The Edwards Church 297 Main Street Northampton, Massachusetts

Mycroft Masada Holmes sermon -- “Transfaith”

(II. Tilling The Soil)

Good evening! Welcome!

My name is Mycroft Holmes, and I’m an interfaith transgender leader based in Boston. I’m a Co-Chair of the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE) with Reverend Cameron Partridge, who’s also speaking tonight. I’m the Chair of Keshet’s Transgender Working Group (TWiG). And I’m a board member of Congregation Am Tikva -- the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) synagogue of Boston.

ICTE and Keshet have been so glad to bear witness to and be partners in the planning process for this second “An Act Of Faith” event. Thank you and mazel tov to Beit Ahavah, the Edwards Church, and all of your partners!

These are the first interfaith transgender events in Massachusetts history! They are so long overdue, and I am overjoyed that their time has come.

Thirty-three years ago, I was born female and transgender, and I am so grateful for and proud of those things. I wouldn’t change them if I could. Like Adam the first Earthling, and all beings since, I am made and remade btzelem Elohim, in the image of God. My body and my spirit are bashert – meant to be. My identities are gifts and blessings from God, meant to be shared with the world and used to practice tikkun olam, the healing of our world.

I was also born a person of faith. I was born into a primarily Jewish and Episcopalian family, which has always included other faiths. My siblings and I have been blessed in that we were taught to understand and experience many faiths. I identify as interfaith – primarily Jewish, Episcopalian, and Christian.

I just didn’t think being transgender was challenging enough for people! I thought -- why not be transfaith as well?

And I was born a person whose life’s work is transgender social justice. This work is the primary reason I was created, given life, and have continued to exist. It is my calling. I’ve been blessed to be able to pursue it for almost twenty years.

It has been very difficult for me to find spiritual homes. I’ve been too religious for many GLBT communities, and too queer for many faith communities. As a transgender person, I haven’t been welcome in many of the spaces that welcome gay, lesbian and sometimes bisexual people, and their allies. As an interfaith person, I haven’t been welcome in many single-faith spaces. Most people are well-intentioned, but don’t know how to be welcoming.

I’ve been more fortunate than most. I have found some wonderful spiritual homes. Congregation Am Tikva, Keshet, the Coalition. My co-chair Reverend Partridge’s church, Saint Luke’s and Saint Margaret’s. My fellow Coalition members’ church, Cambridge Welcoming Ministries. In these places and others, I’m welcomed as a person and a leader who is transgender and interfaith.

Many of us have more than one sex, more than one gender identity and gender expression, more than one sexuality. Many of us have more than one faith, one religion, one spiritual practice. We need to be welcomed in our spiritual homes, in our social justice work, and in the rest of our lives.

Seven weeks ago, I was at Cambridge Welcoming Ministries for their Reconciling Saint Sunday.

This is an annual worship service that celebrates and honors those who advocate for full inclusion of GLBT and all people in the United Methodist Church and beyond. Each year, they award an individual leader with an honorary sainthood -- this year, they awarded a Methodist bishop. The service provides sustenance and inspiration to GLBT people and allies, and is a witness to the rest of the Church about the need and movement for reconciliation. It’s an event that shares much with ours tonight.

I attended with a fellow transman who is a friend and a colleague. When it was time for communion, I hesitated. I’ve taken communion several times during my life, but each time I had to hide part of who I was – one or more of my identities. And so I’ve felt conflicted about those experiences. But Cambridge Welcoming makes it absolutely clear that their communion – and its meaning – is open to all. GLBT people and allies. People of any and all faiths and no faith. And they truly practice what they preach. And so I went and took communion from the bishop who had been sainted and from one of my fellow Coalition members…and it was wonderful.

And then I returned to my seat next to my trans friend. Knowing that I was Jewish, he looked at me and half-jokingly said, “You can’t take communion.” You can’t take communion. I understood, and I was also angry and hurt…but it made me think. You can’t take communion. I looked at him and I said, “And we can’t be men – and yet here we are.”

We were born female and transgendered. We were told we could not be men. We were told we could not be people of faith. And we were told we could not pursue justice.

And yet there we were – two transmen, dressed in men’s suits, sitting in a pew in a Christian church at a Christian worship service. Open about our transgender, interfaith and social justice identities and experiences. And welcomed and included and celebrated as members of that community and that movement.

How many times have each of us, all of us, been told that we cannot? We can’t be our sex, our gender, our sexuality. We can’t be our faith. We can’t live them. We can’t be proud of them. We can’t work for our social justice.

We can’t? And yet we have done! And yet we are doing!

And yet we will continue to do – for as long as it is necessary. Until transgender people have civil rights. Until transgender people are welcomed in faith communities. Until transgender people experience social justice.

We have been hurt. We have been killed. We have been discriminated against. We have been excluded. We have spent all our lives waiting for our civil rights. We have died waiting. And we do not forget. We cannot, should not, must not forget.

And yet we are still here and we are still hopeful. We are a people, and a community, and a culture. And we are living and loving and working and changing the world. And it can be changed. All of us here tonight and all of the allies we make tomorrow are the ones who will change it.

And hinei ma tov umanayim, shevet achim / achyot gam yachad! Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers and sisters and siblings to sit and to dwell together. Behold how good it is to gather to teach and to learn and to take action for transgender social justice.

I am so grateful and so proud to be part of the movement that brought us to this moment and which will go forward from this place.

On behalf of myself, my organizations, and my people -- thank you for partnering with us in this work.

May our work be blessed and be a blessing. Amen!

Mycroft Masada Holmes June 2009 Arnold Arboretum