A Ritual for Renaming and Remembrance of Baptism

Imagine via Håkan Dahlström on Flickr

This past Sunday I experienced an unusual and extraordinary blessing--my church renamed me.

As part of my transition, I wanted a way to mark and appreciate the gift of my birth name, and then formally accept the gift of my new name, all while surrounded by the family of my birth and the family I've chosen. Not many trans folks have a church that supports them and celebrates with them during transition, and I realize how blessed I am. And while I'm incredibly thankful, I'm also sad that these kinds of blessings aren't common practice for welcoming and inclusive churches. Christians, let's add to our repertoire a bit! Let's celebrate the changes in the lives of trans folks just like we celebrate new births, marriages, confirmations, graduations, retirement, and all other transitional moments!

The liturgy I put together for my renaming and remembrance of baptism is below, with a couple of personal sections edited. Many thanks to Justin Tanis and Nadia Bolz-Weber for their examples.

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Renaming Ceremony and Remembrance of Baptism for Austen Hartke
April 10th, 2016

Presider:
Holy One of Blessing, in baptism you bring us to new life in Jesus Christ and you name us Beloved. We give you thanks for the constant renewal of that life and love in us. We gather together today to affirm and celebrate the new name of one of your children. Be with us, strengthen us, and uphold us all in the gifts and promises of our baptism.

Community: Amen

 Hymn: #798 in ELW “Will You Come and Follow Me”

Presider: Hear now the promises and commands of God, given through Isaiah—

Thus says the Lord:
    Maintain justice, and do what is right,
for soon my salvation will come,
    and my deliverance be revealed.
Happy is the mortal who does this,
    the one who holds it fast,
who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it,
    and refrains from doing any evil.
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
    “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and do not let the eunuch say,
    “I am just a dry tree.”
For thus says the Lord:
To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
    who choose the things that please me
    and hold fast my covenant,
I will give, in my house and within my walls,
    a monument and a name
    better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
    that shall not be cut off.

[Presider and participants gather at the front]

Presider: Today we remember the name given to this child of God at birth—the name Alison. Alison’s parents gave their child the gift of a name, the gift of life, and the gift of love. We honor their gifts, and we give thanks that while names change, and children grow and transform, love endures.
Today we gather to acknowledge a new name—a name which signifies all that Alison has always been, is now, and is still becoming.
Presider: By what name shall you now be known?

Austen: My name is Austen.

Presider: Is there anything you would like to tell us about your new name?

Austen: [Explains meaning of chosen name.]

Presider: Let us welcome Austen into the community of faith.

Community: Welcome, Austen!

Presider: Austen, bear this name in the Name of Christ. Share it in the name of Mercy. Offer it in the name of Justice.
Let us pray. Loving God, we pray for your servant Austen, with thanks for the journey and awakening that have brought him to this moment, for his place amongst your people, and for his gifts and calling to serve you.

[Presider dips into baptismal font and makes the sign of the cross on Austen’s forehead]

Presider: Holy one, remember Austen’s baptism. Stir up in him again the gift of your Holy Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever.

Austen: Amen.

Presider: O God, in renaming your servants Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Peter, and Paul, you gave them new lives and new tasks, new love and new hope.  We now hold before you our sibling Austen Hartke.  Bless him with a new measure of grace as he takes this new name.  Write him again in your heart and on your palm.  And grant that we also may take on the name of our brother Christ, whose true name is Love, and in whom, with you and the Spirit we pray. 

Community: Amen. 

Hymn: #793 in ELW “Be Thou My Vision”

It's All Connected

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.
But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

— Lilla Watson & Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s.

Today is February eighth--just barely into the second month of the year--and we've already learned of the murder of two transgender people here in the United States in 2016. It's almost certain that there have been more, since trans people are often misidentified after death, and are therefore not reported accurately. And in the grand scheme of things, when Brazil has now reported over 48 murders of transgender people in this new year, maybe two people in the United States doesn't seem like much. But these two people were individuals--irreplaceable, unique, with lives and dreams and histories all their own. 

Monica Loera was a Latina woman living in Texas, who loved Beyonce, Madonna, and the Dallas Cowboys. It was discovered, after her death, that she had never changed her legal name or gender marker, which led authorities to report her death under the wrong name and pronouns, despite her obviously female gender expression. (Other trans women from Austin, TX have spoken out since Monica's death, giving voice to the fact that, without disposable income and paid leave, it's almost impossible to change those legal documents.) It has also been reported by Monica's roommate that she was engaged in sex work in the area, and that the man who shot and killed her on her own doorstep was probably a client. 

When I look at this story through a wider lens, this is what I see: a transgender woman of color, marginalized by her identity in at least three different ways, who couldn't afford to update her legal documents and was likely struggling to make ends meet--and who was probably forced into sex work because of those circumstances--was shot with a gun by a white man. I see issues of race, class, transphobia, lack of protection for sex workers, and gun violence.

When I learned about the murder of Kayden Clarke by police in Arizona, I cried. Kayden loved dogs, and had a service dog of his own named Samson, who often helped him as he volunteered at HALO, his local animal rescue. Kayden lived with Asperger's syndrome, a kind of autism, and he reported in a frustrated Youtube video in January that his doctor refused to refer him to a gender specialist for hormone treatment until his Asperger's was "fixed," causing Kayden incredible distress. On February fourth, police were called to his home by a friend who was worried he might try to hurt himself. Upon finding Kayden with a kitchen knife, two police officers shot him.

Again, seeing Kayden's story laid out in news clippings makes it easier to see the social issues involved--the state of mental healthcare, access to medical care for trans people, underlying transphobia, and police brutality and use of force.

It's important to note the ways that these issues intersect in the lives and deaths of Monica and Kayden, because our own lives are wrapped up in these same struggles. When we talk about how Black Lives Matter, we talk about the way individual and institutional white supremacy has given one group of people the literal power of life and death over another group. Monica Loera was not black, but she was killed by a white man with a gun, the way so many other people of color have been killed. And when we talk about police training and the increasing militarization of law enforcement, we might remember the way police shot Kayden Clarke without first attempting to use any other means of deescalation. 

I may not know what it's like to be forced into sex work just to pay rent and buy groceries, but I do know the desperation of falling asleep at night wondering if I'll ever get a job, because my legal name and my gender expression didn't match at the interview. Who knows what I might have had to do if I hadn't had a loving family as my safety net. And I may not know what it's like to live on the autism spectrum, but I too had to deal with health professionals who wanted to see an improvement in my anxiety disorder before they would proscribe me the hormones that allowed me to live life as myself.

The point here is that we cannot be single issue activists. Those of us who are trans can not only fight for trans rights while ignoring the rights of people of color, or people with disabilities, or people who have been incarcerated, or people who live in poverty. Those of us who are not trans, but who deal with mental health issues, or the effects of sexism or racism, or who worry about the state of gun control in our country, cannot be blind to trans issues. These issues ARE our issues. And we cannot fight for justice simply because we think we should, or because we feel like we're called to help those who are "less fortunate." We must fight because we realize that we are all bound up together. Because we realize that none of us are free until we're all free.

We must fight because there will never be another Monica in the world, and there will never be another Kayden. We must remember the dead, and fight like hell for the living.