Visible Man: Stonewall Sunday, NYC

Jamison Green offers a man's POV on life in the trans lane. Opinion, advice, and information from an internationally respected leader of the FTM community.

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I never have been much for organized religion, though I do consider myself solidly connected to the spiritual aspect of life. I also respect the religious beliefs and practices of others, and so I was honored when Reverend Kristen of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York invited me to speak to the congregation on the occasion of Stonewall Sunday, June 23, 2002.

MCCNY was the church where Sylvia Rivera worshipped in the final years of her life. Sylvia was a transwoman who was one of the young revolutionary street queens that fought back on that night in 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, kick-starting the modern GLBT freedom and pride movement.

Sylvia died just a few months ago, a victim of liver cancer, and she left all her worldly goods to this church. She found solace and support at MCCNY, and she gave of herself through this church, working in its food pantry to help feed 3,000 hungry people every month, encouraging the staff to set up a shelter for homeless queer youth and emptying her pocket change in the large bottle at the back of the sanctuary each week to help support their capital campaign to increase capacity and programming at MCCNY.

Stonewall Sunday this year held special significance for the members of MCCNY's congregation. Sylvia Rivera's ashes were to be placed in a niche at the front of the sanctuary, the food pantry was renamed in honor of Sylvia, and Sylvia's friend Christina Hayworth, who was also present at the Stonewall Riots, flew in from Puerto Rico to give witness and help remember Sylvia. A young transman, Michaelangelo Galloza, was also there to remember her.

The morning service was packed, and the evening service less so, but the turnout overall was good. The Reverend Pat Bumgardner, pastor, preached a fine sermon that honored all the gender benders and crossers among us. "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul ..." Rev. Pat quoted from Matthew 10:28, as she encouraged us to follow Sylvia's example and refuse to give up fighting for what is right. I drew on the same passage to focus my own remarks.

Revolutions like ours are born in all our souls, and it is in our souls that we find the courage to persevere. So many revolutions that we know from history are born out of pain, out of souls rising up against some oppression that grinds the body and the spirit down until the pain erupts in an irrepressible howl of resistance. Some revolutions are seeded with greed or the desire for power over others. Some revolutions are nourished by hate that festers in the soul and poisons it until it is steely with resolve to inflict outward the same pain that it feels within. And some revolutions are born of an unimpeachable nobility, a willingness to die for justice and dignity that others might live in peace and in grace. Ours, our revolution that we are still in the midst of, a revolution that we are still creating and shaping, is nourished by love.

Ours is a revolution that desires only peace, safety, freedom and love. Our heroes and heroines are all lovers who were and are willing to stand up and identify themselves, to say their own names, to wear the clothing they want to, to dance with the ones they love, to fight back when injustice threatens them.

Many of us have grown up in families where shame was mixed with love, or where shame overpowered love. We may have had trouble finding our voices, our names, our selves, our communities. We may have felt or seen horrible violence visited upon us or others simply because we have a difference from those who cannot understand or even tolerate our difference. We may have been damaged on the journey to this place, this place where we can be affirmed for who we are.

"Do not fear those who kill the body but who cannot kill the soul." Our difference is what amplifies our souls. For each and every one of us, it is difference that characterizes our humanity, that causes us to feel alone, that compels us to seek community with others like ourselves, but from whom we will always have some elemental difference.

Difference amplifies the soul, and it is through our ability to perceive and honor difference, to love in spite of difference, or perhaps even because of difference, that we locate and express the richness of our souls. The soul is the breath of love.

We are breathing a revolution. Ours is a revolution that calls for a paradigm shift in the way we perceive the value of a human being. The transgender movement, the newest aspect of our revolution, asks that we give up our fears of other people's identities and beliefs. The transgender movement asks that we be willing to allow other people to be different from us and still be worthy of respect. The transgender movement asks us to look at people whose bodies and genders are different in ways we may never have considered, and asks us to accept those different people as ourselves.

Some of us can hide our difference beneath our clothing or beneath a demeanor that is more mainstream, and others cannot hide their difference. Those people are the ones whose rights are most at risk when ignorance and bigotry are allowed free reign.

Yet all of us are vulnerable. None of us can hide forever. If we have not been challenged yet, there will come a time when we will -- each of us -- be called to stand up for ourselves, for our values and principles, for each other. Our time may come in a context that is private, intimate, deeply personal. Perhaps in a confrontation with our family of origin, or with a landlord, or employer, or a bureaucrat, or in a hospital, where we must either reveal ourselves or intercede to assert or preserve the integrity of a loved one who is incapacitated.

Or our time may come in a public way when we are inspired to testify before a city counsel, or Congress, or to picket or protest against injustice. Or we may be called to a more violent battle, as Sylvia Rivera was called at Stonewall, as Sylvia was called over and over again to resist the tyranny of the mundane, the oppression of the unimaginative, the denial of what is queer, what is trans, what is real.

The passion in our souls responds to the courage of others. No matter how independent, how iconoclastic, how isolated, how lonely we may be, we are all ultimately connected to others, and we know this through the sense of spirit we find in ourselves when we recognize spirit in others.

Difference unites us, and fear of difference separates us. We are, ourselves, as much the victims of our own fears as we suffer from the fears of others.

When we connect with the revolutionary spirit that is imbued with courage and love, we can be reminded of the purity of our own soul. So let righteous anger inspire your revolutionary spirit, if that's what it takes to overcome your fear. But let love be the source of your eternal flame. Love yourself and love one another. That is the finest honor we can show to our ancestors, to our heroes and heroines, and to our creator. That is the foundation of the paradigm shift that is our revolution.

Breathe it in and breathe it out. That breath is the awareness of being alive, of knowing our difference, and acknowledging our willingness to come together in spirit, to acknowledge the connectedness of our souls.

We are breathing a revolution. The great wheel of change turns slowly, but it is relentless. All the tactics and strategies of battle mean nothing without a clear vision of the goal. By being consciously alive and recognizing each other we are creating the changes we want in shaping the collective soul of love. You are a part of it. The revolution will not go on without you, but neither will it wait. So breathe, breathe and lift your spirit up to sing and dance another day. Give thanks that we have found ourselves. Give thanks to our ancestors in struggle. Give thanks for our differences. Give thanks to the creator that we have found each other. Onward to revolution, but never forget where we have come from. Never forget who brought us here, and how. And never forget the revolutionary spirit and power of love. Do not fear.