Mycroft Masada is a nonbinary trans and queer Jewish leader with 30 years of experience who moved to Gaithersburg, Maryland (Montgomery County near Washington DC) from their lifelong home of Boston in 2014. A TransEpiscopal Steering Committee member and former Congregation Am Tikva board member, Mycroft is particularly called to pursue LGBTQ+ and fat justice, and is an advocate, organizer, consultant, educator, trainer, writer and artist. They are married to Julia McCrossin, the mas(s)culine fatshion blogger, and with her they co-parent a dogter. Their central online home is MasadArts.blogspot.com.
Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) Steering Committee elections are tonight. The voting membership of MTPC -- those members who have been reasonably active with MTPC over the past several months -- will elect a new Steering Committee at the general membership meeting.
I'm running for one of the at-large positions, and plan to focus on training and faith (religion, spirituality, etc.) work; teaching people about transgender people, helping faith communities become more welcoming and inclusive of transpeople, and creating more allies for our work towards social justice.
Here is my candidate statement:
"I'm a transgender leader specializing in faith, religion and spirituality. I'm a Co-Chair of the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE), Acting Chair of Training here at MTPC, Emeritus Founding Chair of the Transgender Working Group (TWiG) of Keshet (Hebrew for "Rainbow," the local and national GLBT Jewish organization), a board member of Congregation Am Tikva ("People of Hope", Boston's GLBT synagogue), and a member of Saint Luke's & Saint Margaret's Episcopal Church (alas, closed last month).
I was born in greater Boston and have always lived here. I came out as a lesbian when I was a freshman in high school and have had a queer career in all senses ever since; I came out as transgender when I was a senior.
I'm thirty-three, and identify as female, queer, transgender, genderqueer, a Fat Admirer and fat ally, and other things. I live in Jamaica Plain, and have a wonderful partner who lives in Washington, DC. I'm a writer, an artist, and a science fiction and fantasy fan.
I'm proud to say I've been involved with MTPC since its founding, and have known and worked with some of its leaders since before that. MTPC is a truly vital and wonderful organization, and I want to help it continue to grow and improve. I've considered running for Steering Committee before, but didn't have the time. Now, I think it is time. I know I can use my experience, skills and connections to serve the organization and our community well.
Thank you for your consideration. Whatever the results of these elections, I look forward to serving MTPC this next year and beyond."
Happy Pride,
Mycroft
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Mycroft Masada Holmes
Co-Chair, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE)
Acting Chair, Training Working Group, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC)
Emeritus Founding Chair, Transgender Working Group (TWiG), Keshet
Today is the 3rd annual DC Queer Studies Symposium (DC as in District of Columbia, the American capital city Washington). It's a one-day conference, being held at the University of Maryland, College Park campus. And it's free and open to the public. It's presented by DC Queer Studies.
My partner, Julia McCrossin, is presenting her paper "Supersize Fetish" during one of the Concurrent Graduate Symposium Sessions:
Perverted Flesh: Articulating Desire at the Margins
Moderator: Robert McRuer, George Washington University, English
Disability, Intimacy, and Cripple Performance: Re-Imagining the Nineteenth-Century Female Homosocial Bond
Rachel Vorona, George Washington University, English
Capture the Pedophile, Capture the Child: The Aesthetics and Politics of the Child in Nude Photography
My partner, Julia McCrossin(a native and lifelong resident of the Washington area and lifelong Post reader), wrote and emailed a letter, "Offensive Headline in 2.24.10 Edition", to the Post's Ombudsman:
Dear Andrew Alexander,
I was quite disheartened to read this headline on A12 today : "First class, coach, and wide load." Do the editors and headline writers at your paper think this sort of juvenile and hurtful comment about fat people is appropriate for a paper with the reputation of The Washington Post? Do fat people not deserve even a modicum of decency at your paper, and are they prime candidates for any jibe or josh that your employees get a chuckle at?
I'm used to the ways in which your paper treats fat people, which is either erasure or pity,
disgust, derision, or as a scapegoat for a plethora of societal ills, and rarely write in to voice my displeasure. If I did write a letter to your newspaper for all the instances where you treated fat people in a biased manner, I could make a full-time job of it. Sometime in the decade that just passed, I even inquired of a previous ombudsman as to whether your paper's style guidelines offered anything about how to write about fat people, and the headline you printed today shows your paper still isn't wise enough to treat fat people with even the most basic dignity and humanity that we all deserve. Needless to say, I never received a response from that ombudsman, so I imagine your workplace could use a lot of sensitivity training on how to treat and write about fat people. I know a great weight diversity trainer, by the way, and would be happy to put your organization in touch with her.
In addition, I've written your paper, and various reporters and columnists, in the past (not that often, because I have a vibrant life and I'm used to your neglect of my legitimate complaints), and while I don't expect to get validation or notice from your paper, the continuing lack of attention to the fat positive community is appalling. Your rival, The New York Times, does not shy away from reporting on various aspects of the fat positive community, but there has been a silence at your paper that would encourage even the least conspiracy-minded person to wonder what investments your corporation has in not reporting on any information that objects to the 'obesity is bad' moral panic that has consumed our society.
Before you dismiss me as some self-deluded nut, you should know that I am a recognized,
published scholar in the field of Fat Studies, and am working on my dissertation on "Fat
Semiotics and Contemporary American Cultures." I've presented my work at many different
academic conferences, and have been interviewed by reporters about the field of fat studies, the fat positive community, and my research. I can put your writers in touch with lots of smart, accomplished, and credentialed academics who can elucidate them on the other side of the 'obesity epidmeic' rhetoric, and I can also put them in touch with some of the most insightful fat positive activists on the globe. Better yet, why doesn't the Washington Post send a reporter to the upcoming Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, where they can attend 11 different panels in the field of Fat Studies, so they can get a taste of the diverse and compelling research being done in my field. The conference runs from March 31-April 3 in St Louis, Missouri.
At the very least, I hope you will issue a public correction and apology for your offensive slur in today's paper. There is nothing that can justify the bad taste and cruelty of that headline, and I'm sorely disappointed that the Washington Post, a paper I have been reading faithfully since I was 8 years old back in 1979, would resort to such childish digs at a significant portion of the readership of your paper.
House Chair, Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development
State House -- Room 39
Boston, MA 02133
Senator Thomas McGee
Senate Chair, Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development
State House -- Room 112
Boston, MA 02133
Dear Representative Coakley-Rivera and Senator McGee --
My name is Mycroft Holmes, and I live and work in greater Boston, where I was born and have always lived. I love Massachusetts; it’s always been my home and I hope it always will be.
I am writing to you in support of An Act Making Discrimination On The Basis Of Weight And Height Unlawful -- House Bill 1850. This bill would amend current state laws prohibiting discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, or ancestry -- by adding height and weight to the list of unlawful forms of discrimination.
My faiths teach that like Adam the first Earthling, all people are made btzelem Elohim, “in the image of God” – and this includes people of all heights and weights. All people, of all sizes and shapes, are created equal, and should be equally protected by the law.
In my own life and in my leadership roles, I have experienced, witnessed and researched a great deal of discrimination, especially in employment. Much of it has been based on physical appearance and information, particularly height and weight. This discrimination is wrong, terribly damaging to everyone involved, and occurs many times every day in every part of our state. It must be ended as soon as possible, and HB 1850 will help end it. The bill is also an important educational tool – its implementation process will help dispel the ignorance and misinformation about height and weight.
I won’t go into detail here, as you will be hearing expert testimony about these issues from several of my colleagues – they will provide ample evidence of the significant and urgent need for this legislative remedy. I will also be attending and testifying at today’s public hearing.
I will share just one story that illustrates why I support the passage of HB 1850 into law. My partner and I are both 5’6” tall. I’ve always been thin, she has always been fat; I weigh 130 pounds, she 300. Despite many years of discrimination and other mistreatment, much of it based on her weight, she remains happy and healthy – mentally and physically – and a good and productive citizen. She is a graduate teaching assistant in English and a published academic who is very active in her field. Soon, she will complete her dissertation, receive her PhD, and apply to teach at other universities. She volunteers for and otherwise supports several organizations, including a literacy center, is a member of two faith communities, and petsits for dogs and cats. She has been a tremendous blessing to her family, friends, colleagues, teachers, students, and all those who have been fortunate enough to know her, or indeed know of her.
She is a native and lifelong resident of Maryland; she now lives and works in Washington, DC, where height and weight are protected classes in the Human Rights Laws. She visits me here in Massachusetts every other month, and hopes to move here within the next few years. I want her to have full civil rights whenever she’s here. I want her to be able to continue to live, work and play as well if not better than she has done, contributing as much to my home state as to her own. I want this for all residents and visitors of Massachusetts. I don’t want anyone to experience discrimination – but if they do, I want them to be able to take appropriate action.
Thank you for your time. I hope that my testimony furthers your understanding of how much this bill is needed and how long overdue it is. It’s a vital next step towards a more socially just Massachusetts, and another way we can be a role model for the rest of the country. I urge you to do everything you can to pass An Act Making Discrimination On The Basis Of Weight And Height Unlawful (HB 1850) this legislative session.
Do you, like me, want to end discrimination based on height and weight?
Here in Massachusetts, a height and weight anti-discrimination bill is being reintroduced in the legislature!An Act Making Discrimination On The Basis Of Weight And Height Unlawful -- House Bill 1850. This bill would amend current state laws prohibiting discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, or ancestry -- by adding height and weight to the list of unlawful forms of discrimination.
The bill is having a public hearing before the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development THIS COMING Wednesday, January 27th:
civil rights to transgender and all citizens. Rushing is a longtime and wonderful social justice leader.
How you can help:
1) Attend the hearing
2) Testify at the hearing
3) Whether or not you attend or testify, submit your supportive testimony as a letter to:
a) Representative Cheryl Coakley-Rivera
House Chair, Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development
State House -- Room 39
Boston, MA 02133
b) Senator Thomas McGee
Senate Chair, Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development
State House -- Room 112
Boston, MA 02133
c) Rep. Rushing's Legislative Aide, Tracy Choi: Tracy.Choi@state.ma.us – she is also the contact for more information, by email or phone – 617.722.2006
4) If you are a constituent of a committee member, call or email them -- tell them you support this bill and ask them to support it: http://www.mass.gov/legis/comm/j43.htm
5) If you are a constituent of a sponsor of the bill, call or email them – thank them for sponsoring the bill: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/186/ht01pdf/ht01850.pdf
6) Ask others to do all of the above – feel free to use this message
In January, the bill “An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes” was re-filed in the Massachusetts House and Senate.It would finally add “gender identity or expression” to the state’s discrimination and hate crimes laws and give transgender and gender non-conforming people basic civil rights.
Tonight, Beit Ahavah (The Reform Synagogue of Greater Northampton), The Edwards Church (United Church of Christ), ICTE, Keshet and many co-sponsors held the event “AN ACT OF FAITH: Western Massachusetts Communities of Faith Speak Out for Transgender Rights” at The Edwards Church in Northampton.
Ten congregations, eleven organizations, fourteen speakers (half of them transgender) and a full house of attendees came together for an incredible service to celebrate transgender people and commit to working for transgender rights.
These are the first and second interfaith transgender events in Massachusetts history!I wish I could tell you everything that they mean to me as a transgender person and leader of faith.What they mean to everyone who attended and everyone else who was part of them.They are miraculous, powerful, wonderful, beautiful beyond description.They are truly transformative.
With their program, each attendee was given the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition’s (MTPC) information about the bill and how to support it, ICTE’s signed Declaration of Religious & Faith-Based Support for the bill, information about the Transgender Emergency Fund, a green commitment card with several actions for the bill and transgender social justice, and wildflower seeds.
The fifth and last part was a Closing.Rabbi Justin David (Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel) gave a Call To Action.Jennifer Levi (Director, GLAD Transgender Rights Project) spoke of our Next Steps.Rev. Kakos and Rabbi Kosovske gathered all the speakers to give the Benediction.
(I hope to soon link to more of the speakers’ words.)
We speakers processed down the aisle and formed a receiving line behind the pews for the attendees.During that time and the reception that followed, I met many of my fellow speakers for the first time, and was gifted with several people’s responses to my sermon and the rest of the service.How much more so with personal stories about their lives from each of the transpeople, loved ones and other allies I spoke with.
A transman about to come out and begin his transition, who shares my fascination with mixed gender identity and expression.A transman who was partly sustained in high school by looking at my photograph in The Shared Heart (a book, exhibit and curriculum of GLBT youth portraits and essays – I’m the only transperson) every day. A transwoman who came out when she was eight, and went to a GLBT high school.A transwoman who shares my love of creating and wearing jewelry – and possible need for Jewelry Anonymous!A transwoman whose circus work taught her how to unite groups of people through the spirituality of their bodies and the rest of the natural world.A transwoman who like me comes from an interfaith family and has felt unwelcome, but sees and hopes for change.A transman who shares my interest in how faiths can learn from each other’s greatest teachers, including Jesus.
I am so blessed, grateful and proud to be part of tonight’s service, and the work which led to and will follow from it!Massachusetts has always been my beloved home (I was born and have always lived here).I’ve always felt closer to the Western part of the state than most greater Bostonians, yet I haven’t had nearly enough interaction with that community.This evening and its process was a rare and precious window and door into the amazing transgender and allied community of Western Massachusetts.What a privilege to witness such a thing, never mind be so welcomed and included!Hinei ma tov, how good it is to see the parts of my state uniting for transgender social justice and becoming more (of a) whole in the process.
Transpeople and our loved ones have been and are hurt, in faith communities and the rest of the world.We and our allies have much work and a long journey ahead of us, towards our inclusion in communities of faith and social justice.Tonight’s service acknowledged all of that, and yet was also so healing and hopeful.Tonight is part of a movement that will transform this state and country and beyond.
Thank you to the event committee – Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, Rev. Eric Fistler (Minister of Christian Education, Edwards Church), Orly Jacobovits (Senior Organizer & Community Educator, Keshet), Rabbi Riqi Kosovske, Jennifer Levi, Jan Alicia Nettler, Tynan Power, Gunner Scott, Marcus Simon (Office Manager, Beit Ahavah), Marsha & Bill Zimmer (latter is President of Beit Ahavah).
I must especially kvell (be proud) about Marcus because he’s also a “TWiG”, a member of Keshet’s Transgender Working Group.And I must especially thank Tynan because he coordinated press coverage, and his family photographed, filmed, and co-led a song.Also, special thanks to Cameron for schlepping Orly and I from and to Boston.
Thank you to our cosponsors, speakers, volunteers, attendees and everyone else who was part of this event!
Mycroft Masada Holmes
Chair, Keshet Transgender Working Group (TWiG)
Co-Chair, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE)
Today was the Massachusetts’ Transgender Political Coalition’s Transgender Equality Lobby Day at the Massachusetts Statehouse. Three hundred of us, transgender people and allies, gathered to urge our legislators to support the bill An Act Relative To Discrimination and Hate Crimes. This bill would finally give transgender people and all citizens basic civil rights by outlawing discrimination (in housing, credit, employment, public accommodations and public education) and hate crimes based on gender identity and expression.
At 9:30, I gathered outside the Statehouse with Keshet – including our Transgender Working Group (TWiG), other members of the Jewish community, and the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality.After several weeks of news and work, how exciting to arrive and begin!Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam, shehechianu ve'kiemanu ve'hegianu lazman ha'zeh.Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the world, who has kept us in life, sustained us, and brought us to this moment.
We all walked together through security and to the foot of the Grand Staircase.It was wonderful to see the standing room only crowd – how much more so to realize how few of them I recognized!It was so good to connect and reconnect with those I knew, and meet many of those I didn’t.And people continued to arrive all day.Hinei ma tov umanayim, shevet achim / achyot gam yachad.Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers and sisters [and siblings] to sit and dwell together.
Gunner Scott, Executive Director of MTPC, spoke and MCed several fine speakers; includingtransgender people, their loved ones, legislators and other politicians, and others. One of my favorite moments was Representative Byron Rushing’s speech / sermon.He told us we weren't, couldn’t be, gathered to gain our civil rights -- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- because we were born with and have always had them.We were gathered to remind our state of its failure to guarantee those rights and demand justice.I though of the early 1990s, when I first became a GLBT leader, met Rep. Rushing and heard him preach this -- during the GLBT safe schools movement, when we were working to pass the bill that added “sexual orientation” to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 76, Section 5:“No person shall be excluded from or discriminated against in admission to a public school of any town, or in obtaining the advantages, privileges and courses of study of such public school on account of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation.” Perhaps most moving was the presence of Kenneth and Marcia Garber – their son CJ was a transman who lost his life in January, at age twenty; Ken spoke and received the only standing ovation.
After the rally program, many attendees checked in at MTPC’s well-organized and stocked information table and went to prescheduled visits with their legislators – asking them to support the bill or thanking them for doing so.My fellow Keshetites and I delivered MTPC's thank-you cards to our supportive legislators and spoke with their aides and other staff, and were photographed by Ethan Halainen, Keshet’s Communications Assistant.
It was one of those days I didn’t want to end, and needed to see the end of.After most people had left, I returned to the almost empty rally site and talked with some of those who returned from their legislator visits.Even after MTPC left between two and three, I sat and talked with Joan Stratton (National Association of Social Workers) and Denise Leclair (Executive Director, International Foundation for Gender Education).Sometime after four, I had the gentlemanly pleasure of escorting the ladies out and to their next destinations.
This is one of the days when I think, over and over:I love my job.I love my work.I love my calling.I love my people, my community, my organizations and my colleagues.
How miraculous that there was a similar Lobby Day in Connecticut today, a House Judiciary Committee hearing about their hate crime definition in Rhode Island tonight, and a second vote on a similar bill in New Hampshire tomorrow.Also, Iowa legalized same-sex marriage on Friday and Vermont this morning.
And how wonderful that today is Birkat Hachama (Blessing of the Sun, the day every twenty-eight years when the sun returns to its position during Creation), that Pesach (Passover) begins tomorrow, and that it’s Holy Week (the Christian week that includes Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter).
Thank you to MTPC and its allies for creating this Day!Thanks to the Keshet staff for all their work, including creating Jewish-themed trans equality stickers for us to wear and hand out to attendees.Thanks to former ICTE member and webmistress Robyn Robbins for designing the logo for ICTE’s nametags and stickers.
