Collected Minutes Welcoming and Affirming Transgender People

Last updated on:

Adelphi Friends Meeting
Minute Welcoming Transgender Persons
Approved January 13, 2013

Adelphi Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends understands that God, who loves all people unconditionally, is leading the Meeting to honor the gender identity of each person, as that person determines it.

In addition to welcoming transgender persons to worship with us, in 2009 our Meeting supported a Friend and her family through her gender transition as she claimed her wholeness as a woman. Our testimonies of equality and community confirm that when we embrace that of God in everyone, including the full spectrum of gender identities in our Meeting, our worship deepens and our community is enriched.

Every person should be able to live out fully what the Spirit is leading them to be. Adelphi will be an affirming, safe, and nurturing place for everyone. We extend our loving care to all transgender persons, and their families and friends, who seek to share our Quaker spiritual journey and corporate life.

Table of Contents

Atlanta Friends Meeting
April 2005

As a community of faith, we [the Atlanta Friends Meeting] have become aware of the many ways in which lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer people have been silenced and excluded. We will never go back to silencing these voices among us, or suppressing these gifts, for in so doing, we impoverish our whole community. Our experience has been that Spiritual gifts are not distributed with regard to sexual orientation or gender identity. Our experience has been that the life of our Meeting and its work have been immeasurably enriched over the years by the full participation and Spirit-guided leadership of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer Friends. Full participation includes encouragement in ministry and positions of leadership, ability to be married under the care of the Meeting, and nurture to all families. We therefore explicitly celebrate the participation of LGBTQ Friends in these, as in all other aspects of the life of the Meeting. Our experience confirms that we are all equal before God, as God made us, and we feel blessed to be engaged in community and religious life together.

Table of Contents

Barnstable Friends Meeting
Approved August 26, 2007

Barnstable Friends Meeting affirms that we give the same care and concern to all who want to marry regardless of sexual orientation. By tradition, the Society of Friends recognizes domestic partnership in a celebration of marriage under the care of the Meeting. Barnstable Friends affirm the goodness of committed, loving relationships as a personal, spiritual and communal rite of passage. We offer full recognition and support to all, regardless of sexual orientation, who share this ideal and wish to enter into a permanent union.

We come to this from our belief that all discrimination is contrary to the working of the Divine, the Spirit within each of us. The capacity to join soul to soul, the desire to love unselfishly should be celebrated in All its forms as the true manifestation of the Divine in Our Lives.

Table of Contents

Bloomington-Normal Friends Meeting (Illinois Yearly Meeting)
June 27, 2013

In Friends� tradition of advocating for justice and equality, members and attenders of Bloomington-Normal Friends Meeting welcome all who wish to join us in worship, including LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, intersex, and questioning/queer) people. In the wider U.S. society, we support same-sex marriage and other forms of equality. We declare our Meeting for Worship to be a safe space for people who may feel their sexual orientation makes some other places of worship unsafe. We encourage Illinois Yearly Meeting likewise to declare ILYM a welcoming and safe space for LGBTIQ people.

Table of Contents

Multnomah Monthly Meeting

Multnomah Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, a Quaker Meeting, is an open and affirming faith community. We welcome all who come as religious seekers to share in worship and fully participate in the activities of our common life. The Religious Society of Friends cherishes a greater than 360-year tradition of witnessing to the spiritual belief in the equality of all people.

Multnomah Monthly Meeting understands that the Divine Source is leading the Meeting to honor the gender identity and expression of each person, as determined by that person. We affirm that gender expression and identity may be fluid and changeable. We recognize that when we embrace the Light within the full spectrum of gender identities in our Meeting, our worship deepens and our community is enriched.

Multnomah Monthly Meeting minutes our commitment to becoming an affirming, safe, and nurturing place for everyone to live fully that which the Spirit is leading them to be. We extend our loving care to people of all genders, including transgender, genderqueer, cisgender, gender non-conforming and intersex persons, their families and friends.

Table of Contents

Northside Friends Meeting (Illinois Yearly Meeting)

Who We Are

Northside Friends Meeting is a Quaker Meeting affiliated with the Illinois Yearly Meeting of Friends and Friends General Conference.

We unite with the central Friends belief that all people have the power to become children of the Light, that there is that of God in every person.

We hold that in Quaker worship we can come to know that Light within ourselves.

We stand by Friends testimonies of Integrity, Simplicity, Equality, and Peace.

We honor Quaker process.

We gather for silent worship on First Day (Sunday) mornings at 10:00 am at the Japanese American Service Committee, 4427 North Clark Street in Chicago. Our meeting space is handicap accessible.

Northside Friends is a diverse community. All are welcome among us. Families of all sorts, single parents, youth and elders, people of all races and orientations may participate in our worship. As diverse as we are demographically, we are as diverse theologically as well. Friends come from a wide variety of faith traditions and histories. Instead of finding our diversity troubling, it is for us a cause for spiritual celebration and intellectual challenge; there is no impediment here to genuine worship, spiritual seeking and finding.

Since the earliest days of Northside, we have enjoyed a gay/ lesbian presence. In the 1980's we supported our members through the AIDS crisis, in 1989 we celebrated our first lesbian marriage, and Friends of our Meeting with our support have twice organized the annual North American Mid-Winter Gathering of Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns. In every way, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and questioning people are welcome in our community.

Table of Contents

Salmon Bay Monthly Meeting

Salmon Bay Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, a Quaker Meeting, is an open and affirming faith community. We welcome all who come as religious seekers to share in worship and fully participate in the activities of our common life. Salmon Bay Monthly Meeting understands that the Divine Source is leading the Meeting to honor the gender identity and expression of each person, as determined by that person. We affirm that gender expression and identity may be fluid and changeable. We recognize that when we embrace the Light within the full spectrum of gender identities in our Meeting, our worship deepens and our community is enriched.

Salmon Bay Monthly Meeting minutes our commitment to be an affirming, safe, and nurturing place for everyone to live fullly that which the Spirit is leading them to be. We extend our loving care to people of all genders, including transgender, genderqueer, cisgender, gender non-confoming and intersex persons, their families and their friends.

Table of Contents