Yesterday at the West Hollywood Pride Parade and Festival, I took part in the parade with a group of people from the Los Angeles Diocese of the Episcopal Church where I am a member. Before the parade began, one of our bishops celebrated Holy Communion (to us Eucharist) in the parking lot of a bank at the formation area of the parade. We had about 80 people there, and most were gay or lesbian, but I was able to count three of us who are trans, and one person who is shyly androgyne, but sweet as can be. In our church belief, Eucharist is a family meal where Christ is both provider and preparer of the meal of bread and wine. All of us there are in different parishes in the most southern 1/3 of California and this was a time for those of us who have accepted ourselves for what we are over the GLBTQAI et al spectrum to be together for this important part of our church life.
The service was important three ways, because it was also the Feast Of Pentecost of which Acts 2 paints a vivid picture, and we were there to show Christ's message of love for our TGLBT brothers and sisters, and yes, straight and Cis folks as well. The third important focus, was that it was the 45th anniversary of Stonewall when the T community helped light the match on a light to guide the GLBT community forward. Our preacher who delivered a short sermon was a Trans* man, who was fired from a job as a department head of religious studies, at a christian based university in a community near where I live.
In reality, since the service was early in the morning, we had breakfast with Jesus as a family, and learned from the experience once again that Jesus and God are are happy with us and accept us into the very mysteries of the Holy Communion where we are ONE with all others, as God and Christ are One.
