[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
Tommo sake siempre hemos estado aquí
siempre estaremos aqui we are here we
have always been here and we will always
be here many thanks for this opportunity
to share the reclaiming of religion on
our terms as trans people reality is
that religion has been the weapon used
to dehumanize lesbian gay bisexual and
transgender people however it is a
tragic irony that religion has also
documented our existence for centuries
and so in our time today the goal is to
reclaim to remember and read – member
that history and its fullness in its
richness and its sacred transgressive
Ness I am very mindful when it comes to
this conversation that the understanding
of gender and sexuality that we have
today was very different when many
religious texts were written three
thousand three hundred thirty years ago
rather than labeling folks as okay this
person was gay this person was bi I
rather see their behaviors their lives
their experiences as transgressive and
how that continues to speak to us today
many of us who identify as transgender
have never really had the opportunity to
ask questions let alone theologies in
transformative ways this isn’t about
answering those questions with concrete
answers but more importantly being able
to ask the question because the simple
act of asking is liberation is healing
is transgressive a lot of the work that
I do is grounded in Latin American
feminism the mother of Latin American
feminism
or mujeres de theology is Adam ADEA
estas ideas and the mother of queer and
indecent theologies is an Argentinean
scholar Martella outhouse read both
women talk about how our lives are a
sacred text it’s important to look at
religious texts to look at the
scriptures and things of that nature and
those things are important however we
also need to look at the lived realities
challenges and celebrations of people
and in in those moments the sacred
reveals the sacred self and so religious
texts important but my life is a
religious text and in the sacred reveals
the sacred self in my hardships as well
as in my celebrations when it comes to
to this conversation the words that we
use again are different from what they
were used thousands of years ago
hundreds of years ago and so we keep
that in mind
as we do this the other piece is that
there is a changing landscape when it
comes to the conversation trans people
are not only being tolerated but are
being wholeheartedly welcomed across the
spectrum of religious traditions not
only just in the community the
congregation the flock but also as
leaders more and more religious
traditions are ordaining credentialing
recognizing the leadership of trans
people often times we focus on the
hardships that we experience and I don’t
want to negate her undermine those
hardships we need to talk about the
violence towards trans women of color we
need to talk about how in the state of
Ohio there is a bill that will basically
out trans people to their families
through their teachers or through their
mental health professionals we need to
talk about that but we also need to talk
about the resiliency and thriving Ness
or as Leslie Feinberg says the
transgender Warrior Ness of the
community and hold both those things in
tension and so in the time that we have
we
spend a whole day just covering one
aspect of religious identity and the
intersection with the trans community
this is meant to be a simple crash
course and hopefully a sparking off
point for folks to do their own
Discovery to do their own sacred
transgressions and to dive deeper into
this work and so within Buddhism
Buddhism teaches us to treat all people
with respect that our relationships
should do no harm within Buddhism the
Buddha for justice and compassion Quan
Yin many of us have claimed as a trans
deity because Quan Yin in some places is
venerated as a male in other places Quan
Yin is venerated as female both
depictions both incarnations are
considered important and equal and so
here we have a deity that transgresses
gender many folks many Buddhist scholars
many religious scholars have also
started to say that perhaps Quan Yin is
androgynous because Quan Yin takes on
the form that is most accessible to a
community in order to bring
enlightenment sacred transgressive
within Hinduism we have a rich history
of deities we have a rich history of
holy people holy warriors heroes and
Shiro’s who throughout history have
transgressed gender norms in terms of
embodying masculinity embodying
femininity but also changing gender one
of the incarnations of Shiva is that of
a deity that is part woman and that
being part woman being part man for
Shiva is a reflection of wholeness and
totality and negates duality and binary
you also have within Hinduism the belief
that all of us are spiritual equals and
that within that regardless of how we
express ourselves regardless of our
attributes we should all be treated with
respect and with dignity within the
Islamic world there’s a lot that that is
going on and
a lot that often doesn’t get talked
about one within the Quran there are
passages that talk about the need and
the right for both men and women to be
educated and if we think about here in
our context of the United States when
did our most prestigious institutions
who I am an alum of to allow women to
study not until the 1900s and in some
cases not until the mid 1900s but here
you have a religious tradition that says
men women right to education you also
have the prophets wife be the person who
proposed marriage not the other way
around and a patriarchal society that
was unheard of she was also slightly
older than the Prophet that also doesn’t
get talked about but that’s a whole
other topic and so here you have gender
transgression within the Quran you also
have passages that refer to men who are
not in need of women or men who act like
women where these men gay were these men
intersects where these men asexual were
these men transgender we don’t know we
simply can recognize that within the
Quran there is a recognition that things
are not black and white that there is
diversity so much so that the Prophet
said that these individuals are to be
treated with dignity and respect and
were allowed into the prophets home and
allowed to enter private spaces that
were only for women sacred and
aggressive within pagan communities we
have also a rich history of people who
transgress gender norms who were
considered to be wholly within pagan
thought in between moments dawn dusk
Twilight not quite morning not quite
night it’s a little bit both and that
those in-between moments are sacred and
so those of us who identify as
genderqueer are as gender non-binary
where we maybe between combination of
both genders our lives to our
you also have a rich tradition of the
Sacred Feminine and the recognition of
and celebration of the Sacred Feminine
the image here is of the goddess inanna
and the goddess Anana is the goddess of
war in a patriarchal society male
deities were often associated with
warfare and with fighting but here you
have a female deity associated with war
and with fighting who embodied many
different masculine characteristics but
who held on to her womanhood the
greatest gift that Anana could bestow
upon a person was gender transition male
to female or female to male we are here
we have always been here and we will
always be here within indigenous
communities and native communities in
the United States in Canada and we’re
starting to discover these narratives
also in Central and South America we
have the presence of two-spirit people
to spirit as a term that was created in
the 1990s as a way of bringing together
common identities within tribal
communities there are over 200 Native
terms to reflect to two-spirit people
and so these individuals and some tribes
may have been gay may have been bi may
have been lesbian may have been intersex
may have been trans regardless of the
label they were treated with respect
they were celebrated as holy because
they could understand masculinity and
femininity and oftentimes took on the
role of shaman or religious leader
healer within their tribes I am a social
worker by training and two-spirit folk
often were the mediators the conflict
solvers not only within the tribes but
also between the tribe and the United
States and serving as ambassadors for
their tribes and sort of resolving
conflicts that may have popped up with
the imposition of Christianity some of
these traditions were lost and over the
last 15 maybe perhaps a little longer
years there has been a reclaiming
of two-spirit identity again individuals
who inhabit two worlds and who are
considered holy and special within
Judaism Judaism is a fascinating
religion within the Kabbalah which is
one of the mystical arms of Judaism you
have female names for God and feminine
names for God which are considered to be
important and holy you also have within
the Psalms references to God as mother
we also have dating back to the 1st
century CE II rabbinical writings that
talk about not two not three but six
genders male female and then for
alternative genders some folks have
looked into these perhaps these
individuals again were intersex where
trans gay lesbian asexual we don’t know
the label that they would use today but
rabbinical writings show that gender
diversity has been here and is something
to be lifted up and respected within the
Book of Isaiah there are references to
eunuchs which we’ll get into in just a
second who should be welcomed into the
temple and not segregated not dehumanize
again we have been here we have always
been here and we will always be here
Christianity which was the tradition
that I was raised in is a healing but
also painful experience for myself as a
person who was raised Roman Catholic the
Catholic Church does not have an
official teaching on trans people I as a
person do not exist and that is painful
however taking a second third fourth
hundredth look at Catholic teaching in
Catholic history come to discover that
we have a pretty turned aggressive
history but often doesn’t get talked
about you have folks like Joan of Arc
perhaps Joan was a butch lesbian
perhaps Joan was a trans man we don’t
know how Joan would identify today but
the fact that you had a woman wearing
men’s clothing leading the army not
something that happened at the time we
called her a heretic now we call her a
saint transgressive
you have marinus marinus at birth was
called marina
Marina wanted to enter the monastery not
a convent
entered monastery under the name Marius
at Marius is death the other monks
discovered that Marius had some
different body parts than they were not
expecting to find and rather than just
throw the body away neglected refutes
the life of piety that Marius led they
combined the name marina and Marius to
form the name marinus and marinus is a
canonized Saint within the Coptic
Catholic Church you also have Teresa of
Avila 15th century Spanish nun who had
the audacity to explain the Trinity
better than any man of her time so much
so that she was sent to the Inquisition
a couple of times here nun talking about
religion which was not considered to be
a woman’s place doing it better than any
other man fast forward she’s now
considered within the Catholic Church a
doctor of the church which means that
her teachings and writings have
influenced Catholic dogma Catholic
teaching transgressive and then you have
Mary Mother of Jesus
a woman who without consulting her
husband took ownership of her own life
and committed to a call committed to a
life without asking husband can I do
this she took a risk and said yes to
something and that is transgressive that
is something that we honor then there is
the quirky individual of Jesus and
whether you believe Jesus is the Son of
God whether you believe Jesus was a
confused rabbi whether you just believed
it is a story but continues to inspire
us Jesus one fun question I like to ask
my students is where did the Illusive
y-chromosome come from for Jesus if
Jesus didn’t have a biological father
what was Jesus was Jesus intersex was
Jesus trans what was going on
more on that another time you also have
an individual who transgresses gender
norms in terms of the individuals that
Jesus lifted up as Holy were women
people who were examples of faith were
women at the time that was unheard of
lastly my good friend
Theo Hutchinson talks a lot about rather
than transition affirmation that our
journey as trans people is not about
changing who we are but affirming and as
celebrating who we are one could argue
that the resurrection is a story of
trans affirmation because Jesus lived
into his wholeness I’d like to leave you
with one thought one being that we’re
here in Appalachia what if we refer to
the sacred as y’all but if we referred
to the sacred as ewtn’s what if we
looked at the lives of trans people not
with pity not with oh we need to protect
those individuals but wholeheartedly
celebrate all of us our stories our
narratives and what our stories can
teach other people the poet Emily
chattin she writes a poem where she
talks about that throughout history we
as trans people have been lifted up as
sacred as holy but that we have
forgotten ancient wisdom and the need to
reclaim and remember that ancient wisdom
so that today we cannot only be
tolerated but we can be celebrated
estamos aqui siempre hemos estado aquí
siempre estaremos aqui we are here we
have always been here and we will always
be here which is [Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
Tommo sake siempre hemos estado aquí
siempre estaremos aqui we are here we
have always been here and we will always
be here many thanks for this opportunity
to share the reclaiming of religion on
our terms as trans people reality is
that religion has been the weapon used
to dehumanize lesbian gay bisexual and
transgender people however it is a
tragic irony that religion has also
documented our existence for centuries
and so in our time today the goal is to
reclaim to remember and read – member
that history and its fullness in its
richness and its sacred transgressive
Ness I am very mindful when it comes to
this conversation that the understanding
of gender and sexuality that we have
today was very different when many
religious texts were written three
thousand three hundred thirty years ago
rather than labeling folks as okay this
person was gay this person was bi I
rather see their behaviors their lives
their experiences as transgressive and
how that continues to speak to us today
many of us who identify as transgender
have never really had the opportunity to
ask questions let alone theologies in
transformative ways this isn’t about
answering those questions with concrete
answers but more importantly being able
to ask the question because the simple
act of asking is liberation is healing
is transgressive a lot of the work that
I do is grounded in Latin American
feminism the mother of Latin American
feminism
or mujeres de theology is Adam ADEA
estas ideas and the mother of queer and
indecent theologies is an Argentinean
scholar Martella outhouse read both
women talk about how our lives are a
sacred text it’s important to look at
religious texts to look at the
scriptures and things of that nature and
those things are important however we
also need to look at the lived realities
challenges and celebrations of people
and in in those moments the sacred
reveals the sacred self and so religious
texts important but my life is a
religious text and in the sacred reveals
the sacred self in my hardships as well
as in my celebrations when it comes to
to this conversation the words that we
use again are different from what they
were used thousands of years ago
hundreds of years ago and so we keep
that in mind
as we do this the other piece is that
there is a changing landscape when it
comes to the conversation trans people
are not only being tolerated but are
being wholeheartedly welcomed across the
spectrum of religious traditions not
only just in the community the
congregation the flock but also as
leaders more and more religious
traditions are ordaining credentialing
recognizing the leadership of trans
people often times we focus on the
hardships that we experience and I don’t
want to negate her undermine those
hardships we need to talk about the
violence towards trans women of color we
need to talk about how in the state of
Ohio there is a bill that will basically
out trans people to their families
through their teachers or through their
mental health professionals we need to
talk about that but we also need to talk
about the resiliency and thriving Ness
or as Leslie Feinberg says the
transgender Warrior Ness of the
community and hold both those things in
tension and so in the time that we have
we
spend a whole day just covering one
aspect of religious identity and the
intersection with the trans community
this is meant to be a simple crash
course and hopefully a sparking off
point for folks to do their own
Discovery to do their own sacred
transgressions and to dive deeper into
this work and so within Buddhism
Buddhism teaches us to treat all people
with respect that our relationships
should do no harm within Buddhism the
Buddha for justice and compassion Quan
Yin many of us have claimed as a trans
deity because Quan Yin in some places is
venerated as a male in other places Quan
Yin is venerated as female both
depictions both incarnations are
considered important and equal and so
here we have a deity that transgresses
gender many folks many Buddhist scholars
many religious scholars have also
started to say that perhaps Quan Yin is
androgynous because Quan Yin takes on
the form that is most accessible to a
community in order to bring
enlightenment sacred transgressive
within Hinduism we have a rich history
of deities we have a rich history of
holy people holy warriors heroes and
Shiro’s who throughout history have
transgressed gender norms in terms of
embodying masculinity embodying
femininity but also changing gender one
of the incarnations of Shiva is that of
a deity that is part woman and that
being part woman being part man for
Shiva is a reflection of wholeness and
totality and negates duality and binary
you also have within Hinduism the belief
that all of us are spiritual equals and
that within that regardless of how we
express ourselves regardless of our
attributes we should all be treated with
respect and with dignity within the
Islamic world there’s a lot that that is
going on and
a lot that often doesn’t get talked
about one within the Quran there are
passages that talk about the need and
the right for both men and women to be
educated and if we think about here in
our context of the United States when
did our most prestigious institutions
who I am an alum of to allow women to
study not until the 1900s and in some
cases not until the mid 1900s but here
you have a religious tradition that says
men women right to education you also
have the prophets wife be the person who
proposed marriage not the other way
around and a patriarchal society that
was unheard of she was also slightly
older than the Prophet that also doesn’t
get talked about but that’s a whole
other topic and so here you have gender
transgression within the Quran you also
have passages that refer to men who are
not in need of women or men who act like
women where these men gay were these men
intersects where these men asexual were
these men transgender we don’t know we
simply can recognize that within the
Quran there is a recognition that things
are not black and white that there is
diversity so much so that the Prophet
said that these individuals are to be
treated with dignity and respect and
were allowed into the prophets home and
allowed to enter private spaces that
were only for women sacred and
aggressive within pagan communities we
have also a rich history of people who
transgress gender norms who were
considered to be wholly within pagan
thought in between moments dawn dusk
Twilight not quite morning not quite
night it’s a little bit both and that
those in-between moments are sacred and
so those of us who identify as
genderqueer are as gender non-binary
where we maybe between combination of
both genders our lives to our
you also have a rich tradition of the
Sacred Feminine and the recognition of
and celebration of the Sacred Feminine
the image here is of the goddess inanna
and the goddess Anana is the goddess of
war in a patriarchal society male
deities were often associated with
warfare and with fighting but here you
have a female deity associated with war
and with fighting who embodied many
different masculine characteristics but
who held on to her womanhood the
greatest gift that Anana could bestow
upon a person was gender transition male
to female or female to male we are here
we have always been here and we will
always be here within indigenous
communities and native communities in
the United States in Canada and we’re
starting to discover these narratives
also in Central and South America we
have the presence of two-spirit people
to spirit as a term that was created in
the 1990s as a way of bringing together
common identities within tribal
communities there are over 200 Native
terms to reflect to two-spirit people
and so these individuals and some tribes
may have been gay may have been bi may
have been lesbian may have been intersex
may have been trans regardless of the
label they were treated with respect
they were celebrated as holy because
they could understand masculinity and
femininity and oftentimes took on the
role of shaman or religious leader
healer within their tribes I am a social
worker by training and two-spirit folk
often were the mediators the conflict
solvers not only within the tribes but
also between the tribe and the United
States and serving as ambassadors for
their tribes and sort of resolving
conflicts that may have popped up with
the imposition of Christianity some of
these traditions were lost and over the
last 15 maybe perhaps a little longer
years there has been a reclaiming
of two-spirit identity again individuals
who inhabit two worlds and who are
considered holy and special within
Judaism Judaism is a fascinating
religion within the Kabbalah which is
one of the mystical arms of Judaism you
have female names for God and feminine
names for God which are considered to be
important and holy you also have within
the Psalms references to God as mother
we also have dating back to the 1st
century CE II rabbinical writings that
talk about not two not three but six
genders male female and then for
alternative genders some folks have
looked into these perhaps these
individuals again were intersex where
trans gay lesbian asexual we don’t know
the label that they would use today but
rabbinical writings show that gender
diversity has been here and is something
to be lifted up and respected within the
Book of Isaiah there are references to
eunuchs which we’ll get into in just a
second who should be welcomed into the
temple and not segregated not dehumanize
again we have been here we have always
been here and we will always be here
Christianity which was the tradition
that I was raised in is a healing but
also painful experience for myself as a
person who was raised Roman Catholic the
Catholic Church does not have an
official teaching on trans people I as a
person do not exist and that is painful
however taking a second third fourth
hundredth look at Catholic teaching in
Catholic history come to discover that
we have a pretty turned aggressive
history but often doesn’t get talked
about you have folks like Joan of Arc
perhaps Joan was a butch lesbian
perhaps Joan was a trans man we don’t
know how Joan would identify today but
the fact that you had a woman wearing
men’s clothing leading the army not
something that happened at the time we
called her a heretic now we call her a
saint transgressive
you have marinus marinus at birth was
called marina
Marina wanted to enter the monastery not
a convent
entered monastery under the name Marius
at Marius is death the other monks
discovered that Marius had some
different body parts than they were not
expecting to find and rather than just
throw the body away neglected refutes
the life of piety that Marius led they
combined the name marina and Marius to
form the name marinus and marinus is a
canonized Saint within the Coptic
Catholic Church you also have Teresa of
Avila 15th century Spanish nun who had
the audacity to explain the Trinity
better than any man of her time so much
so that she was sent to the Inquisition
a couple of times here nun talking about
religion which was not considered to be
a woman’s place doing it better than any
other man fast forward she’s now
considered within the Catholic Church a
doctor of the church which means that
her teachings and writings have
influenced Catholic dogma Catholic
teaching transgressive and then you have
Mary Mother of Jesus
a woman who without consulting her
husband took ownership of her own life
and committed to a call committed to a
life without asking husband can I do
this she took a risk and said yes to
something and that is transgressive that
is something that we honor then there is
the quirky individual of Jesus and
whether you believe Jesus is the Son of
God whether you believe Jesus was a
confused rabbi whether you just believed
it is a story but continues to inspire
us Jesus one fun question I like to ask
my students is where did the Illusive
y-chromosome come from for Jesus if
Jesus didn’t have a biological father
what was Jesus was Jesus intersex was
Jesus trans what was going on
more on that another time you also have
an individual who transgresses gender
norms in terms of the individuals that
Jesus lifted up as Holy were women
people who were examples of faith were
women at the time that was unheard of
lastly my good friend
Theo Hutchinson talks a lot about rather
than transition affirmation that our
journey as trans people is not about
changing who we are but affirming and as
celebrating who we are one could argue
that the resurrection is a story of
trans affirmation because Jesus lived
into his wholeness I’d like to leave you
with one thought one being that we’re
here in Appalachia what if we refer to
the sacred as y’all but if we referred
to the sacred as ewtn’s what if we
looked at the lives of trans people not
with pity not with oh we need to protect
those individuals but wholeheartedly
celebrate all of us our stories our
narratives and what our stories can
teach other people the poet Emily
chattin she writes a poem where she
talks about that throughout history we
as trans people have been lifted up as
sacred as holy but that we have
forgotten ancient wisdom and the need to
reclaim and remember that ancient wisdom
so that today we cannot only be
tolerated but we can be celebrated
estamos aqui siempre hemos estado aquí
siempre estaremos aqui we are here we
have always been here and we will always
be here which is [Applause]
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