What’s Next Integrity-- Are We Done? Are You Kidding?

What’s Next Integrity-- Are We Done?  Are You Kidding?

By:  Matt Haines, President

“When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.”  Jesus of Nazareth  (LK 12:48)

We celebrate great gains these past several weeks!  We had many great successes at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City.  The Sacrament of Marriage is now a reality for same-sex couples in our Church and will be available in most of our dioceses!  Our Church has condemned the evil torture of so called “Reparative (Conversion) Therapy”.  Transgender Episcopalians have asserted that their names are sacred and are to be recognized as holy within liturgy and church records; the Church concurred overwhelmingly.  The Episcopal Church has also voted to show solidarity with LGBTQ people in Africa and will lobby on their behalf.  Some might wonder—is Integrity is now finished with its mission.  Are we done?  Are you kidding me? 

·         Transgender people are being slaughtered on our streets weekly; suicide kills even more.

·         Gender-queer and Trans Christians often find our churches less than welcoming.  We must change this together.

·         Over 40% of all homeless youth are LGBTQ; most of them rejected by “Christian Homes”.

·         Over 70% of lesbians and gays tell the people they love about their orientation; bisexuals 28%.  This must improve if we are ever going to live in Integrity.  As a church and a movement we can no longer ignore the “B” in LGBTQ.  

·         All Dioceses must be held to the Gospel of Inclusion proclaimed by this Church.  We can no longer allow LGBTQ people, or children raised by LGBTQ couples, to be excluded from Holy Baptism!  Access to Holy Eucharist, Confirmation, Unction, Penance, must be available to all the baptized.  All who feel called to vocations in Holy Orders and/or Marriage must be taken seriously and be given the opportunity to live those vocations out.

·         We must still lead the Anglican Communion and offer special help to LGBTQ people in the many provinces where our people face prison or execution!

·         Racism and sexism still plague our nation, church, and our movement.  Together we need to engage in understanding how male privilege and institutional racism work against true equality.

We are now ready to begin to work even harder, with God’s help and yours!  The Supreme Court has recognized our right to marry and the Episcopal Church recognizes our marriages as sacramental.  Rights are nothing if not exercised and sacraments are meant to empower us to serve this broken world in Christ’s name. 

Are we in the Promised Land after 40 years in the desert?  Maybe—some of us are.  If you find yourself there, rejoice and start building up Zion for those still on the way.  If you are still in the desert, look for one another and keep an eye out for Jesus.  Jesus knows the way!  We have been given so much, thus we are required to give even more back in return.  Please join in our efforts to live into this gospel call.

Truth to the Table

From Historic Trans ENDA Testimony to the "Stalling" of a 2006 Antibullying Guide in MA  

Today has been a historic day for transgender people in the U.S.  Kylar Broadus, founder of the Trans People of Color Coalition, became the first openly transgender person to testify before the U.S. Senate.  The subject of his testimony was the Federal Employment Nondiscrimination Act – ENDA—that has been stalled in Congress for several years now.  At our last General Convention in 2009, The Episcopal Church passed resolutions D012 and C048, putting us on record in support of an ENDA inclusive of gender identity and expression as well as of sexual orientation.

In his testimony, video of which can be viewed here, and a transcript of which can be found here, Broadus spoke of his transition (from female to male) as well as his work history.  Transition was for him “a matter of living the truth, and sharing the truth with the world, rather than living a lie and pretending to be somebody every day that I was not…. [I decided to] bring my full self to the table and to the world.”  

He explained that as he came into a fuller sense of himself in the late 1980s-early 1990s, his work attire gradually shifted from women’s to men’s business attire, and his haircut significantly shortened.  His colleagues treated him well, but within six months of telling management of his decision to transition, he “was ‘constructively discharged’…. While my supervisors could tolerate a somewhat masculine-appearing black woman, they were not prepared to deal with my transition to being a black man.”  He concluded stating, “it’s devastating, demoralizing, and dehumanizing to be put in th[e] position” of being denied work because of being trans.

As it also emerged today, the same thing can be said for an anti-bullying guide produced under the Romney administration here in Massachusetts in 2006.  The Boston Globe reported this morning:  “Former governor Mitt Romney’s administration in 2006 blocked publication of a state antibullying guide for Massachusetts public schools because officials objected to use of the terms ‘bisexual’ and ‘transgender’ in passages about protecting certain students from harassment, according to state records and interviews with current and former state officials.”  While at the time aids to the governor publicly attributed the delay to a standard review process, in fact an email from May, 2006 revealed otherwise:  “Because this is using the terms ‘bisexual’ and ‘transgendered,’ DPH’s name may not be used in this publication,’’ wrote an official in the Department of Public Health.

In other words, the governor did not want to be associated with a guide for protecting youth who might grow up to be like Kylar Broadus, or any of the participants in Integrity’s new video Voices of Witness: Out of the Box. Gay and lesbian youth might be one thing, but bisexual and transgender youth were something else entirely.  

A year and a half removed from the devastating landslide of LGBT suicides last fall, that covert distancing and delay looks even more unconscionable.  This afternoon Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley commented, “For the Romney administration to block a discussion on the impact of bullying on LGBT students was to fail to protect some of our most vulnerable children.’’

As General Convention draws near, one of the major priorities of both TransEpiscopal and IntegrityUSA is for The Episcopal Church to pass a resolution on the problem of LGBT bullying.  As Harry Knox recently reported, Integrity will be showing the film "Bullied" on July 8th.  Today's Senate testimony and Globe stories underscore the urgency of this work, particularly for bi and trans people, that, as Broadus put it,  all of us might be empowered to "liv[e] the truth and share [that] truth with the world."