After acting as LGBTQ+ Ministries Intern in 2018, I’m happy to be rejoining the UUA this year in an expanded capacity as the Clara Barton Gender Justice Fellow, funded by the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation.

From the UUWF website: “The Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation is circle of liberal religious people working to advance justice for women and girls and promote their spiritual growth… The UU Women’s Federation created the UUWF Clara Barton Internship for Women’s Issues in 2003…. The year-long internship, with a new intern being selected each year, focuses on social justice issues related to women.”

My goal as Clara Barton Gender Justice Fellow is to evolve gender justice within Unitarian Universalism. I am nonbinary, and I believe that trans issues need to be at the center of this next step of Unitarian Universalist gender justice.

While issues pertaining to those who identify as women and girls are crucial, they are only one part of the intersectional web of gender justice. This web includes people who do not identify as women or girls, and inherently intersects with issues of race, class, sexual orientation, and disability. I believe our new vision of gender justice must grow from deep awareness of this web as a whole, and I am committed to doing the work to help nurture and encourage this evolution.

Over the next two months, I will be hosting three online conversation sessions for Unitarian Universalists of many identities to discuss their experiences, impressions, and dreams of gender justice within Unitarian Universalism, and their perspectives on the impact of classical feminism on trans and nonbinary identities. Together I believe we can uncover a more inclusive gender justice that will help us to smash what bell hooks called the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy. I look forward to joining you in this important work. 
May it be so,

Jade