In the Lord I'll be ever thankful...

oh my god three blogs in like a week and a half does this mean Colleen is actually blogging again?!?!

Sorry, not really.  Grad school kind of takes the blogging out of you, and also, I’m now in a position where I’m preaching regularly so most of my energy goes there.  I’m still unsure how I feel about the “posting sermons online” thing, because it feels odd to me to take the sermons out of the context where they’re preached, though I’m happy to share individually with anyone who asks.

So this blog continues as it has in the past couple of years: mildly, and primarily as a place for processing, or talking about things that I might not be able to speak to from a pulpit.

And, of course, the Thanksgiving post I’ve been doing in recent years, as a way of public acknowledgement of gratitude.  So of the many many things I have to be thankful for, here’s what I’m going to acknowledge today:

Field education.

BLESS THE LORD O MY SOUL AND BLESS THE HOLY NAME OF GOD WHO HAS SEEN FIT TO BLESS US WITH THE GREAT GIFT OF FIELD EDUCATION

My undergrad was many things.  My undergrad was intense.  My undergrad was busy.  My undergrad involved going through the emotional ringer on a near-daily basis.  One of my semesters of undergrad I pulled an all-nighter every week.  My undergrad was physically difficult, my undergrad was rigorous, my undergrad was crazy, but the one thing my undergrad was not… was academic.

Sure, we had “general education requirements” and “academic theater classes”.  Those “general education requirements” were two semesters of “Writing the Essay” (NOT “Writing the Research Paper”, mind you), two courses in “sciences” (mine were Community Psychology and a linguistics intro course), two in “humanities” and two in either science or humanities.  Most of my general education requirements were taken in Ghana and were definitely not rigorous. We had to take a handful of “academic” theater classes as well, classes like “History of Directing” and “Intro to Greek Theater”, most of which allowed us to do more creative projects for our finals.  Even with those, however, most of my time was spent in hands-on training at my studio (PHTS), in rehearsal and in tech for shows.  I started working professionally in NY theater starting during my 3rd year of undergrad.  In fact, I took it a step farther and specifically designed my final semester to allow me to do a lot of professional work, so the transition out of undergrad was very smooth—I just kept doing what I was already doing.

This kind of education means that you learn a lot of wonderful, practical things and I would not change it for the WORLD.

This also means that spending all your time in classes, reading, writing papers or studying is COMPLETELY FOREIGN to those of us who went through this program.  I had not heard of a blue book before coming to Princeton.  I almost forgot to put my name on my first Hebrew quiz because I had barely had a quiz since high school and had therefore fallen out of the habit.

And when you are so used to processing things on your feet, in the world, rather than in papers or exams, you run up against these frustrations of not having the space to do the exploration you need to do, unless you are extremely intentional about carving it out for yourself, which you probably don’t have time for.

ENTER FIELD EDUCATION: WHERE THINGS GET REAL

(I mean that in every sense of the phrase.  One, it’s going out in the real world, and two, I feel like I get a more realistic perspective.  I get a sanitized, slightly-cautionary version in seminary, and then I sit down with my supervisor who will give me the no-holds-barred version that is incredibly useful for my education.  And that is, I believe, part of the reason WHY we have field ed, because those issues are much more effective as one-on-one conversations rather than a large class discussion)

All of us in the MDiv program have to do at least two units of field education (either two year-long placements, or one year-long and one summer placement).  One has to be in a church.  The other could be with a non-profit, or a hospital, or a prison.  PTS has some specialty programs, like the International Program or the Urban Ministry program.  There are a lot of options, in NJ, in NYC, in Philly, all sorts of places to go.  If you’re at a church, especially a Presbyterian one, in the greater Princeton area, it’s likely there’s a PTS intern there.  (I think the most ridiculous thing that happened to me when I was looking for field ed sites was stopping by Judson Memorial Church’s booth at the recruitment night and being handed a postcard for the show playing there that was, of course, directed and designed by friends of mine from undergrad.)

I am doing field education at a small church here in NJ, a 15/20 minute drive from my house, depending on how long I’m waiting for the stoplight at Route 1.  I’m working with a solo pastor, which means I’m doing a little bit of everything: lots of preaching/worship leadership, teaching Sunday School, learning administrative skills, getting involved with mission, committees, etc.  This is one of the advantages of doing field education in a smaller church environment—you get a bigger picture of how the church functions as a whole and the breadth of a pastor’s job, rather than larger churches that tend towards more specialized placements.  (Of course, seeing how multi-staff settings function is also very important.  It’s all about balance, and I knew that I definitely wanted the broader perspective for a first field education placement, because it might help me figure out if and where I might want to specialize.  Also because I’ve always been in larger churches in my life, so the small church experience is new for me.)  So field education is about getting experience in doing all these things, and also having a place to process and get feedback, etc., through weekly meetings with your supervisor (PHTS folk, it’s like having conferences every week).

I’m coming up against a lot of things in field education, and it feels a lot more like theater school than it feels like seminary, which is beautiful and a bit scary but mostly thrilling.  I might write on this concept a bit more later, but a major theme I’ve been noticing is the tension between what I know intellectually verses what I know experientially, and I’m realizing that there are a lot of assumptions that I carry within me that I would never admit to with my mind but rear their heads now that I’m experiencing them.  It can be disconcerting at times, but I’m grateful to have a safe space where I can start this process of wrestling with all of these things.

And I love my placement.  It feels strange to me to post too much specifically about the church on a blog, but what I will say is that they are a lovely, affirming, gracious congregation that is strange in its own magical way, and the next time you see me you should ask me about Floridian swampland.  My supervisor is hilarious, extremely generous in her sharing of experiences, and on-par with the keenest theater teachers I've had as far as perceptiveness.  I am also the first student who has been there in over ten years, the first student to be here while the church has been under her leadership, which is exciting because it allows me not only to truly shape this position into what I’m interested in but also watch the congregation go through the process of discovery of what having a student in their midst means.  I feel incredibly lucky to be there.

The unexpected people on this journey with me.

When I arrived in Port Authority for this Thanksgiving break, I was immediately met by a dear friend and mentor of mine, and we spent certainly the most pleasant couple hours I have ever spent in Port Authority together as he waited for his bus.  He asked a million wonderful questions (I swear when I’m studying for my ordination exams I’m just going to go to him so he can ask me questions), updated me on life and theatrical goings-on, I vomited many of my struggles and confusions and wrestlings (mostly summed up in, “oh my god I’m acting as a pastor right now I never expected this and it’s weird!”).  He’s not someone who has gone through seminary.  He’s not someone in the church.  He’s someone whose very curious and who cares immensely.

Spending the last couple of days at home with friends in NYC was delightful.  Beyond merely the relief of getting a break from work and expectations, it was a relief to be around people who know me and know where I come from, who have the same shorthand.  Where I didn’t have to be seminarian or pastor or co-moderator of an organization.  I think we all need spaces like that, no matter what we do.  And as I was sitting there, giving my answer to the question, “What are the most violent parts of the Bible?” (I directed them to Nahum and Judges, if you’re curious) I realized that so often we isolate ourselves on this journey of seminary or ordination to only those literally taking classes with us, or members of our churches.  But the truth is, all these people I know from my pre-seminary life are along for the ride as well.  They may not have asked to be, but they’ve come along and I could not be more grateful.  Both for them and the reminder that I’m not doing this alone.

I had the opportunity to worship at one of my NYC churches, Grace, on Thanksgiving Day.  I unexpectedly saw Patrick, the choirmaster whom I’d sung under at that church for years.  He told me that the choir was already rehearsing “Gaudete”, one of my favorite anthems that we sing on Gaudete Sunday (which is a name for the third Sunday of Advent in some more liturgical traditions, not just a nickname we give it because of our anthem).  I told him that I wished I could be there, but I’m preaching on Gaudete Sunday.  He said, “Then we’ll be singing for you!”

Allies.

The fact is, at least in some parts of the LGBT community, which is what I can speak for, people don’t trust people who call themselves “allies”.  I’d imagine other marginalized groups experience something similar, but again, I can’t really speak to their experience.  There has been a frustration inside the LGBT community, and I’d say, particularly in more liberal social environments, at people who call themselves allies and yet don’t challenge anything about themselves or the world, don’t listen, and think that their being “an ally” excuses any problematic behaviors.  At worst, they’ll start to see themselves as oppressed, which kind of misses the point of being an ally—being an ally means you use your power and privilege to bring change, and then you get out of the way. (For a more detailed and articulate criticism of "allies", check out this article.) I say this, again, seems to happen in primarily moderate-to-liberal environments.  In more conservative environments, I’ve seen the actual danger of being an ally.

The fact is: “ally” is not something you identify as.  “Ally” is a term someone from a marginalized community might call you if you’re actively working towards justice and equality.

I have found myself in the position of being an advocate for the LGBT community on campus, which is wonderful and exhausting.  I’ve met some incredible people, I’m participating in genuinely exciting initiatives, I’ve had incredible conversations, but the day to day of it is tiring and frustrating, repeatedly running into walls, and, particularly with the gender identity conversation, having to constantly defend and justify my own identity, and all of this in a system in which I have very little power.

But occasionally I DO find those people who I don’t think are even trying to be “Allies”, they just realize that these situations are wrong and they can and should do something to help fix it.  And I usually find these people after I’ve been slamming my head against a wall for a long time, and it’s like some saying, “Oh, hey, I have the key to the door over here.”  And that is… the greatest feeling.

Brave clergy.

I know a lot of pastors and am involved with a good number of churches, and I have been so heartened by the work I’ve seen done in response to the Ferguson verdict.  From my friend Erin who moved out to St. Louis to accept her first call not too long before the shooting and has been involved in protests and pastoral care on a regular basis ever since, to the constant activism of Middle Collegiate Church, to the number of preachers I know who took huge risks standing in pulpits today and dealing with these issues instead of sweeping them under the rug.  I am proud that almost all of the churches I’m associated with have actively responded to these events.  I know that’s not universal.  I know a lot of people who went to church today and found nothing that spoke to the tragedy and the confusion.  There are many different opinions on “politics in the pulpit”, and I acknowledge that I come from a very liberal bias, but the church has too often perpetuated injustice and division through feigning ignorance.  Preaching the gospel requires us to name and deal with these awful events and the systems that allow them to happen.  What that looks like varies for every context, but it’s a deeply important part of living out the call that has been placed on our lives.

So often I have been disappointed in the church’s response to current events, usually because it’s a non-response.  There is more we could be, and should be doing, but I have seen so many conversations starting and being embraced by the church, and that is a step.

The fact that my Presbyterian Worship project that’s due tomorrow asks us to plan a service for the third Sunday of Advent, year B in the lectionary, and I am actually planning a service for the third Sunday of Advent, year B in the lectionary, for my field ed.

Give us peace that we don't keep on breaking

The exciting on-campus employment news of this school year: I now work as a chapel assistant.

We all know my slight (read as: tremendous) obsession with worship, to the point of never missing a chapel service last year, so I think eventually the chapel office realized that I was always there and figured they’d hire me.  It’s a great job, part altar guild, part usher.  The chapel assistants are responsible for setting up the space (putting up hymn numbers, setting up the Bible, providing water for the preacher, preparing the communion elements and table on Fridays) and acting as ushers each day (greeting people, handing out bulletins, helping people find seats, attempting to close the door quietly when people come in later).  We’re also kind of on call for whatever else needs to be done, so you might find us putting labels on water bottles or ironing choir robes or jumping in as liturgists if needed.

Today was the last day of classes, and chapel, before Thanksgiving break.  Generally speaking, this is not a well-attended day of chapel (I remember there were only a few of us there last year).  Many professors cancel classes and many students leave early for Thanksgiving.  The plan was for the service today to be a Thanksgiving service of prayers and hymns as we move into the break.

But then the Ferguson verdict happened.  And that service didn’t seem appropriate with so much of the seminary community mourning this decision, what it means for the world, and how it shows the state of racial affairs in the country.  Knowing the despair of those within our own community whose hunger for justice is not abstract, but a constant battle, knowing the faces of those in our school who fear for their own safety and the safety of their families, a Thanksgiving service didn’t quite fit.  So the chapel office was in contact and collaboration with the Association of Black Seminarians to shape a new service for today’s chapel time.  It was an extremely powerful service that created the space for anger and lament to exist in a sacred space.

My job is a job of support, a job of making things happen so that others don’t have to worry about it, being calm and generally pleasant so that whoever is leading in worship feels loved and supported.  It’s being a warm, welcoming presence for whoever steps through those doors.  And that was the job today, with a bit more last-minute running around than usual, but when I took my place at the doors of the chapel to welcome people inside, I realized how different today was.  This was the first time since I’ve been a chapel assistant, perhaps since I’ve been in seminary, that we’ve experienced an event with such gut wrenching consequences.  An email had been sent around from the President’s Office inviting everyone to chapel at 11:30 for a time of prayer in response to the Ferguson verdict, so almost everyone stepping through those doors knew that was the focus of the service.  They came in with it weighing on their minds, and I suddenly thought, “How do I even greet people?”  My normal chipper “good morning” was certainly not appropriate.  And as I settled into a more reserved, “Morning”, or “Hello” or “Welcome”, I had another thought:

How am I going to pass the peace?

It is our tradition at Princeton to end the service with the Passing of the Peace.  For those of you who are unaware of this tradition, the Passing of the Peace is a time in the worship service where we greet one another in the peace and love of Christ.  The traditional formula is that one person says, “The peace of Christ be with you,” (or “The peace of the Lord be with you”, or other slight variants) and the other person says, “And also with you.”  This sometimes gets abbreviated to “peace be with you,” or “peace,” or sometimes merely a greeting (and of course people debate the theology of all of that).  Where it is in the service varies, though it’s usually towards the beginning.  My favorite place to put it is after the prayer of confession and the assurance of pardon, so that we greet each other in the spirit of forgiveness and grace.  As a visitor you can learn a lot about a church’s community life by their Passing of the Peace.  I’ve seen ones that are mostly formal handshakes of only the people in your immediate radius, and I’ve seen ones that last five minutes where everyone feels the need to hug every other person in the room.

I’ve never asked why we do the Passing of the Peace at the end of chapel services, but I’ve always imagined it’s because it’s important to help bring the community together (I don’t trust any church that doesn’t do the Passing of the Peace regularly), we don’t have time to do it in the middle of the service, and it helps the flow from the worship service to the fellowship of lunch.  It’s gotten to the point that it’s such an ingrained tradition that services that don’t end with the Passing of the Peace officially (such as some evening services hosted by student groups) end up having an informal Passing of the Peace out of habit.  We all stand around awkwardly unless someone starts passing the peace.

As a chapel assistant, part of my job is to stand at the door as people exit and shake hands, passing the peace.

And as I stood back there today, I thought, “How can I possibly pass the peace today?”  As protest chants remind me, there can be no peace without justice, and the fact that we had to have a service like this today shows that we live in a world without justice.  How could I even wish for peace today, when that word has become a guilt-tripping shorthand for “be quiet, don’t make a fuss”?  Where is the place for wishing peace when perhaps we need anger to give us enough fire to take to the streets and raise our voices?  How could I, a white person, blithely talk about peace to my friends who will never find peace in their lifetime because of how people like me have rigged the system against people like them?  How could I wish peace to all of us gathered here while peace must be impossible for the family of Michael Brown?  How could I pass the peace, on today of all days?

But also, how could I not?

There’s a line I particularly love that often shows up in benedictions, though its original source is Philippians 4:7.  It’s wishing for “the peace of God which passes all understanding” to be with the people, keeping their hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of Christ.  “Passes” is also translated as “transcends”, and looking at the Greek, the implication is that this peace is above, superior to all of our understanding.  It goes beyond understanding.  I love that phrase because it invokes images of a peace that comes in the midst of turmoils.  A peace that is impossible.  A peace not caused by any of our efforts, but by a God that comes in and stands with us in our anger and despair.  A peace that does not erase what we feel but rather gives us the courage to use it.  A peace that sustains us for one more day.  A peace that strengthens us without numbing us.  A peace that finds us when no other peace can even be glimpsed.

In a workshop he led at Westminster Choir College recently, Michael Hawn talked about the importance of the Assurance of Pardon, that it should never be rushed because the words “You are forgiven” might be the most important words some people hear all week.  I agree—and I also think that, especially on days like today, someone might desperately need a prayer for that kind of transgressive peace.

How much of that was I able to convey in a handshake and a few words?  I don’t know.  I try to stay open and honest and vulnerable but that has never been my natural inclination (ask any of my speech teachers) and almost everyone finds it difficult to make sure each word comes alive when you’re repeating the same thing over and over again.  There were more embraces than usual, though.  I swear I hugged some people I’d never spoken to before.  Sometimes that’s just what needs to happen.  Many people stayed in the chapel after the service to pray, in mourning and in anger.

I have been angry.  I am still angry.  I have spent a lot of time with Psalm 44 in the last 24 hours, which yells at God for being asleep while God’s people die.  I don’t particularly want to stop being angry because I don’t want to fall back into complacency, though I inevitably will, at some point.  At a rally this evening here in Princeton I listened to impassioned speeches almost all of which carried the subtext of, “Please, don’t let this be another thing that we care about for a few weeks then let drop away.”  I hear people talking about this being a catalyst for change, and perhaps I’m jaded but I see the holidays looming and our best intentions being lost in the busyness, at least for all of us privileged enough not to have to deal with our racial divides on a daily basis.  I hate it.  I hate that so many of us can pretend this doesn’t exist and come up with excuses to make ourselves believe that our silence is not contributing to the oppression of others.

But I wonder if that peace that goes beyond all our understanding to keep us in the knowledge and love of Christ can also keep us from that complacency.  I wonder if that peace can truly be the peace of Christ, who flipped over tables in the temple in his anger over the economic injustices taking place there. Christ, who stopped the (legal) stoning of a woman.  Christ, who challenged systems that seemed set in stone.  Christ, who died so that all might live: that you might live, that I might live, that Michael Brown might live.

If it is truly Christ’s peace that we share, then I might find strength enough to hope that that peace will not deaden us but embolden us and infect us with His passion for human life and dignity.  If it is truly Christ’s peace that enters us, I might be able to dream that we will all continue to rally and march and scream until something ACTUALLY changes.  If it is truly Christ’s peace that we wish for each other, I might dare to believe that we might not be able to rest until we’ve taken up our crosses and our privilege and followed, even to the cop cars and the police station and the courthouse.  I think we might see Christ through the tear gas.

Neither one nor the other: something of each

A few definitions:

“cisgender” - when your gender identity matches your biological sex (example: you were assigned female at birth and identify as a woman)

“transgender” - when your gender identity does not match your biological sex (example: you were assigned male at birth and identify as a woman)

“nonbinary” (similar terms include “gender nonconforming” or “genderqueer”) - when your gender identification falls somehow outside of or challenges a binary (male/female) conception of gender.

—

The first time it happened was in middle school.  I was in eighth grade when I first buzzed my hair, and with that particular indicator of traditional femininity gone, my gender was anyone’s guess.  My body was not all all through puberty, and had been completely swallowed by oversized clothing anyway.  And as I stood in the bathroom, washing my hands, I heard an angry voice from behind me say, “Excuse me, this is a girl’s bathroom!!”

I turned around and said, “I know,” and my voice probably did it—higher than she expected, and the girl immediately lost all the color in her face as she said, “I’m sorry—I thought you were a boy.”  I reassured her that it was okay, an easy mistake.

People get very uncomfortable when they feel they’ve misgendered you, as long as they also assume you’re cisgendered.  Of all the things that people have ever apologized to me for, this is the thing they bend over backwards, start to make excuses, to the fact that I usually end up, as above, reassuring them that it’s okay that they did not immediately know what gender or sex I am.

Which also makes me wonder why people feel like they have to know that information in order to proceed.

—

If you ever want to have a conversation with someone about sexist behaviors and encounters, talk to someone who has passed for multiple genders.

I can speak to it a bit—not nearly as experientially or as eloquently as some of my friends who’ve undergone medical transitions.  I can tell you that the amount of harassment I experience vastly depends on what gender I am presenting.  I usually only tend towards a hyper-feminine presentation on particularly important Sundays, which means what I attract, walking around the streets of New York City in a dress early on a Sunday morning, are people still drunk from the night before.  The beauty of this is that one of their first questions is, “Where are you going?” and I respond brightly with, “Church!” and then they have no idea what to do.  I can tell you that I get more respect when assumed male, that in those times I command a “sir”, as opposed to a more feminine presentation which usually gets a “miss” because I look too young to be considered a “ma’am”.  I would tell my family that I was safer in neighborhoods with high crime at night because I could pass for a man, and it was true.

None of these things have been enough to make me change myself or how I act or how I present, except for occasionally changing my clothes after I leave the bar and before heading home late at night.

—

I used to refuse to talk about gender.

My friends REALLY LOVED to talk about gender and I adopted a tone of “oh my god why does all of this have to be about gender all the time seriously??”  I was in a class once where the teacher asked, “Can we have a conversation about romantic love without talking about gender?” and I believe I was the only person in the class who said, “Yes!”  Not denying or erasing gender but not holding up gender as The Primary Difference Between People.

The issue what I didn’t understand the difference between biological sex and gender.  Biological sex has to do with your body, gender has to do with a societal concept based on sex.  “male” and “female” talk about sex, “masculine” and “feminine” are better ways of conceiving gender.  (someone tell this to all form makers in the world, please.)  I was frustrated by the assumption that because I had certain physical characteristics, I was being defined in a certain way.  And I’m perfectly happy to challenge and expand definition, but it wasn’t that I wanted to change how woman was defined, but rather that femininity was of so little interest to me. Same with masculinity.  I wanted to take them on and off at will, mix and match, engage them or disengage with them when I felt like it.

I was never a tomboy, let’s make that clear.  While I spent an extreme amount of my childhood climbing trees, sports were never, and probably never will be, my thing.  I had male and female friends and I barely distinguished between them.  My father tried to call me “his princess”, and I very sternly told him that I was NOT a princess.  I loved princesses, I grew up in the golden days of Disney, but I was not a princess.  Playing pretend with my friends I was sometimes the prince, sometimes the female best friend (not the princess).  Once I remember my brother pulling his shirt up over his head and hooking it around his shoulders, exposing his chest.  I tried to do the same and was told that I couldn’t do that.  I didn’t understand why not—our chests looked exactly the same.  I played with Barbies.  I played video games.  In middle and high school I wore oversized clothing in all black to Make A Statement About The World; I was that kid.  I shaved my head because a kid at my church was diagnosed with cancer and we did a head shaving to show support.  And also because I liked doing things other people wouldn’t do, I liked doing things for shock value, and sometimes I get crazy ideas in my head and have to do them.  I discovered that I actually liked that style, though I grew it out in high school because I wanted to be an actor and thought I needed more flexibility in my physical appearance.  When I was in Ghana one night all the girls in my building got together and painted their nails.  I have always been terrible at nail painting, but I joined in.  I woke up the next day and saw my nails and they looked good but I was filled with this overwhelming feeling of “This is NOT ME” and proceeded, not to find nail polish remover, but to scrape the polish from each nail, leaving them rough and brittle.

The other thing to note is that I grew up in the earlier days of the internet, where we’d all lie about being thirteen and sign up for Neopets and create our own Geocities, Angelfire or Expage masterpieces.  These were the days way before Myspace—forget Facebook.  These were the days where no one used their own name.  The glory day of the screen name.  (My hotmail email address was “bookworm328” and one time on AIM I asked out my best friend whose screen name was LITERALLY “Vegeta22222222222222”.)  I got involved in several online communities and the joy was that you didn’t have to be judged by eternal factors, which for me, was primarily age.  People generally thought I was several years older than I actually was, based on how I presented myself.  But people also didn’t always know what gender I was.  I didn’t particularly present one so people didn’t know and it didn’t matter.

In fact, my closest friends in middle school would call me by my online name (once I had, of course, matured past “bookworm328”).  For a while I had adopted a name that I found out later had been used in a popular Dragonball Z fanfic, so I stopped using the name, and I felt very lost.  I remember telling one of my friends that I felt nameless, because I couldn’t accept the name Colleen.  It’s a lovely name, I love the way it sounds, I love how it ranks on the rarity scale, but I will always have a slightly difficult relationship because it literally means “girl”.  (It’s Irish Gaelic for “girl”.)  And very early on, I remember saying, “I mean, yes, I’m biologically a girl, and I don’t want to be a boy, and I’m not a tomboy, but naming me ‘girl’ isn’t the most accurate thing.”

One of my friends, later on, famously renamed me.  She had been told that I was a brilliant sound designer, was very religious, and that my name was Colleen.  She expected someone with long blonde hair and bangs, and when I showed up at her door, she said, “You’re not Colleen.  I can’t call you Colleen.”  Eventually she nicknamed me “Slats”, a name I still use in parts of my New York theater life.  I was volunteering for a fancy event and, while my badge said, “Colleen”, I knew that the executive director of that organization knew me primarily as Slats, and so I gave my crew a heads up that he might refer to me as Slats.  When he came over to brief us, he said, “And Slats will—“ and when we giggled he said, “I know her name is Colleen but come on, does she seem like a Colleen?”

I considered trying to fully switch over to Slats, but even in the new opportunity that seminary afforded me, I had made too many connections at Montreat as Colleen to switch over to Slats, and also if there was any ever conflict between me and that friend who named me Slats, that’d cause some issues.  I list it as a nickname, though, and there are two people on campus who call me Slats, one of whom is a professor.

—

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

—

Once I went to the Popeye’s by my apartment in Brooklyn.  The person who took my order called me “sir”.  The person who gave me my food called me “ma’am”.  That was a good day.

Not too long ago I was at an amusement park, as part of my quest to ride all the coasters before the park closes for the winter.  I’d come from church, where I’d worn a short black dress over a pair of pants.  But, it was cold, so I also wore a hoodie.  While the bottom of the dress could be seen, peeking out for a few inches beyond the bottom of the hoodie, I was overwhelmingly assumed male that day.  I wasn’t binding my chest or anything.  I wish I was somehow that effective on days when I’m TRYING to pass for male, but oh well.

I was standing in line to buy some food, and the person behind the counter beckoned me over with, “Can I help you, sir?”  I lowered my voice a little bit, not straining, but a more masculine tone.  Partially to avoid any issues, partially to take advantage of this opportunity for genderplay.  All was fine until towards the end of the exchange when I saw him read the name on my debit card.  These moments are very subtle, when they happen.  It’s a couple flicks of the eyes, from the card to you, back to the card, as they search for any indicators they can find without being impolite.  I almost felt like I’d been caught.  He didn’t say anything, possibly out of his own embarrassment, and I didn’t say anything, and he didn’t use any polite title for me when he handed me my food.  I continued in the gender presentation I was using, despite, or maybe because of, being caught by my name.  A kind of “you don’t entirely know how to deal with me and that’s okay”.

But, every time I went to the bathroom on that trip, I made sure to unzip my hoodie, showing the dress I was wearing, because I didn’t want to risk bathroom violence.  When you’re in middle school, people are just confused when you seem to be in the “wrong” bathroom.  When you’re older, you’re considered a threat.  I don’t have it the worst because I tend more towards androgyny or neutrality than opposite, and I use the bathroom that aligns with my biological sex.  The hostility I have experienced in public restrooms is nothing compared to the violence that trans people experience.

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I actually kind of panicked the first time someone asked for my preferred pronouns.  I don’t even want to describe the situation because I’m embarrassed about it and he might read this.  But I panicked a bit and stuttered, partially because I was caught off-guard but partially because I was afraid to deal with that question.  I was afraid to deal with my own conflicting perceptions of gender.  I was happy being an ally and wanted to insist that that was it, that I was not refusing to participate in my own self-examination because I didn’t NEED self-examination because I was a woman right?

Because there is a choice here.  I could choose to deal with these things or I could not.  But the more I didn’t, the more it would grate on me, particularly working so heavily in LGBT advocacy in the church.

So I decided to deal with that.  Which involved a lot of experimentation in both self-perception and in my relationships with others.  My friend Graham, in a phenomenal sermon he co-preached at Middle Collegiate Church, spoke to that moment of transition, of leaving behind one name or set of pronouns but not fully feeling comfortable in the new name or pronouns.  That’s what the personal process of experimentation is, discovering for yourself what feels right and even retraining yourself. I found spaces where I could do that on a smaller scale, and starting this year at the seminary I found myself faced with the choice of how out I was going to be about this.  I chose to be more out than closeted, because I felt the seminary needed me to be.  Did I need to be?  I mean, sure.  It’s incredibly beautiful when people respect how I define myself.  I’d say that’s 20% of the time, though, and that other 80% can really suck when you’ve had conversations about this with people and they still don’t.  It’s not as bad when people don’t know.

There’s no place I’m specifically in the closet right now, but there are some places I’m not going to bring up my gender identity, for various reasons.  I am the most out at the seminary.  Some other places, though, I’m like… hanging out in the open doorway of the closet.  I won’t deny anything if asked, but most people won’t ask, because most people have no conception that there’s anything to ask about.

Being misgendered feels like a scratch.  It’s not awful.  Except when you’re constantly getting scratched in the exact same place, throughout the day, and then you never know which scratch is going to be the one to push you over your breaking point.  I can feel my ears twitch sometimes when it happens.  Do you correct, do you not correct, you don’t want to embarrass people unnecessarily but you do need to help them.

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In class yesterday, we were reading a text by a female author.  The professor invited comments from both men and women in the class about how her gender did or did not affect the reading of the text.  Some men spoke first, and there were fewer women in class that day than normal, several people were absent.  This professor doesn’t know about my gender identity—very few professors here do, because there’s little opportunity or space to have that conversation, and frankly many of the professors have never encountered non-binary gender identities so that process becomes a longer process of explanation just to be able to be correctly perceived and referred to.  And I was worried that this professor might call on me if there weren’t any women who volunteered to speak, because he knows me, because he knows I generally have opinions, because he knows he can count on me to spark conversation.  And the longer the silence lasted, the more my anxiety grew, because, no, I didn’t feel like it appropriate for me to a speak “as a woman” about this woman author because I wasn’t, but I also didn’t want to correct him on my gender identity which I’ve never spoken to him about before, in front of the whole class.

A woman raised her hand to talk about how empowering it was for her to read this as a woman.  Another woman offered a counterpoint, that she felt some of the language perpetuated a patriarchal narrative with was hard for her to stomach especially coming from another woman.  I was glad they spoke, because I didn’t particularly feel any affinity with the text or not based on gender.  I have reactions to writers who identify in some way as queer in a way that I never have (and many of my friends who identify as women have) with women authors.  I wasn’t the right person to speak on that.

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I don’t have all the gender answers.

Despite apparently being the person to ask about gender on campus, I really don’t have all the answers.  No one does.  People tend to think of gender as a strict binary of male and female but really it’s like a great ball of wibbly-wobbly, gendery-bendery… stuff. Everyone defines their gender differently and people with the same identification have different ideas of what that means.  (Much like every man has a different idea of what it means to be a man and every woman has a different idea of what it means to be a woman.)  Some people put genderqueer into the trans umbrella—I don’t, not for myself, anyway, because there are a lot of issues that trans people have to deal with that I don’t and it’s important for me to acknowledge that privilege.  Everyone has different language, some people are uncomfortable with the use of the word “queer” because of its use as a slur, some of us are reclaiming it.  The best advice I have is to let people define themselves, and respect it.  “What are your preferred pronouns?” is the jackpot question.  It asks for only the information you need to know, aka, how to refer to them, can open up the gender conversation if someone wants to engage, but is not invasive.  It gives them the power to define themselves and shows them that you will respect that.

Things not to do include invalidating someone’s identity.  Ever.  In any way.  “That’s not real” or “but you’ve always been one thing you can’t just switch” or “those pronouns aren’t real” or “singular they is not proper grammar”.  Just don’t do it.  Really.  And yes, the grammar questions are harmful.  Clarifications are not—I’ve had people ask me the proper verb form for my pronouns (singular they, “they are”, not “they is”.  Like the singular you where we say “you are”, not “you is”.  “You” didn’t start off as a singular pronoun either).  That’s cool.  The constant, “but but but grammar” is not.  I’ve felt myself slowly losing patience with this as I go along, and the reason is bothers me is because we made up grammar.  We made up language, and language is an evolving thing, and if language fails to accurately describe things, we can change the language.

One time in first year design class, very very very early on, second week or something, we all left the circle of chairs to look at projects posted on the walls.  I was joining the crowd around one of the pieces, trying to find a place where I could stand without disturbing the circle of chairs.  My teacher saw this, and said to me (this is one of the first things he ever said to me, actually), “They’re the chairs.  We’re the people.  Just move them.”

They’re the words.  We’re the people.  Just change them.

When you go to Webster’s Dictionary as the “be all and end all fact of definition”, you forget that the dictionary was written by people, who all had a context and a point of view.  When you hold up definition and grammar as set things that limit human self-expression, you are prizing the constructs over people’s lived experience and that is an oppressive use of language.

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In worship class recently we were sent, in small groups, to church services outside our own traditions, and then each group gave a presentation about their experience.  One group went to a Russian Orthodox service where they stood for the entire three hours.  They were also separated, so men stood on one side of the room, women stood on the other.  In order to help us more fully experience what they experienced, they told the women to stand on one side of the room and the men to stand on the other side of the room, and had us stand there for the entire presentation.

Theatrically, I love this.  This was smart.  Remember that in undergrad I had assignments like “experience this street corner then make us experience that street corner in this room”.  I am ALL ABOUT the experiential in the classroom.

But I didn’t know where to stand.  I considered grumpily staying on the women’s side, but I didn’t have long to consider because most people don’t have to consider anything in this situation so they were getting to their places rather quickly so I made a choice and I stood in the center aisle.

And I sit in the front row in worship class, so I was standing there front and center, in a spot where no one was “supposed” to be standing.  Most of the class probably had no idea why I was standing there, looking so conspicuous.  I know the professor had no idea what I was doing.  Had I been at that church I would have stood with the women, out of respect for the tradition.  But it didn’t feel right at the seminary.

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I call myself genderqueer which I like to define as “my gender is not what you think it is”.  No one else uses that definition, but it explains what I like about the word.

Ultimately, gender is a label.  Genderqueer is almost a “don’t label me” label, and there are those people who (rightfully) think it’s absurd to have a label that indicates that I don’t want a label, can’t you just not have a label?  Which ultimately I think is what I’d like but I have been given a label my whole life, a label I am still constantly given, and no matter how I’ve tried to stretch it or adjust it or put it on, it doesn’t fit.  It doesn’t feel right to be called a woman.  And it feels like if I don’t pick my own label I’ll just keep getting “woman” my whole life which just doesn’t feel right.

I subscribe to the view “you get to pick”, but I do think there are reasons we pick what we pick, if we’re honest with ourselves.  There’s a reason I don’t really pick woman or man, and I don’t know if that’s a mental or emotional or even biological reason.  I don’t know where it comes from.  But pick something that feels true to your experience, and if your experience changes, switch it.  Our lives are far more fluid than we like to think.