Uplift Blog Archive

Over the next two months, I would like to schedule several one-on-one conversations with UUs from across the United States, Canada, and beyond. If you would be interested in scheduling a time to talk with me, please email me at jsylvan [at] uua [dot] org .

Last week, I visited the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York City to view On Our Backs: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work. This exhibit lifts up the deep interconnectedness between queer sex work, queer sex workers, and activism. If you are able, I highly recommend seeing it...

Two groundbreaking works related to HIV and AIDS in 2019: OnCurating Issue 42 and Spiritual Care in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter.

The 2019 World AIDS Day theme is, Ending the HIV/AIDS Epidemic: Community by Community, reflecting on the lessons learned about the importance of strong partnerships with communities and of delivering person-centered, stigma-free HIV prevention, treatment, and care services that...

Last week, I stood in front of the ICE offices in Hartford for several hours -- ironically directly across the street from the lesbian law firm that my partner and I paid a lot of money to protect our queer family from the Trump administration (they helped us with the second...

Side With Love Against Hate: A Post-Straight Pride Reflection “Let’s continue to turn our backs on hatred, using our voices to continue spreading the message of love.” - Mayor Marty Walsh

Over the next several months, I will be reaching out to Unitarian Universalists of many identities to discuss their experiences, impressions, and dreams of gender justice within Unitarian Universalism. Together I believe we can uncover a more inclusive gender justice. ...

This date marks the anniversary of a public demonstration by intersex people and their allies at the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1996, at which they condemned nonconsensual surgeries on intersex people.

We celebrate those who come out! At the same time, we recognize that "coming out" is not everyone's journey. You do not need to do anything to "become" LGBTQ+. You do not need to "come out" to be yourself. You are sacred, whole, and beautiful just as you are, right now.

​On October 8, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on whether to take away existing employment protections for LGBTQ+ Americans. We need you to show up in your community for #OurDayInCourt!

September 23rd is Celebrate Bisexuality Day! Celebrate the bisexuality in your life. ...

Nationwide #CloseTheCamps Protest Tuesday, July 2 - Children denied soap and toothbrushes, crowded into unsafe conditions. Separated from their families, subject to cruel treatment that leads to lasting traumas. And some dying in custody—or dying with parents as they cross the...

Unitarian Universalist Pride has been about being "called in" to recommit to our sixth Unitarian Universalist principle of peace, liberty, and justice for all.

Today we remember those killed at Pulse Nightclub. Today we remember those killed for their queerness. Today we remember those killed for their brownness. Heroes among the fallen.

Let us begin this 50th year of Pride with a BIG CONGRATULATORY SHOUT OUT to the five FIVE Trans Ministers for relentlessly shattering binaries and believing in Unitarian Universalism.

On Tuesday, May 14th, I stood with Unitarian Universalists and people of many faiths to proclaim the truth of God's love of LGBTQ people and the hope of equality for queer people to have equal access to employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces and services,...

The Equality Act (H.R. 5/S. 788) would provide consistent non-discrimination protections in federal law based on sexual orientation or gender identity. And for the first time since its original introduction in 1974, the Equality Act has a fighting chance of passing the US House...

Members of the trans community and other UUs respond to a harmful UUWorld article

A blessing from the LGBTQ+ community of faith and spirit approaching the United Methodist Conference Special Session on human sexuality

TRUUsT recently released a Report on the Experiences of Trans Unitarian Universalists. This report was based on a 2018 survey that TRUUsT conducted along with the UUA’s Multicultural Ministries office. Y ...

At Sanctuary Boston, we want to help grow a Unitarian Universalism that’s as inclusive in its worship styles and format and cultures as it is in beliefs and theologies. We want to help grow a faith that invites the whole person into worship, not only our reason and intellect,...

A new approach to Welcome Renewal has come! To learn how to begin the Five Practices of Welcome Renewal at your congregation, please attend one (or more) of our monthly orientations.

As we gather in the darkness and the light let us give thanks and witness to our chosen families who we have traveled a lifetime to find.

On this World AIDS Day 2018, as Unitarian Universalists, let us recommit to ending AIDS through our fight and action.

While we celebrate this victory, we envision a country where no one’s right to live is put up to a public vote.

We are trans. And we are holy. We are intersex. And we are sacred. We are gender-diverse. And we are divine.

We offer our witness to this sacred ritual that represents the resting of Matthew’s spirit, as well as the hope of global social healing.

Our Unitarian Universalist faith affirms that no person’s identity is dictated by laws and legislation. In accordance with our First Principle, transgender, genderqueer, non-binary, and ALL persons possess inherent worth and dignity, which includes the right to define who we are.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi hosted a hearing with the Poor People's Campaign on September 26, 2018. Rev. Michael Crumpler represented the UUA at this event, and offered his testimony along with Darin Brooks, a fast food worker involved with the Poor People's Campaign....

It is my greatest privilege to introduce our new Multicultural Ministries intern from Harvard Divinity School, Jade Sylvan. Jade will be assisting the UUA Multicultural Ministries Office with LGBTQ and Intercultural programs. ...

I did a little research on the history of National Coming Out Day. It began in 1988 with the premise that coming out as a queer or trans person was the most basic form of activism one could do, because of the rationale that it is harder for people to hate queer or trans people...

On this 30th Anniversary of National Coming Out Day, let us “come out“ in support of our sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, neighbors and friends courageously living their truth by committing to act in solidarity and give generously to causes affirming our inherit worth...

Editor's Note: This charge was offered by Dr. Janice Marie Johnson, UUA Multicultural Ministries and Leadership Director, for the installation of Reverend Dawn Fortune on Saturday, September 29, 2018 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Jersey Shore, NJ. We...

The demon that rapes you has a way of making its home within you. You spend the remainder of your life laboring to exorcize this demon that is not you. Today, this demon was exorcised as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford sat before the world and uttered her truth.

A new approach to Welcome Renewal has come! To learn how to begin the Five Practices of Welcome Renewal at your congregation, please attend one (or more) of our monthly orientations.

Sunday, September 23rd is Bi Visibility Day. Today and everyday, let’s let our bi family and friends know #WeSeeYou and we love you! #UPLIFTbisexuals #BiVisibilityDay #BiVisibilityWeek

It is our fault as people of faith that the virus is what it is in the world. American religion, both liberal and conservative, is responsible for the rapid spread of AIDS in the 1980s and the 500K deaths by 1990.

As we honor our lives by celebrating PRIDE throughout the month of June, may all who chose to marry or chose not to marry continue the fight by exposing the hate that we all experience as we go about our daily lives.

On February 13th 2018, QDEP's Bobby Steggert and Ian Zdanowicz participated in a panel organized by Unitarian Universalist Association at the All Souls Church. The topic of the event was forced migration of people identifying as LGBTQ. Debrown Idrissu and Edafe Okporo gave...

The new #ALLPrideMatters pride flag is not a divisive distraction from Pride, but a more perfect expression of Pride for are racialized context. The new #AllPrideMatters pride flag expresses a more perfect union of the Pride that we all hope to celebrate across the country and...

On May 27, 2018, Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation at White Plains had a special LGBTQ Celebration Sunday Service, commemorating our renewal as an LGBTQ Welcoming Congregation. Our Welcoming designation dated back to 2005, but since then the transgender/non-binary...

Fast forward to a couple of months ago when my 80-year old godfather called to share the news that his beloved country, Trinidad and Tobago, had finally changed its legislation on Thursday, April 12, when Judge Devindra Rampersad “determined that sections of the Sexual Offences...

“ When the sharpest words wanna cut me down; I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out; I am brave, I am bruised I am who I'm meant to be, this is me. ”

The power of grace to save us, to move us towards our best and truest selves, even when we don’t know what we’re looking for or what we need, is amazing and beautiful. What a blessing it is for me that Unitarian Universalism has been a part of the grace that has shaped and...

Georgia and the Southeastern United States are in crisis because of HIV/AIDS. The people living in the Southern region of the United States are at the highest risk of contracting HIV. Now that I have your attention I want to provide some statistics for the State of Georgia....

I came out when I was 12, prompting several years of severe bullying. Soon after I turned to religion for help, only to find out that I was not welcomed, that I was not “the child of God” the church wanted me to be. I quickly learned that being a member of the church meant...

I am a privileged, cisgender woman. The world sees me as white. I often pass as heterosexual without trying. My body works in the ways most people expect bodies to work. For these, and many other reasons, I benefit from a vast, unspoken ranking system of privilege and oppression...

But can we talk about what everyone is wearing to Pride, General Assembly, around the house in 90 degree weather, the beach and the cookout? There are so many options to how we adorn ourselves and articulate our lifeforce. As a Gemini and summer babe, I get VERY excited about...

Not wanting my parents to find out about my newly blended Black/queer life on the 6 o’clock news; I took a deep breath and made “The Phone Call”. They asked a few questions and said that they loved me. My mother closed the conversation with “Just don’t get arrested.” I promised...

The line “In the moonlight, black boys look blue” will likely go down as one of my favorite movie lines of all time. This line captures and reclaims the beauty and softness of queer black bodies that is so often stripped away from us. I felt visible when I watched this film......