacred recognitions in the embodied movement for human liberation. As scholars and activists, we work to dispel the myths and misinformation that pathologize bodies in defiance of historic assertions, cultural norms, and legislated practices. However imperfectly, we challenge ourselves to envision and practice an expansive and resilient struggle in the face of state sanctioned violence and oppression.
A just society treats everyone equally and without regard to sex, gender, identity, race, religion, class, or other social qualifiers. Our nation has such a need for a profound structural witness and intersectional response to our searing inhumanity. This week’s anti-trans directive in Texas and recent anti-gay laws in Florida, the surge in challenges to women’s reproductive freedoms, and carceral initiatives everywhere contradict the principled inclusion of all citizens in a democratic society. Investigations into gender-affirming medical care are horrific, abhorrent, and have no place in the exam room or the halls of government. At Louisville Seminary, we strongly oppose all such legislation.
In this season of social discrimination, legislated injustice, and forms of violence, violation, and death against trans and gender non-conforming people, we are called into courageous and faithful witness. The occurrences of this week continue a stream of hateful events specifically intended to terrorize trans and queer people, discriminate against self-love and presentation, deny gender diverse representation, effectively diminish the power and meaning of “We the People,” and discourage our collective movement toward beloved community. At Louisville Seminary, our work is “for justice in communities everywhere.”
The expressed commitment of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary is to work “toward a world where all can flourish.” At LPTS, we are a community blessed to stand alongside our LGBTQIA+ siblings as allies and friends, in care and compassion, for the flourishing of all of God’s people, and Gaia earth as well. I am grateful for this sacred space as we pledge to also grow ever safer and ever more faithful in becoming community. May fear and hatred never have the last word among us. As a seminary may we only continue to enlarge, expand, interrogate, and grow in love and advocacy.
In Solidarity,
Alton B. Pollard, III
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