Radio Interview on Family Realities

I was asked to do an interview on Family Realities, a radio program out of Emory and Henry College. The focus was on Queer ways of doing love.

Here it is. Enjoy.

Sexual Love Without Gender -- Radio Interview

Queer the Census

We must stand up and be counted!

The census tells the story of who we are as a nation, and that includes LGBT people — but only when we participate, and only when we're fully counted. Thanks to the collection of unmarried partner data, a more complete picture of who we are has emerged. For example, we know that:

• Same-sex couples live in 99% of all US Counties.
• LGBT parents live in 97% of all US Counties.
• Black and Latino same-sex couples are raising children at almost the same rates as their heterosexual peers, but on lower incomes ($10,000/yr less).

Still, there is no question on the 2010 census that asks individuals if they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender — and LGBT questions are not included in almost all other major federal surveys.

It's a big problem. The census, which counts everyone living in the United States every ten years, provides the data that is used to determine funding and policy priorities at the national and state level.

Being counted isn’t just a numbers game, but a question of whether the LGBT community gets access to the resources that support our health, economic well-being, safety and families. The LGBT community must be visible--and that means participating in the census, but it also means being counted fully.

That's why the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, together with CREDO Action, has launched Queer the Census. We must ensure that LGBT people are accurately counted in the next census — and we need your help to make it happen. Here's how:

Queer the Census!

Morning Prayer

I wake up in the morning. Before I have gotten out of bed, before I turn on the lights, or pet the dogs, I pray.

Modeh ani lifanecha melech chai vikayam, she-he-chezarta bee nishmatee b'chemla, raba emunatecha.

I offer thanks to You, living and eternal Ruler, for You have restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great.

It is traditional. In the Hebrew, it is masculine in language. It is filled with the gender-biases and patriarchal language that I seek to avoid in my day-to-day life.

But it is my prayer. It is a prayer of my people. It is glory and honor and joy in the return of the gift of my soul from its night wanderings. I love the language of the tradition, and I hold it dear to my heart.

Then I fast forward. I shower, dry my hair, attempt to choose clothes. I set everything out to get dressed. And I pray.

Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam Ha’Mavir L’Ovrim

Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam sh’asani b’tzelmo

Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam Sh’hechianu, v’kimanu, v’higiyanu, la’zman hazeh

Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God, Ruler of Time and Space, the Transforming One to those who transform/transition/cross over.

Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God Ruler of Time and Space who has made me in God’s image.

Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God Ruler of Time and Space who has kept us alive and sustained us and helped us to arrive at this moment.

Baruch Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam B’shem mitzvat tzitzit v’mitzvat hityatzrut

Blessed are you, Eternal One, our G-d, Ruler of time and Space for the sake of the mitzvah of ritual fringes and the mitzvah of self-formation.

It is new. It is inclusive of all forms of gender. It is filled with the language and politics and belief in a G-d who is more than just one or the other that I desperately need to cling to.

It is a blessing written for those transitioning genders, for those seeking new ways of gendering, and for the wearing of a chest-binder[1]. It is new.

But it is my prayer. It is a prayer of my people. It is glory and honor and joy in the sanctity of transformation and beauty.

It is the beginning of the daily ritual of transforming the geography of my body.

I put on my binder.

It is painful. It is constrictive. It becomes harder to breathe.

It is joyful. It is honest. It becomes easier to move in the world.

---

[1] These blessings were written by Rabbi Elliot Kukla and Ari Lev Fornari, 2007 and may be found at http://www.transtorah.org/

Inscription

We inscribe the narratives of our lives upon our bodies, in our clothes, our tattoos, our laugh lines, our smiles, and in the tracks of our tears. We create ourselves, layering heartbreak over politics over faith over lust until we are each a piece of collage art walking around, reading the art of others and being read in ways which we cannot control. We are born in the image of G…d and we spend out lives inscribing this image with everything we do, forming our bodies into a new and created being, and thus forming our G…d into a new and created being as well.

Why do we do this? What is this need for the marks of our lives to show – in real and physical ways? And then why do we take these marks and hide them in ways that make it impossible for other people to read them clearly and truly?

Example. I have a tattoo – poetry; written in German; tattooed on my arm where practically every day everyone can see it. I have had this tattoo for 5 years.

Practically every day someone asks me what the tattoo means.

I have never told anyone.

People ask me all the time why I chose to tattoo it where everyone could see it. People ask why it is in such a public place, and yet such an intimate, unshared tattoo.

I don’t know that I have the answers to there questions, but I do know that we all do it. We armor ourselves in our clothes, our jewelry, our smiles, our growls. We build a shell of tattoos, binders, ties, dresses.

We do this to bodies born in the image of G…d. We do this to the image of G…d as it is reflected in each of us.

I believe in a loving G…d, in whose image I was born. I believe in a G…d whose image is so broad, so magnificent, so all encompassing that it contains everything I could possibly do to my image. I also believe in a G…d who constantly changes and evolves as we change and evolve. What does this mean for the image of G…d, as I tattoo new and unimagined things? What does this mean as we inscribe ourselves and simultaneously inscribe G…d?

Resources for LGBTQ Issues

A dear friend of mine and I are speaking at Emory and Henry College in Virginia tomorrow night. As we went through the potential questions they were going to ask us, we realized that there was a need for resources they could go to to get answers to questions we didn't have time to answer.

Here is part one of those resources. More will follow.

Books to look at:

Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation

Dale B. Martin, Westminster John Knox Press, 2006

The Queer Bible Commentary

Edited by Guest, et al., SCM Press, 2006

Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible

Edited by Robert Goss and Mona West, 2000

What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality

Daniel A. Helminiak, 2000

The Queer God

Marcella Althaus-Reid, Routledge, 2003

Queering Christ

Robert Goss, Resource Publications, 2002

Queer Theory Gender Theory: An Instant Primer

Riki Wilchins, Alyson Books, 2004

Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition

Rebecca T. Alpert, Columbia University Press, 1998

Queer Jews

David Schneer, ed., Routledge, 2002

Queer Theory and the Jewish Question

Daniel Boyarin, ed., Columbia University Press, 2004

Twice Blessed: On being lesbian or gay and Jewish.

Christie Balka, ed., Beacon Press, 1991

Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible

NYU Press, 2009

A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory

Nikki Sullivan, NYU Press, 2003

Transgender Studies Reader

Susan Stryker, ed., Routledge, 2006

GenderQueer: Voices from beyond the Sexual Binary

Riki Wilchins, ed., Alyson Books, 2002

Films:

For the Bible Tells Me So (2008)

Trembling before G-d (2003)

Jihad for Love (2009)

Saved (2004)

Latter Days (2004)

Websites:

Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity

http://www.jewishmosaic.org/torah/show_torah

Trans@MIT -- toolkit for allies of the Transgender community

http://web.mit.edu/trans/allies.html

Transgender Portal

http://transgenderportal.com/TransgenderPortal.com/Home.html

Transgender Religion Global Network

http://transgenderandreligion.ning.com/

TransTorah

http://www.transtorah.org/resources.html

The Institute for Welcoming Resources

http://www.welcomingresources.org/

Out in Scripture (Human Rights Campaign)

http://www.hrc.org/scripture/

inspired by art class

in the beginning was the flesh.

there was the flesh and the eye and the garden and the tree

and the sights for eve to take in as she sat in the glory;

and then there was the word.

and the word eclipsed the sight,

and the ear eclipsed the eye, and in

the weaving of the narrative the colors disappeared.

in the rhythm of the weaving,

in the sound of the story,

in the spill of the words,

eve stopped looking

at the miracle of the colors,

at the shading of the joy,

and the dizzying, dulling liquid of language won out.

Conversion

Frequently, when one converts to Judaism, a passage out of the Talmud (Shavuot 39A) is pointed out. It explains that every Jewish soul stood together at Mount Sinai and was a part of the covenant laid out there – both the souls of those who would be born Jewish and the souls of those who would eventually convert. The souls of those who would convert are compared often to lost lambs who have to travel a long distance to return to their Shepherd. Regardless of how far away the soul may be, no matter where the lamb is born, it still belongs to the Shepherd.

It’s a beautiful, beautiful thought, and when I heard it at my conversion two years ago, it struck me. My Rabbi told me I was becoming the Jew I was born to be, and I believed her. I still do.

However, recently, sitting in class, a Rabbi again mentioned this piece from the Talmud. Perhaps because of distance from the glow of conversion and homecoming; perhaps because I have a few more years of age, and a bit more confidence in who I am and what my soul looks like; perhaps because of some deep and secret reason still waiting to come out, this idea that seemed to me to glow and welcome me at my conversion struck me differently, with a deep sense of fear and nerves. Rather than the recognition of the truth of my soul, I was uneasy, unsettled.

What does it mean that my soul was at Mount Sinai, at that most sacred of moments? Was all of my soul there? And what did my soul look like? What was it shaped like? Was it me or only some part of me, the part that would be drawn home to Judaism?

I wonder… was the soul that would be mine, the soul that stood at Mount Sinai and accepted the covenant that would come to rule my life, the soul that would shape my very being… was it queer?

We hide in the closet.

We come out of the closet.

We struggle to reconcile parts of ourselves that conflict with other parts.

We recognize that we are whole beings, whole souls.

We are queer.

We are transgender.

We are drawn at once to Orthodox religious practice and the Transgender community.

We learn that the conflicts in are soul are what make us human, not what make us wrong.

It’s a long and cyclical fight, not more difficult, but definitely different, for those of us who are queer in some way and also religious. For those of us who believe, not culturally, not because our families believed, but because something in our hearts longs for more, longs for a deeper love and connection to G-d, the fight to reconcile ourselves and our souls to G-d takes place in a changed way. Fighting our way through religious tradition to find what G-d says or thinks about our souls becomes consuming. Are the Orthodox Jews who condemn me right? Is my soul ill, because I wear men’s clothing, or date a woman?

When I first converted, these thoughts weren’t high priorities for me. Like a new groom, I was overwhelmed both with the love I felt, and the love I knew G-d felt for me. I knew that I wouldn’t be abandoned, and that my soul, while certainly unworthy, would be cherished. I knew that I was picking up the burdens that come with the Jewish people, but light and joy and love were able to wash away, at least temporarily, previous fears I had felt about being queer and religious at the same time. I loved the Jewish people, the Laws, the Torah and all of the burdens. I wanted to be…no I knew that I was, and was born to be, Jewish. Who cared if I was gay at the same time?

As time has passed, as in any good marriage, the glow and glitter of the honeymoon has deepened into searching and understanding and companionship. My life has become filled with theology, with Talmud, with conflicting views of what it means to be a Jew, and what it means to be a good Jew.

I read about Jews who were queer and proud. I read that I was unnatural and going against the Torah. Perhaps most painfully, I read that my soul was ill in a way that even G-d could not heal.

I also read that the soul is the candle of G-d. Torah and mitzvot are the wick of a soul, and through them I can radiate the light of the Divine. I read that my soul, the very soul that found its way back to the Covenant, was made in the divine image of G-d.

And this is what brings me back to Mount Sinai.

This is what Torah tells us in Deuteronomy: the covenant was made not only with those who were there on that day, but also with all who were not there.

This is what Talmud tells us: that this means those souls who convert, those souls who are born lost lambs and spend their lives finding their way home to G-d, Torah, and the Jewish people, were standing with the Jewish people at Sinai.

And this is what I tell you: Today, and every day, I recognize in myself a soul that stood at Sinai – a soul that struggles to fulfill the mitzvot, a soul that struggles to live the Torah. I recognize in myself, and in each of us, a soul that, even as it stood at Sinai, played with gender, crossed the boundaries of “normative sexuality”, that doubted and argued and wrestled and loved and held on to G-d as tightly then as I hold on to Her now.

And as I stand on Shabbat, as I welcome the Sabbath bride into the synagogue with love and devotion and joy, sometimes I see a bride and sometimes I see a groom. Both are the Imago Dei for me. And as you read this, or hear this, as you worship and nurture your own souls, I know that you too stood with me at Sinai, beautiful and beloved, Jewish and queer, your souls hand-fashioned by G-d in all Divine glory.