As we mark the beginning of spring, we're excited to share a variety of offerings that we hope will nourish you and help sustain your commitment to collective liberation and justice this month.

Responding to the Anti-Trans Movement: A Course for UUs

This concise on-demand course consists of three sessions: trans 101, what you need to know about the anti-trans movement, and how to ensure your congregation is truly trans welcoming. Each session includes a 25- to 35-minute video and accompanying resources.

It’s perfect for UUs who are looking to level up their understanding of the current political assault on trans people, how to respond to anti-trans information, and how to create more safety and belonging for trans people and our families in their congregations. Learn more here. 

s course is not meant to replace our existing 6-session program Trans Inclusion in Congregations. It does make a great add-on to that more in-depth program, either as an entry point or as a continuation. It's priced for individual purchase but anyone who'd like to use it in a group setting is encouraged to email us to discuss a nominal/equitable fee.

Defend Trans Lives: A Webinar for People of Faith

This webinar, offered twice (on March 25 and April 8), is geared toward pro-LGBTQ Christians (but is open to all people of faith), presented in partnership with Enfleshed and Soulforce. Prior to the webinar registrants will receive essential background info from trans faith leaders and national trans advocates from the Transgender Law Center, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and more. On the webinar, speakers will discuss the moral and spiritual imperative to defend trans lives and how attendees can take action in the public square and in their own churches and faith communities. Learn more here.

UPLIFT Trans/Nonbinary+ Monthly Gathering

Join the UPLIFT monthly gatherings focused on trans, nonbinary, and other not (completely or at all) cis UUs. Join us to connect with other trans/nonbinary UUs and co-create support and community across our faith. All you need to bring is yourself (and other trans/nonbinary friends, if you’d like)!

This intentionally multi-generational gathering is open to and welcoming of trans/nonbinary elders as well as children, youth, and young adults. NOTE: There may be cisgender people present as parents supporting their 13-and-younger-child's presence in the space, as tech support, or as captioners. Standard UUA online safety measures apply to ensure all people under 18 are able to attend. We're glad to have you here!

Closed captioning will be available, and any common chat content will also be spoken aloud. Participants are encouraged to be mindful of processing and communication access, and speak one at a time. The meeting will not be recorded, and participation, as well as what is shared, will be confidential. There is no requirement to appear on video or to otherwise maintain “conventional” appearances. Any additional accessibility needs? Email lgbtq@uua.org. Register here.

UUA Transgender Day of Visibility Service

Join us for an hour-long UPLIFT Trans Day of Visibility Service hosted by the UUA on Friday, March 28, 2025 at 4 ET/1 PT. We will have time and space to celebrate who we are and show our support and love for each other as trans/nonbinary+ UUs and friends. All supporters and members of this community are welcome to attend!

Logistical and accessibility information: This is an all-ages event, and chaplain support will be available during our time together. We will have CART captions with a transcript and ASL interpretation. Visual descriptions will be integrated into our time together. This is an actively anti-racist and anti-oppressive space, and we strive to ensure all are included.

Do you have any needs that can help increase you access to this event, or other community events? Please reach out to lgbtq@uua.org, and we will do our best to accommodate. Register here. *This will be a youth/child centered, multigenerational, and accessible space.

UPLIFT Trans/Nonbinary+ Pastoral Small Group

What is pastoral care, exactly? Pastoral care is support with navigating life—big and small things, joys and hardships and all those mixed together. It’s not therapy, but a way for us to be in community together, supporting each other. This is a space to share the hard stuff and to hold the hard stuff that others are navigating in their lives.

During our time together, our lead chaplain/facilitators will share opening and closing words, and in between, there is time for everyone to share what's on their hearts, and receive what others are sharing about their own lives. It's a supportive, judgment-free place to connect with other trans/nonbinary+ people. 

This year, the pastoral space is for adults only. If you’re a child or a youth and you’d like to have a space to talk about the hard stuff, let us know by registering for the pastoral space and putting a note in the comments. When we have enough children and youth registered, we’ll plan for opening additional spaces for different ages. And stay tuned for additional opportunities for children and youth to connect—we’re working on this!

Programming is trauma-informed. Closed captioning will be available, and any common chat content will also be spoken aloud. Please be mindful of processing and communication access, and speak one at a time. Meeting will not be recorded, and participation, as well as what is shared, will be confidential. There is no requirement to appear on video or to otherwise maintain “conventional” appearances. Any additional accessibility needs? Let us know by emailing lgbtq@uua.org! We’ll do our best to ensure you can fully access the space. Register here.

Spiritual Support for Reproductive Experiences: 6-Week Online Course

For two decades, All-Options has provided trainings on open-hearted, nonjudgmental counseling for pregnancy, parenting, abortion, and adoption. Our Faith Aloud spiritual care line has trained volunteers and provided spiritual support for hundreds of callers over the last decade. Drawing on our robust counseling expertise, we are excited to announce a new round of training: Spiritual Support & Counseling for Reproductive Experiences!

This training is designed for people with some level of education and/or experience in providing spiritual care. Please register only if you are already familiar with what it means to provide spiritual support in a vocational setting, which includes but is not limited to chaplaincy, parish/congregational ministry, and faith-based non-profit settings. Register here.

Building Beloved Community Beyond the Binary

Since 2017, First Unitarian Universalist Society of Syracuse has hosted an annual transformative conference supporting transgender inclusion and spiritual growth in Unitarian Universalism. Learn more about this year's conference here.

A SACReD Journey: Curriculum and Facilitator Training

Become SACReD Journey Curriculum Facilitator! This 12-hour training will prepare you to facilitate the SACReD curriculum for your congregation, faithful organization, or curious community.

Trained facilitators will be ready to lead a curriculum that:

• deepens understanding of Reproductive Justice,

• engages complex theological approaches to liberation and systemic oppression,

• introduces practices of healing, and strengthens our community organizing.

SACReD is able to provide 10 scholarships for the May 2025 training. Scholarships will cover the cost of the registration and two nights in the training hotel. Breakfast and lunch is included as part of the training (May 5-6). Scholarship Recipients will be responsible for their travel to & from New Orleans. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Learn more here.

Queer Youth of Faith Day is celebrated on June 30th. According to Beloved Arise, "1 in 5 LGBTQ youth say their faith is important to them." As a religious denomination committed to LGBTQIA+ liberation, Side With Love is pleased to share this blessing for queer youth of faith, penned by Side With Love Leadership Development Specialist Rev. Cathy Rion Starr (they/them/theirs).

A Blessing for Queer Youth of Faith

Bless you, for who you are, right now, right here.

Bless you in your queerness, your genderfabulousness, your questioning, wondering, exploring, declaring. Bless you in the words you create and evolve and claim for yourself. May you relish your divinity as you dismantle binaries and create beautiful worlds of infinite possibilities. May those of us who are not queer respect you, learn from you, and show up for you as you need.

Bless you in your youth, your brilliance, your ideas, your curiosity, your incredible leadership right now (let alone what is to come). May you be fortified in the face of adultism and may you inhabit the fullness of your being. May those of us who are not youth respect you, learn from you, and show up for you as you need.

Bless you in your faith, your precious connection with the sacred, tradition, community, belief and action that guides your life and holds you through the storms and celebrations of life. May your faith sustain you when your faith tradition honors you and when it harms you. May those who hold faiths that judge you come to know how very sacred and perfect you are. May those of us from all sorts of faith traditions respect you, learn from you, and show up for you as you need.

May all of us – queer and straight, trans and cis, young – younger -old and elder, faithful and faith-allergic -- bless you as your full, beautiful, queer, young, sacred self.

Bless you as YOU. Know that you are enough right now, right here; and you are ever evolving, growing, deepening as your imperfectly perfect self.

May we bless all queer youth of faith, all queer youth, all queer and trans and questioning people, all youth on our collective journey towards liberation.

May you be blessed with the glitter of joy, dances of liberation, bricks of safety, and the nourishment of radical love.

By Jeff Milchen
March 28, 2024

When Nex Benedict — a Two Spirit (nonbinary) Choctaw youth -- died one day after being beaten by other students in the girls room at Owasso, Oklahoma High School, the event generated rare public awareness. Benedict’s death in February appeared around the nation in news coverage of what was later labeled a drug-induced suicide by local officials.

But despite the lack of attention, suicides among LGBTQIA+ youth are tragically common. According to The Trevor Project, about half of transgender youth seriously considered suicide in the past year, and it was the second-leading cause of death among ten to fourteen year-old members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Further, young LGBTQIA+ people of color reported much higher rates of attempting suicide than their white peers.

Rev. Jami Yandle, the Unitarian Universalist Association’s  Transgender Support Specialist, believes transphobia and harassment led directly to Benedict’s death. “Imagine sticking up for yourself, getting in a fight, and then having to go to school following that incident -- and probably hundreds of others -- with no protections and feeling so much of the world against you at such a young age,” said Yandle.

The environment Yandle describes was created largely by deliberate scapegoating. In 2022, Oklahoma’s overwhelmingly Republican state legislature banned transgender females from playing on female sports teams. The following year, the state made it a felony crime for health care workers to provide gender-affirming medical care to young transgender people, despite the medical community overwhelmingly supporting such care. Another 2023 law required students to use bathrooms that match the sex listed on their birth certificates.

Fueling the hostile setting in Oklahoma, right wing agitators are trying to ban many books depicting gay and transgender people from school libraries.

Of course, a gender-neutral bathroom could have been a life-saver for Benedict. “Nex deserved to grow up; to live long enough to have gray hair. So, when we talk about anti-trans legislation, this is literally a life and death issue,” said Rev. Yandle.

Unfortunately, Oklahoma is far from exceptional. As of March 2024, more than 470 state bills were active that attack the equality, dignity, and free expression of LGBTQIA+people, with many directly targeting transgender youth. Some bills would criminalize the very existence of Transgender and Gender Expansive people (the Unitarian Universalist Association and many UU State Action Networks have spoken out against and are working to thwart those bills). 

Trangender Day of Visibility may seem modest in the face of such legislative onslaughts until you learn fewer than half of U.S. residents say they personally know someone who is transgender, meaning their opinions are formed entirely from what they absorb from media, politicians, and other people, not from personal experience. Transgender people are among the last who can successfully be portrayed as dangerous “others,” because gender identity is not well-understood by many Americans. 

Earlier movements to advance civil rights for LGBTQIA+ people accelerated dramatically when millions of Americans “came out” to family and friends, dismantling the ability of oppressors to portray people as threatening or dangerous based on their sexual preferences. The same will surely hold true for advancing gender equality.

In supporting the importance of gender expansive people “coming out,” Rev. Yandle says “because I'm white,  I feel an obligation to be out and loud, and use what little privilege I have -- to be a little more bold to pave way for folks who may feel like it's unsafe. So they have a visual marker of somebody who is aging and will hopefully grow old enough to get gray hair.”

“That visibility is why I also sometimes wear my collar when I'm at a rally or public event…so that everybody can see,  there's a trans person who's also an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister,” said Yandle. 

UUs have a long history of working to advance LGBTQIA+ rights and, in a recent nationwide survey by Public Religion Research Institute, led all included denominations in supporting nondiscrimination protections (93 percent) and inclusion of LGBTQIA+ individuals within congregations (29 percent).  

But Rev. Yandle stresses the need for UUs to push themselves and their congregations to keep working. “I don't want to minimize the life saving capability of using somebody's correct pronouns, but that's the least you can do. It all comes down to organizing, and bodies in state capitols, and going to legislator’s offices, to be in their faces.”

Special Event
Join UPLIFT and TRUUsT Director Rev. Julián Jamaica Soto for an online gathering to celebrate all Trans & Nonbinary people following Trans Day of Visibility. Tuesday, April 2 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET. Register today!

Related Resources 

Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity 101

10 Ways to be More Welcoming and Inclusive of Transgender People

The Body Politic: Faithful UUs Showing Up for Trans Justice. Webinar Recording & Resources

Combating Anti-Trans Legislation 101. Webinar from Side With Love.

Talking points and tools to help UUs thwart anti-transgender bills and attacks.

UPLIFT Action A Side With Love campaign organizing for LGBTQIA+, Gender, and Reproductive Justice.

Pink Haven Coalition unites various UU entities working to protect trans people.

Transgender Inclusion in Congregations,  a training program by the Transforming Hearts Collective

The Trevor Project provides immediate counseling support for LGBTQIA+ people in distress.

Uplifting Sacred Possibility

Imagine a world where everybody - every body - was treated as truly sacred. Every body, whatever shape, size, expression, ability - was revered as one of the infinite expressions of the Divine.  A reflection of God.  An opportunity to celebrate the holy diversity that makes up our humanity.  

When we witness our shared humanity we are called to care, to defend, protect, and affirm OUR very existence and our inherent worth. In this world, every body is cared for.  Everybody has the ability to make the decisions they need to be safe and whole in their being.  Every body has access to the resources they need to thrive.  Everybody - every body - is held in a truly liberating love.

Unfortunately, we know that the world as it is today does not treat every body as sacred.  Dominant ideas of safety have created inflated police budgets that rob our children of books and our communities of healthcare.  Living outside prescriptive gender binaries can mean losing a job or your life.  Our society isolates disabled people from community and care by denying access to housing, healthcare, and public space.  But ideas alone aren't what is killing us. It is the allegiance to a values system that moves people to violent and deadly action – against their neighbors, their country, and sometimes their own children.  Our society’s dependence on these immoral forces has moved us so far away from our shared humanity - brutalizing sacred bodies in a vicious cycle of exploitation, violence, and death - so that we no longer regard one another as threads woven together in a Divine tapestry.

These attacks on our bodies are attacks on our existence.  They are neither isolated nor unrelated.  We know this because there is a unified strategy and single solution.  Devalue and criminalize our identities and institutionalize our people.  We know the tactics and the institutions - prisons, jails, conversion therapy, conservatorship, detention, surveillance.  These are the many tentacles of the carceral state that are strangling so many of our Beloveds. 

The nature of the attacks on our sacred bodies means that those of us who live at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities face this violence on all aspects of our being.  Within the carceral state - which already disproportionately targets black and brown communities - 40% of the state prison population are people with disabilities. The number is even higher for incarcerated youth.  In just this first month of 2024, at least 322 bills targeted the transgender people, many in states where we have already witnessed the criminalization of reproductive health care.  And among individuals specifically seeking abortions, 1 in 5 must travel out of state for care.  That barrier creates unsurmountable burdens for individuals without the financial, social, or physical means to travel.  As we dream of a world where everybody thrives, we find ourselves fighting to create a world where every body can at least survive.

And yet, it is within this fight where we can remind ourselves that another world is possible, but only if we commit to creating it together.  In the midst of what is, there are glimmers of what could be.  There are holy moments of possibility that we must lean into during these desperate times.  From the quiet moments of self-determination and action, to the power of thousands showing up for collective liberation, there is hope in all of those moments that connect us. 

Our connection isn’t just sacred, it is powerful.  Some of these moments look like gathering together to protest anti-trans laws at the capitol; holding vigils to honor the community members whom we have lost; teaching our youth what rights they have over their own bodies; and growing mutual aid networks that strengthen each others’ access to essential resources and care.  In those moments, where we show up together, our momentum is realized and the loneliness is lessened. 

Changing the world has always happened when the few become the many.  When we each find our common humanity in the strength of our values, we all find new ways to love the hell out of this world! 

Knowing that God lives in the margins, on the edge of all possibility, we are called to engage in the world as it is, grounded in our values and in an all-encompassing LOVE, to turn it into what it could be.  This week we hope you will take time to think about how to build the world of infinite possibility that we dream of, where our bodies, however they are, are expressions of all that is good and sacred in this world.  

Rev. Amanda Schuber, Disability Justice Associate
Rev. Jami Yandle, Trans Support Specialist
Rev. Ranwa Hammamy, Congregational Organizer

See all the resources offered for Week Three of 30 Days of Love 2024

This evening, we are still processing the mass murder at Club Q in Colorado Springs overnight even as we commemorate all the trans beloveds whose lives have been stolen on this Trans Day of Remembrance. Tonight, we are reminded yet again of the violence that lies at the core of white Christian nationalism, whether in the form of guns aimed at our queer and trans beloveds, or legislation designed to criminalize our very existence. We at Side With Love will continue to fight for a world in which all bodies are treated as sacred; to join our UPLIFT Action campaign for LGBTQ+, Gender & Reproductive Justice, click here. 

To our beloved trans and queer family,

If your heart is broken, we weep with you. 

May you sense how fiercely you are held in love.

If your fists are frozen in rage, we scream our fury alongside you. 

May you be warmed by the white-hot heat of our righteous solidarity.

If your stomach drops with terror, we tremble with you. 

May you feel the strength of the safety we wrap around one another.

If your bones are weary, we sink down next to you. 

May deep rest be the companion of your grief.

And, beloveds, remember:

All of us–

the high femmes, the faeries, the twinks, the gender transgressors, the panromantics,

the dykes, the bears, the studs, the butches, the homos, the androgynes, 

the aces, the demibois, the zaddies, the graysexuals, the baby queers – 

all the delicious, unexpected, gorgeously beloved incarnations of us – 

we are made from stardust and and leather and honey 

and Love.

Even on the todays, 

the mornings when mourning our dead and fearing for our lives 

is the metallic aftertaste on our tongues:

We still dance because the surging electric life force 

that loved us into being and that pulses through our veins 

is too powerful to stay inert and unmoving. 

How could we be still?

We still sing because the defiant hymns of our ancestors 

reverberate in the tiniest interstices between our cells. 

How can we keep from singing?

We still congregate because like root systems and constellations and watersheds,

the molecules of our being only make sense 

when we are intertwined and inseparable 

and powerfully free in our interdependence. 

How could we do other than to claim and choose each other, every day?

We dance our resistance.

We sing our belovedness.

We gather each other up 

and we do not let go.

As is our vow, today and all days:

we will mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.

And all the while, we will repeat this truth

Til it is lodged in our bones and

And undisputed anywhere:

We were meant for life, for abundance, for freedom.

We were made for joy.

In faith and solidarity,

Rev. Ashley Horan

Side With Love Organizing Strategy Director

Hours before the close of the 2022 legislative session, the Alabama state senate introduced some of the most harmful, comprehensive anti-trans legislation that has been proposed anywhere in the nation. If AL SB184 passes today, it will include a “Don’t Say Gay/Trans” provision, forced outing of LGBTQIA+ students, a bathroom ban, and the most extreme healthcare ban in the US, which could send doctors who provide gender-affirming healthcare to trans youth to prison for 10 years. 

Let us be clear: our faith unequivocally, fiercely, and unapologetically affirms that trans people are a divine and a beloved part of the human family. There is no law, no political rhetoric, that can diminish the inherent worth and dignity of trans and nonbinary people – that is endowed from the moment of birth, and can never be taken away. 

And, precisely because of this truth, our faith compels us to fight like hell against any law that would deprive trans and nonbinary people of  the basic human and civil rights that are necessary for human flourishing. Please, join us in taking action right now and demand Alabama House Speaker Mac McCutcheon vote no on SB184. Wherever you live, help make it clear that all eyes are on Alabama, and we’re ready to fight back against this cowardly, repressive legislation. Click here to call. 

Unfortunately, AL SB184 is just the latest in a national surge of anti-trans bills that are being used by the radical right to disseminate disinformation and whip up emotions (and votes) from the most regressive parts of their base. As we grow closer and closer to the midterm elections, we know we will see more of these cynical ploys by politicians – and we must respond by both fighting these insidious laws, and doing everything we can to reduce the harm they will inevitably cause to the trans and nonbinary beloveds in our communities. 

Trans beloveds, if you are struggling today, please know that you are not alone. If you need help, please connect with some of these affirming resources now:

• Trans Lifeline for any trans/nonbinary+ person in need of support: US (877) 565-8860;  Canada (877) 330-6366

• Trevor Project Hotline/Chat Line/Text Line (For LGBTQIA+ youth ages 13-24): 

• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor

• Join us for our next UPLIFT Transgender / Non-Binary Monthly Gathering, scheduled for April 26 @ 8pm ET/5pm PT

We’re with you in the struggle, dear ones, and ready to fight for a world in which every single one of us is safe and thriving. Thank you for working toward that future with us. 

In faith and solidarity, 

Rev. Ashley Horan, Organizing Strategy Director

Side With Love

p.s.) What is happening in Alabama today is directly tied to attacks across the country on democracy, voting rights, reproductive freedom, and more. We will be joining our movement partners working on the 2022 elections to resist this oppressive wave of policy disasters and the politicians behind them, and to fight for a more affirming and democratic society. Join us THIS SUNDAY for our 2022 UU the Vote Launch to find your role in this work. 

p.p.s.) Want to know more about the wave of anti-trans legislation sweeping the country, and what you can do about it? Watch our recent Anti-Trans Legislation 101 and Speaking Up for Trans Lives Spokesperson Training webinars today. 

Currently, there are approximately 150 anti-transgender bills moving through state legislatures across the country. From banning participation in sports to so-called "bathroom bills," to legislation that criminalizes providing life-saving gender-affirming health care, these bills are deadly for trans and nonbinary people of all ages.

Held March 15, 2022, this training featured Sam Ames, Director of Advocacy & Government Affairs for The Trevor Project; Rev. Erin Walter from Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry; and Rev. Lisa Garcia-Sampson from UU Justice Ministry on North Carolina, in addition to Side With Love staff Rev. Ashley Horan, Rev. Michael Crumpler, Rev. Ranwa Hammamy, and Adrian Ballou.

Recommended Actions from the training

• Take Action in Alabama

• Take Action in Texas

• Take Action in South Carolina

• If you are trans/non-binary, join our UPLIFT Trans/Non-Binary Monthly Gathering Space - 4th Tuesdays @ 8pm-9:30pm ET

• If you are subject to a child protection investigation for supporting your trans/non-binary child, file an Investigative Complaint with the Office for Civil Rights 

• If you are available to do rapid response actions, please sign up for our Side With Love Rapid Response Network 

• If you are a cisgender congregational leader or religious professional, take our Spokesperson Training to learn how to talk about protecting trans lives 

Recommended Resources from the training

• The Black Trans Prayer Book

• Tracking anti-trans legislation

• Podcast: The Anti-Trans Hate Machine

• See if your state has a UU Justice Network

• Transforming Hearts Collective

and finally, be sure to subscribe to our emails to be updated on our campaigns.