I’ve traveled 1,500 miles since Saturday to spend the next few days with family, and my heart and head are swimming with thoughts and feelings about how difficult and wonderful the holidays can be for LGBT people.  For a day or two, though, I’m just going to focus on being, and being authentically.

As we celebrate the incarnation, I pray that each of us will genuinely be “made flesh,” that our spirits will express themselves without hindrance in and through our bodies.  May the world know the fullness of you, and may you know the fullness of the world, and may there be harmony between the two.

Catching up with the meme that’s been circulating among the Bilerico Project writers, Rebecca Juro blogged “Ten books every transperson should read” this morning.  She’s got a great list, and the comments have filled in any gaps she might have left.

In a recent interview with Sally Quinn of the Washington Post, Peter Gomes spoke about his sense of the divine in us as the coming together of “means, motive, and opportunity” in a person that results in “a sense of wholeness and goodness” and “a life fulfilled.” I like that.

Being a recent seminary graduate, though, whenever I hear things grouped in threes, I think of the Trinity. I wrote once that talking about the Trinity is like walking a tightrope:

The difficulty arises in trying to explicate the doctrine beyond the orthodox formulae. As soon as he begins to add verbiage, one finds himself on a tightrope, struggling to maintain balance between distinctness on the one hand and unity on the other. Like the tightrope walker, he finds that the smallest perturbations can quickly lead to gross doctrinal error, and that his corrections are inevitably over-corrections that only exacerbate the situation. Many who have made such attempts soon find themselves stumbling back to the simple, paradoxical formulae, kneeling to kiss the platform they left and foreswearing any further attempts to walk the tightrope.

St. Augustine (354-430 CE), one of the church’s greatest theologians, was made of much sterner stuff. In his de Trinitate, he famously proposed the psychological analogy (the mind’s intellect, memory, and will as analagous to the Trinity’s three-in-one) and the love analogy (Creator as lover, Logos as beloved, and Spirit as the love between them). These are only analogies, of course, but in the end, analogy may be the best we can do. The finer points of the triune existence are so shrouded in mystery that ultimately they are comprehensible only in the abstract, and only analogically.

Which leads me back to Professor Gomes. “Means, motive, and opportunity” seem like a great analogy for the Trinity, don’t they? Creator God is the means, the field of force through which all history is moved. “From God and through God and to God are all things,” writes Paul (Rom. 11:36). The Spirit is motive (from the Latin motus, the past participle of movere, “to move,”), the dynamic of God at work, much akin to Augustine’s picture of the Spirit as love both in its operation within God and in the world. Jesus Christ is the opportunity, the inbreaking of God and God’s reign into the cosmos, resulting in a cascade of opportunities in which we ourselves can take part.

Tight analogies make me smile. What do you think of this one? Does it work, or does it need some tweaking?

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; click for larger view.)

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.
It’s easy.
All you need is love.

In 1967, the BBC was preparing for a program called Our World, the first ever live global television link. They asked the Beatles to come up with a song that would serve as the U.K.’s contribution to the program, one that had a simple and straightforward message that could be grasped by the diverse global audience. John Lennon, with help from Paul McCartney, wrote this song. A few years later, when asked if his songs were “propaganda,” John pointed to “Love” specifically and said, “Sure…I’m a revolutionary artist. My art is dedicated to change.”

As a theologian and ethicist, I’m very sympathetic toward a Niebuhrian view of our situation. In a fallen world, love, that is, the true love we see exemplified in Christ, is a practical impossibility. There are too many variables and too much subjectivity to bring it about. The best we can do is justice, which approximates love and approaches it progressively but asymptotically. There is, in other words, always more to be done.

But it’s that example of real love that drives us, and I believe draws us toward itself. When we lose sight of love and merely seek justice for its own sake, we cross the line from Christian activism into plain old human egoism. And this is where I part company with Dr. Neibuhr. We must strive for love, for if love is our goal, justice will come about naturally, even as we fail to achieve our ultimate objective.

“All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles, on Magical Mystery Tour, 1967 (Lyrics)

The Salt Lake City Tribune picked up Kourt Osborn’s story today. We’re seeing with increasing clarity how little the SUU administrators understand about transgender people.

Neuman Duncan, SUU’s housing director, said the school is not discriminating against transgender students. Instead, it is simply following a policy to ensure the comfort and safety of all students. “He has not transgendered completely so we are unable to assign him men’s housing,” Duncan said. SUU’s housing policy requires that transgender students provide a letter from a doctor that says they have undergone all necessary treatments and hormone therapy has been complete. “Where they’re in the process [of gender transition] I have no place to put them,” he said.

You’re right, Mr. Duncan. SUU is not discriminating against transgendered students. It’s discriminating against lower- and middle-class transgender students, who cannot afford gender reassignment surgery. And that’s to say nothing of transgender students who cannot have surgery for medical reasons, or who choose not to have it because it is incredibly invasive and frequently ineffective, particularly for female-to-male trans people.

We’re still waiting for either the Trib’s or the Deseret Morning News’ editorial boards to take a position on this.

Salt Lake City’s largest daily, the Deseret Morning News, has picked up Kourt Osborn’s story today. Details are finally beginning to emerge on SUU’s position. From the article:

But it isn’t a case of discrimination because the only reason Osborn was denied is because he didn’t meet the school’s baseline requirements that he’s completed hormone treatment and undergone gender-reassignment surgery, says Michael Carter, assistant attorney general and SUU counsel. Osborn’s application will be reconsidered if he can provide proof that he’s done both, Carter said.

The most obvious problem here is that one does not “complete” hormone treatment, but the deeper issue in my mind is the way the University seems oblivious to how classist their position is. Gender reassignment surgery is an incredibly expensive procedure–prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of transgendered people. They apparently expect a person in his twenties without a college education to have somehow amassed the necessary resources to meet their requirements. Those who come from all but the highest classes of our society will never be able to do so–and, honestly, how many multi-millionaire’s children are going to attend SUU?  They’ve established a barrier to on-campus housing that is effectively impossible for the vast majority of transgendered students to meet.

Kudos are in order for the Deseret News, first for publishing the story, then for telling it so even-handedly, and finally for following editorial guidelines for referring to trans people according to their gender identity rather than biological sex.  Now what I’d really like to see is their editorial board taking a position on this case.

InterstateQ has posted a press release from Utah Pride Center and Equality Utah updating us on Kourt Osborne and his attempt to secure gender-appropriate housing at Southern Utah University. Kourt, a former Equality Rider, isn’t giving up:

[Kourt] is currently considering his options regarding how to proceed with the issue, and maintains that he is dedicated to eliminating discrimination at SUU. On Friday, December 14th, Kourt began the process of filing an official grievance with Dale Orton, Vice President of Student Services, yet he has been unable to set an appointment with them to date.

The press release also mentions that the National Center for Transgender Equality is getting involved. This from director Mara Keisling:

Southern Utah University is way behind the times with in regards to discrimination and old stereotypes of what a transgender person is. Almost every university in the country has already thought through this issue and come to the obvious understanding that ALL students need and deserve a safe and accepting campus. That a public university funded with public money would discriminate against a student this way should be troubling to all Utahans.

Go get ‘em, Mara!

Some people say a lie’s a lie’s a lie
But I say why
Why deny the obvious child?

My mom bought me Paul Simon’s The Rhythm of the Saints album for Christmas in 1991. I had been a huge fan of Graceland, which she sent me while I was living in Brazil, and I thought it an odd sort of coincidence that the new album was as profoundly influenced by Brazilian beats as Graceland had been by African sounds. I really loved Rhythm, and I listened to it over and over again that cold January at West Point.

“Obvious Child” is the first track on the album, and for some reason I always thought of my mom when I listened to it. What I really thought about was my mom, thinking about me:

We had a lot of fun
We had a lot of money
We had a little son and we thought we’d call him Sonny
Sonny gets married and moves away
Sonny has a baby and bills to pay
But Sonny gets sunnier
Day by day

I’d smile. That’s just the way my mom has always loved me–like I got a little bit more lovable every day. And then Paul would get to the bridge, and the samba drums would fade into the background, and I’d feel myself being carried away into a future, looking down on myself at 40 or 50:

Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself
How it’s strange that some rooms are like cages
Sonny’s yearbook from high school
Is down from the shelf
And he idly thumbs through the pages
Some have died
Some have fled from themselves
Or struggled from here to get there
Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls
Runs his hand through his thinning brown hair

For a long time, I’d just turn my heart off when the bridge came on. I never stopped to wonder why, but somewhere down deep inside I knew. One of my deepest fears was down there under Paul’s bridge–regret. Of all the things I didn’t want to become, the one I feared and hated the most was Sonny, flipping through the pages of an old high school yearbook in a room like a cage, wondering what might have been.

Fifteen years later, my mom was the second person I came out to. When I told her that I was transgendered, she said to me, “Honey, I wondered if you were ever going to get around to dealing with this, or if you were just going to go on living like it wasn’t there.”

Why deny the obvious, child?

“The Obvious Child” by Paul Simon, from The Rhythm of the Saints, 1991 (Lyrics)

We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone…

How did I become an activist? Good question. I’m not even sure how it happened myself. For so long, I was a part of the problem, a cog in the Machine, taking orders and drinking the Kool Aid with a smile on my face. Then somewhere, the fierce independence gene I got from my parents, sixties kids who still had stars in their eyes, got activated by the words of the ancient prophets about justice and the peaceable kingdom, and somehow I just knew I had to take it to the streets.

This song is one of my activist songs. It’s a song about a revolution gone wrong, about how the oppressed, once liberated, can so quickly devolve into oppressors. It reminds me that there’s a fine line between activism and egoism, and that the revolution isn’t over until everyone is free.

“Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who, from Who’s Next, 1971 (Lyrics)

Matt Hill Comer at InterstateQ describes the situation in an exclusive interview with Kourt Osborne, who has recently been denied any campus housing at the public Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah.

“During our conversation,” Kourt said, “he told me that a sociology professor on campus believed I was ‘not truly a transsexual’ because I do not seek sexual reassignment surgery.”

Kourt said the university will only allow him housing in male residence halls after he provides:

• a letter from the doctor that monitors his hormone treatment;
• a letter from his therapist saying that he has gender identity disorder, or gender dysphoria; and
• official documentation that he has had sexual reassignment surgery.

Kourt had already provided the housing department with a letter from a doctor who monitors his hormone treatment. For personal reasons, Kourt does not seek to be diagnosed with “gender identity disorder” and does not want to seek sexual reassignment surgery.

He said that if he did not present the three items requested by the university, then he would not be allowed to live in male housing. At the same time, the university has denied housing for him in female housing, as well.

At this time, Kourt is not allowed to live in any part of the public university’s campus housing. He is currently considering his options and how to proceed with the issue.

It seems to me that the university is being duplicitous in its attempt to make up policy on the fly here. Is the issue that Kourt hasn’t had gender reassignment surgery, or that he doesn’t want it? The unnamed sociology professor appears to advocate the latter, the housing department the former. While the grounds for refusing Kourt housing in accordance with his gender identity remain ambiguous, however, the refusal to allow him housing in female dormitories seems completely baseless given the way the University is defining gender.

And that raises the key question: Just how is SUU defining gender? Though SUU does not post faculty biographies on its website, a look at the four faculty members who make up the sociology department leads one to guess it was either Dr. Andrew Bamford (who offers courses titled “Social Psychology” and “Body and Society”) or Dr. Shobha Gurung (whose course offerings are not listed but “will focus on courses in race, ethnicity and gender” according to a departmental newsletter). Dr. Gurung received her PhD from Northwestern University; her dissertation was entitled, “Women in Factory-Based and Home-Based Carpet Production in Nepal: Beyond the Formal and Informal Economy.” Searches of the EBSCO Research Database, JSTOR, and Sociological Abstracts at CSA Illumina turned up only this dissertation. Google Scholar adds a presentation at the 2006 meeting of the American Sociological Association entitled, “The Factory World: The Intersection of Gender, Caste, Class, Ethnicity, and Kinship.” SAGE Journals Online adds reference to reviews in the journal Gender & Society.

SUU is apparently satisfied that the opinion of one of these professors on matters relating to transgender identity is a sufficient basis upon which to craft policy. It seems to me, though, more like a “first draft equals final copy” approach to a very complex matter. An academic institution should know better.

Here’s some advice to SUU, provided free of charge by a girl who’s getting her masters degree today.

1. Do your research. Be thorough. Take your time. The idea isn’t to get something turned in, it’s to make absolutely certain that what you’re turning in is your best work.
2. Check your sources. It might be good idea to use more than one. And if you begin your research having already formed an opinion on the matter, you should probably check out a few sources that disagree, just to make sure you’re doing well-rounded research.
3. Follow the rules. If the syllabus requires MLA, use MLA. If your nondiscrimination policy includes sex (which it does) and sexual orientation (which it doesn’t, but should), make sure you know what those terms imply in 2007.
4. Clarify your argument. Is a transsexual someone who wants SRS, or someone who’s had SRS? Consistency is the key to writing a good essay; it’s also the key to drafting good policy.
5. Think through the logical implications of your argument.  If you’re making policy based on a pathological understanding of the trans experience (i.e. that trans people have Gender Identity Disorder), then by denying someone housing, aren’t you potentially violating your policy not to discriminate based on disability?  (See, this is why you have to take your time.)
6. Finally, if you need help, ask for it. You might start with the Educational Equity Section of the Utah State Office of Education. Equality Utah might have something to offer, too. Or how about the National Student Genderblind Campaign?