Summer camp shows each child has different needs, importance of supporting trans youth
Last week, First Unitarian Church finished up the 12th year of our Wiogora summer camp for elementary and middle school children. For 12 years, we have run a two-week day camp that is welcoming to children of all identities. Campers are boys, girls, cisgender, trans and nonbinary; some campers have ADHD or autism, while others are neurotypical; campers need different kinds of support and awareness and we strive to provide what each child needs.
This welcome is in keeping with our Unitarian Universalist values, which teach us that every person has inherent worth and dignity. In traditional religious language, we would say that every person is made in the image of God and is loved by God for who they are. In fact, we would use that religious language to say that God loves the diversity of gender expressions, sexual orientations and personal identities that make up the human race.
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In addition, at our camp, as at many inclusive programs for children, we encourage young people to explore all the different ways they can express who they are. We have days where kids dress up as their favorite character from a book, or think of a way to evoke “the galaxy” or “plant life” through costumes. We celebrate honesty and kindness wherever we see it, including in the fierce competition of sports. We encourage young people to be thoughtful about who they are and who they are becoming in the ways that matter most: not just hair color or clothing choices, but character, kindness, and consideration of others.
Part of that consideration of others is using the language they prefer to refer to them. Many programs for adults and children now invite people to share their pronouns along with a name on a nametag. I admit that this is something I had to get used to; it’s a recent addition to our culture. And it sometimes asks us to stretch the ways we use language, for instance by using a plural “they” to describe a single nonbinary person, or even learning new pronouns entirely. Yet I have come to embrace sharing pronouns (mine are she/her) as a way of showing respect for others through our language.
In her book "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants" (Milkweed Editions, 2013), botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer describes how different the Potawatomi language is from English. Potawatomi is the native language of Kimmerer’s Anishinaabe people. In Potawatomi, both verbs and nouns have animate and inanimate forms. Every word contains a distinction between living beings and mere things.
She writes that to describe a bay, a Potawatomi speaker would speak of the “being of the bay” — which suggests that the bay is alive in some way, that it contains some personhood. She writes, “‘To be a bay’ holds the wonder that, for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers. Because it could do otherwise — become a stream or an ocean or a waterfall …” The same is true for trees, for animals, and for people. Tables and chairs, on the other hand, are nouns. Potawatomi speakers describe what they are, not the nature of their being. In this way the Potawatomi language describes a richer and more detailed world than our English language does. Of course animals and waters have being. Potawatomi makes this clear.
Looking to another language helps me understand that we don’t need to let the customs of English limit the respect and regard we show other people. If a person shows us the true nature of their being, by wearing the clothes that feel right to them, and using the pronouns that honor who they are, we can stretch our language to include and honor their truth. If living waters can be described through words of being, how much more should we make our words describe living people?
In the gospel of John in the Bible, Jesus stretches language to its limit when he says to a woman at a well that he can give her living water, water that will quench the thirst of those who drink it forever. That sounds to me like water we would describe with a word of being, like the Anishinaabe describing a bay. In fact, the woman does not understand Jesus’ words, and she asks for some of this literal, magical water that she thinks he is offering.
Instead, Jesus makes clear that he is offering her a spiritual gift, not a physical one. He is offering being, not a mere thing. Jesus asks the woman questions and gives her answers that show that he knows who she is at the deepest core of her being. He uses the mystery of language to invite her into the spiritual world of mutual respect and regard. He says to her, “God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth (4:24).” Whenever we use language to describe the spirits of people, of waters, of animals, and even of God, we are fitting an imperfect tool to the truth of being. Language is made to honor truth, and not to be a weapon wielded against people.
Today, the fight for respect for trans youth and adults is about so much more than pronouns. In 13 American states, transgender youth cannot receive any gender-affirming care. Although less than 2% of Americans of all ages identify as transgender, and although health care decisions are usually seen as private matters between a patient and their doctor, care for trans youth has become a political flashpoint with real health care consequences for young people and their families. We should not use human beings to score political points. We should treat all people with the respect and dignity they deserve as whole and holy human beings.
Cultures and languages change and grow all the time. Our culture is becoming more accepting of differences in sexual orientation, gender, and personal identity, which means that more people can fully be themselves. We can help our language change as needed to embrace our respect for all people.
The Rev. Sarah C. Stewart is minister of the First Unitarian Church of Worcester.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Keep the Faith: It's important to respect trans youth
