Easter and Visibility
A reflection on a double holiday
Romans 6:3-11
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
A Holiday that Stayed Holy
For a holy day as powerfully transformative as Easter is, it is one that is most overlooked in popular culture, and I think that is to its benefit. Christmas was easily adaptable to a capitalistic consumption-minded attitude through the practice of gift-giving and feast-throwing. Parties and gifts are big business, and easily marketable.
So how do you market a holiday like Easter? It’s bizarre on its face. The secularized side of the holiday is married to... bunnies delivering eggs? Pastels? Sure, you can shoehorn in some gift-giving a little, but it’s more difficult. Rather the secular narrative of Easter has remained constantly tied to “Spring Festivals” of fertility and new birth. Hence, the bunnies and eggs. But this is an awkward fit, so Easter remains largely the province of the religious.
Easter, for Christians, is the day we recognize and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. That is the religious dimension of the day, and it is commonly the day that we see to the sacraments of baptism and communion, especially of new converts to the faith. Traditionally this was the day after a season of fasting and preparation where new converts partake of the waters of baptism and the bread and wine of the eucharist, and that has stayed the same for the past 2000 years or so. The emphasis, always, is on the defeat of death and new life found in the resurrection.
I often dwell on the gospels readings that are suggested for Easter. They are so very unexpected, even though they are a story as old as the faith itself. One could say that this is the definitive story of Christianity, without which we would have no story at all. It is the very spine of the faith, the death and resurrection of Jesus. Ours is a religion entirely focused on life in defiance of death. The passages are usually of the morning, where early at dawn, three women who attended to Jesus find the tomb he was buried in barren and empty, and dead man in there no longer there at all. Then, they find that he has been raised from the dead, and lives on in an inexplicable way, to be revealed to them and then the disciples.
Always, the women are the first to learn of Jesus. Always, the women are the first evangelists of the good news of Jesus Christ. And always, crucially, there is first terror, then wonder. Relief. The war of life and death is over, and though it was thought life and hope to be over, a new life had begun.
Today I think I will dwell on this passage from Romans. Granted, Paul and I have a strained relationship, but his writing is in our bible for a reason. I would not be a bible scholar if I hadn’t gone a round or two with this troubling apostle. I would like to think he would enjoy being challenged, engaging in rabbinic back-and-forth discussion and analysis of the faith and its traditions. Then again, maybe he’d be challenged in other ways about me than just my ability to analyze the text.
Paul gets a bad rap when it comes to women, but I think there is ample evidence to support that he approved of and supported women in ministry. Women have always been the very lifeblood of a congregation. Women do the majority of the work in any church, despite what certain male pastors would want you to believe. If you took all the women out of any church’s activities and processes, that church would no longer exist. And yes, this goes for the teaching and preaching of the Word. Women were the first to preach, and Easter is a day when women preachers ought to be highlighted and celebrated. But even in Paul’s day, with the presence of Prisca and Junia, the tradition of women in church leadership is undeniable.
But what would he make of me, a transgender woman?
Visible Struggle
Easter 2024 has a unique coincidence in its dating. This year, Easter is celebrated on March 31st. This also happens to be an important day in the queer community: the Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV). Yes, yes, it’s a bit of a weird name, I will admit; I am no less opaque than on any other day. However, it is an important day for us to recognize, for many reasons.
The first of which is personal: this is my first one being out of the closet. Queer folk will tell you that “coming out” is never a one-and-done affair. It is an almost constant, repetitive action that is inherently vulnerable, and at times, exhausting. You never know how someone will react when they find out you are queer, and it is heightened for transgender people. But for me, it’s a bit of a strange mixture, because it is my first Easter being out, and my first TDOV being out as well.
Let us say that I have mixed feelings on the affair. I am still in the process of coming out publicly, but that may not ever be a process I am ever going to be finished with. I am relieved to no longer hide myself, but that is a situation of tremendous precarity. Being transgender, especially now, is a dangerous thing. Trans folks have never been more visible than they are now, and that is both good (in that people know that we exist) and not so good (people really, really hate us). It is to be expected.
Transgender people are inherently anomalous. We defy gender norms and expectations, no matter how conventionally we may appear or behave. I could look and act like a normative cis white woman, but that will not ever change the fact that I am not cisgender. I could try to keep up a facade and “go stealth” as they say—drop out for a while, transition quietly, assume a new identity and cut everyone out of my life that might out me—but that would be trading one closet for another, to me at least. Those who know me know that I have never been particularly stealthy about anything. Personal identity and authenticity are very important to me, as is being transparent about myself, which is ironic given the nature of the day.
So, my transgender identity is at the forefront of my mind alongside the festival of Easter. It is natural for me to try and put the two days in juxtaposition, as strange as it might seem from the outside. TDOV is not just a day about sharing awareness about the existence of transgender people, celebrating our contributions to society, but also just how precarious we are. There is a concerted effort by conservative elements in our society that would like to see us eliminated. This is not an exaggeration, mind you. This is what they say about us openly. Slander and libel about transgender people are rampant and shared on mainstream news networks, and the rhetoric is only getting more heightened. For a statistically tiny population, we receive a lot of hate.
At time of writing, about 1.6 million people in the US identify as transgender, ~1% of the total population of the US. Though more young people are identifying as transgender currently, that is not a reason to think that suddenly people are just turning transgender.1 We have always been here. The difference is in education: more people know what a trans person is, and are being educated about gender and sexuality. Culturally it has become safer to come out as transgender, but that does not mean we are safe by any means.
The reason you are seeing us come out is because we have the language to identify what we are, why we are, and what it means. Because knowing what we are is so crucial for people to learn that they might be transgender as well, that is why we have Transgender Day of Visibility. If I had known about transgender identity as a youth, I might have come out far sooner, or at least have had words to help me figure it out. I might have stayed in the closet, sure, but I would at least have known that what I am is not anything to be ashamed of or afraid of. As it was, I learned what trans people were as an adult, but it took much longer for me to learn their stories and find the commonality within mine and their—to find that my story is of being transgender.
There are many factors to why I didn’t come out until so late in life, not the least of which being that I was not ready to face it. People come out when they are ready. I could have had all the facts and information there is to have about transgender people, and still not would have come out until I did. I was not out until I felt able to come out. I am lucky. My family loves and supports me still. I am not at risk of being disowned or homeless because of my transgender status, but that is not the case for a great many of us, especially transgender youth. This is why it is crucial for people to learn about us, know what and who we are, and absorb the fact that we are just normal, average people like anyone else, just with a different gender identity than the one we were assigned at birth. That’s it. We are not groomers. We are not corrupting the youth.
We are just people.
Now, my own experience with being trans is intimately tied to my faith, paradoxical as that may seem. That is why I want to examine Easter from a trans perspective and being trans from an Easter perspective. This year is an intersection of my identities in a unique way, and that is causing me no small amount of introspection.
The Empty Tomb, The Living Water
I have been trans all my life, but I didn’t have the words to describe it as such. However, the words I did have in my life that explained a great deal of what I was going through were the words and works of the church, and that is certainly difficult to ignore.
When we talk of Jesus and the resurrection, we often marry this language to the rite and sacrament of baptism. The waters of baptism are meant to mimic the metaphorical death and rebirth of life into the life of Christ. Everything before baptism was a kind of previous life, a life that was somehow less real than life post-baptism. Everything before your baptism was preparing for that moment, and everything that happened after was changed because of that moment.
This is a complicated matter for me, as I was raised in a tradition in which babies and small children are baptized. Baptism occurred for me before I was even self-aware, let alone able to make a conscious choice to enter into the life of Christ. However, that is a blessing for me in many ways, not the least of which because there was not a day of my life that I did not know Christ’s love for me. My parents raised me in the church, and the church raised me to be a Christian. When I came of age, I was confirmed in my baptism, and it was then that I made the choice for myself to fully submit to the life of a Christ-follower. Consider it a memory of the waters of baptism.
There was not a day of my life that I was not Christian. Yet, at the same time, and just as much, there was not a day of my life that did not know that I was in some way different from other people, though I did not have the language nor experience to understand it. But I know how I felt before I chose the life of a Christian, and though I was no profligate heretic, I know that there was a difference before making the choice before God and everyone to be a Christian. And like that, I know that being trans is just as transformative, in a way.
Life and death language surrounds being transgender. We call our names that were given to us at our birth our “deadnames,” though perhaps for a more grimly ironic reason than some might assume. They are called our “deadnames” because, in earlier, less accepting times, they were the names that would be printed in the obituaries by our unaccepting families. But that nomenclature, like much language, can have multiple dimensions. My deadname is still very much a part of me, and I don’t think there will ever be a time that I am not aware of its importance to me. It is, after all, a gift from my parents to me, a token of my family and heritage. It described me well for a time, but it does not suit me anymore. As the scripture says, one ought not put new wine in old wineskins, and a trans person’s name is very much the new wineskin that helps describe who they are and what they are like. My new name, Mae, is in many ways akin to the practice of converts adopting a Christian name to differentiate their old life from their new one. It is not a rejection of a gift, but rather a recognition of an inward and outward change in my being.
Easter is about life that defeats death. Jesus was dead, and then was alive. Thinking about my life before my gender epiphany, death haunted me. I have clear memories of when I worked as a chaplain in a hospital, and my discomfort with the confrontation with death that position required. Yet as terrified as I was of death, I think that I was more terrified of life. I knew that living as myself, being myself, allowing myself to express my existence in a way that felt natural and desirable to me, was a risky thing to do. I hid. I played it safe. I lived the life that was planned out for me. I lived inside the lines, terrified to show even an ounce of the inner exuberance that I longed to show. Because I knew. I knew how, when I did let that self shine, it was quickly beaten back into submission by the cold, callous hatred of the world.
At that time, I would have given anything to be myself, but that option simply was not open to me. To do that would have meant to throw away all of my hard work and progress. But sadly, that progress was not for me to enjoy. Perhaps the church saw in me the hidden nature of my being, and because I could not be fully authentic, its doors were closed to me. I left and began a second life. I left my home behind and began a new academic career.
But even then, something was holding me back. It would take years of time away from the life I thought I understood to start putting together the truth within me of why I felt different, constrained, constricted. I was still inside a tomb. I had graduated from one room within the tomb to another, but I knew that there had to be a way out. There had to be an exit. The truth that I came to was that there was a way out, but I had to be the one to do the hard work of moving the stone for myself, a stone that was placed there before me by a quirk of history, biology, geography, and culture. But move the stone I did. And after years and years of work, of prayer, of quiet inner soul searching, I found the strength to move the stone that separated me from the life I knew I was meant to live—a life Christ had promised me in him.
I have often said that God and I have always been on good terms, it is the church that has always been the problem. Well, that was not entirely true, because I also was the obstacle. I did not want to move from the safety of the tomb to the danger of a new, resurrected life. I understood that yes, I was saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, that I was born again in the waters of baptism, and that I had to die to my old life to be risen again with Christ. But something they don’t tell you when you go to seminary, or even in confirmation, is this little secret:
You have to keep doing that.
You have to keep dying to your old life. You have to keep being born again, and each era of your life requires a resurrection.
You have to be constantly reminded of the waters of baptism, because if you do not, you will fall back into the ways of being dead.
You have to keep pushing forwards.
You have to keep searching for an exit to that tomb that will find a way to trap you again and again.
Easter is that reminder to keep being resurrected.
Wesleyan Christians have an emphasis on the ways that grace exists in the Christian life. There is a kind of grace that accompanies you long after you accept the resurrecting waters of baptism, and that is sanctifying grace. It is a constant process of refinement and progression towards sanctification, becoming like Christ. The Christian life is not a straight path, either. You will have seasons of progress, and seasons of regression. Yet more than that, you will have seasons of wandering in a desert for forty days, or even forty years. You are not promised an easy time; rather, the opposite is true. Being born again doesn’t mean that you are free from doing the work; rather, it means that you are free to do the work more freely. You are freed from death, but not the process of improvement and growing in faith.
For me, transition is understanding that I am in a new phase of this sanctification process, freed from the false life that I felt cursed to live beforehand. There is something that is often said among trans folks: transition will not solve your problems, but it will make you feel like your problems are worth solving. That axiom is helpful in a Christian context, as well. Being baptized, becoming a Christian, will not solve all your problems, but it will make your problems feel worth solving. In many ways, coming to the understanding that I am transgender has helped me regain passion in my religious convictions. It has brought a new perspective to my approach to my faith, and it has reconnected me to the transformative power of the cross, and the symbols of our faith. The tomb, the water, birth, death, resurrection—all of it has new depth, new energy, new life. I am genuinely buzzing with excitement to share how much God loves me, and how much life is waiting for those who are willing to look for it in unexpected ways.
There are those who will tell you that being transgender is a disorder, and that one cannot be Christian and transgender. This is simply untrue. I have found a thriving community of Christian transgender people, who remain just as faithful and joyful in the life of Christ after transition. Likewise, there is nothing in our faith that truly can stop people from being transgender. I could not help being trans any more than I could help being born into my Christianity. Yet in knowing more about both of them, I know more about myself in reflection as a response to their influence in my life. My faith and my transness are intermingled, intermixed, woven throughout my being. Though it might make my life difficult at times, I am much happier as a Christian than I would be if I wasn’t. Likewise, though it is entirely a difficult process, being trans has made me a better person, and I am far happier now than I ever was before. I have my moments of doubt, sure, but that is a common human experience, and does not negate anything else. I am happy being a transgender Christian, and the further along in this journey I move, the better I become.
In Life, In Death, In Life Beyond Death
Perhaps you’ve read all of this, and remain unconvinced of anything I have said. Perhaps you are caught up in the words of people who have fundamentally misunderstood transness, queerness, and all of my people. Perhaps the lies of hate and fear have ensnared you and will not let you go. It’s okay. I spent 35 years of my life caught in fear and doubt too. A lifetime, half my life, lost in a dark tomb. But that is not the way it has to be.
If you are a Christian, and do not know much about being transgender, I encourage you to reach out and find us. We are everywhere. There is a likelihood that you know someone who is trans. We are (usually, not always) happy to share about our experiences. We are not the enemy. We are your brothers, sisters, siblings, aunties, uncles, mothers, fathers, and distant undefined relations.
You may be someone who might be questioning if you are transgender, and for those people, I want to say: it’s okay. It is okay to be questioning. There are resources out there for you, and people who will love and accept you. You do not have to stay in the tomb. Neither are you required to leave it. It is always up to you, your choice. You do only what you are comfortable to do, safe to do, and do things when the time is right. Only you can know when that is. There are some ready to roll right now, and there are some who need to wait. Both are valid, and both are good. But above all, you are beloved. You have trans siblings waiting to welcome you with open arms, and you have such a beautiful life ahead of you.
Being transgender and being a Christian are not in opposition. God made me transgender, beautifully and wonderfully made in my unique way. The same is true for all of us. On Easter, I am excited to be reinvigorated by the power of the resurrection, to reaffirm both my Christian and my transgender identity. Both have saved me from death and given me new life, together. This is what I have to celebrate today. We are visible, and we are resurrected, thanks be to God.
Christ is risen, and so am I.