WHAT IS TRANSGENDER AWARENESS WEEK?
The week leading up to November 20, Transgender Day of Remembrance, is when people and organizations around the country participate in Transgender Awareness Week to help raise the visibility about transgender people and address issues that members of the community face.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is an annual observance that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence in the past year.
-- glaad.org
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WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT THE TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY?
Dr. Martin Luther King answers this succinctly – “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Therefore, true allyship is seamless. Every individual has the right to live a life of integrity.
As a follower of Lord Jesus you cannot limit your conception of who your neighbor is, or to whom you should show mercy and compassion. In Matthew 5:23-24, the Lord says, “...if you are about to offer your gift to God at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with your brother, and then come back and offer your gift to God.” The statement is reciprocal; if you hold a resentment or judgment against anyone else or any group of people, your “gift” – your spiritual sentimentality – is superficial. God is the indweller in every individual. Therefore, we must endeavor to harmonize our relationships with everyone. Adapt and adjust. When negative feelings or thoughts arise about others, use the opportunity to pray for a clean heart and a mind that constantly turns to God. Take action to reconcile with others. When you are able to see Christ in others, then your gift becomes acceptable, and nothing is lost by the giving, but rather your spiritual abundance increases.
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A Prayer for Humility
Am I the sum total of all my thoughts?
In what then shall I take pride?
Likes and dislikes are like clouds in the sky
Blown away by the winds of time.
You, Lord, are like the vast blue sky
Constant and still, unaffected by clouds.
Sever my attachment to “me” and “mine”
Like snapping a kite string.
Let me soar free
Proud only of my love for You.
-- Sharon Collins
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PRIVILEGE IS BLISS
It is said that ignorance is bliss. The bliss referred to in this idiom is a relative bliss, and not the Supreme Bliss of union with Christ. The irony of privilege is that we typically are not aware of its existence. When considering gender identification, you might say to yourself, “I have never questioned my gender. I just know I am a (wo)man.” If you identify with the sex, male or female, printed on your birth certificate, then you are considered a cisgender individual. The gender experience of cisgender individuals is largely according to societal norms – so, gender is generally taken for granted by many people. The absence of struggle to understand and know yourself, to feel like you belong, to feel natural and acceptable and relatively safe as far as gender is concerned, is a privilege that transgender people do not enjoy.
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THE DOWNSIDE TO “BLISS”
While blissfully unaware of the experience of others who are “different,” one unwittingly submits to a limited understanding of the dynamic richness of God’s creative expression. At worst, we become complacent in our limited understanding of “other” groups – an understanding which is often based on bias, peer pressure, media tropes seen, and political rhetoric. When our beliefs are challenged, we may experience outrage and even hatred. The good news is that we can open our hearts and minds and challenge ourselves to learn and grow.
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WHAT IS GENDER?
Briefly, your gender relates to your personal sense of who you are (your identity), how you experience inhabiting your own body, how the society in which you live interacts with your body, how you present yourself in the world given societal expectations and norms, and your relative level of harmony or disharmony with all these factors.
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WHAT IS TRANSGENDER?
The prefix "trans" means that which is beyond or crosses over. For example, a transatlantic flight crosses the Atlantic Ocean, and the Romanian region known as Transylvania, is so called because it lies beyond the woods (where “silva” is Latin for a woodland).
Transgender means that which is beyond the commonly accepted gender paradigm. Transgender means anyone whose gender is not congruent with the sex they were assigned at birth. It is an umbrella term to encompass a spectrum of gender experiences.
-- Understanding Gender, Gender Spectrum
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YOU PROBABLY KNOW SOMEONE WHO IS TRANSGENDER
The word “transition” is a combination of the Latin "trans" (defined above) and a form of the Latin "ire," which is a verb meaning "to go." Therefore, transition means the action of going beyond or crossing over. It is important to understand that "transgender" does not imply transition (from gender assigned at birth to something different) per se. Rather, “transgender” is a state of being (e.g. “They are transgender”) rather than an action (e.g. “She is transitioning”). That is, a person who identifies as transgender may or not be actively transitioning, gender-wise (e.g. regarding their appearance, presentation, biochemistry, body shape, etc.). Some transgender people transition and others do not. This may be due to many factors, such as the presence of absence of desire to do so, dysphoria, euphoria, access to trans affirming healthcare, financial means, personal state of general health, family situation, safety in society, political environment, transphobic laws and policies, etc.
The point is, transgender neither looks nor acts a certain way; it is diverse and more common than you may realize.
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TRUST THE SCIENCE
This phrase has been used as a weapon with the intent to invalidate transgender people and discredit gender variance. First, it should be noted that gender and sex are not the same thing, although they do intersect. Second, sex assignment at birth is not necessarily congruent with one’s gender, nor is it always simple to determine.
Perhaps surprisingly, most people’s understanding of sex variance is actually based on a grade school level of sex education, which is grossly limited in scope. To wit, sex assignment is not strictly a matter of XX versus XY chromosomes and presence of reproductive organs. For instance, a person may be born with sex-related variations such as only an X chromosome; XXY, XYY, XXX, XXXX, XXXY, or XXYY chromosomes; Mayer-Rokitansky- Hauser syndrome; vaginal septum; uterine didelphys or agenesis; unicornuate, bicornate, or septate uterus; in utero diethylstillbestrol exposure; internal testicles; androgen insensitivity; congenital adrenal hyperplasia; 5-alpha reductase deficiency; gonadal mosaicism; Kleinfelters syndrome; or other various biological configurations where the body has both “male” and “female” organs and features known as “intersex” conditions. Some people go their whole lives without realizing they have an intersex condition as often such variations are detected only in the course of medical testing or scanning for some unrelated issue. This is just the tip of the iceberg in the current scientific understanding of sex variance – there are a bewildering number of mechanisms, known and not yet understood, involved in sex development and determination.
The hundreds of millions of people with such biological variations alive today cannot be written off as “anomalies” – their existence is as valid as those of anyone else. Is the gender of such a person “man,” “woman,” or something else? The answer depends exclusively on the individual, as it likewise does with every biologically “typical” person.
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MYTH: TRANSGENDER IS A RECENT FAD
In fact, the current prevailing concept of gender as binary (i.e. only two genders, man and woman) and corresponding to body parts came about during the “long 18th century” (1688 – 1815) in Europe. However, throughout history and worldwide, cultures have recognized and revered more than two genders – sometimes third, fourth, fifth, or more genders. Moreover, some cultures do not assign gender based on bodies but rather on a person’s energy, others do not assign gender until a child is several years old, while some cultures do not assign gender at all. Note that it was not uncommon for European people to experience what we would consider transgender identities in today’s parlance. The study of gender is profound and nuanced and cannot easily be summarized in a brief paragraph. But, let us consider a snapshot of history to begin to understand the emergence of the European gender binary paradigm.
In the scramble to maintain power over their worldwide empires, European powers sought to assimilate their subjects into a common culture. Diversity in culture was understood as a threat that must be must be eradicated. Biological distinctions, therefore, came under scrutiny, and became fundamental principles of societal organization. Conquered peoples were categorized according to various features – shape of skull, color of skin, and even size of genitalia, as examples – and were thus divided into categories such as male and female that were often counterintuitive and unnatural to their way of life. European leaders and scholars established European biological features as the benchmark of superiority, and conquered people whose presentation deviated from this established measure of perfection were seen as inferior and animalistic, and were typically sexualized and exploited.
Only in the past few decades have transgender people begun to be more visible, developing their own culture, seeking acceptance, dignity, and the right to safely be themselves. That is why transgender seems to be a new phenomenon. But, in fact transgender people have always existed, they are everywhere, and they are in no way inferior.
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HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
During the Jim Crow era, bathrooms were segregated primarily to protect the perceived purity of white women and children.
In 1949, J. Paul de River wrote in “The Sexual Criminal” that “(the homosexual) presents a social problem because he is not content with being degenerate himself; he must have degenerate companions and is ever seeking for younger victims.”
While racism and homophobia still exist, albeit manifesting now in different ways, the contemporary myth that “transgenderism” is a “social contagion” and that transgender people are sexual predators is a simulacrum of the above scenarios – same story, different scapegoat.
“There is nothing new under the sun” says Solomon. Then, let us consider a loftier point of view. The sun does not discriminate and shines on all equally. Clouds pass across the sky, temporarily obscuring the sun from our point of view, yet the sun is unaffected by such modifications in the atmosphere. Everything on earth illuminated by the sun is a reflection of the same source of light. Similarly, God is the Source of all life, and each of us is a reflection of God. Lord, let us see each other in the same light.
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HOW CAN I BE A BETTER ALLY TO THE TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY?
Don’t believe the hype. Educate yourself. Learn about transgender people from transgender people themselves. Listen. Question your motives for tending to judge. Use your imagination to increase empathy – what must it be like for others? Watch a video, read a memoir, or watch a documentary by or about a trans person or people. Make a trans friend. When you hear someone say something ridiculing transgender people (or anyone else for that matter), shut it down. Set the example to normalize respect – normalize a sense of wonder. Practice thinking differently. Be aware of your tendency to make gender-based assumptions. Practice speaking inclusively. Be brave. Be loving. Be patient. Be generous. And as your conviction for justice grows, show up, show out, be heard, and take action.
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PARTICIPATE IN LOCAL TRANSGENDER AWARENESS EVENTS
Thursday, November 17, @ 6:30pm Hunter’s Nightclub in Wilton Manors, 2232 Wilton Drive Annual Bishop SF Makalani Mahee Transgender Equality Awards ceremony to commemorate and honor advocates, allies, and all people who work to advance transgender equality.
Sunday, November 20, is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to memorialize those who have lost their lives due to transgender violence. Gather at Justin Flippen Park in Wilton Manors, 2109 Wilton Drive, @ 6:15pm for a vigil before gathering @ 7pm at Pride Center for an evening of spoken word, music, performance, and a community meal
Wednesday, November 30 @ 6:30pm Morton’s Steakhouse in Fort Lauderdale, 500 E. Broward Blvd. South Florida’s Trans-Led Organizations and Gilead present “Trans Family Gathering,” an all-expenses-paid meal and health and wellness presentation.
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MARCH ON TALLAHASSEE TO PROTECT LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
Rainbow Alliance supports the Stonewall National Museum & Archives-led March on Tallahassee, which will occur on Saturday, January 21, 2023. We intend to network with other Reconciling Ministries across congregations to mobilize a strong showing at the event.
Please contact us if you are driven to take action.
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RAINBOW ALLIANCE-ANTI- RACISM TASK FORCE COLLABORATIONS
Intersectional Affirming Library
Pastor Nathan and Sharon Collins, a leader of the Rainbow Alliance, will co-chair an initiative to create an intersectional affirming library at Christ Church. If you wish to join the initiative, to contribute financially, or to donate or purchase books, please contact us at info@christchurchfl.org. Watch for more information as the initiative develops.
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PEACE ON EARTH, a Family Christmas Concert Reception
The Rainbow Alliance and Anti-Racism Task Force will co-host a reception after the Family Christmas Concert on Sunday, December 11. The concert begins at 4pm and lasts about 90 minutes. We expect the reception to wrap up by about 7pm at the latest. The intersectional social justice X Christmas theme will be "Peace on Earth."
Please consider how you can help by offering your time, talent, and treasure. We need volunteers to:
- set up and decorate fellowship hall
- provide savory foods
- provide sweet foods
- provide drinks
- provide eating implements
- provide decorations (world peace-themed)*
- clean up and break down at the conclusion
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FUN TIMES
Nova Singers, directed by Christ Church’s own Chuck Stanley, will present Sounds of the Season! on December 2, 4, 6 & 9. Details here: Nova Singers - South Florida Community Choir | Nova Southeastern University. Check out the program for the Rainbow Alliance message to the community.
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Christ Church Family Christmas Concert & Live Nativity | Sunday | December 11 | 4pm
Join the musicians of Christ Church for an afternoon of Christmas music to fill your heart. The Chancel Choir, the Praise Band, the Ensemble and more perform your favorites and invite you to sing along. The concert closes with the children of the church and Christ Church School re-enacting the story of Jesus' birth. The creativity of the children and the beautiful music will make this free concert a highlight of your Christmas season.
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HOLIDAY GIFT SHOPPING
Be out and proud to represent the Christ Church Rainbow Alliance! We invite you to purchase Rainbow Alliance gear by clicking on the link below. The next time you serve in the church or community, wear your Rainbow Alliance shirt to share our message of inclusion, affirmation and love. You never know how meaningful seeing that representation could be to someone who is in need of a spiritual or emotional boost. It may prove to be an icebreaker for someone who wants to talk.
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RESOURCES
Rainbow Alliance is working to compile a list of resources for your needs. This will be forthcoming in the next several weeks. Meanwhile, know that you are not alone -- you have allies and friends who will support you. Rainbow Alliance and Pastor Nathan are here to support you. We will be there for you – personally and spiritually, and we will make connections to refer you to additional helpful resources. Are you or someone in your life questioning your/their sexuality or gender identity? Are you living (partially) in the closet and want to be free? Are you struggling with homophobia or transphobia, either internalized or externalized?
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A PRAYER TO SOOTHE THE MIND
What agitation seems to pierce my mind
Like an onslaught of arrows.
I turn to see Your glorious face
Placid, joyful, and radiant.
A mere utterance from Your lips
Renders the battlefield of life
Still as the dawn of a new day.
I rest content like a lamb
At Your blessed feet.
-- Sharon Collins
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