Episcopalians are blue, red, and sometimes a good Anglican shade of purple. But our rainbow colors don’t run when our government attacks our trans and nonbinary siblings. Every American, no matter how small their cohort, was endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When our politics reward cruelty instead, the people of the United States need to see our church standing up for our baptismal promise to respect the dignity of every human being. As Pride month gets underway, let’s say it again. The Episcopal Church stands with trans and nonbinary people and repudiates Trump’s politics of fear and hate.
Trans and nonbinary people threaten no one. They pose no danger to girls and women. They are not predators. They do not go into restrooms for sexual purposes any more than anyone else does. They do not cheat at sports. A tiny number compete at the champion level. Their talent, not their identification, got them there. But if their physical attributes put other athletes at an unfair disadvantage, the athletes themselves can work it out. A female who transitioned after puberty may have stronger shoulders than the average female. A two-second penalty in the butterfly for the trans swimmer would level the waters and calm the playing field.
Of course sports isn’t the real issue. It’s leveraging fear for political gain. A president of either party who believed their job was working on behalf of all our people could promote better understanding of gender dysphoria and encourage athletes and their representatives to work through the nuances. Instead, to win power again, Trump exploited people’s confusion about a complex, little understood question. Experts say his ads attacking Kamala Harris for being trans-friendly were especially successful. Once in office, among many other attacks on the trans community, he signed executive orders attempting to end federal recognition of their gender status and banning them from serving in the military. Now he’s threatening to withhold federal funds from trans-friendly states such as California.
Project 2025 helped inspire this medieval cruelty by identifying transgenderism as an ideology. This assertion, even if one truly believes it, cannot survive a conversation with someone who has put themselves through the ordeal of transition in order to pursue happiness and express their authentic selves. People will do a lot for ideology. But they won’t do that.
Critics say Trump chickens out when his peers and betters push him back. That may well be. But if you’re weaker, or your numbers are small, he’s still a bully. Though trans people aren’t dangerous to women, Trump is, by his own admission and according to court verdicts and numerous journalistic accounts. He has now put trans and nonbinary people at risk from higher rates of suicidal ideation and depression. So this Pride month, my fellow Episcopalians, let’s not chicken out. Let’s keep the faith. Let’s do what Jesus would have us do. Let’s raise high the Cross and the rainbow banner for our trans and nonbinary siblings. We demand an end to our government’s un-American acts of cruelty, dehumanization, and oppression.
(Photo: Sunday morning at St. Richard’s Episcopal Church in Lake Arrowhead, long a proponent of LGBTQ+ equity)