Sermon 5.15.16
My husband and I made an early decision not to dress our daughter according to current gender prescriptions.
We were the grateful recipients of many hand-me-downs from friends with children of different genders and so our daughter Cora, now two years old, has a wardrobe of many colors and styles.
We find that, out and about in public, people can be confused sometimes about what Cora’s gender is.
Once, I was hanging out with Cora and a few kids, and one of them asked me: “Why is Cora wearing a boy’s shirt?” I said, “Hmmm… what makes you say it’s a boys’ shirt?” I immediately began to see the wheels start turning in her head, some hesitation showing: “Well, it’s orange and brown….” I said, “Hmm… so only boys can wear the colors orange and brown?” “Well, girls usually wear pink and purple and flowers.” “Hmm..maybe that’s true for some girls, but Cora likes all the colors.” Another child, a boy a bit younger was listening, and said, “I have a friend that is a boy and his favorite colors are purple and pink. There are no boy colors or girl colors.”
We live in a time in which gender has become very either/or.
Our understanding of gender is unscientific and ahistorical.
This is future president Franklin D. Roosevelt at age 2 in 1884.
His clothing you see here was considered gender neutral. Most children were dressed this way. White was more practical because it could be bleached, and dresses were easier for diaper changing.
Our current dictate of pink dresses for girls and blue overalls for boys did not arrive in any linear fashion. In 1927, Time magazine printed a chart showing sex-appropriate colors for girls and boys according to leading U.S. stores. Pink was the choice for boys because it was close to red, considered a strong color. Blue was for girls, as it was considered a softer color. Some followed the advice, some not. One fashion scholar says that “in the 18th century, it was perfectly masculine for a man to wear a pink silk suit with floral embroidery.”
Then when the women’s liberation movement arrived in the 1960s, the unisex look became the rage, this time interpreted as plain clothing free from gender hints.
But in the 80s, the advent of prenatal testing, combined with capitalism, created a perfect environment for strong gender codes.
Expectant parents learned the sex of their unborn baby and then went shopping for “girl” or “boy” products. Retailers quickly realized that the more you individualize clothing, the more you can sell. If your next child is a different gender, you have to buy all new clothes and accessories, even expensive items like strollers, cribs, and bikes.
But of course gender codes go deeper than corporate greed, and deeper than clothing choices.
Our gender codes, at least in western culture, limit what we feel, how we behave, what is possible for our lives.
We are culturally influenced to treat boys and girls differently, as soon as their first days on earth.
I find myself doing it. I remember when my nephews and nieces were over for a birthday party, I found myself asking my nieces, not my nephews, to set the table. I caught myself and wondered about women’s supposedly ingrained tendency to care for others – is it more a product of nature or nurture?
There’s one famous study showing that women treated the exact same babies differently depending on whether they were dressed in pink or blue. If the clothes were blue they assumed it was a boy, played more physical games with them and encouraged them to play with a squeaky hammer, whereas they would gently soothe the baby dressed in pink and choose a doll for them to play with.
We probably are still in infancy in relation to our knowledge of how sex and gender, and nature and nurture, work. But we know it’s more complex than an either/or. Even in the animal kingdom there is variety related to sex and sexuality. The world is a place rich with diversity, and we know that diversity in the natural world is a sign of health.
So if a boy wants to play with a doll, or a girl wants to play football, or a man doesn’t care about sports, or a woman doesn’t want to have children, or a man wants to wear mascara, or a woman wants to take testosterone and transition to a male – why don’t we bring curiosity and acceptance instead of judgment and critique?
The questions and looks we occasionally receive from people about Cora’s clothes are pretty minor in comparison to other ways that gender codes in our culture are enforced.
And when I say “enforced,” it is not an exaggeration, for some states, as you know, want to enforce that transgender people use the restroom that aligns with their sex at birth. That would mean, for example, that this man
would use the women’s restroom, and this woman would use the men’s restroom.
This is Sarah McBride who posted this photo on her instagram account and said,
Here I am using a women’s restroom in North Carolina that I’m technically barred from being in.
They say I’m a pervert.
They say I’m a man dressed as a woman.
They say I’m a threat to their children.
They say I’m confused.
They say I’m dangerous.
And they say accepting me as the person I have fought my life to be seen as reflects the downfall of a once great nation.
Of course these are two transgender people. There are many kinds of transgender people.
Here are some of the transgender religious professionals in our Unitarian Universalist Association.
Here’s a refresher course that we all sometimes need in this complex world we live in:
Sex is about biology: the parts we were born with. Boy or girl, right? Either/or?
Nope! Intersex is the term for people that are born with genitalia that is different in various degrees from what we typically expect. And it’s okay. Most of the time, the only reason intersex people need to have this medically “corrected” is because of the stigma they might receive.
Chromosomes. XX or XY, right? Either/or?
Nope! Some other chromosome combinations we are aware of are XO, XXY, Triple X, and XYY.
Gender: Male or Female, right? Either/or?
Nope! This one may be the easiest to understand if we recognize that all of us fall somewhere different on a male and female spectrum in terms of gender expression.
Gender is a complicated mixture of nature and nurture, biology and culture, that scientists and psychologists do not yet fully understand. Some people have stepped out of either box and refer to themselves as genderqueer, or gender nonconforming.
It’s important to understand that sex and gender are different. And gender identity and gender expression are different. It’s a lot of terms!
Gender identity is whether one feels themselves on the inside to be a man or a woman or something else or some combination. Gender expression is how they express that identity.
For many of us, these three things: sex, gender identity, and gender expression mostly line up.
But for some people, they may, for example, be of a female sex, but feel themselves to be a male and want to express themselves in the way men in our culture typically express themselves. This person may decide to undergo medical surgery and/or take hormones so that their bodies more closely match their internal sense of identity, or they may not. It is not a decision taken likely, or just for fun, or just for attention.
It is about the fundamental human need to be who we are in the world.
Other cultures get this. Many, many other cultures have a wider understanding of gender than the either/or binary.
Native American people have chosen the term Two-Spirit to encompass the various terms documented in over 130 tribes for people whose bodies simultaneously express both masculine and feminine energies.
In south Asian countries including India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the Hijra are people recognized since ancient times as born as male with a feminine gender expression. Today, they are legally recognized and in India alone may number as many as 2,000,000.
In China, yinyang ren are people who have an equal amount of both feminine (yin) and masculine (yang) qualities. In Siberia, the indigenous Chuckchi people have shamans who are a nonbinary gender.
The Bugis people of Indonesia divide their society into five separate genders. To be considered bissu, the fifth gender, all aspects of gender must be combined to form a whole. It is a cultural belief that all five genders must harmoniously coexist.
In Japan, there is X-gender; in Madagascar there are the Sekrata. The ancient Sumerians had several kinds of priesthoods reserved for people who did not fit into binary gender. Indigenous peoples in Australia, Samoa, New Zealand and Hawaii all recognize gender identities that do not correspond to the binary. And more…
Of course, you can’t directly conclude that these all these cultures are necessarily healthier than ours in terms of gender, or perfect, but it gives us a view out of the status quo.
And science confirms the need to break out of the gender binary.
A knowledgeable doctor or researcher will tell you it is possible to be born with male genitalia but female chromosomes or vice versa. And now brain research has demonstrated that it also is possible to be born with female genitalia, female chromosomes and a male brain.
So boys who tell their parents by age three that they really feel themselves to be girls are usually not making it up.
The vast majority of transgender people do not want attention. That’s the last thing they want.
They want to be who they are without the questions, without the fear of not knowing which bathroom they will be safe in, without the bullying, without dying.
Rev. Emily Heath is a United Church of Christ minister, and she says that she and her wife have an ongoing joke that they realize isn’t funny at all. “We tell this joke,” she says, “when we are out in public, at an airport or a restaurant or concert, and I need to use the bathroom. When I stand up to find a restroom I say to her, “Okay, honey, if I’m not out in five minutes, come look for me.”
Rev. Heath identifies as genderqueer, meaning neither gender fits her gender expression.
Like the vast majority of trans or gender non-conforming people, Rev. Heath says something that should be simple – using the bathroom in public – creates stress in her life. In fact, roughly 70% of trans people have reported being denied entrance, assaulted or harassed while trying to use a restroom.
Rev. Heath explains:
The other night I read about a woman who has decided to bring her gun into restrooms from now on in order to “protect” herself from “perverts” who come in. To be clear, that meant anyone that she thought didn’t belong in a women’s room. Shoot first. Ask questions later. I joked with my wife, “So, that’s how I’m going to die. I’m going to go into a Target bathroom with that woman and she’s going to think I’m a dude and shoot me.” This time my wife didn’t laugh.
Some in our country are protesting the White House’s guidance they gave on Friday that public schools allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice.
Let’s walk through the arguments…
Some of them are protesting because they say that this will enable male pedophiles to enter women’s restrooms and prey upon their wives and daughters. First: where is their outrage in response to other violence against women and children. Think of the cover-up of Jerry Sandusky’s abuses at Penn State, or Catholic priests’ abuses. Too often, people hide their true reasons for bigotry under the seemingly unpenetrable argument that we must protect the vulnerable women and children. In response to this argument, one of our members, Jessica Haislip, posted on facebook recently an open letter to Texas politicians. She said: “I [as a woman] do not need your protection. My children do not need your protection… Please stop using women and children as pawns in your game of bigotry.” If the concern is truly for the safety of women and children, much more effective legislation could be created than banning transgender people from bathrooms.
Another argument against gender neutral bathrooms is that all of society shouldn’t change for the needs of a few. I wonder if they have ever felt in the minority and needed support. The truth is, we each are made up of multiple identities, and sometimes we are in the majority and sometimes the minority – all of us at varying degrees. We support each other. Moreover, gender neutral bathrooms are helpful for mothers caring for their sons, fathers caring for their daughters, or people caring for handicapped people of a different gender.
Others are against gender neutral bathrooms because the legislation may also extend to locker rooms and showers at schools. Some say they do not want their children showering with children with different parts. Three points: First, facilities divided by sex assume that females are never interested in females or abused by females. Likewise that males are never interested in males or abused by males. Second, if there is more need for privacy or adult supervision in some locker rooms and showers, this could and should be accommodated regardless. Third, understanding human biology and sexuality should be something our children are prepared for and educated about in age-appropriate ways so that it is natural and comfortable and children understand what is healthy and unhealthy and can communicate about it. Our Unitarian Universalist comprehensive sex-ed program for various ages is exemplary in this area.
Now I know that at least some of you already know everything I’ve spoken about today. I’m preaching to the choir.
After all, Unitarian Universalists ordain transgender people to ministry, welcome transgender people to their communities, and have put out official statements, years and years ago advocating for their rights. And I know this church supports transgender people.
But I talk about all this today for two reasons:
One: because even if you know it, we all need confidence and inspiration to continue to stand up for it.
Two: this gender stuff continues to affect each and every one of us.
It affects the ways women have to shrink to be respected in positions of power, the ways men carry responsibilities they can’t talk about anywhere, the ways women put up with abuse, the ways men are not given space to be vulnerable, the ways women are told their bodies are more important than their minds, the ways men are humiliated for any tenderness and toughened up. It affects adults; it certainly affects children.
Yet we are making progress.
And here we have a vision of beloved community to guide us –
a beloved community that encourages and embraces the full depth and diversity of human experience.
Let us continue to insist that we will not lead shallow, divided lives, that we will not be limited to either/or, that we will stand up for difference, within our own selves and within our communities.
Let our courage and our commitments be renewed.
-Rev. Emily Wright-Magoon