Today is a day when we honor the lives lost due to anti-trans bigotry and violence. This is an important act of awareness every year, but it is especially vital in a year when Christian nationalists have focused abusive rhetoric on trans and non-binary youth and adults. This has led to the loss of at least 58 beloveds in the United States and all the gifts they brought to life in the world. 

Given that Christianity is coopted and corrupted to harm gender expansive kin, one thing we can do as a community with Christian roots is to reclaim our religious language of our beginnings.

One of our spiritual forefathers, the Reverend William Ellery Channing, spoke about his understanding of human beings having a likeness to God. As we can read in the book of Genesis, God created humankind in their image, and after their likeness. We read that male and female are both a part of God’s being. When we read and parse the language it is made clear that God can be interpreted as gender expansive, and therefore, all of us, in all our manifestations of gender reflect the many variations of divinity. 

When our trans, non-binary, and gender expansive siblings participate in the act of creation by creating new ways of being and becoming more fully themselves, they also demonstrate their likeness to God.

When our trans, non-binary, and gender expansive siblings rename themselves, this is also a representation of a human quality that reflects the divine spark. Remember, Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai becomes Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel, and Solomon becomes Jedidiah. As each of these biblical characters enters a new chapter of life, they receive a new name indicating their relationship with the divine.

On this Trans Day of Remembrance, let us also remember that our practice as Unitarian Universalists is not only to mourn our beloveds now gone, but also to celebrate their lives and how they touched the world. Here is a link to the stories of 58 trans people who are gone, but will not be forgotten: The Remembrance Report from Advocates from Trans Equality.

Finally, let us all renew these promises:  

To bind with others in countless acts of healing, creation, and recreation,
To embody a love that is unfettered, unbound, and liberating, 

And to embolden our vision of a world where no one is outside of love’s reach. 

May it be so. Amen. Blessed Be.

With gratitude for all of who you are,

Rev. Alison