Is the Presbyterian Church Harmful to My Health - The End
I had more to say in this series, but I think I will end it today. What I did is an old familiar thing. I’ve done it before, like when I started going to Noe Valley Presbyterian Church in San Francisco and tried to befriend my cousin Richard Sharpnack, who was in the organization which is now called More Light Presbyterians. When I got blown away because Rev. Janie Spahr showed up and preached there and we followed her down to the gay pride parade. I am a Presbyterian because two people who had a baby chose that for me. My great grandparents, grandfather, and father went to the First Presbyterian Church of Clairton. I was baptized in that church on June 21, 1953. Then my parents moved to the country and joined Round Hill Presbyterian Church. I grew up in that church because someone else decided that. When I left for Boston University on September 6, 1970 at the age of 17 ½, I was deciding for myself who to be. It was not a Presbyterian, it was a feminist, and it didn’t take me long to get involved in the women’s movement in Boston.
When I went back to Round Hill in January for the rock and roll service, I was doing the old familiar thing, going back to the Presbyterian Church because someone decided when I was a little baby that I was a Presbyterian. Instead of questioning that, I got on the internet and talked about my plight and I just got my little self blown away when someone as cool and important as Rev. Erin Swenson decided to rescue me. So I just went from one Presbyterian church to another, Sixth Presbyterian, which may be across the spectrum politically from Round Hill, but I was still just running back to some church my parents decided I should be part of when I was too little to decide for myself.
Well, because of who rescued me, a transgender Presbyterian minister, when I started going to the More Light church, I decided, not only did I want to meet cool, liberal straight people, lesbians, and gay men, I was going to go out and meet transgender people. So I did it. And I’m glad I did. I have had a ball and I have learned a lot. I do think Erin is a neat person. I think it is wonderful that she stood up for who she was, that she had the guts to transition publicly, that she had the guts to stand up to the Presbyterian Church and fight for her right to be a minister, and that she is doing so much politically. However, she is still a minister, and so she is much more religious than I am. I can admire her and learn from her, but I don’t think she is really quite a role model for me, because I think she is just a lot more religious in a traditional way than I am.
Well, I have met many transgender people and their family members now. I don’t regret a minute of it. It has really enriched my life. I have learned a lot. And it’s made me think a lot about gender to see people play with it, to see so many shades of it, to see a rainbow, as Ms. Connie Lynne of TransFamily puts it. There has to be a lesson in there, that it is used to keep us down. That if we are free to be whatever element of the two genders we choose, that we are free to mix and match them and be ourselves instead of being a male or female, we are fighting the oppression designed to keep us in our place.
I’ve met someone like Donna, who is just so outrageous with it, so creative, who likes being different and sticking it to society. The transgender person I’ve become closest too, however, is JimmieLee Smith, the transgender firefighter who won the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Civil Rights Act applies to transgender people. She is the person who hung in there and would not let them chase her out of her job, and she ended up being promoted to Captain. Her struggle is not over, because now they have voted to close the Salem, Ohio fire department, merge with Perry Township, and have a new fire district where they could take the firefighters’ benefits away and pay them a lot less money. JimmieLee has become my closest friend, and I am very lucky to be friends with such a brave transgender woman. Definitely, she has been a true feminist throughout her struggle. She has become a person who is capable of doing all the things a traditional male and traditional female in our society can do. Isn’t that the point? The point is for us to be able to be human beings who can do our best in many things whether they are traditional male or female things, and that’s what she has succeeded in doing. Not many of us can say that. I certainly can’t make that claim. So I admire her, and I am very lucky she wants to be my best friend.
I think I can stay in the Presbyterian Church without it being harmful to my health. For now, I can continue to go to Round Hill’s rock and roll service. I think Sixth Presbyterian is a church I can live with and still be the feminist I am. I just have to realize who I am. I’m not a More Light Presbyterian. I’m not really like Erin and the gay men and lesbians at church. They are much more religious than I am. Church is a lot more on the fringes for me than it is for them. It is much more integral to their lives than it is to mine. I have to admire Rev. Erin Swenson, Rev. Janie Spahr, Rev. Janet Edwards, Rev. Jim Rigby, etc. for who they are. I have to admire the lesbians and gay men in MLP and church. I have to admire the straight people at church. But I have to realize that I am not them. I have to realize who I am. I just am more of a feminist than I am a Presbyterian, and the Presbyterian Church is always going to be just one little corner of my life and not the big central thing it is to these other wonderful and admirable Presbyterians I have met in such a short and exciting period of my life.
When I went back to Round Hill in January for the rock and roll service, I was doing the old familiar thing, going back to the Presbyterian Church because someone decided when I was a little baby that I was a Presbyterian. Instead of questioning that, I got on the internet and talked about my plight and I just got my little self blown away when someone as cool and important as Rev. Erin Swenson decided to rescue me. So I just went from one Presbyterian church to another, Sixth Presbyterian, which may be across the spectrum politically from Round Hill, but I was still just running back to some church my parents decided I should be part of when I was too little to decide for myself.
Well, because of who rescued me, a transgender Presbyterian minister, when I started going to the More Light church, I decided, not only did I want to meet cool, liberal straight people, lesbians, and gay men, I was going to go out and meet transgender people. So I did it. And I’m glad I did. I have had a ball and I have learned a lot. I do think Erin is a neat person. I think it is wonderful that she stood up for who she was, that she had the guts to transition publicly, that she had the guts to stand up to the Presbyterian Church and fight for her right to be a minister, and that she is doing so much politically. However, she is still a minister, and so she is much more religious than I am. I can admire her and learn from her, but I don’t think she is really quite a role model for me, because I think she is just a lot more religious in a traditional way than I am.
Well, I have met many transgender people and their family members now. I don’t regret a minute of it. It has really enriched my life. I have learned a lot. And it’s made me think a lot about gender to see people play with it, to see so many shades of it, to see a rainbow, as Ms. Connie Lynne of TransFamily puts it. There has to be a lesson in there, that it is used to keep us down. That if we are free to be whatever element of the two genders we choose, that we are free to mix and match them and be ourselves instead of being a male or female, we are fighting the oppression designed to keep us in our place.
I’ve met someone like Donna, who is just so outrageous with it, so creative, who likes being different and sticking it to society. The transgender person I’ve become closest too, however, is JimmieLee Smith, the transgender firefighter who won the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Civil Rights Act applies to transgender people. She is the person who hung in there and would not let them chase her out of her job, and she ended up being promoted to Captain. Her struggle is not over, because now they have voted to close the Salem, Ohio fire department, merge with Perry Township, and have a new fire district where they could take the firefighters’ benefits away and pay them a lot less money. JimmieLee has become my closest friend, and I am very lucky to be friends with such a brave transgender woman. Definitely, she has been a true feminist throughout her struggle. She has become a person who is capable of doing all the things a traditional male and traditional female in our society can do. Isn’t that the point? The point is for us to be able to be human beings who can do our best in many things whether they are traditional male or female things, and that’s what she has succeeded in doing. Not many of us can say that. I certainly can’t make that claim. So I admire her, and I am very lucky she wants to be my best friend.
I think I can stay in the Presbyterian Church without it being harmful to my health. For now, I can continue to go to Round Hill’s rock and roll service. I think Sixth Presbyterian is a church I can live with and still be the feminist I am. I just have to realize who I am. I’m not a More Light Presbyterian. I’m not really like Erin and the gay men and lesbians at church. They are much more religious than I am. Church is a lot more on the fringes for me than it is for them. It is much more integral to their lives than it is to mine. I have to admire Rev. Erin Swenson, Rev. Janie Spahr, Rev. Janet Edwards, Rev. Jim Rigby, etc. for who they are. I have to admire the lesbians and gay men in MLP and church. I have to admire the straight people at church. But I have to realize that I am not them. I have to realize who I am. I just am more of a feminist than I am a Presbyterian, and the Presbyterian Church is always going to be just one little corner of my life and not the big central thing it is to these other wonderful and admirable Presbyterians I have met in such a short and exciting period of my life.
posted by Theodosia @ 7:18 AM
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