We spoke at the last two vestry meetings about flying a pride flag and at the last
meeting we voted to do it, to fly the Philly pride flag and the trans pride flag
beside our wooden sign on Santa Teresa Boulevard.
The Philly pride flag is the same old rainbow flag that Gilbert Baker stitched
out of sailing cloth in 1978, but it starts with a black and then an brown stripe;
this is to center the lives and experiences of Black and Brown queer people.
The second flag is the trans pride flag, with pink for feminine, blue for masculine,
and white in between for people who are neither, both, non-binary, or transitioning ().
We talked about why we would fly these flags in particular, not the plain old pride flag
many of us know (). We talked about why we would center these minority experiences.
After all, queer Brown and Black people are not a majority of queer people or of Americans,
and .14% were non-binary. In his message to the legislature, Utah Governor Cox said
that only one girl would be impacted by his state’s recently passed bills banning trans kids
At the vestry meetings, we talked about why we have any symbol other than the cross
in our church. Why use doves, the lamb, the Pentecostal flame; why have the the Trinity knot
in serpentine stone under our sign, the ichthys on our cars, or the shield in our logo?
We talked about how these symbols emphasize things about ourselves, highlighting parts
of our story we wish to tell, wish to center.
church in a mostly straight denomination; we are a mostly cisgender church in a
Grumblingly, grudgingly, grumpily; yes.
We’re Episcopalians; not saints.
But we do it, over and over again. We center lives and experiences as different from ours
as Jesus’s. Our Black and Brown and Indigenous congregants and all other parishioners
of color have been in this church since the beginning, have often put up with a lot, and still
keep coming back.
I like to think everyone works for progress for their own reasons, but I think a lot of us do it
in the hope that just because we don’t have everything figured out, doesn’t mean we can stop
trying. And the hope that, maybe, if we center some perspectives different than our own, we’ll
learn to see the world clearer.
We’ll raise the flags tomorrow during the usual community garden work party (11am-3pm).
Bear and Kat and Aer, Debbie and Akiko and I will put up the 20’ pole with two American-made flags.
You are welcome to come;
you are welcome to be uncomfortable;
you are welcome to ask me questions or share your fears;
you’re welcome to celebrate with me and other queer people you elected to the vestry.
All are welcome here.
