Pull up a chair and say grace.
How might we balance Rep. Sarah McBride's 'politics of grace' and righteous anger?
Brooklyn always feels softer when there’s snow falling. Even while everything feels so heavy.
I tend to write in my studio space, but tonight I’m finishing up on the couch. I wanted to feel extra cozy, under my bright knitted blanket, while I watch the snow pile up on the windowsill and finish this meditation on grief and grace.
January is a hard month; this month felt worse. I spent the past few weeks knocked out with the flu, only to be gutted by the LA fires and attacked by the new administration’s machinations—and then there’s the anniversary of my father’s death days away. He would have loved this new Robert Glasper album I just put on: Let Go.
Last year, I wrote about my father’s last night with us—and also about trans books, Trump winning Iowa, anti-trans legislative efforts, and the snow falling outside my window. Uncannily similar vibe tonight.
What has kept me going these last few weeks are how we show up for each other. Every example of mutual aid manifesting in Los Angeles. Thousands of people drawing together daily. The rigorous, inspiring work happening here in NYC to fight right-wing organizing in our public schools. The Working Family Party volunteer who called me on a Sunday afternoon, not to fundraise, but to invite me to upcoming events. The
(Jade & Ann!) who hosted a co-writing session this afternoon on Zoom which raised $2885 for National Network of Abortion Funds. And all of you reading Sarah McBride’s memoir Tomorrow Will Be Different along with me. Thank you.We’re tired, but we’re figuring it out. Together. As Chase Strangio posted earlier today: The media keeps suggesting the resistance is dead, but that is because they don’t realize we are everywhere. Building. Shapeshifting. Laying the groundwork for a world beyond their wildest dreams.
On this inaugural eve, I’m working through some feelings. Specifically, I am trying to dig into my relationship to grace—and questioning whether or not it keeps me from feeling anger. What might it mean for me to hold space for either? Both? And when? For whom?
My girlfriend pointed out to me recently that I habitually namecheck grace. I invite her to give it to herself when she feels like a failure and request it back when I’ve wronged. I avoid picking sides in relational conflicts; I want to believe in everyone’s best intentions. I tend to offer it up to loved ones as way to tread lightly on their souls. The reflex is so instinctual I never interrogated why until I noticed the same impulse in someone else.
Sarah McBride also likes to invoke grace. It first emerges as the title of a pivotal chapter in her memoir where she and her love Andy decide to wed, even with the news that his cancer recurrence is terminal. Sarah’s brother advises her to take note of the kindness from others while Andy is dying: “You will bear witness to acts of amazing grace.” This anecdote continues to ripple through her essence and messaging. During her book tour, you can hear her repeat the story while speaking at the Seattle Public Library. When Delaware sends her to Congress six years later, it is her calling card.
“At the end of the day, our ability to have a pluralistic, diverse democracy requires some foundation of kindness and grace,” McBride said. “And I believe in that so strongly that even when it’s difficult, I will seek to summon it.”
After the election, when some in the Democratic party blamed losses on the support of trans rights, The New York Times published a story with a provocative subheadline: “We have to make it OK for someone to change their minds.” The quote was pulled from a longer conversation with Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Advocates for Transgender Equality. While there’s no mention of grace in the story, that’s what I felt reading Rodrigo’s words. I’ll admit, this is a sentiment I, too, have raised privately to friends with degrees of influence, “how can I/we help shift the conversation?” Especially when, as Sarah jokes in her book, more people claim to have seen a ghost than have met a trans person.
The NYT interview didn’t land as intended. Many in the trans community pushed back hard and fast—objecting to the Times reporter’s framing that positioned Rodrigo’s statements as a critique of “the movement’s confrontational approach.” Pressure mounted so swiftly, A4TE released a statement: “A4TE Clarifies Mission in Response to New York Times Article”
“Yesterday, New York Times ran an article in which I was quoted as saying, ‘We have to make it OK for someone to change their minds,’ and ‘We cannot vilify them for not being on our side. No one wants to join that team.’ Because my quotes were taken out of context, I’d like to clarify what I meant. Those statements were regarding how to persuade every day, undecided people in the public, not people who have already taken actions to oppose our equality.
“Extreme right politicians targeting the trans community is the reason we’re having this conversation at all. So, I want to ensure that no one misinterprets our message to the community: A4TE’s approach has not changed. We will continue confronting the institutions making the rules and we will be at Capitol Hill and in the courts fighting to change the rules to build power for trans people.
“Trans people doing the best they can to live with respect and dignity are not the enemy. We are angry because extremists would like to ban us from bathrooms and control the decisions we make with our doctors. Make no mistake about who the opposition is here. We’re gearing up for the fight of our lives against the incoming administration, and we are not backing off.
While I read Rodrigo’s quotes as the opening of conversation, others read capitulation. Note the choice, emphasis mine, to declare: “We are angry.”
Is it possible to cultivate the grace necessary for community building while embodying justified anger?
I don’t often feel Catholic, haven’t been to a Mass that wasn’t a funeral in as long as I can remember. (Sorry, mom!) But whenever a Pope dies, or I watch a major movie set in the Vatican, some deep muscle memory starts twitching. The vestments, the vocabulary, the ritual, the incense—it all comes flooding back. About halfway through Conclave, I caught myself pondering all the historical and cultural reasons we identify “secular Jews,” but I’m a “lapsed Catholic.” I certainly haven’t figured out a way to honor and reference my family’s religious background, my religious upbringing, without the stigma that it evokes. Only in reading, listening, watching Sarah McBride center grace did I see the religious undertones to my own orientation. Is my practice of grace actually acquiecence?
I spent much of the afternoon researching grace. Trying to understand the difference between grace (proactive) and forgiveness (reactive.) And realizing how prioritizing grace was imprinted on me even if I lack any understanding of the nuances between the officially recognized Catholic types. (Sanctifying, actual, previent, effacious?! Oh my.)
And I listened to a lot of “Amazing Grace” recordings. Did you know it is the most recorded hymn in the English language “transcending race, creed, geography, generation, and social station?” Have you seen Bill Moyers’ 90 min documentary?! Lucky for all of us, he published it for free on Vimeo. My dad would have loved all this Judy Collins and Jessye Norman footage.
Legal scholar, writer, activist, transmasc hero Dean Spade has a new book out this week: Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together. As I finish tonight, I hear Dean’s voice in my head. Imagine he’d have a strong opinion about my healthy, or not, attachment to grace. I recommend listening to him discuss building healthy interpersonal attachments on the Gender Reveal podcast with Tuck Woodstock.
Going to give myself the grace to end this post without the perfect kicker—and take a novel into the bath.
It’s not too late to join us at the first Being Alive Book Club next Monday Jan 27th at 5p PT / 8p ET. I’ll leave the registration link open until Friday night. You don’t have to finish (or even read!) Tomorrow Will Be Different. All you need is an open heart. We have a great group of folks already signed up. It will be fun, I promise.
xx Kyle
P.S. As my official act of counter programming to the news tomorrow, I will post the next five Being Alive Book Club selections. I’m really excited about the series and already have three authors lined up to gather with us. Promise, not all politics. (Unless, of course, you think everything is.)
