2026 Pride & Purpose Summit

Happy Pride!

Drawing the Intersection of Queerness and Religion

On Thursday I attended the 2nd annual Pride and Purpose Summit at Bentley. I had hired Dr. Mateo Cruz to give a presentation at Home Chef last year for Transgender Day of Remembrance. He did an excellent job and suggested I check out the summit. I’ve been so busy that I didn’t have time to pre-read the agenda or read any of the speaker bios, though I was aware Dr. Cruz was going to be a speaker. I also knew I was going to arrive late due to the timing of the last swim class I was teaching that day.

I arrived in time to attend a workshop on courageous storytelling. A prompt I struggled with was creating examples of when I’ve been courageous. One of the insights from this talk is that it is often easier to see courage in others. Sometimes courage can feel like bullying, like when correcting a doctor after misgendering my teen.

Another prompt from the storytelling workshop was to “Think about a time you felt pressure to hide, minimize, or edit yourself.” A very recent example came to mind: a Water Safety Instructor class I took in May. My legal name is still Forest, as I don’t want to lose the female gender marker on my passport when I update my name. To prove the certificate is mine I felt it was important to register with the Red Cross as Forest. My instructor found this confusing and preferred using my legal name. At one point I said I didn’t mind, but in retrospect I did. I hated that it confused my classmates. I hated him using it. It felt at the time that I needed to get my $400 worth from the class. As he was the gatekeeper of my certificate I deferred to his preference. After the class ended I reflected on some other behaviors, like how he pre-excused his way of discussing disabilities due to his age. Being respected is important for a student and its something I try to keep in mind when I teach.

Schuyler’s Talk on Gender and Sports

I next attended Schulyer Bailar’s talk about trans inclusion in sports. Bailar is a world-class trans masculine athlete, who swam for Harvard’s NCAA D1 men’s team. I had heard of his advocacy work and was thus excited to hear his talk about the challenges he had in school and sports due to gender. In HS he had swum on the girls team. I asked him, what I, as a swim instructor, can do to help students like him that might be in my class. The main takeaway from his reply was to avoid taking agency from students, which I think is helpful for far more than queer kids. For example, as part of the Water Safety Instructor training, Red Cross teaches that rather than dictating how a student with a disability should approach swimming, we should ask the student what they want to try.

After Schuyler’s talk I went to the Pride and Faith Roundtable. We started with a prompt to write, or draw, our personal view of how religion and queerness intersect. This led to my pride flag and UU chalice drawing. We spent time going around the circle talking about how we felt. I was surprised that almost everyone had negative feelings about religious views of queerness. This was even true for people who had migrated to more inclusive churches. Many people felt they had to either hide who they were at church or avoid church.

Dr. Mateo Cruz’s Closing Keynote

The event ended with a talk by Dr. Cruz. Dr. Cruz, and all of the Bentley community, is coping with the recent loss of Dr. Wiley Davi. The talk was about the importance of hope in a moment of loss and tragedy. The event had almost been cancelled this year, but in thinking of how important it would be to Dr. Davi, the organizers rallied and brought it together. They already have some plans for next year’s event.

In the talk, Dr. Cruz gave for Home Chef he had a slide that I often reference showing a matrix of identities. He showed how in times of abundance Trans folks, Jews, and homeless folks are often ignored or tolerated. When, however, there is strife these people can become scapegoats. Hitler blamed the Jews for the issues the Treaty of Versailles imposed upon the country after WWI. During Kristallnacht, Germans were encouraged to take from Jews. Dr. Cruz’s point was that now that Americans see successful transgender folks they feel entitled to disenfranchise and scapegoat us.

Signed Copy of He/She/They

After the event some of us went to a local brewery. I had several wonderful conversations and a not so wonderful non-alcoholic brew. There are some very brilliant people at Bentley, one of whom is an expert on how Concord’s evolution was impacted by transcendentalists. Another person talked passionately about her research into evictions and affordable housing. I also chatted with one of the organizers of Hampshire Pride, which I sadly missed this year.