Reconciling Ministries Network

Becoming intrepid

By Ann Thompson Cook

As I’ve thought recently about what’s needed in our movement, I kept thinking of the word “intrepid.” Once I looked it up, I realized why. According to several dictionaries, intrepid means audacious, invulnerable to fear or intimidation, courageous, bold, brave.

Many people come to me who are working toward having their congregation expand their welcome to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender folks.  

• Frequently, they’ve already put on some classes or other events, and they’re frustrated.
• They say they’re just preaching to the choir.
• They hear that some people are uncomfortable, but “those people” don’t come for the scheduled dialogues.   

So, I wonder aloud, If they don’t come to you, how about you going to them? How about finding out what they’re thinking, and sharing what you’re thinking? 

Brief silence… and then people acknowledge their own worries:  

• I'd be pretty uncomfortable; 
• It would make the other person uncomfortable; and/or 
• The conversation sounds like confrontation, and I'm just not a confrontational person. 

Of course, if you barge in with all your righteousness blazing, not much will be gained. When we walk into any conversation ready to argue, unwilling to hear what another person’s concerns/fears are, or expecting to be angry or hurt, it rarely goes well.  

But what if you could invite people into the conversation in a spirit of love and respect, carrying with you the possibility of healing? Then could you be intrepid? 

Please note: Intrepid means audacious, invulnerable to fear or intimidation, courageous, bold, brave. It does not mean obnoxious, judgmental, critical, or mean. 

If you've been holding back from such conversations, imagine for a moment standing with another person in a spirit of love and respect, carrying with you the possibility of healing.  

• How would you set up the conversation, and how would it go?
• Who would do most of the talking?
• Can you imagine yourself really hearing the other person’s concerns/fears and also sharing your own experience and vision?  
• What would be possible in such a conversation? 

Standing in a spirit of love and respect, might you be willing to ask yourself and others into conversations you’ve not explored before? Could you be intrepid?

When allies blunder…

By Ann Thompson Cook

Consider the moment when a self-proclaimed ally says or does something insensitive or offensive.

What is your most likely response? Do you…
• Look the other way and say nothing?
• Chalk it up as more evidence that allies can’t be trusted?
• Give the person a piece of your mind?
• Write the person off?
• Suffer/hurt in silence?
• Gossip about the person’s insensitivity?
• Be embarrassed (or shocked) and lower your expectations for that person?

These are all perfectly normal, well-accepted (by society) responses to gaffes and blunders, insensitive statements, and offensive actions.

But do they build a movement? I think not.

It’s possible to transform someone’s insensitive or offensive action into a “teachable moment,” and I think we all stand to learn how to do that.

I had a particularly memorable “teachable moment” opportunity at a recent national conference of Methodists who are committed to LGBT equality. I had looked forward to a plenary at which a beloved retired bishop would be speaking—someone I hadn’t met, but who I knew was famous throughout the U.S. for his teaching, and to this group for his long-time support of LGBT people. 

About halfway through his talk, though, I was shocked to hear him mention the problem of clergy “playing with little boys.”

Afterward, I sought him out to speak about it.  I introduced myself and spent a few minutes getting acquainted and making the connection that I had grown up in the state he now calls home.

Then I told him that I was concerned about something he’d said that morning, and wondered if he would be open to my sharing it with him? He said yes and leaned in to hear what I had to say.

I told him that my concern was his use of the expression “playing with little boys” to refer to clergy sexual abuse. I said that I was pretty sure that there were men in his audience who had been abused by clergy, and that they hadn’t experienced it as being “played with.”

At first, the bishop denied having said that, and I quietly responded, “Actually, you said it twice” and waited for his recognition. Then I added that I knew it was a euphemism that used to be used, but now we know that it’s hurtful because it minimizes or discounts a very painful experience. He agreed, and we reflected on language that more aptly represents the reality of clergy abuse.

Soon it was clear to us both that this unexamined phrase would no longer be part of his vocabulary. He thanked me for speaking to him about it, I thanked him for his openness, and we parted.

The whole conversation took only a few minutes.

Why do you ask?

By Ann Thompson Cook

The questions started when I began standing up for LGBT equality in the mid-1980s. I still don’t have good answers for them. I know this because my answers so rarely satisfy the people who ask the questions.

The first question is, Do you have a gay child? My answer is, No, not that I know of.

But that doesn’t really answer the question. Many people then take it to another level by asking, So… why do you care?

My usual answer begins with my outrage that people are being discriminated against for who they are, and it ends with something like, Because I want the next generation of children—GLBT or not—to be free to be themselves….

Often people leave these conversations puzzled and unsatisfied. Some simply shake their heads and wait for me to come out. They assume I couldn’t have that kind of passion unless I was lesbian.

I too am left unsatisfied. What is behind these questions? Why can’t this person accept that it makes a difference to me to eradicate this “ism” that hurts so many–those who are LGBT and those who are not?

My guess is that behind the questions lies deep hurt, a backlog of experience of being let down and betrayed by straight people, even those who say they’re supportive. Meeting me for the first (and sometimes the 100th) time, many LGBT people can’t assume that they can trust me, can’t assume that I won’t let them down like so many others have before.

Of course, I’ve had similar experiences (without the explicit questions) as a white person among people of color. It’s the water that we who are privileged swim in with marginalized communities.

At first, I found these exchanges deeply frustrating. Over the years, I’ve learned to simply and profoundly pay attention.

I can remind myself that it’s not personal, it’s not about me. But I can also use the exchange as a reminder to continue the inquiry: Where am I still blind to, or comfortable with, the “givens” in my life that are not available to others? 

Why? Because it’s blindness and comfort that, in the end, will likely be the source of my disappointing or betraying people that I say I’m standing with.

Allies’ contributions: Are thanks in order?

By Ann Thompson Cook

You know from an earlier post that I believe that this movement is by and for allies, too. It's not just an LGBT movement that we “help out” with, since our liberation is bound up with LGBT liberation.

So I’ve always felt uncomfortable when LGBT people thank me for contributions that I’ve made. The trouble is, they’re thanking me, often explicitly, for what I’ve done for them.

I’ve struggled with how to respond and have learned that most of the time, it’s best to simply receive and honor the person’s genuine and heartfelt communication. However, there are occasions that offer greater possibilities.

In 2005, when Reconciling Ministries Network met for its national convocation at Lake Junaluska in North Carolina, some LGBT opponents including the Ku Klux Klan tried to intimidate the conference center, but the leadership and staff stood firm. They created a welcoming space for us, despite the storm of protest and threats.

It was particularly notable, since throughout much of its history, this conference center had yielded to hate, keeping its doors closed to African Americans visitors.

So on the first day, when the conference center director was introduced, the assembly applauded him for a long time, and he accepted the applause. Indeed, he embodied courageous leadership.

I don’t know if he was a long-time ally, or an unintentional ally, brought to that point simply because he had that job at that moment, and was required to declare what was right.

At any rate, I had a sense that if he had stopped the applause and spoken, he might have said something like this:

“We did for RMN what Lake Junaluska does for everyone. You are Methodists at work. It’s our job to support you and offer hospitality.

“We haven’t always done that for everyone, and for that history, I apologize. Today, we’re committed to supporting and offering hospitality to everyone, no exceptions.”

Can you see the transformative power of moving beyond the applauded thanks to a larger possibility? Through his eyes, we could see ourselves in the flow of human history. No longer marginalized, simply United Methodists at work, glimpsing true community, embracing him and each other.

Whose movement is this?

By Ann Thompson Cook

I’ve heard people say that allies’ job is to help LGBT people, that the work we do for LGBT equality is to benefit LGBT people. Similarly, I’ve heard supportive straight folks say that they feel uncertain how to act, because they’re not sure they have permission, presumably from LGBT people, to speak.

It’s time to consider whose movement this is.

My own work for justice has long been informed by a saying attributed to aboriginal activists: "If you have come 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."

When I finally began working for equality, it was after a long period of discomfort. Like everyone else, I had absorbed society’s homophobia (and transphobia, I later learned) through my pores. I worked very hard to identify and deal with preconceptions and fears that I had learned since early childhood.

I work for equality because I don’t want any more children to learn such aversion, whether of other people, of themselves, or of aspects of themselves. I want children to be free to become fully who they are, to express gender in whatever way comes most naturally to them, to date whomever they’re drawn to, to pursue their own amazing gifts and interests and talents.

When one of my sons was 9, he went to summer camp at the community center, which consisted of all the kids taking a smattering of the classes held at the center year-round. So it happened that he landed in a co-ed ballet class with a wonderful teacher, whom he adored. But when he enthusiastically enrolled in that class in the fall, he was the only boy, and the girls began taunting him on the playground as “ballet boy,” after which—with many tears—he withdrew.

I tell that story, not because my son was scarred for life, as so many LGBT children have been, but as an example of how our  anti-LGBT culture affects all children, including those, like my son, who turn out to be straight. Sexism—rigid gender requirements—drove him from pursuing something that gave him joy that year.

That’s not the kind of society I want to live in, much less raise a new generation in.

So whose movement is it? I say it’s all of ours, whoever strives to create a world that works for everyone, with no-one diminished or undermined, no-one left out.