TransGriot Note; this is the text of the speech I'm delivering as you read this post at the TransFaith In Color Conference in Charlotte, NC.
2012 TransFaith In Color Conference Keynote Speech
Giving honor to God, Bishop Rawls, faith leaders, TransFaith In Color Conference board, Mayor Foxx, conference organizers, volunteers, distinguished guests, conference attendees, my fellow transpeople, friends and allies.
I thank you for the kind invitation and the blessing of being able to speak in front of an event I have wanted to attend ever since I heard about the initial 2010 TransFaith In Color conference that occurred in Los Angeles.
I received an inquiry from the organizers of that 2010 event asking me if I would be able to speak at that initial conference, but unfortunately a previous commitment kept that from happening.
Then I heard how much fun y’all had, how wonderful and empowering the inaugural TransFaith In Color conference was and I was bummed about missing it.
So know TFIC Family that I consider it an honor and a privilege to be standing before you in the Queen City today at the 2012 edition of this conference to give this keynote speech.
The best part is I get to come here a week after my beloved Texans beat the Panthers 26-13.
Hey, I’m a native Texan and loving football, no matter what level it’s played at is hardwired into my DNA.
One of the things I have noted ever since I began my transition in April 1994 is the sometimes outright hostility that some people in the trans community have concerning the topic of faith and spirituality in trans circles. Those of you who know me are quite aware of the fact I haven’t been shy about tackling many subjects in my decade and a half as a national trans leader and have noted in my speeches, radio and podcast interviews and blog posts that I am a Christian.
I was baptized at my home church in Houston 40 years ago this month on August 2 and that faith has been an integral part of my life long before I transitioned. There were periods during the rough spots in it I couldn’t have made it through some of the situations I found myself in without it. There were some situations I found myself in during that time when I look back at it there was no logical explanation as to how it successfully resolved itself to a satisfactory conclusion
That faith has allowed me to appreciate some of the blessings that have come my way and give me the patience and clarity of thought I needed to navigate some of the challenging times I’ve experienced and come through it a stronger and better human being.
One of the things I noted when I started interacting with the trans community and attending the trans themed conventions I’ve had the pleasure of attending such as the IFGE Conference or Southern Comfort in Atlanta, I found it interesting that every type of faith tradition has been respected even up to having none at all.
But let someone in the trans community say they are a Christian, and they get either the side-eyed look or get some rant directed at them by a self proclaimed atheist in some cases for simply naming and proclaiming their faith.
That hostility to Christianity, which is a several centuries spiritual bedrock of our culture has been one of the impediments in terms of getting trans POC involvement in the trans rights movement.
I talked about this during an April 2006 speech I delivered in Philadelphia when I was accepting my IFGE Trinity Award and I’m going to repeat a section of it that talked about that hostility and what we needed to do about it.
Granted, some people who profess to be Christians have invited this negative response but there’s a major difference between little ‘c’ Christians and big ‘C’ ones.
Big ‘C’ Christians believe in love, tolerance, understanding others and their differences and embracing them. Little ‘c' Christians are the intolerant ones who are using the faith as a white sheet to camouflage their bigotry and hatred.
Christianity isn’t the private property of right-wing zealots. It’s past time for those of us in the GLBT community who are Christian to proclaim it, stand up to those thugs and take our faith back from the Pharisees who are using it as a baton to beat us down with.
Those words I spoke that day are just as apropos today as they were then. We just witnessed little ‘c’ Christians in action during the Amendment One fight in North Carolina. They are hard at work trying to keep President Obama from being reelected and attempting to either pass marriage bans in Minnesota or overturn marriage equality laws in Maryland and Washington state. They were busy trying to stop the Massachusetts trans rights law from passing.
Hear me today, transpeople who have their hate on for transgender Christians. Liberal-progressive Christian allies such as the Freedom Center For Social Justice, pastors like Bishop Rawls, Bishop Yvette Flunder, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and a long list of transgender Christians are not your enemy.
The depressingly long list of people and organizations who currently oppose your human rights, deny your humanity while unfortunately claiming they are Christians are.
So let’s not get it twisted. These misguided little ‘c’ Christians are cut from the same segregationist cloth that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents fought during their successful battle for the constitutionally guaranteed human rights.
Like the 21st century ones we have to deal with on a regular basis, we have little ‘c’ Christians who try to hide behind the Bible to do their dirty work.
Transwomen have had the added problem of doing battle for the last four decades with a group of radical feminists who have done everything possible up to and including denigration of us, denying our humanity, bearing false witness about us and writing transphobic papers to the United Nations Entity for General Equality and the Empowerment of Women in an attempt to deny us human rights coverage worldwide.
It didn’t work because these people were on the wrong side of the moral arc of history at that time, it didn’t work in the 20th century, and it’s not gonna work in the second decade of the 21st century either.
Susan L. Taylor, the former longtime Editor-In-Chief of ESSENCE magazine wrote a very popular column in that iconic magazine for several decades called ‘In the Spirit’.
Ms. Taylor wrote, “We are not powerless spectators of life. We are co-creators with God, and all around us are the gifts, the clay that we can use to shape our world.”
Yes, we are. But the problem has been that for the last five decades transpeople have felt so overwhelmed by having to deal with the multiple challenges of a gender transition combined with dealing with the unholy trinity of shame, fear and guilt that we have not owned our power to take the time to shape the clay that we use to make that better world for ourselves.
We transpeople are part of the diverse mosaic of human life. We are unique on this planet in terms of living on both sides of the gender binary. That is nothing to be ashamed of, we aren’t going anywhere, so society needs to deal with it.
Since we know we are part of the diverse mosaic of human life, that means we shouldn’t feel guilty about being trans men and women.
We should be saying it loud we are Black, trans and proud. We also need to be boldly stepping up to demand our place at the African-American family table and seats at any other table we need to sit at and exercise power on behalf of our community.
To own our power takes courage on our part. We can’t worry about what people will say when we are beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of being mistreated do and our requests to be treated like human beings are seen as unreasonable in other person’s eyes. That’s their problem if they see it that way.
To quote Asa Philip Randolph, “I want to congratulate you for doing you bit to make the world safe for democracy and unsafe for hypocrisy.” We need to forcefully speak up and speak that truth to entrenched power whoever wields it.
We transpeople don’t need tolerance. We need full fledged acceptance and acknowledgment as fellow children of God that we are your brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, spouses, lovers, friends, and family members.
It’s irritating to transwomen when you give far more respect to Tyler Perry dressed as Madea, will use the correct pronouns when he is playing that character, but you leave the theater after watching that movie or play will misgender and disrespect a transwoman.
We are also part of the greater society and it’s past time for us to be able to contribute our talents to making our communities that we inhabit and intersect with better. Just as we transpeople have fearlessly owned our power in terms of taking charge of the clay that molds our political and personal lives, we must now do so and step up to leadership roles in our communities of faith. If your home church has a problem with you doing so, then find an accepting church home that will.
We have just as much right to sit in the pews on Sunday mornings, become deacons and ushers and ministers of various churches just as anyone else in this country does.
But one of the ingredients in the clay to shape our world that Ms. Taylor was talking about is faith. She describes it as the flip side of fear and also reminds us that our ancestors in times far more challenging than what we transpeople face today relied on that faith to carry them through hard times.
They imagined a better world for their children and grandchildren and worked diligently to make it happen even though many of them may not have lived long enough to enjoy the fruits of their labors.
And what is faith, you ask? In Hebrews 11:1 it states: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his 1963 Strength to Love essay about the subject, “Faith can give us the courage to face the uncertainties of the future.”
Lord knows that transpeople have had to draw upon our faith in order to have the courage to not only transition, but face our challenging at times lives. When I transitioned in 1994, the transcommunity of the mid 90’s faced hostility aimed at us from inside and outside the rainbow community.
Employers could fire us just for being who we are. Human rights laws only protected our employment in a very short list of cities and states.
The transpeople we had at the time who bravely came out got the full brunt of trans discrimination from friend, foe and frenemy alike.
The shame, guilt and fear at times had such a powerful grip on this community that many people transitioned, melted away into society and never let anyone know they were trans.
Those unfortunate enough to lose their lives suffered the indignity of not only being posthumously misgendered, but the people who loved them had to witness in the infrequent instances the perpetrators of the crimes against them who were caught getting what amounted to a legal slaps on the wrist for doing so.
At the time I transitioned I didn’t even have role models who shared my ethnic heritage. I wasn’t sure I would be able to hang on to my job at the time, much less have familial ties when I was done.
But I forged ahead with my transition and did so with the faith and expectation that the situation would get better. I also did so with the words of my Lone Star shero Rep. Barbara Jordan ringing in my ears. When she accepted her Spingarn medal from the NAACP in 1992, she stated “It is a burden of Black people that we have to do more than talk.”
The interesting thing I discovered is when I finally did more than talk about it and actually stepped out on faith to do it, my life did get better. By 1998 I felt the need to join other transpeople here in the United States and around the world in helping to shape the clay to make a better world for myself and the people that would follow in my footsteps because I knew deep down that was the only way the situation would get better for all of us
Because transpeople owned our power and renewed the push in the 90’s to start shaping our world, it did get better to the point in which 2012 has so far been a watershed year not only in the United States but internationally in terms of trans human rights.
Is it perfect? No. Do we have a lot of work that still needs to be done to shape the clay before we can stick it in the kiln to harden it after we create that world? We most certainly do. Can we do it? Yes, we most certainly can and we can’t stop until the job is finished.
We have shaped the world to the point that we have trans kids coming out at earlier ages that we could have dreamed of when I did so in 1994. We now have 15 states and over 180 jurisdictions that have gender identity and expression language that covers transpeople in their human rights laws and policies. We have increasingly long lists of colleges, universities and school districts that are doing the same in their employment and non discrimination statements and policies.
We have several nations such as Argentina passing groundbreaking laws that reaffirms the humanity of their trans citizens. We had a transwoman just a few months ago fight a human rights battle that resulted in the breaking of the Miss Universe pageant glass ceiling by Jenna Talackova and her being able to compete in the Miss Universe Canada pageant back in May.
I have begun to see trans role models who share my ethnic heritage such as Kylar Broadus, Janet Mock, Isis King, Laverne Cox, Minister Louis Mitchell, Miss Major, Cheryl Courtney-Evans, Carter Brown, Valerie Spencer Minister Carmarion Anderson Yeshua Holiday and countless others who have not only gone through their own personal journeys, but realized on one level or another they needed to do what they could personally to shape a better world for the people who come behind them.
They also realized they needed to act as role models for a community that has precious few of them.
I have seen organizations rise in the African American community over the last decade such as the National Black Justice Coalition, Trans Persons of Color Coalition, the Freedom Center For Social Justice and countless others who recognize they are their transbrothers and transsisters keepers and the Black community includes transpeople of African descent.
Even iconic civil rights organizations such as the 103 year old NAACP have had the epiphany that the colored people in their name also includes transgender colored people. They realize the need to be just as outspoken and inclusive as the NBJC and TPOCC are in advocating for the trans community
I was moved to tears to see Chairman Julian Bond, Alice Huffman and other during a reception at last month’s NAACP convention in Houston make it clear we were witnessing a historic day in terms of cementing a permanent marriage between the NAACP and the Black LGBT community.
The NAACP and our other legacy orgs have come to this realization either on their own accord or have been made aware of this point through years of unrelenting trans community activism:
Trans people exist, we are part of the kente cloth fabric of the African-American community, and we aren’t going away.
They are now aware of the fact that African-American transgender community’s problems are their problems and vice versa. If they aren’t or chose to ignore it, they soon will be made aware of it by us.
A person who is running around killing transwomen may one day do the same to a cisgender female member of your family if they aren’t caught and swiftly brought to justice.
To my same gender loving brothers and sisters, I must point out some of us trans peeps also are part of bi, lesbian and gay end of the rainbow community in addition to belonging to the trans end.
Our historically Black colleges and universities need to be stepping up to the plate and emulating what other colleges and universities are doing in terms of making their campuses safe for SGL and trans students. African descended GLBT students have the right to demand when they choose to spend their hard earned education dollars matriculating on an HBCU campus, their human rights are respected and protected while doing so.
Our African descended GLBT students and their parents shouldn’t have to fear for their children’s lives and safety while they work to get their degrees.
When the Republicans passed laws in several states attempting to suppress the votes of African-Americans in advance of November’s critical national elections, they didn’t make distinctions between the African-American trans and cisgender communities.
If you’re a transperson who lives in one of the states that passed this reprehensible legislation and it hasn’t been blocked by Department of Justice action like the one in my home state of Texas was, you may find yourself on Election Day not being able to cast a ballot
While I’m talking about the subject of voting, make sure you are not only registered, but as soon as the polls open y’all take yourselves and a few friends to the polls with you on or before November 6 to vote.
It also hurts the entire African-American community when transpeople are getting devastated by 26% unemployment rates and 34% of us are making less than $10,000 a year.
That means we don’t have the cash to do what we need to do to uplift not only our own community, but the African-American one and the others we intersect with.
Dr. King also wrote in Strength to Love, “Before the ship of your life reaches its last harbor, there will be long drawn out storms, howling and jostling winds, and tempestuous seas that make the heart stand still. If you do not have a deep and patient faith in God, you will be powerless to face the delay, disappointments and vicissitudes that inevitably come.”
Sounds like the Good Doctor was talking about the lives of trans people in a nutshell.
When we finally come to the epiphany that our gender identities are not in sync with the bodies we were born into, we face the long drawn out storms of going through a gender transition. We have to deal with the howling and jostling winds of a disapproving society.
We have to navigate the tempestuous seas and sometimes hurricane force winds the unholy trinity of fear, shame and guilt create that keep trying to push us to shallow waters, coral reefs and shoals that can wreck our ship and keep us from steering a consistent path to our final harbor.
We also have moments that make our hearts stand still as we see the ships of fellow travelers on this trans sea of humanity founder, take on water and eventually sink for various reasons.
But it is with a deep and patient faith with God that we have the courage to face those challenges and confidently move forward with our lives. If we don’t take that time to meditate, pray, and consistently develop the spiritual sides of our humanity, it allows doubt and the unholy trinity of shame, fear and guilt to creep back into our lives and block our blessings
That type of deep and patient faith takes time to develop along with constant work on our part. We have to make time to stay spiritually tuned in and remind ourselves that God is always on our side.
And just to touch on a few scriptures to emphasize that point.
1 Samuel 16:7 "But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
In other words, while humans look at the outer shell and focus on that, God focuses on the inner being.
Zechariah 12:1
"The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him."
To summarize, our spirit is formed separately from our body just as our gender identity and a trans person’s physical bodies conflict.
John 7:24:
"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."
This is Jesus commanding us to stop judging people based on outward appearances and going deeper and looking into our hearts.
Matthew 19:12 states. “For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”
Eunuchs were back in the day transpeople. Jesus was talking about the fact hat not only are some eunuchs born that way, some were created by human beings through castration while others did so because of gender identity didn’t match bodies.
He didn’t see that as an impediment to being a Christian. I don’t and other trans people don’t see being trans and Christian as mutually exclusive either.
And amazingly on October 5, 1999, neither did Rev. Pat Robertson.
I know, you’re shocked I’m about to quote Pat Robertson in this keynote speech, but every now and then he has one of those broken clock moments that you have got to point out. He said this on a 700 Club show in which a question that was allegedly sent by a transperson was read on air that asked if transsexuality was a sin.
Pat’s response to the question was not only was transsexuality NOT a sin and we transpeople do not have feel guilty about it, he also said this to close the segment.
God does not care what your external organs are. The question is whether you are living for God or not. Yes, He loves you. Yes, He forgives you and He understands what is going on in your body.
So if God understands what is going on with us transpeople, what’s wrong with the rest of society? So nope, I don’t feel guilty.
I’m proud of being who I am and so are increasing numbers of transgender people for being our out and proud true selves.
Every now and then I’ll run into a right wing Christian online or at my home blog trying to spout the ‘transsexuality is a sin’ nonsense or their latest ‘you’re rebelling against God by altering your body’ talking point.
I’ll repeat this Pat Robertson quote, then tell them go to Google and type in the October 5, 1999 700 Club show if they don’t believe it.
And on the ‘altering your body’ talking point, the first thing I ask them is if any members of their family or someone they know have had plastic surgery lately just to point out the ridiculous levels of hypocrisy in their specious argument.
I and other transpeople didn’t go through transition drama, spend time, money and go through various surgical procedures to be ‘edgy’, ‘rebel’, ‘live a lifestyle’ or whatever disrespectful term du jour our friends, foes and frenemies come up with to minimize and disrespect our lives.
We know that once we start taking our first estrogen or testosterone shots, we are going to get all the baggage good, bad and indifferent from leading our transmasculine and transfeminine lives in our target gender role. Once we do take that shot and make the committed decision to transition we step out on faith that we are ready to do so.
We transition to be the men and women we are and God created us to be, nothing more, nothing less. The fact we had to work much harder to do so is just something we have to deal with as we seek to live quality lives. The international trans human rights struggle work in my estimation has been far easier than the ongoing work we’ll have to do to overcome the internalized shame, guilt and fear we all struggle with on various levels.
The TransFaith in Color conference is the perfect venue to help us get to the point in our lives where we can break free of those internalized shackles that block our blessings, paralyze us with self doubt and inaction, and have us questioning the talents we were given.
The TransFaith In Color Conference is giving us a venue to learn, to network, to reconnect with old friends from around the country, meet new ones, create partnerships with various organizations and hopefully discover something new about ourselves we haven’t considered before.
It’s also giving us the ability to develop that deep and patient faith in God that we’ll need to rely on as we continue our ongoing trans human rights struggle.
That faith will help us as rainbow community human rights leaders and our allies traveling with us on this journey shape the clay for ourselves and others who look to us for the principled leadership to show them how to do so.
This conference will also give us in the various panel discussions and seminars the tools to help us confidently lead the people who count on us to shape the world so it is better for trans people and our allies.
To close, I’m going to leave you with the words of Dr. Benjamin Mays.
“We live by faith in others. But most of all we must live by faith in ourselves- faith to believe that we can develop into useful men and women.”
At this conference, during this weekend and during future editions of the TransFaith in Color conference, let us always strive to develop the deep and patient faith we’ll need so that we can and will develop into useful men and women.
In the spirit of having faith in others, let us continue to forge alliances with old and new partners amongst the various communities we intersect and interact with. I pray along with the trans community that you allies never forget that transpeople are part of your advocacy constituencies as well.
As you give us a helping hand, we become a stronger, more cohesive community that will be better able to not only own our power, but use it to shape the clay of the world we wish to build for mutual benefit.
My fellow trans men and trans women, in the spirit of us having faith in ourselves, let us continue those friendships and working relationships we either started here during this TFIC conference weekend or continue to build on the ones we forged when we first met each other for our community’s sake.
By doing so, we trans people will not only benefit individually, but the trans community and the communities we transpeople of color intersect and interact with will reap the benefits as well.
