How’s your transgender IQ?

Ever heard of the Authentic Gender Model? Know the difference between Sex, Gender Role, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation? Have any idea what Genderqueer means? It’s time for Episcopalians to brush up on their gender knowledge.

As a Deputy to General Convention from the Diocese of Los Angeles, I attended (as an observer – I was a Deputy, but I wasn’t assigned to any legislative committee) many of the meetings of the Committee on World Mission because they had the task of dealing with all 13 of the anti-B033 resolutions that had been submitted by Deputies and Dioceses (including our own) and coming up with something meaningful, which they did with resolution D025, which ultimately passed.

They also dealt with several resolutions dealing with transgender issues, which most of the members were not familiar with. Members of TransEpiscopal who were following these resolutions wound up creating a glossary for them to help them deal with the terms involved and to try to get a little better understanding of what they were talking about. Ultimately resolution D032 was successful in getting the phrase “gender identity” added to the list of protected classes against which the church cannot discriminate when hiring lay employees.

Unfortunately, resolution C061, which attempted to add the phrase “gender identity and expression to the list of protected classes in Title III, Canon 1, Section 2 (the Canon on Ordained Ministries) was not successful. It passed in the House of Deputies, but the House of Bishops amended it to remove the whole list of protected classes (“…race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disabilities or age…” and change it read something along the lines of “The process of discerning who is called to ordained ministry is open to all people…” The Deputies weren’t happy with that, feeling that the list of protected classes still needs to be spelled out in the Canons, so the resolution failed. But the transgendered community made it clear (there was some particularly moving testimony from Deputy Dee Tavolaro, a 19 year-old trans-man from Rhode Island) that they would be back in three years to try again.

So it feels to me like it's time for us to get educated on some of this stuff. I've been gay my whole life (and out for most of it), but there's so much about the trans world that I'm unaware of. The Gender Identity Project has produced Transgender Basics, a 20 minute educational film on the concepts of gender and transgender people. I recommend it highly.