A New T Rebellion

In many ways the current T rebellion parallels the revolutionary tea rebellion. Like the Boston rebels, it’s all about a small band of committed people who no longer willingly tolerate discrimination and who go against the idea pushed by the faint of heart and self-absorbed that if we just wait long enough everything will get better. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were pronounced then as unalienable rights. These rights now seem to be alienable to Barney Frank and the Democratic Party leadership. To them being able to work (life, liberty, and – depending on your job – the pursuit of happiness) are not for T’s (transgender people whose gender identity and/or gender expression are different than mainstream America). The argument that we should “wait awhile and we will come back and get you” was tried in 1776, again in the late 19th century with women’s rights, and, most recently, with the civil rights efforts of the 1960’s. It was a bogus argument every time and still is. Equality should not be a “wait your turn” issue. Frank, Pelosi, et al have shamed their party and all who believe in a just and fair America.

Like many civil rights movements, the outcry has not come from only those most impacted. LGB and civil rights friends have allied with T’s to cry out for a fundamental fairness that keeps the T in equaliTy. Over 200 state and national organizations have made it clear that they do not want a legislation that leaves out trans people. Of all the major organizations only the misnamed Human Rights Campaign has failed to take this position.

Urge your congressional representative to vote yes on an inclusive ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) and against any legislation that continues to support discrimination against gender expression and gender identity. Pease call or email today.

Media Available for "Normal" Sermon

In the post below called "Let's Not Forget About 'Normal,' " I mentioned a sermon by my pastor. The audio and video will be available online for the next week or so. After that, you should be able to find them via the theaterchurch.com podcast (both audio and video).

Let's Not Forget About "Normal"

I attend National Community Church in Washington DC. The church is starting a series entitled "Battle of the Sexes" talking about sex and gender roles. My church is a little unique. They have some tremendously dedicated people working for them, and a commitment to reaching people for God "in the middle of the marketplace." What this looks like in practice is seven services in three locations, all Metro-accessible. Two of the services are on Saturday night at the Church-operated coffee house on Capitol Hill, Ebenezer's ("Coffee with a Cause"). So, I attended tonight's service not sure what to expect. Obviously, I've been thinking a lot about sex and gender roles recently, and I was someone wondering if I might come away a bit upset with something the pastor had to say tonight.

I knew ahead of time from checking the Pastor's latest blog post that the sermon would focus on Genesis 1:27 (copycat ;-) ). In a message designed to set the tone for the coming series, Pastor Mark scoped the issue pretty well. He acknowledge off the bat that there is a continuum when it relates to gender, but that he would be focusing mainly on norms and tendencies. With occasional strange facts from biology and neurology thrown in ("women have 40% more neurons in the corpus callosum than men"), the sermon enumerated a lot of the differences between men and women as a population. It ended with a call to be better men or women after God's own heart. It was a sermon for general consumption, so the statistical outliers like transgendered, hermaphrodites, etc. were ignored. That's okay by me. It was refreshing to be reminded of, and focus on the mean in the male bell curve and female bell curve.

Of course, it does leave me to wonder, will the church ever talk about the "outliers" if not forced to do so by circumstances? I understand it is a tricky thing to talk about, but I'm sure a much more sane conversation could be had in the absence of an immediate conflict. I agree that the church needs to talk about the differences between men and women. We don't talk about that enough, and it does matter. I guess I could say in general, The Church needs to spend more time talking about the issues it talks about least.

If you are interested in hearing the sermon, it should be made available in audio and video form later this week at the church's website.

I learned from taking Abnormal Psych that if you focus too much on abnormalities, everyone seems crazy. Of course, the same can be said of looking only at the statistically normal people. After all, statistically speaking, the average human being has one developed breast and one testicle.