“How many years has it taken people to realize that we are all brothers and sisters and human beings in the human race?”
Transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson, of memory eternal
Nov. 13-19 is Transgender Awareness Week. It leads up to the Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20. Transgender people and their allies provide education and advocacy for the transgender community and the issues they face. It culminates with a memorial for the transgender individuals who lost their lives due to anti-transgender violence during the past year.
This year, transgender people have faced relentless political, social and economic discrimination, attacks on their fundamental human rights, denial of their own bodily autonomy and access to health care, dishonorable discharges from the military for simply being true to themselves, and violence. This continues to happen today in our very own United States of America/Estados Unidos de América/Chi Mookmaan Kiing (in the native Ojibwe language of Michigan). It may seem that we, Americans, may have forgotten our founding premise, that “all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This week nine diverse Christian, Jewish and Unitarian Universalist denominations (Friends General Conference, Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, Union for Reform Judaism, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), United Church of Christ, Reconstructing Judaism and The Episcopal Church) issued a joint “Interfaith Statement in Support of Transgender, Intersex and Nonbinary People.” Grounded in the spiritual discipline of love, we collectively hold that each and every person is inherently worthy and that all people have the right to flourish with dignity, love and compassion. With no exceptions. We are all sacred beings, created in the Divine image, celebrating a diversity of cultures, experiences, and theologies.
This includes my gender nonbinary foster child of blessed memory, Duane: you are Divine!
Our religious beliefs compel us to protect the marginalized, especially those suffering persecution. “Transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people are vulnerable today … Our faiths, our theologies, and our practices of prophetic witness call on us to say with one voice: ‘You are holy. You are sacred. We love you. We support you, and we will protect you.’”
We face the sad truth that our great nation – whose motto is e pluribus unum — out of many one — all too often struggles to live up to its founding ideal of a loving and just society for all its people. This and each Thanksgiving season, we are still making amends and seeking reparations for our original sin of racism. Time and again, people of faith have defended the unalienable rights of all Americans, including at this time for diverse gender identities.
May this week inspire our hearts to learn more about transgender individuals and their life struggles, so that we can become better allies to our transgender compatriots.
“Let it be known instead that our Beloveds are created in the image of God – Holy and whole.”
Amen! May it be so!
Rev. Dr. Vilius Rudra Dundzila
Brighton
