Ann Thompson Cook, formerly President/CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, has been educating people about sexuality, reproductive health, and gender for more than 20 years. She has written extensively, and her publications include And God Loves Each One: A Resource for Dialogue about Sexual Orientation and PFLAG’s Respect All Youth series. Ann and her husband of 34 years have two adult sons.
Ann has played a unique role as an ally to gay, lesbian and transgender people. To get at the roots of this groundbreaking new booklet, we asked her a few questions.
Ann, what brought you to these issues? Why do you do this work?
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For me, it’s about children—creating a world in which children are free to be themselves. I began educating about sexual orientation in the mid-1980s when my two sons were in elementary school. Several gay/lesbian people had come out to me, telling me horror stories about their growing up years, and I realized that nothing had changed. It was very likely that someone in our little community—if not my own kids, some of their friends—would begin to struggle with their own sexual orientation, and they would have the same experience that my adult friends had had as children. I felt that I couldn’t stand by and let that happen to another generation. I had to get involved.
Then, after working on sexual orientation for several years, I began to realize that gender was at the heart of people’s concerns, so I began listening to transgender and intersex people and I saw, once again, that we place many children in a terrible bind. So I’ve begun educating about gender differences for the same reason—to create a world in which children are simply free to be themselves.
How did the idea for this booklet come about?
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This is really my second booklet for churches. In the 1980s, after Dumbarton Church decided to publicly welcome gay and lesbian people and their families, I wrote a booklet to address the issues we had wrestled with (And God Loves Each One). At that time, most people didn’t know that they knew any gay people and had inaccurate stereotypes about gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Although there were a few good books, most people weren’t motivated enough to read a book, and there were no brief, attractive resources for education. So I wrote one.
Now in 2003—15 years later—we’re in the same situation with transgender and intersex people. Most people think they don’t know anyone who’s transgender or intersex, they have inaccurate stereotypes, and they’re not particularly motivated to read books about it! So it was time to write a new booklet.
Why would a relatively small congregation like yours, Dumbarton United Methodist Church, publish booklets on sexuality and gender topics?
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Dumbarton is an amazingly open congregation that is continually growing and seeking ways to create a just society and world. Since becoming a Reconciling Congregation, the congregation has been enriched by many openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, their families, as well as individuals and families who came because they wanted to participate in a diverse congregation. A whole generation of children has grown up in this welcoming context.
We published the first booklet after going through a period of study and dialogue about extending a public welcome to gay and lesbian people.
Choosing to address gender issues was different. I had been learning about transgender for several years and requested support from the church council to write another booklet. At that meeting, members of the council acknowledged their own lack of knowledge. By the end of the discussion, they had not only approved support of the new booklet, but had committed the congregation to a period of study.
That same fall, a minister who had recently transitioned from male to female preached at Dumbarton, and we were blessed by new transgender members who have become active in the life of the community.
As a congregation, we’re very much on a journey of listening, learning, and expanding our welcome. I guess the simplest answer to your question is that Dumbarton has learned over the years that sharing its journey is valuable to other congregations and people of faith.
You have said that everyone is affected by the gender rules we grow up with. How will non-transgender people benefit by a world that is more open to gender differences?
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I think that most of us can look at our own lives, and the lives of children we’ve loved, and see ways that we’ve been hurt by or struggled with pressure to conform to stereotypes of what a male or female is supposed to be or do. In my view, our difficulty with transgender and intersex reflects a more general difficulty with anyone veering off from what we say is okay for males and females.
The trouble is, the whole community loses something when people aren’t free to be completely themselves. Imagine what the world would be like if we were less interested in how a person’s body was configured, and more interested in the person’s interests, ideas, and talents. Imagine a world in which adults no longer worried about socializing children as boys and girls but simply nurtured their God-given gifts.
Why have you focused so much attention on educating within the church?
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Some people say that the church will be the last to change, the last to open up and embrace the diversity of God’s people. That may be, but I love educating within the context of church, because church people understand that their most fundamental calling is to love and accept everyone.
What advice would you give to others who want to be allies? What can we do to help make a more welcoming and understanding world?
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The transgender and intersex communities have a huge amount to teach the rest of us about being fully and authentically human. To me, being an ally means being open to that learning. In the process, of course, one has to notice and start doing something to counter the discrimination people face.
What does your husband think of the work you do on these issues?
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My husband David is incredibly supportive. He is often moved to tears by my writing and by the difference he knows it makes.
