This session is an introduction to the 2024–25 UUA Common Read, Authentic Selves, which highlights the stories of thirty-five people and many of their families. It establishes the group’s covenant and introduces material that will be used in the next three sessions.

As participants arrive, we suggest that you have Shea Diamond’s (she/her, name pronounced SHE-UH) section of the Authentic Selves YouTube playlist playing in the background.

If you do not wish to use the entire playlist, please consider having the videos for “Seen if All” and “Presence of a Legend” playing on repeat.

ShaGasyia “Shea” Diamond is a singer and transgender advocate.

Materials

• Laptop or other way to show videos and play music
• Chalice and a way to light it
• Name tags and markers
• Copies of Handout 1-1: The 8 Guidelines for Equity and Inclusion, and Covenant; Handout 1-2: Some Definitions; and Handout 1-4: Grid of Care Worksheet for each participant
• Pencils or pens
• Blank paper and tape
• Pocket folders, one for each participant

Preparation

• Prepare a handout, sheet of newsprint, or slide with the words of the chalice lighting.
• Prepare to show the video “What We Wish People Knew.”

Session at a Glance

Chalice Lighting (5 mins)

Ask people to make name tags for themselves as they arrive, and invite them to share their pronouns on their name tags. Before moving on to the chalice lighting, ask if anyone requests that the name or pronouns they have shared be kept confidential within the group during participation (this is an important protection for transgender or nonbinary people who might not be out publicly).

Display or distribute this chalice lighting text written by UUA minister and transgender leader Julián Jamaica Soto. It is written as a call and response, but you can also invite participants to go around the circle, each reading a line in turn.

Leader or first reader: All that we are, together and individually, is part of the abundance of the universe.

People or second reader: We are made of stars. We are made of earth.

Leader or third reader: All that we have comes from earth, from the labor of those in our communities...

People or fourth reader: ...from the cities, farms, and oceans that enliven us. The world, and those who live in it.

Leader or fifth speaker: We are surrounded by blessing, by grace, and by possibilities.

People or sixth speaker: We are reflected in every other human being.

Leader or seventh speaker: We respect and honor one another’s differences.

People or eighth speaker: We celebrate our interbeing with abundance and the practice of generosity.

Everyone in unison, or ninth speaker: We light this chalice together.

Light the chalice.

Welcoming In (10 mins)

Open with a check-in and introductions, inviting people to share their name, their pronouns, and what brought them to this session today in a single short sentence. Note that they can use a name and pronouns here that might not be how they are known outside of this space and remind others to check before sharing any information about other group members. 
Sentences should look something like this:

“Hi, my name is Ama. My pronouns are ze/zey, and I am here today because I want to learn more about other transgender people.”

or

“My name is Bow and I do not use pronouns. I came today because I enjoyed this book and wanted to discuss it.”

Setting the Table for Healthy Engagement (15 mins)

This section will establish the covenant for all four sessions. Start by saying something like:

When we engage in community with each other, we center that engagement like we are the tides in a body of water. We come forward to speak, but then we withdraw to allow others to come forward to speak, each in turn, until all have had an opportunity to share. Like water, we move forward in gentleness and withdraw to allow more waves of transformation to keep brushing our communal shore.

In doing this we do not seek agreement with others, and our goal is never to change someone else, but to each do our own work in seeking truth and understanding. We create a space to hear, to listen with our minds and our hearts, allowing others to seek their own places of authenticity and purpose.

We do this by centering compassion and hospitality as our commitments to shared space as we build a deeper community.

Henri J. M. Nouwen wrote in Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, “Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.”

Tell participants that, as you engage with these materials together, you will keep some guidelines as part of your covenant. Distribute pocket folders and Handout 1-1: The 8 Guidelines for Equity and Inclusion, and Covenant and explain that the guidelines in it are based on ones developed by Visions, Inc. Say that you will read a brief explanation of each guideline aloud, and invite the group to read the full descriptions in their own time. Then read aloud:

1. Try on. This is an invitation to be open to others’ ideas, feelings, worldviews, and ways of doing things so that greater exploration and understanding are possible.
2. It’s okay to disagree. Disagreement not only is inevitable but can help individuals and groups produce better outcomes.
3. It is never okay to blame, shame, belittle, or attack others or ourselves. Most of us have learned to show our disagreement by making the other person wrong.
4. Practice self-focus. Our learning about differences can be accelerated and maximized when we listen to our internal thoughts, feelings, and reactions: not necessarily processing them in the group, but setting them aside to process later.
5. Notice both the process and the content. It’s important not just to notice what we ourselves say or do, and how and why we say or do it, but also to notice and incorporate how the group reacts.
6. Practice both/and thinking. Rather than seeing reality as strictly either/or, with each idea right or wrong, good or bad, this or that (dichotomous thinking), remember that several ideas and perspectives can be true at the same time (diunital thinking).
7. Be aware of both the intent and the impact of your actions. Especially in cross-cultural interactions (across race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexuality, gender, political beliefs, etc.), our intent may not match our impact.
8. Respect confidentiality. We honor personal sharing and do not repeat personal details outside of the group.

The group should spend a few minutes establishing a covenant. This covenant will guide participants’ interactions and conduct in all the sessions. Say something like:

Unitarian Universalists like to say that we are a covenantal faith, and many of us may have participated in the creation of, and been members of, many covenants. And yet sometimes these covenants become a forgotten poster on the wall or a mere formality. And, even more harmfully, our covenants may reflect the dominant culture of white supremacy, patriarchy, and cisheterosexism in ways that center those with privilege in this culture and harm those marginalized by it. Today we seek to approach the creation of our covenant with beginners’ minds, being open to new ideas of how we can be together.

As a start, center the covenantal commitments from the UUA Small Group Ministry Network that are included in Handout 1-1. In addition, and specific to this Common Read, we suggest adding the following:

We will respect everyone’s names and pronouns.

We will speak from our own experiences, using “I” statements.

We will encounter new information on gender with the spirit of “a beginner’s mind.”

A covenant created in community, by participants, is much easier to hold than one imposed from outside. Invite people to share any additional suggestions and track their suggestions on a white board or newsprint pad to display in future sessions.

Word Bank and Basic Understandings (5 mins)

Distribute Handout 1-2: Some Definitions and have participants spend a few minutes reading through it together. Make sure to specifically note the difference between gender, gender identity, and sexual identity or orientation, even though most will know it already.

Mention that gender, like race, is something constructed by humans and is specific to their social and physical locality. Judith Butler says this means gender is something we perform, not something that is biological. The effects of settler colonialism mean that most of the world has adopted European gender norms, but many cultures recognized different gender identities before colonization.

Explain that language around sexuality and gender shifts over time. Ask participants to take the definitions with them and to consider them over the coming week. They should consider questions like: “Do you agree with these definitions. Or would you change any of them?”

Themes in Authentic Selves (5 mins)

Show the video “What We Wish People Knew.”

Tell participants that all three of the people who were hired to collaborate with UUA staff as consultants o n this curriculum are transgender, nonbinary, or in family relationship with someone who is, and they each hope the project generates greater knowledge and understanding. Say something like:

On page 186 of Authentic Selves, Jerry Koch-Gonzalez writes, “What people need is to find ways of spending enough time together so that assumptions and stereotypes get replaced by actual experiences with real human beings. It is only then that we can realize that we are all seeking to meet the same universal human needs and that we are inevitably all interconnected.”

Tell participants that the curriculum of this Common Read will explore three themes of Authentic Selves: what it means to tell your story, the importance of families (both families of origin and chosen families), and what authenticity means.

Speed Networking (15 mins)

Set up chairs in two concentric circles facing each other, with a chair for each participant, and invite participants to sit so that they face each other in pairs. Explain that you will read six questions, one at a time. The person on the inside will have one minute to respond to the question; then you will call time and the person on the outside will have one minute. After both have responded, the people in the outside circle will move one place to the left, and you will read the next question. The people on the inside will not move. If you have an odd number of participants, the facilitator should join the group, or you can decide to have one trio.

Read the following prompts one at a time. After each one, invite the inside person to speak, pause for 1 minute, call time for the outside person to speak, pause for another minute, and then call time for the outside circle to move left. Then read the next one.

1. What was your favorite song when you were coming out?
2. Who expresses their gender in a way that you admire?
3. Would you describe your childhood as traditional in gender roles or nontraditional, and why?
4. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
5. Can you describe the way you like to dress and present yourself in one sentence?
6. What is your favorite movie and why?

After everyone has had a chance to speak with other people, come back together and use any remaining time to invite people to share observations.

Building a Paper Tower (15 mins)

Divide the group into teams of three or four. (If you have five or fewer participants in all, just do this with the whole group together.) Distribute blank paper, tape, and markers. Explain that each group is going to do two things. First, they will name ways transgender and nonbinary people could benefit from better support; examples might include gaining better access to medical care and more easily changing identity documents.

Next, they will build a paper tower of these benefits. An example of the exercise can be found on the Playmeo website. They should first decide how to fold or roll the sheets of paper in order to stack them; they should use at least eight sheets and stack them at least three levels high. Then they should write one benefit they named on each sheet, in such a way that it can be read when the sheets are folded and stacked. The most critical need or needs should be on the top level.

After each team has constructed their tower, come back together and engage these questions.

• Why did you identify these needs?
• Which did you decide was most important, and why?

Building a Grid of Care (15 mins)

The process of coming into full authenticity is harder right now because the media and some political activists continue to other transgender and nonbinary people. That means those participating in these affinity group sessions may feel additional stress. Mental health practitioners note that increased stress can generate increased fatigue, difficulty in committing to work or leisure activities, a negative or pessimistic attitude, and a general dissatisfaction with life, among other things.

This exercise will help participants develop a self-care grid that can be used not only throughout these sessions but also in day-to-day living.

To begin, provide a copy of Handout 1-4: Grid of Care Worksheet (printed front and back) and a writing utensil for each participant. Explain that the categories identified in the grid are kinds of health factors: the things that support us as humans and allow us to thrive.

Invite each person to take 5 minutes to jot down, on side A of the handout, some things they have access to that provide support in the categories identified on the handout. For instance, safe housing is a form of physical support, supportive family is a form of emotional support, and an affirming congregation is a form of spiritual support.

After 5 minutes, divide the participants into groups of three or four again. Invite them to spend the next 5 minutes discussing how some of the authors in Authentic Selves meet their own care needs, referring back to the Paper Tower exercise to identify communal and personal needs. They can jot down notes and page numbers on the B side of the handout.

After the group time, come back together for 2–3 minutes to allow each group to share some of their notes. (If your group is too small to divide, you can take more time for discussion.)

Close the exercise by encouraging each person to continue developing their own grid of care. Once they have a grid that feels complete, direct them to take the time to develop an implementation strategy on how to incorporate the listed activities into their lives or to nurture and grow their community connections.

Closing and Chalice Extinguishing (5 mins)

Use the following words as you extinguish your chalice:

We extinguish our chalice using the words of Rhett Bolen on page 136 of Authentic Selves: “You are allowed to take as long as you need to be you. Never stop discovering yourself.”