As Episcopalians, our baptismal covenant call to respect the dignity of every human being requires us to stand up and speak out whenever the dignity of any of our siblings is threatened — and this is one of those moments.
In this challenging time in our nation’s history, we write to reaffirm this fundamental truth: transgender and non-binary folk are beloved by God. No earthly power can separate them from that love and their gender identity and expression are sacred gifts to our church, our nation and our world. Their presence deepens our capacity for love, justice and compassion.
Transgender and non-binary people deserve to build lives filled with joy, purpose, and the freedom to thrive. There can be no exceptions or caveats that would justify cultivating hatred or distrust toward any of our neighbors — much less any excuse for the physical, rhetorical, and legislative violence being directed at God’s beloved transgender and non-binary children. Such violence contradicts our deepest religious values of dignity, mutual care, and love, and it has absolutely no place in our sacred spaces or our wider society.
We believe it grieves the heart of God when human beings make the mistake of projecting their binary understanding of gender onto the complex, beautifully diverse continuum of humanity which God created and we are still learning to understand. It is the same mistake we make whenever we project our own finite knowledge onto God’s infinite creativity and capacity to love.
It is the first mistake human beings made in the Garden of Eden by presuming that they could be like God by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. And it is a mistake God had a response to in one of our most ancient scriptural texts — Job 38:2: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?”
In a resolution adopted in 2022 by our 80th General Convention, the Episcopal Church went on record calling for “access to gender affirming care in all forms (social, medical, or any other) and at all ages” and supporting “public policies at the local, state, and national levels in all our countries to support gender affirming care.” We will continue to strive to make that resolution a reality as we continue to pray for all those being targeted as scapegoats in the culture wars polarizing and dividing our nation. Please visit the LGBTQ+ pages on our diocesan website for a list of resources.
“Gracious and loving God, who made all people in your image, male, female, and transgender: Help the eyes of our leaders’ hearts see that depriving our transgender siblings of the dignity of comfort and safety, especially those who are among our most misunderstood and vulnerable, is tantamount to denying your precious Son a place to lay his head. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the all-inclusive unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.”
[Over the signatures of Thomas Diaz, chair of the Bishop’s Commission on LGBTQ+ Ministry, and me, this letter was sent by email this morning, in English and Spanish, to members of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please send me your email address via Messenger. Thomas and I thank the Rev. Canon Susan Russell, pictured here, for her indispensable editorial assistance.]