Happy
Pride season, ICTErs! Can you believe how
long and full it has become?
It
was good to see some of you at our first Community Gathering in April, the Boston edition of
MTPC’s Trans Town Hall Meetings, the Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference,
the Erev Pride Liberation Seder, and of course Boston Pride Day where MTPC was
a Grand Marshal and tabled. I didn’t
make it to the Pride Memorial Vigil or Pride Interfaith Service this year, but
I heard good things. We postponed our
ICTE Community Conference Call because there was so much else going on, but we
will try again at the end of the summer.
Next
Monday June 25th is our next Gathering, from 6:30 to 8:00 at 14
Beacon Street in Boston. Please RSVP to Mycroft@MassTPC.org
if you can, but please know that it’s more than okay to just show up. We gather the 4th Monday of each
month. Share information, inspiration
and support with other trans and allied people interested in working at the
intersection of trans and faith communities.
It’s actually
time to start thinking about Trans Awareness Week in November, which includes
the Trans Day of Remembrance. We’d love
to see even more faith communities participate than last year. One great collecgtion of ways to do that is through
MTPC’s “I AM : Trans People Speak” project (http://www.transpeoplespeak.org/) –
the Community phase means we’re now accepting stories from anywhere in the
country, and we’d love to have more people of faith.
We’re
also planning to start a discussion group for trans people of faith. And we’re thinking about faith-site trainings
and policies – including helping faith-based social services better serve their
trans clients.
About
next year – the Trans Equal Rights Bill we passed in November didn’t include
public accommodations, so MTPC will be filing a new bill in January. We will be coordinating the faith campaign,
including the 2nd Transgender Faith Action Week (the 1st
was last April). We will also be looking
to add signatures to our Declaration of faith-based support for trans equal
rights (an open letter to the MA legislature, signed by hundreds of people and
communities of faith). So please keep
next year in mind, and in mouth, as we journey through this transitional
year.
Best
wishes,
Mycroft
Masada Holmes
Chair, MTPC’s ICTE
http://www.masstpc.org/about/committees/interfaith/http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7923372429
