Transgender Ministry

[gennee]

The associate minister at church is considering beginning a ministry for transgender people. He asked some questions and wanted feedback from me. I thought that it is an idea worth pursuing. He is concerned that the T is being ignored in the greater TGLB movement as well as the church. Nothing is set in stone but I'm sure future discussions will happen.

[Guest Mickey]

I am convinced that I gonna hafta just start my own home church for Trans* folks and allies. Maybe I can help spread some real Truth.

[VickySGV]

Considering the interesting time I had over the past weekend, I agree that there needs to be more emphasis on including T folks, but this may in part be our own doing. My own church, at the national and local levels is very accepting of T folks on paper, and I have had a wonderful and supportive experience with my home parish, but I am the ONLY T person in my parish. I am outnumbered by the wholly accepted trio of gay men involved in our music program. Last weekend I received an open invitation to meet with the Board Of Directors of the national level GLBT organization in my church for a meet and greet cocktail hour at a hotel in a city near me where they were having a quarterly board meeting. The Executive Director of the Board is a Trans* woman, and one of the other directors is a Trans* man. The remaining directors are all LGB. All are wonderful people and I felt highly accepted and at home with them. The fact that the Exec. Director and I were the only two women wearing dresses was a bit of a hoot. There was a general consensus from everyone that more needs to be done for T people, but out of 30 people there only 3 were Trans*.

The result of the party there was that I was invited to also attend a special Bible Study session on the following Sunday at another parish that neighbors on mine, and which is about 10 or 12 times larger than my own. This parish has a national reputation for LGB acceptance, and again, I know many of the people, and they are super nice and interested in the T inclusion, but while over 40 people total were at the Sunday event, I was the only T person there, and I am not from their parish!! I cannot be the ONLY T person in an area that reaches from coast to the eastern state line of Southern California that is an Episcopalian, but at the minute I seem to be the only one that is a church member that has come out and is active with the church.

Maybe that is why I am feeling a kick in my back end to get more involved beyond my parish. The GLB folks are nice and very open, but sssshhhh, they are clueless about T folks just now. GLB people who want to include us, need information as greatly as do Cis /Straight people, and they need us to be active and in their midst.

[Charlize]

I find the same thing happening with a wonderful GLBT movement at my university. The GLB community is quite large with over 600 people participating in the last conference. Of that number 13 of us identified as trans. Only 3 of those were MTF which may not be unusual in what was once a men's college.

While it is not a religious institution it simply shows that we are in a small minority. The GLB community is finally reaching out as they realize we have been left out of their progress. I am happy to be on an alumni GLBT advisory board. Two of us have joined the steering committee. It will improve as we reach out and are seen and heard.

Hugs,

Charlize

[gennee]

There are trans people in my neighborhood. Me and other transwoman are members of the church. A friend of mine has a trans friend whom I met. There are transgender people who are a part of our church family from what I heard (don't know for certain).

The need to be visible is really important. I go about in my neighborhood and interact with the public. My church family remembers me before and after I came out.