By Alex McNeill

The nine year old son of a good friend of mine once described transgender people as those “whose spirits do not match the bodies they were given.” My friend’s eloquent son recognized the calling transgender people feel to fully express with their bodies the spirit God gave them.  And yet, every day, in every corner of the globe, and in your own community, transgender people face discrimination in attempting to find a place to live, in attempting to access medical care, and even in attempting to find a restroom in a public place. In these moments of discrimination, the person behind the counter, or the person monitoring the lobby of a public place, or the person working at TSA, or police or medical staff did not agree the spirit that person was trying to express counted as worthy to be granted access to basic human rights as housing, medical treatment, or a bathroom.

In the worst of these moments, transgender people are deemed so inhuman that they are murdered simply for being “not conformed to this world.” As Christians, we are all too familiar with the story of a man who was tortured and brutally murdered because his actions constantly went against the popular conception of what good, upstanding men should and shouldn’t do.  Jesus had every reason to conform, to hide, to pass- his life was threatened every time he appeared in public. Yet he, and the transgender individuals we honor today, refused to let fear compromise the lived truth of their spirits. 

Transgender Day of Remembrance, November 20, we memorialize the lives of people who were killed in horrific acts of anti-transgender violence. In the past year, an estimated range between at least twenty and 221 transgender people, most of whom identify or presented as female, suffered death at the hands of strangers and brothers, by being stabbed, burned, dragged, dismembered, and shot. This weekend, vigils will be held in cities across the United States and internationally to lift up the saints who lost their lives to a world that refused to honor their God-given calling to be transformed.  Whether or not you can attend a vigil in your community, you can, right now, offer a prayer for the victims of violence whose lives have passed from this world, and a prayer for those who continue to suffer daily for visibly expressing their transformation in body and in spirit from the sex they were assigned at birth. 

My prayer is this:

To you o, God, who knit us together in our mother’s wombs, who through countless generations have called upon us to be transformed: to lay down our nets, to change our names, and to follow you with body and soul, I lift up in prayer those who were killed in the past year for choosing to express, rather than deny, their true selves. I lift up in prayer the names of those who are unknown, and those whom we know, especially: Idania Roberta Sevilla Raudales, Luisa Alvarado Hernández, Lady Óscar Martínez Salgado, Reana ‘Cheo’ Bustamente, Génesis Briget Makaligton, Krissy Bates, Fergie Alice Ferg, Tyra Trent, Priscila Brandão, Marcal Camero Tye, Shakira Harahap, Miss Nate Nate (or Née) Eugene Davis, Lashai Mclean, Didem, Camila Guzman, Gaby, Gaurav Gopalan, Ramazan Çetin, Shelley Hilliard, and Jessica Rollon. 

God, we pray that our weeping be turned to resolve, that our anger be transformed to dedication, and that our helplessness, be turned into tenacity to work for a world where we recognize everyone as fearfully and wonderfully made. God, stir us from placidness, shake us from complacency, and empower us to work for this world in your name. Amen.

Alex Patchin McNeill's calling is to work for queer inclusion in sacred spaces. As a transgender person, and an inquirer for ministry in a conservative Presbyterian region in North Carolina, he has been writing, organizing, training, and preaching for LGBT equality for the past nine years. Recently Alex volunteered hundreds of hours to advance More Light Presbyterian's effort to ratify Amendment 10A. When not fighting for queer and transgender rights, he is raising money for reproductive justice as the Development Director at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Alex earned his Master’s of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School with scholarship on the intersection of religion, gender, and sexuality. He will continue to speak and organize for queer religious issues until all faithful LGBT individuals can call a church home.

See Also:

Transgender Day of Remembrance, Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Christian Social Justice

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Ref: http://www.mlp.org/article.php/TransgenderDayofRemembrance2011