In conjunction with Transgender Day of Remembrance, the Many Voices Video Campaign, has released its sixth and final video featuring Rev. Brendan Boone, an out transgender pastor at Metropolitan Community Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.
In this final edition, Rev. Boone discusses growing up in rural Virginia. He recalls having an idyllic church-going experience where both his pastor and the congregation assumed that he was a male-identified lesbian and accepted him unconditionally. However, as a pastor at MCC, he has witnessed the tragic discrimination that many LGBTQ people experience growing up in church.
“I can't count the number of conversations I've had with individuals, particularly people of African Descent, who have been beaten up for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, due to a reading of the Bible that is, if anything, suspect,” says Rev. Boone. He adds, “We're all sacred beings created by a Holy God. When God created all of us, God called it good. From the inside out."
Rev. Brendan Boone for the Many Voices Video Campaign from Many Voices on Vimeo.
The Many Voices videos were created to engage church leaders and LGBTQ people about fostering a movement for gay and transgender justice in Black churches. Beginning on October 11th, National Coming Out Day, a new video was launched every week until today, Transgender Day of Remembrance. The interviewees include:
- Bishop Tonyia Rawls - Founding Pastor, Unity Fellowship Church Charlotte (Charlotte, NC);
- Jermaine Lee – Program Manager of Behavioral Intervention, PowerHouse Project (Charlotte, NC);
- Ai Elo - Writer and youth advocate (Charlotte, NC);
- Julia Wallace - Co-Founder of the Mobile Homecoming Project (Durham, NC);
- A’Omaré Kyyam - Activist and poet (Chapel Hill, NC);
- Reverend Brendan Boone - Transgender Pastor of Metropolitan Community Church Raleigh (Raleigh, NC).
See the entire set of videos at Many Voices' web site.
