Pagan Coming Out and Pagan Pride

So, May 2nd is Pagan Coming Out Day.

I know very little about the International Pagan Coming Out Day organization (http://pagancomingoutday.com/), so I don't really know how I feel about yet another Pagan holiday / movement borrowing words from / being named from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer movement.

I am familiar, though, with the International Pagan Pride Project (http://paganpride.org/), which is an excellent organization, and which openly and gratefully acknowledges its debt to the work of the Gay Pride Movement and to all the lesbians, gay men, bisexual women and men, queer women and men, and transgender women and men who have gone before, paved the way, and provided inspiration for the Pagan Pride Movement. 

Why are Pagan Pride and coming out important?

They're important for the same reasons as for LGBTQ people, and as they are for the members of any minority group. 

Visibility.  Survival.  Combating discrimination and prejudice.  Building community.  Building bridges.  Education -- sharing the truth with ourselves / each other and with people outside our community.  Equality.  Integrity.  Celebration and joy.  Honoring our fabulousness. 

Yes, honoring our fabulousness.  Honoring and celebrating each other. 

Acknowledging and honoring those who have died due to prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination, and working to end them. 

Celebrating those of us who are alive, those who have gone before, those of us who work every day to make equality truth and not just words on paper, those of us who live every day in the world walking through our lives as Pagans, in the bright variety of Paganisms that exist all over the world.

Thou art Goddess. 
Thou art God. 
Thou art Divine. 
Thou art Sacred. 

Thou art Fabulous. 

Blessed be.

Blogging Against Disablism: Why I'm tired, why I'm sick, why I feel embraced

When I first read about Blogging Against Disablism/Ablism Day, I knew I wanted to write something for it.

I finally had some time to sit down and write this week, and I spent a little while sitting quietly, not thinking about much, not writing, just being.

Letting my mind go out of focus, then bringing it back to my experience… what really comes to the forefront is

Radical love, radical inclusion... and the stereochemistry of gender inclusion

I know there's some renewed attention right now to the issue of cisgender-women-only space/the exclusion of transgender women in certain kinds of Paganism.

(Please note that I am not following, or interested in, that debate, and please don't ask me for information about it.)  

A number of people have spoken to me quietly about the issue -- because they're hurt or just plain puzzled by the fuss, or because they're trying to figure out their own complicated reactions to it.

I've also been trying to discern what, if anything, I should say publicly about this issue.

I realized I'm led to share a response I sent to one of those friends.  Part of why I'm comfortable sharing it is because it turns out there's nothing in this letter that I haven't said to other people, both electronically and in person, in public as well as in private.  

Apologies to my beloved former chemistry professors for the oversimplified explanation of stereochemistry. 

- sm

Dear [name],

Cis *isn't* being used because it's the opposite of trans -- it's a termed borrowed from chemistry, and it's being used because it's a good descriptive term for people who were born into bodies consistent with their gender identities.

In chemistry, there are types of molecules with two different kinds of structures -- cis and trans. In one structure, the component groups are attached to *opposite* sides of a molecule across a (double) bond; that structure is called trans, or different. In the other structure, the component groups are attached to the *same* side of a molecule across a (double) bond; that structure is called cis, or same.

Take a look at the second set of pictures here to get the idea (the ones with the big green circles with no rotation): http://www.chemguide.co.uk/basicorg/isomerism/geometric.html

You and I were born into bodies consistent with our gender identity -- the same, or cis; "the same" with our gender identity, or cisgender.

My friend [name/mutual acquaintance] was born into a body not consistent with her gender identity -- different, or trans; "different" from her gender identity, or transgender.

If you don't like the way it's being used by transgender women in the [blank] debate, then you're giving too much credence to the commenters there, IMO.

If you don't like how it's being used by transgender women in general, I'm sorry. That sounds difficult. It's often difficult to listen to people with less privilege when they confront us, and it's true: you and I have cis privilege.

But the term cisgender is *not* being used exclusively by transgender women, any more than the terms heterosexual, straight, white, temporarily able-bodied, upper class, or male are being used exclusively by lesbians, gay men, bi people, transgender people, disabled people, people of color, poor people, working class people, middle class people, or women.

You also need to understand that transgender women experience a terrible amount of misogyny, and that they get it both from men and from other women. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be another woman who behaves that way towards women who also happen to be transgender.

My own journey towards transgender inclusion has not, and still isn't always, an easy one. I've been part of a Quaker lesbian organization that was torn apart over the issue of including transgender women; I couldn't have told you then if I thought it was better to exclude or include transgender women. I have also been incredibly honored to get to know a number of transgender women and men in person, as real people, most but not all of them through a deeply Spirit-centered Quaker organization that walks its talk of radical love and radical inclusion. It has become very, very clear to me where I find the Goddess, and where She leads me, when it comes to this issue. I can be sure of that even when I'm not 100% comfortable; it's a very different kind of discomfort than when I'm not certain.

So I hope this helps some. 

Love and blessings,
Stasa

A review of Ben Whitmore’s "Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft"

I don't have the brain right now to digest and analyze this fully, but I find it really interesting.  - Stasa

from http://www.sourcememory.net/veleda/?p=39

Here is an excerpt:

This is a review of Ben Whitmore’s Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft. A Critique of Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Auckland: Aotearoa / New Zealand, 2010 http://www.goodgame.org.nz/trialsofthemoonexcerpt.pdf


I am glad someone took on the task of providing a detailed critique of Hutton’s book. Ben Whitmore, a Pagan priest in New Zealand, does not hail from the school of Wicca-is-a-direct-transmission-of-ancient-Pagan-tradition. He is clear “that today’s witchcraft is largely a reinvention” and favors  examining the foundational myths of modern neopaganism with a critical eye. At the same time, he feels a spiritual kinship with past traditions and holds out the possibility of recovering their authentic roots:



“I feel it is high time that Wicca and Paganism be permitted to have not just myths, but a history as well.” Hear, hear.
Hutton, although himself a Pagan, has systematically attacked the idea of pagan survivals in medieval Europe, and not just in this book. He hews to an orthodox focus on literary sources as the font of culture, with a corresponding disregard for the testimony of folk tradition and its conservational power. We hear from Diane Purkiss about how the English school of witchcraft history had “hardened into an orthodoxy”since the 1970s. Whitmore points out that they ignore the rich documentation of folk paganism by continental historians (a disregard, paired with sputterings about “rigor,” that I have been protesting for years).


Hutton’s earlier book is described as taking a “withering” approach  toward neopagans while rhapsodizing about christianity. Such attitudes are unsurprising in most academic circles, but Hutton’s dismissals have been taken up by some Pagans as well. Whitmore recounts “one rather sad conversation I had with a bright young High Priest and High Priestess who were abandoning the Craft because Triumph had convinced them they were living a lie.”[2-3]


Whitmore makes an effort to be evenhanded. He praises Hutton’s chapters on Wicca as “balanced and comprehensive.” He corrects an error about the succession in Alexandrian Wicca. [3] It’s been years since I read Triumph of the Moon, so I don’t remember if the feminist branches of Wicca were included. In any case, modern paganism is not the main thrust of Trials of the Moon; it is about making the case for a historical connection between pagan ethnic religion, including goddess reverence, and later witches and witch traditions.


Whitmore counters Hutton’s exaggerated claim of “a tidal wave of accumulating research which [in the 1990s] swept away … any possibility of doubt regarding the lack of correlation between paganism and early modern witchcraft.”He lays out the misrepresentations and revisionism in Triumph of the Moon by reviewing the historical literature that Hutton cites, and systematically showing that his sources do not say what he claims they do. In some cases they say the complete opposite. The quotes that Whitmore provides shows that they affirm rather than deny the persistence of pre-Christian spiritual traditions, including shamanic ones. The exception is Muchembled, but even he acknowledged the demonization of folk beliefs and observances in constructing the myth of the Witches’ Sabbath. [6-8]


So the book tests Hutton’s evidence and provides some much-needed historiography. It also offers  helpful summaries of ideas by various authors. P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, for example, talks about the incompleteness of European conversion into the middle ages, and tracks the imposition of elite ideas about diabolical pact and witches’ sects onto folk culture. (Hmm: a footnote alludes to the famous case of two German villages where only two women were left alive. Maxwell-Stuart, however, appears to have erased the specific targeting of women, rendering it as only two “residents”spared by the hunts. [9 fn 27]) Still, I’d like to read his discussion of the number of accused witches who actually were cunning folk, healers, diviners, or people who had dealings with the faeries. [10]

Read more:
http://www.sourcememory.net/veleda/?p=39

Conflict and Quaker process

I was thinking recently about a conflict in the Meeting where I'm sojourning.  And then I found myself thinking back on conflicts -- and potential conflicts that never were -- in other Meetings and Quaker organizations I am or have been part of.

I posted the following to Facebook: 

...reflecting today that whenever I've been really angry over, disturbed about, or hurt by a conflict in a Quaker meeting or organization I've been part of, the real root of my pain hasn't been the conflict, but a lack of Quaker process. Whereas the most potentially terrible conflicts have been transformed in the deepest love through worshipful decision-making, leading-seeking, and truth-seeking together.

Thoughts?  Reflections on your own experience?

What are the parallels or analogs in Pagan groups or organizations? 

What are your favorite feminist blogs?

What are your favorite feminist blogs?

Some suggestions I've received so far, some of which I've known about, some of which are new to me:

from Amy S: 

• I Blame the Patriarchy, http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/

• Fugitivus, http://www.fugitivus.net/

• Yes Means Yes, http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com

• (sometimes) Shakesville, http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/

• (sometimes) Tiger Beatdown, http://tigerbeatdown.com/

• (newly-discovered) DarkDaughta, http://darkdaughta.blogspot.com/

A few other suggestions I received:  

• Bitch PhD (which is mostly laid down but sometimes not), http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/

• Feministe, http://www.feministe.us/blog/

• Feministing, http://feministing.com/

• Ta-Nehisi Coates, http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/

• Pam's House Blend, http://www.pamshouseblend.com/ 

What are your suggestions?  

A quick web search turned up some of these. What's your experience with them?

• The Angry Black Woman: Race, Politics, Gender, Sexuality, Anger, http://theangryblackwoman.com/

• Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog, http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/ 
• (I confess, I loved this page: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/04/17/faq-what-do-you-mean-by-not-my-nigel-feminist-abbreviationsjargon/)

• Feminist Blogs, http://feministblogs.org/

• Bitch Magazine / Bitch Media, http://bitchmagazine.org/

• The F-Word: Contemporary UK Feminism, http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/

• Feminist SF - The Blog!, http://blogs.feministsf.net/  (I wish there was more here!)

I had to dig hard to find any blogs at all by women of color, much less feminist ones.  Even in this day and age.  This sucks.  

Update:  How could I forget Geek Feminism???

• Geek Feminism, http://geekfeminism.org/

What feminist blogs do you suggest? 

Pagan bloggers, beware: intellectual property theft in progress

Earlier this week, Jason Pitzl-Waters posted a warning to Facebook about a Facebook group called Blackraven Coven, whose creator and main author/poster, Bram Darkraven, who says she's from Wiltshire, UK, was stealing Pagan authors' copyrighted material and posting it as her own, with her own copyright and copyright date.  T. Thorn Coyle soon followed with a similar warning. 

In case you've ever been scathed by me for passing stuff on without verification, I verified with Jason, Thorn, M. Macha NightMare/Aline O'Brien... and by going to the group itself.  (That was an education.) 

A couple folks in the group asked her to  explain herself.  At first it looked like she might be compiling things from different sources without proper citation.  Then her posts to the discussion forum of the group became wholesale cut-and-pastes of other people's blog posts and web pages, but again with her own copyright and copyright date. 

The she lifted "Ruminations on Pagan 'Clergy'" from the Broomstick Chronicles by Aline O'Brien / M. Macha NightMare -- with certain very notable exceptions that obviously were made to take the original author out of it:

• she changed the date she said she originally wrote it to an earlier date than the date Aline said she originally wrote it; 
• she removed the middle sentences of the first paragraph about being the Chair of the Public Ministry Department at Cherry Hill Seminary; 
• she added her own copyright date again.  

Those changes were no accidents of sloppy scholarship.

More people in the group asked her to explain herself.  She deleted their posts and blocked them from the group.  

But wait, there's more: when confronted by Aline Macha about stealing the work, she insisted again that she wrote it, not Aline Macha. 

Folks continue to monitor to see if she continues to steal other authors' work.  Some of them have been well-known, like Aline Macha; some have been more obscure webspinners and bloggers; one was even Edgar Allen Poe (!). 

There's a process to report theft of intellectual property to Facebook.  The only person who can make the report is the owner of the intellectual property. 

However, if the offender removes the violation, Facebook considers the matter resolved. 

So if someone steals your intellectual property and you complain, and the thief takes it down but then re-posts it... or keeps someone else's stolen property up... the owners of the intellectual property are stuck. 

As you can see, Facebook's response has been lukewarm at best. 

No matter what excuses people come up with for stealing other people's work, doing so is a violation of international copyright law and of Craft law.  There's no way around that.  The Craft teaches co-operation; it also teaches, through the Law of Threefold Return, what happens to thieves (and to everyone, actually). 

Variations I've heard on the Law of Threefold Return include: Your actions will come back to you threefold; at least threefold; or three times three.  

Either way, you'll get what's coming to you.  Natural law does that. 

Intellectual property theft is ethically wrong, legally criminal, and a violation of Craft Law (and Testimony of Integrity)

Don't do it.  

And if it happens to you, talk about it.  

What should I talk about in my talk about Feminist Witchcraft?

I've agreed to give a talk and discussion on Feminist Witchcraft at an upcoming Pagan Pride Day. 

So, what should I talk about? 

Pagan Pride Day events tend to draw people from different traditions with Paganism, and non-Pagans as well. 

What would you want to know if you went to a Pagan Pride Day event, saw someone was doing a talk and discussion on Feminist Witchcraft, and went to it? 

Difference and discrimination in the US and the Religious Society of Friends (full text)

(This is the full text of a post previously published as three separate posts. - sm)

Difference and discrimination, part III: Minority Quakerisms?

(continued from part II: Pagan Friends and Pagan Quakerism)

Pagan Quakerism?

So, we've talked about whether or not I, by myself, bring Pagan Quakers into existence.  Now, let's talk about Pagan Quakerism.

I could be wrong, but I don't think it exists.  Except maybe in "The Princess Bride" alternate universe.

Difference and discrimination, part II: Pagan Friends and Pagan Quakerism

(continued from part I)

Sweeping Pagan Friends and discrimination against Pagan Friends under the Meetinghouse rug

No one has actually sat down to have a real conversation with me about this next issue, which I find interesting.  And I have had lots, and I do means lots, of long and chewy conversations with other people -- in person, over email, on blogs, on Facebook, and on email list-servs -- about theaology, Paganisms, Quakerisms, where different Paganisms and Quakerisms intersect, where they don't, and more.  In July, I had two weeks of travel in ministry where sometimes eating was a challenge because in-depth or far-ranging conversations over meals didn't leave much time for actual eating.

So even though I "do" conversations, people don't generally have this conversation with me; but some Friends are happy to report to me that other people have this concern:

Difference and discrimination, part I: Difference and discrimination don't exist until they're named? Wrong.

I've had a piece of writing brewing for a looong time -- for more than two years, when I go back and look at scraps and drafts of things -- about this fallacy in both American society, and the Religious Society of Friends, that equates naming or identifying something with actually creating it. 

I witness, and experience, how this inhibits discussion in two areas in particular: difference and discrimination.  With difference, the myth is that differences don't exist until we name them -- and that when we do, we threaten unity and cohesiveness, and therefore organizations or communities themselves.  With discrimination, the myth is that prejudice and discrimination don't exist until we name them -- and that when we do, we're the ones who are prejudiced bigots.

What bullshit.

Recommended post: "The Discipline of Listening as Tool for Christian and Pagan Friends in Conflict" at Plainly Pagan

I have been mulling over similar topics recently...  

Oftentimes I have read Christian Friends' comments regarding the frustration of Meetings and online conversations that are, if not openly hostile to the Christ-centered Friend, at least not supportive of him/her. This is a serious concern and a hard thing for me to hear. It is especially hard when Christ-centered Friends suggest or even openly advocate that Friends be limited to Christians only. My perspective is often the opposite and so I want to argue and bluster when I read such things. To hear these things makes me feel unwelcome and defensive...  (Read more)

Enjoy.

Supporting American Muslims: The Velveteen Rabbi's "A Gesture of Repair"

American Muslims are having a rough time of it right now.  To say the least.  Domestic terrorism against American Muslims spiked after September 11th, 2001, never dropped back to pre-2001 levels, and has surged again recently. 

American Muslims are afraid of what other Americans will do to them, simply and solely because of their religion.  And that is plain wrong. 


A lot of non-Muslims have wondered what we can do to support our Muslim neighbors right now.  Rachel at the Velveteen Rabbi offered a heart-warming response to the recent hate crime in a mosque in Queens.  (I first came across the Velveteen Rabbi's work two years ago when I was living in Ann Arbor.) 

I for one am grateful to Rachel and Stu not just for the idea, but also for Doing Something, and for demonstrating that Doing Something is possible.  Tikkun olam is the work of all our hands. 

Blessed be.

What century is this? The Summer's Eve ad in Woman's Day magazine

Sexist bullshit is alive and well.

Just in case you think we've arrived in the post-patriarchy, there's this little tidbit from Summer's Eve brand in Woman's Day magazine.

No, it's not from the Onion.  No, it's not from the 1970s (or the 1960s or the 1950s).  It's from the 2010s.  Here and now.  

Check out the great analysis by dhonig at Daily Kos. 

And please do let both Summer's Eve (866-787-6383) and Woman's Day (212-767-6000) know what you think of advertising that insults women this incredibly.

Update 8/28/10:  Verified.  I have now seen this with my own two (four?) eyes, and it made me feel all slimy.  It's on page 50 of the October 1, 2010 issue of Woman's Day.  Ew. 

Fidelity and infidelity in community

Thinking more about Max's article, or, Part B.

I agree with Max about spiritual community and about how true spiritual community helps us be faithful to the Inner Light, the Goddess Within.  Held by true spiritual community, my spiritual life -- not to mention my ministry -- is one not of contraction, or of artificial growth, but one of expansion and natural growth, of ebb and flow, within the rhythms of nature and the cycle of the seasons. Held by true spiritual community, I have been able to do things I have been led to do, but couldn't otherwise do. 

And yet I have been particularly aware again lately of a number of the ways in which both other Friends and other Pagans have asked me to make myself smaller, or have tried to make me smaller, or have asked or demanded that I be unfaithful, so that they might be less uncomfortable, less disturbed, by my life or my witness or the truth of my experience.  Not just ordinary folks I come across in a given day or week or First Day or committee service or Gathering -- but folks whose "job" it is, as a Friend, friend, co-religionist, or co-clergy member, to help me be faithful to myself and to what the Goddess is asking of me.  Folks with whom I am in spiritual community. 

So I am living very much in the awareness right now of the both/and of spiritual community -- of how good spiritual community can indeed help me be more a more faithful Quaker and Witch, and also of how poor spiritual community not only makes it harder for me to be a faithful Quaker and Witch, but actively inhibits me from doing so.  

When we ask each other to be unfaithful because another's faithfulness makes us uncomfortable, we diminish ourselves.  We diminish our own relationships with ourselves and the Divine within us.  We diminish our own integrity.  We diminish our ability to be in relationship with the Divine with each other -- spiritual communion and spiritual community.  We weaken our Meetings, our circles, our Covens, and our larger spiritual communities.  We weaken our ability to build and participate in interfaith groups and dialogue.  We weaken community, small and larger. 

We create an injury to the spiritbody of the Sacred. 

Max Carter, and Quaker parallels with Anne Rice and Christianity?

Today I read Max Carter's recent article in the Washington Post about Anne Rice's decision to leave Christianity in order to remain committed to her relationship with Jesus. 

I was struck by something Max wrote:

Unfortunately, too many Christians - among them many Friends - are caught up in "notionalism," equating faithful Christianity with particular notions about proper dogmas, doctrines, creeds, formulas, rituals, and social norms.

And I couldn't help wondering, How might this be true of Quakerism itself today?  

Are there ways we, as Friends, equate faithful Quakerism with particular notions about proper norms -- proper behavior and thoughts?  

Are there ways we look more at how someone -- ourselves or someone else -- fits the external notion of Quakerism, rather than how they are faithful to the Light within, to Quaker worship, or to Quaker process?

How do we tell if they're faithful to the Light within, Quaker worship, and Quaker process, anyway? 

How do we tell, when we know someone, if they're a "good Quaker" or not?  What do we look for to tell us that? 

I was reminded of something Merry Stanford once said in an article in Friends Journal:

...I yearned so strongly to belong that I strove to be a "good" Quaker, rather than an authentic one.

How do we ask each other to be "good" Friends, rather than authentic Friends?

Recommended interview: Richard Cizik on Fresh Air, 7/28/10

I caught the beginning of this interview, and to my surprise I listened to the whole thing.  I was glad I did. 

I recommend it.  Especially if you identify as an Evangelical Christian, or if you have strong feelings or strong opinions about Evangelical Christians.

If you listen long enough to get beyond the civil union issue and into the breadth of the interview, you might be surprised. 


As a lesbian, as a Quaker, and as a Witch, I appreciated a lot of what Cizik said.  

For 10 years, the Rev. Richard Cizik was the chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents roughly 30 million constituents across the United States.

But he was forced out of that position in December 2008, after remarks he made on Fresh Air about his support of gay civil unions, among other things.

On Wednesday, Cizik returned to Fresh Air to discuss how his life has changed since he left the association and why he started a new group called the Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, which he hopes will be an alternative to Christian groups that focus on the culture wars.

For interview highlights, click here. 

For options to listen to the interview, click here. 

For a transcript, click here.

...And why is this important?

Yesterday, I posted information about the Mid-Winter Gathering for Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns, as well as information on "What is FLGBTQC?"

Why is this important?  A couple of reasons: 

1) If you are a person of faith who is questioning your sexual orientation, your gender identify, or both, it is important to understand that you do not have to give up your relationship with God (or the Goddess) when you come out.

I have come to realize over the last 20+ years that I was truly lucky, and truly blessed, when I came out. First, it never occurred to me to give up my faith because I am bisexual or or a lesbian; second, I came out into a community of faith.

When I realized I love other women, I never thought to choose between my relationship with God and being who I truly am: coming out deepened and enriched my spiritual life.

I also knew other lesbian and bi women, as well as gay and bi men, who were involved in Christian, Jewish, and Pagan spiritual communities. What's more, within a year, my Jewish (now former) partner found for me a lesbian, gay, and bisexual Christian faith community where I felt at home almost immediately, and where I later served in leadership.

This was not how the story went back then for all, or even most, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer folks when they came out.   

Even today, one of the biggest struggles LGBTQ people of faith face when coming to terms with their sexual orientation, their gender identity, or both, is the notion that accepting who they are means giving up God. 

This is simply not true. What's more, it's cruel.

There are a lot of LGBTQ spiritual and religious organizations. Off the top of my head, I know about, or can find, Christian, Jewish, Pagan, and interfaith organizations; and I also know how to use my Google Superpowers (thanks, Peterson, for introducing me to that term!) to find other kinds:

• Christianity: There are a number of organizations within Christian denominations that are specific to LGBTQ inclusion and equality; there are individual churches, and networks of churches, within Christian denominations that are "welcoming," "open and affirming," etc. (the language varies) of LGBTQ people; there are Christian churches and denominations are that are primarily LGBTQ-welcoming but open to all.

• Judaism: There are Jewish LGBTQ organizations, synagogues, and shuls, within different kinds of Judaism.

• Paganism: There are Pagan LGBTQ organizations, circles, covens, groves, etc., within Pagan umbrella organizations and within different Pagan traditions.  

• Islam: I'm afraid I don't know much about the Muslim LGBTQ movement, but I do know there is one.  I welcome input from readers who are involved or have friends who are involved.

There's no way I can provide an exhaustive list of resources, but they are findable with the use of the aforementioned Google Superpowers. And folks are certainly welcome to add info in the comments on the resources you've personally found the most useful.

My specialty areas are Quakerism, Paganism (particularly, Feminist Witchcraft), and to some extent Feminist Judaism, so the resources I've listed so far on my website are primarily Quaker and Pagan.  As always, if there are resources I've missed that you'd particularly like to see me list, please do let me know.

2) FLGBTQC is open to everyone.

FLGBTQC is open to all Friends. There is no "card check" at the door. You can't necessarily tell who fits which particular labels. A number of folks don't fit any of those labels. And some folks are even straight. 

These are some of the things I love about FLGBTQC.

Yes, it's definitely LGBTQ space.  And there's room for all Friends.

And, come to think of it, you don't technically have to be a Quaker to be part of the FLGBTQC community. You just have to come to our events and, well, participate in our community.

And we do have pretty awesome Meetings for Worship with Attention to Business.  

I had an interesting conversation with a Friend recently.  We've both served as treasurers of Quaker organizations, and I was bemoaning how hard it is to make numbers line up in nice, neat rows at the end of a fiscal year, even when they've behaved well all year.  Ze responded by saying, rather airily, that ze hadn't found it that difficult, even when ze was treasurer of zir Yearly Meeting.  "Well, I'll be sure to bring your name to the attention of FLGBTQC's Nominating Committee for treasurer next cycle!" I laughed.  Ze got very serious.  Oh, no, ze wouldn't be at all appropriate, being straight, ze said.  "Whyever not?"  I asked.  Because ze wouldn't be a good representative of the organization, ze feared, being straight and all.  "Does that mean our clerks who've been in opposite-gender legal marriages haven't been 'good representatives of the organization'?" I asked, honestly curious.  Oh, no, ze replied, I'm sure they've been excellent representatives of the organization.  I was kind of left scratching my head. (It turned out ze was trying to respect what ze thought was separate space.)

In all actuality, it's the not-part-of-the-FLGBTQC-community part that would be the barrier, not the straight part.  I don't think I communicated the no-card-check-at-the-door, you-can't-make-assumptions part, very well.  I hope I'm doing that better right now.

3) Equality for LGBTQ people isn't here yet, folks. It's not even here for all LGBTQ Friends.

I know it's tempting to focus on equality in civil marriage as the be-all and end-all of LGBTQ equality.  I know it's really, really tempting to say, "We have a minute in our Meeting supporting same-sex marriage, so in our Meeting, LGBTQ people have full equality," or, "We marry same-gender couples in our Meeting, so in our Meeting, discrimination's not an issue."  Or, "There is a [lesbian, gay man, trans person] in a position of leadership in our Meeting, so LGBTQ folks know they're welcome here." 

Did African-Americans achieve full equality when every African-American person became able to marry legally and religiously?  (We'll leave aside for now the question of whether or not that's really true in 2011 America.)  Has racism in the United States ended with an African-American President of the United States?  Put that way, it seems obvious that homophobia and heterosexism won't end when same-gender couples can marry legally and religiously, or with LGBTQ persons in civil or religious leadership positions.

But about your Meeting: 

• Are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer persons represented proportionately in your Meeting's positions of leadership?  On your committees?  

• Do couples who make long-term commitments and get married do so in the Meeting?  Do individuals, couples, and other families who raise children raise them in the Meeting?

• If your Meeting is in a state where same-sex couples cannot marry legally, and couples go to states with civil marriage, do you coordinate with other Meetings so their civil marriage is under Friends' care?  Do you witness to the discrimination same-gender couples face in civil marriage?  

• When newcomers who are lesbian, gay, bi, queer, or trans come to the Meeting, do they stay, or do they wander off?  

• Does your Meeting have a statement of welcome on its website (if you have one) and in its entryway for LGBTQ folks and for people of color, and is your Meeting accessible to people with mobility limitations and by public transit?  

• If your Monthly Meeting is part of a Yearly Meeting where there is conflict around the welcome or full equality of LGBTQ persons, and your Monthly Meeting is in unity about lifting up the equality of all people, then it is particularly important that you have a statement of welcome on your website (if you have one) and in your entryway for lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, and transgender people.  Language in the minute and epistle from the Central Committee of Friends General Conference in 2004, available here, may be helpful for you.  

Did African-Americans achieve full equality in our Meetings when slavery ended?  We are learning, thanks to the tireless work (okay, the sometimes exhausted work) of Friends like Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel, authors of Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice, that the Quaker narrative about the testimony of equality and how we walk our talk -- or the testimony of integrity -- don't always go hand-in-hand.  That's an uncomfortable truth, and it's uphill work. 

Being welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people is part of being welcoming to people of color, people with disabilities (obvious and "hidden" ones, as well), and people of different ethnicities, ages, genders, races, kinds of families, kinds of theaologies within Quakerism, traditions with Quakerism, and more.

It's part of the spiritual hospitality that makes for robust Meetings, deep and centered worship, and robust Quakerism.

Okay, you ask, what if my Meeting doesn't have a marriage minute?  What if we honestly don't welcome LGBTQ folks openly and fully?  What if we wish we did, but we're just not in unity, and we're not going to pretend otherwise? 

Be honest about that.  You may be pleasantly surprised by the gifts the Spirit brings you.