Shortly after coming out of the closet as transsexual, I found a job at a coffee shop in San Francisco’s Castro district where I frequently worked with a lovely gay man named Richard. One day after working together for several months, Richard suddenly turned to me as if he'd had an epiphany and said, "You know, I don't know the first thing about what it means to be transsexual."

As I considered what to say in honor of Gay Pride Month, I thought that the same might be true for some of you. Now, please know that one of the things I so love and appreciate about you is that you seem satisfied to know me for who I am rather than what I am, and for this, I am truly grateful. Still, as a fellowship that seeks to minister to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender communities -- one of the few religious denominations that does, I might add -- it would be remiss of me not to share information and insights that might make us more effective in working with the trans community.

Despite what the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual claims -- you know, THE source on psychopathologies -- I do not have gender identity dysphoria. I knew my gender at about the same age all of you knew your genders. Despite the ambivalence, the confusion, the need to please and conform, I always knew that I was not a boy. In my case, however, there was some fairly compelling evidence suggesting otherwise. But this evidence, this fleshy fact of physiology, did not any more make me feel like a boy than the loss of a man’s penis and testicles would make him feel like a woman. Or, by the same token, if one of you women one day woke up to discover a penis hanging between your legs and a flat, hairy chest, it still wouldn't make you feel like a man. (Though once armed with a functioning penis, it might be interesting to see what and who might fall victim to some well-deserved payback, but then, that’s another sermon.)

A penis may define you as a man in the eyes of others, but if you aren't one, it just makes you feel like a god damned queer (and that is a theological statement, not profanity).

My handsome and intelligent friend Colin, a Female to Male transsexual (an FTM) puts it well when he says, "I'm not a woman with a psychological problem. I'm a man with a physical problem." For me it’s just the same in reverse. I am not a man with a psychological problem. I have psychological problems. My gender’s just not one of them. I'm a woman with a physical problem -- with which my insurance company has not been very helpful.

Also you should assume all transsexuals have had SRS (sexual reassignment surgery). The reason you should assume this is that it will help you think rightly of us and keep the pronouns straight. (I am convinced that of all the words we consider sacred, only pronouns are so. The words of the Bible are not sacred. People regularly use them for ridiculous, silly and obscene purposes. No two groups can agree on them. Even the names of God are routinely profaned and belittled. But pronouns! Pronouns everybody agrees on, and once pronouns have been ascribed, they can NEVER be changed; they are as inviolable and immutable as commandments carved in stone.

You know lots of women like to be appreciated with gifts of roses and candy, but for me, just being referred to with female pronouns feels like that, especially in the early years after coming out. Now whenever someone misses a pronoun, I figure they're just reading my well developed masculine, something I think all women would do well to have.)

SRS is also a huge measure of legitimacy especially within the Male-to-Female transgender community. But male to female SRS costs between $10 and $40,000 depending on how seriously you and your friendly neighborhood surgeon take the Harry Benjamin standards of care and even more importantly where you get the surgery, the U.S., Canada or Thailand. The creation of a phallus for FTMs, however, requires from 3-5 surgeries depending on the degree of functionality desired and cost a minimum of about $35,000 in -- if you can believe this -- Bang Kock, Thailand.

Given that I am not prone to public nudity, why would a penis be more significant in defining me as a man than a prostate? Not to mention why a man-made vagina qualifies me for being a woman even though I have no uterus, no ovaries and have never suffered a menstrual period much less the agony of child-birth, much as I might insanely wish I had.

The first person I ever heard make the cogent and catchy distinction that sex is what’s between your legs and gender’s what’s between your ears was also the proudest of her new post-SRS vagina and clearly viewed it as her lifetime pass into womanhood.

Oh, that it could be that simple.

If indeed sex is what’s between your legs and gender’s what’s between your ears, what difference does it make if you have a penis or a vagina? Why spend all this money changing what’s between your legs when who you are is between your ears? I'll tell you why: because I, like all of you, desperately, earnestly, utterly and with all of my being want to look into a mirror and see -- me. And I'm not talking about a thinner rendition of myself or a younger, taller, stronger, shorter, darker, lighter likeness. No, I want to look into the mirror and see me looking back at me, not some man.

Of all the LGBT issues, transsexuality is almost certainly the least understood, since for most people sex and gender line up very reliably and without personal relationships or many visible examples, it’s hard to get it that for some of us sex and gender don't line up in the customary way. When I speak to college classes about being transgender, I sometimes feel like a person trying to describe the color "red" to people who are colorblind. Of course, it doesn't help that there aren't a lot of us out there in the world running around loose like we had good sense.

Most transsexuals who pass easily simply go stealth, that is, they remake their lives as well as their bodies and as best they can, bury their perfidious past. A clerk in a grocery store where I sometimes shop is married to a man, has step-kids and lives her life like any other woman. Oh God, how often I have wished that was an option for me, but then if it was, I'd probably be at the Baptist church this morning taking care of snooty-nosed kids in the nursery, and I'm a lot happier being here with you.

While transsexuality may seem to some -- including me for much of my life -- like an enigma wrapped in a mystery hidden inside a conundrum, I'd like to suggest that if you look just beneath the surface what you'll find is not at all unfamiliar, foreign or even weird. At its core, transsexuality is all about identity. It’s about trying to find, embrace and live one’s authentic self. And isn't that an issue with which we are all familiar?

After completing the coursework for a master’s degree in philosophy, something for which, especially when reading the empiricists, I felt about as much aptitude for as your average barnyard animal, I began writing a thesis on Alfred North Whitehead’s concept of God. Seminary interrupted the completion of this brilliant, scholarly tome, but one of the things I found most compelling in Whitehead was his characterization of God as luring each entity, luring each piece of creation toward its particular wholeness and actualization, an actualization that is not just about individual satisfaction but upon which the entire interrelated cosmos -- including god -- depends for its own actualization. And I believe, much like the early transcendentalists -- predecessors of Unitarian Universalism if you read the latest issue of UU World -- that each of us is equipped with the capacity to feel this lure of the Divine. You might think of it as something akin to the homing devices creatures like yellow-bellied newts, salamanders, migratory birds and salmon have. It’s not an intellectual capacity but rather an innate ability to feel our way home, feel our way to the heart of the Divine.

But finding, embracing and living the authentic self is not easy.

There is always opposition, much of from within, because we get attached to our inauthentic selves and over the years we fashion a life around it, a life it is hard to remake in the image of Truth. It can even feel downright life threatening. I love the line from a poem by Alla Renee Bozarth when she says "The truth shall make you free, but first, it will shatter you." At least initially and always within certain contexts, living our authentic self threatens to shatter the status quo along with our place within it and our dependency upon it. Plus, some people like our inauthentic selves better, and they're not so happy about our changing, and the hardest part of that is, these people are often related to us. My older brother hasn't spoken to me in ten years.

So finding, embracing and living the authentic self always involves struggle. It doesn't come easy.

That’s why it’s important to find communities and relationships that encourage and support our actualization, and these are not always where you might expect them. In those years when I was still flirting with coming out, I attended a transgender support group in Berkeley. There must have been 15 or 20 people that night, one of whom was on her first real foray out into the big, bad world, and she was dressed to the hilt, painted nails, big blonde wig, short tight skirt hugging her 250 pound male body. She was locked and loaded, and the other group members went on and on about how great she looked. I never went back, because, while I knew the truth was going to be painful, I preferred that to going out into the world looking like a hooker with no prospects. Find people who'll tell you the truth, even -- especially -- when it hurts.

Some sort of spiritual practice, if not a requirement, is certainly integral to finding the authentic self, and I would include worship as a form of spiritual practice. The value of a spiritual practice is that it helps reorient us toward the lure of the Divine. It helps us hone in on it, because there are lots of other lures out there, and some of them are shiny and gold and have nasty hooks on them that can hang us up badly.

Another thing I think is extremely helpful, which in our culture, we are particularly bad at is rituals and symbols. I made this necklace on a women’s retreat and it symbolically carries all kinds of rich and powerful meanings for me. Jan, my partner, has her lion, which she only recently discovered and who regularly comes to her in images she captures in mandalas. Jodi has her bison who visits her in her dreams. In fact, I think a great participation service might be sharing the rituals and symbols that help us on our spiritual journeys.

So truth telling communities and relationships, some sort of spiritual practice and symbols and rituals are all very important and helpful ways to be on The Way to finding, embracing and living our authentic selves.

So what can we expect when we begin to live our lives authentically?

First, I believe the universe honors intention. Now, let me be clear; by intention I do not mean some vague wish, hope or yearning. Inherent in my understanding of intention is a visible commitment to an identifiable objective. For instance, you could describe your intention to me, and by watching you, I would be able to see it. I wanted to live openly as a woman. Ta dah! Jan wanted to overcome the crippling fear of an abusive childhood, so at age forty, she bought a horse and learned to ride and now, every time she throws her leg over her horse’s back, she visibly demonstrates her commitment to the identifiable objective of overcoming her fear, and as proof the universe honors her intention, all too often, the horse is only too happy to oblige her the opportunity. See what I mean?

For the second thing I want to say about living the authentic life, I'd like to read you a section from my yet to be published memoir from the chapter entitled "What did I know and when did I know it."

In my case, the journey out of denial and into knowledge began in earnest one summer evening about a year before we moved to California. It was one of those points in time that embodies both alpha and omega -- a beginning and an ending.

In the small hours of the morning while most of the world slept, I ventured forth from our house on Dayspring Farm dressed in what for a man, was forbidden attire and stealthily walked the two-tenths of a mile to a grassy meadow surrounded by the ancient apple orchard. It was a winding gravel road that passed few other dwellings and the dense, lush canopy of hardwoods concealed me well from the full moon’s ethereal glow. The meadow was wrapped in the airy silence of deep night when I crept out onto it, and the bright summer moon cast my skirt-clad shadow clearly on the fecund earth. I don't know why, I don't know what moved or possessed me, but I removed my shoes and socks freeing my long bare feet to swim in the meadow’s thick, dew-sodden grasses, and I began to dance.

It was as if -- at the very last second -- the young woman hidden deep inside me wrested my body free from the white-knuckled fear that had hitherto controlled me and pulled away the man-mask just before the underlying features harden permanently into its conformity. In that moment, she finally managed to transfuse her blood into muscle, tendon, ligament, bone until my very flesh incandesced in a field of feminine phosphorescence.

People marvel at the ridiculous impossibility of the virgin birth. Not me. In that moon-drenched meadow, God made love to me. He ravaged me like a lover too long denied, filled me with his hot emission, and in my womb began to grow the child of our true union.

It would yet be many years before, with labor, blood and tears, she was born -- Meredith was born -- but the period of my gestation had nonetheless begun, and the power of the lie was broken like a spell, and in that moonstruck meadow, I knew it.

The second thing I want to say to you is: If you are willing to make the perilous journey into the night -- alone -- you will be met. You will be met.

The third thing I wish to say about living the authentic life is also best illustrated by a story. It is a story about G. that his mother, J., told me and that I tell you with his parent’s permission in the faith that you will do us this favor: I need you not to make much of this story to G., because what G. did arose unselfconsciously out of a childlike innocence that at age 11, G. will all too soon lose and we do not wish to unintentionally shorten. Also, children sometimes wrongly interpret adult praise and attention, and I do not wish in any way to sully or contaminate this experience.

It seems G. and his dad, P., were recently trying to replace the battery in G.’s battery-operated scooter, but because it was not identical to the original battery, they were having a hard time making it stay in place. They worked on it for a while without success, and then put it away to do other things. The next day, G. wanted to work on it again but P. was no longer available, so he set to the task on his own. Some time later and after much experimentation, he returned to the house all excited and summoned J. and his sister Ph. to witness that he had figured it out. After a victory lap around the block and still aglow with his unexpected success, G. came into the kitchen and said to his mom, "I feel so good about figuring that out. When I have that feeling I like to do things for other people. Is there anything I can do for you, mom?"

What I want to highlight in this story is G.’s response, because I think this is a beautiful illustration of how living the authentic life feels, and it’s very important to know -- especially for people who spend a lot of their time in their heads -- what it feels like when we get there. When we are living our lives authentically, there is a generosity of spirit, a desire to share, to help, to serve that arises, not from guilt or obligation, but freely, from deep within us. It’s like looking into the face of the Divine and asking "what in the world can I do to help?" And just like J. and G., when the Divine says, those flowers out front need watering, we set off joyfully to water them.

Some years ago in a rare moment of lucidity, I realized that we queerfolk have an advantage over you straightfolk. Our closets are obvious. The stigmatization, injustice, cruelty and oppression under which we live are visible to all, only the responses to it differ, but the reality is undeniable.

That is not true for you.

The closets in which you hide your true selves, your secret loves and passions, are quite acceptable, even desirable, because there are powerful forces out in the world that do not want you, any more than they want me, to find, embrace and live your authentic self. People living authentically are free, and free people, by definition, are impossible to control, manipulate and exploit. Just imagine what would happen to the economic order if everyone started acting like G., with beautiful childlike, unselfconscious generosity of spirit. What would the corporations do then? They like closets and are only too happy to help us keep them well apportioned with all the latest amenities, but there is a terrible price to pay, because your closets, just like mine, reek with depression and despair and deep, deep dissatisfaction. And I'll tell you a little secret. If you decide to open that closet door and begin living freely your authentic self, those forces aren't going to like you any better than they like me.

But that’s what we need to do, and that’s what I'm inviting you to do today, or, at least, to begin. Make the intention, commit to a practice, find meaningful rituals and potent symbols that will enable you to find, embrace and live your authentic self. Nothing less than the universe -- including God -- is counting on you -- and me, so let’s get to it.