It’s hard not to write reactionary pieces right now as we are inundated with bad news after worse news. I hope that you won’t view the words below as a reaction to recent attacks on the trans and nonbinary community, but rather as cautionary examples providing instruction on how you might move forward.
Recently, all mentions of trans and queer people were removed from the Stonewall National Monument in New York City and its National Park website. To be clear, this is not the infamous Stonewall Inn where the queer uprising took place, but a National Park monument across the street.
The removal of the T and Q+ from the LGBTQ+ acronym came shortly after Trump’s executive order demanding the removal of trans and nonbinary people from medical literature and other places in federal life. The erasure of trans, queer and nonbinary people from the Stonewall National Monument, though, is a low blow.
The Stonewall Uprising was spearheaded by trans people, particularly trans women of color like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. To erase them from this history would be akin to removing Harriet Tubman from stories about the Underground Railroad: the two are so inextricably linked that you can’t accurately talk about one without talking about the other.
Unfortunately, the practice of excluding trans and nonbinary people from the queer community is not unique to our current situation. Even during the Stonewall Riots themselves, cisgender white middle-class gay men and lesbians attempted to co-opt the movement for their own personal gain. They worked to push transgender people, drag queens, and anyone else they considered “gender-deviant” to the sidelines in the hopes that heteronormative society would accept “more presentable” gay and lesbian people.
The transgender women at the forefront of the movement openly challenged these gay and lesbian people. In her infamous speech at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally, Rivera took to the stage and highlighted the double standard of ignoring the very people who were risking the most in this fight for LGBTQ+ liberation.
“Y’all better quiet down. I’ve been trying to get up here all day for your gay brothers and your gay sisters in jail that write me every motherf***ing week and ask for your help and you all don’t do a godd**n thing for them…
I do not believe in a revolution, but you all do. I believe in the gay power. I believe in us getting our rights, or else I would not be out there fighting for our rights. That’s all I wanted to say to you people. If you all want to know about the people in jail–and do not forget Bambi L’Amour, Andorra Marks, Kenny Messner, and other gay people in jail…
The people are trying to do something for all of us, and not men and women that belong to a white middle-class club. And that’s what you all belong to!”
Rivera recognized for these white gay and lesbian middle-class individuals to ignore these trans folks, drag queens and other genderqueer individuals, those gay and lesbian people were handicapping the very people leading all of them to LGBTQ+ equality. The infighting would lead to worse outcomes for the folks working hardest for the community’s rights.
The removal of trans people from the Stonewall National Monument is a symptom of a much larger, more ancient problem. When oppressors attack the most marginalized in our community, you have a choice: you can risk yourself to protect the current target, or you can assimilate to the expression of life the oppressor deems worthy.
We’ve seen this choice present itself to people in conflicts throughout history, and we always believe that we’ll do the former. History, however, shows that too many of us are inclined to choose the latter.
Too many of us fall into the same trap Peter did after Jesus was arrested: denying our connection to the most marginalized in our community. Some even seek to divide the community into smaller factions by claiming they were never connected to begin with. Like Peter, they frantically scream, “Man, I don’t know him!”
You might be saying, “But Kali, aren’t Jesus and Peter from the same community?” That’s exactly the point. When Peter saw Jesus get attacked, he did everything he could to differentiate himself from Jesus.
Today, there are gay and lesbian people who insist that queerness must be expressed as “straightly” as possible in order to represent the queer community well–an updated version of the “model minority myth.” This is born out of fear; they don’t want to be seen as different from what our society has deemed “normal,” so they are willing to attack whoever is targeted as long as they themselves aren’t the target. In this regard, it’s a slippery slope from simply denying that you know Jesus to trading his life for thirty pieces of silver.
Can you imagine what would have happened to the early church if it had operated similarly? That movement only worked because its members relied on each other.
They hid each other from oppressive authorities. They didn’t rat each other out.
They knew that we are, in Paul’s words, many parts of one body. We need their example of allyship across parts of the community to protect the whole body of Christ.
Thank God for the LGBTQ+ folks who traveled to the Stonewall National Monument to protest the erasure of trans, queer and nonbinary people from the public consciousness. They embody the beloved disciple, showing up at the foot of the cross, attempting to figure out how to save Jesus. Will you join them?
Don’t fall for the temptation to deny your people for the sake of your own skin. You may think you can sever your connection to them, but you can’t do so without dividing yourself.
They are you. They are Christ in you. You are Christ in them.
You can’t allow them to be harmed without incurring harm yourself. That’s what it means to be one body, beloved.
May we protect and heal this body together.
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A bivocational pastor, writer and spiritual director based in Williamsburg, Virginia, she currently works as a Spiritual Director at Reclamation Theology. Cawthon-Freels is the author of Reclamation: A Queer Pastor’s Guide to Finding Spiritual Growth in the Passages Used to Harm Us (Nurturing Faith Books), and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
