Last Wednesday, Mad and I attending a meeting of the Taskforce on Ministry with Sexual Minorities of Pittsburgh Presbytery. We were there to present a cultural competency PowerPoint about transgender concepts and terminology. Taking a few minutes before the lecture, Mad and I sat and talked in the library of the beautifully remodeled Pittsburgh Presbytery building on the North Side. We brought our distractions and anxieties into the open and let them go. We tried to figure out what the members of this Taskforce meant to us--what they are bringing to the table--and also what we'd like to be for them.
After some lively discussion about the Academy Awards and some snacking, we begun by asking the members of the Taskforce to again introduce themselves and share what they would like to get out of the training we were about to give.
There were a wide range of responses--one person described herself as a blank slate, someone else wanted to know about the psychology of being transgender, and another wanted some information she could bring to inform others. It was clear from the start that everyone was comfortably sharing what they did and did not know--a rare thing for sure. It was helpful for us to know where folks were at so we could know how to meet them halfway.
Something a little different we tried with the PowerPoint was staggering the definitions throughout--rather than bombard the audience with a lot of terms at once. We made it a point to elicit as much discussion as possible--to get people thinking about how gender stereotypes and feelings of difference affect not only folks under the transgender umbrella, but everyone.
Definitions are always difficult because they change so rapidly and some people who fit the definitions as well describe them might not use the same words themselves. I like that we focused a little more than usual on the transgender community as a community, with lots of different groups on the fringes, with conflicting opinions, with a rich history and culture.
It took a little while for me to open up but as the night went on, we were all sharing more about ourselves--transgender people we have met or currently know, experiences regarding gender stereotypes, stories of empathy and compassion for transgender people, stories of discomfort and human reactions to things we don't understand.
One of my favorite parts was the slide diagramming sex, gender role/identity, gender presentation and sexual identity. Each category used a continuum to illustrate the space between concepts like male and female, men and women. I wouldn't say that a line, even with gradation, is fully appropriate for such a complicated concept as gender expression (although some people might say, "duh! that's easy! you're one or the other." well, whatever). but any method of visualizing concepts that we take for granted in the day-to-day can be helpful in the right context.
Gender, politics, religion--all concepts best understood in terms of gradation, illustrated with continua, with histories, cultures and connotations behind every definition Being comfortable with the "gray" and being able to sit within the question are concepts that come up again and again...
For example, I was raised Jewish, went to Jewish summer camp for a few years, visited Israel a couple years ago. In some ways I identify very strongly with that upbringing. In other ways, organized religion is not at all important to me, and tends to leave a bad taste. Being queer, transgender and feminist has something to do with that. I don't see a lot of safe space in religion for those identities. But then I meet people for whom being queer is just as important as being Christian. And then I see how being "born again" is not unlike gender transition, or coming out. Or putting faith in something to get you through. Or how stories of our history as human beings become lessons to live by. See-overlap everywhere you go.
Check out More Light Presbyterians here: http://www.mlp.org/
