Gwen Andersen was putting up posters for her photo exhibit, “Becoming Ourselves,” in and around Takoma Park shortly after Nex Benedict’s death. “Everyone’s hearts were heavy,” said the lesbian photographer. “And I’m walking around town putting up these posters.” At the bookstore, she asked the person working at the front desk if she could put up a poster. They quickly looked into it and said yes because of the trans flag.
“When the kids read it and saw that it was a positive, beautiful, happy thing, they started crying,” Andersen said, adding that she spontaneously asked if she could hug him. With permission, she walked around the counter and embraced them, and in many ways herself, in a world where negativity and violence target and harm the LGBTQ community. It was a powerful moment, she admitted, because “the first person didn’t even see the photo.”
“That’s when I realized,” she said, “how much of an impact this idea was having.”
“Becoming Ourselves” is an exhibition of 26 photographs featuring happy and joyful transgender and non-binary adults and children, displayed in six different worship spaces and one gallery in Maryland and Virginia. The exhibit, which opened October 1 at the Sandy Springs Meeting House and is the eighth spot from the United Universalists of Rockville (UCCR), originally began after Andersen’s friend Marian Borden connected him with Sandra Davis, then president-elect of the Congress of Women Artists. Davis became her mentor because Andersen wanted to say something important at a time of intense anti-trans violence.
Andersen decided to host the exhibition at UCCR at the suggestion of his friend, the Rev. Jill McCrory. He is a positive pastor and advocate for justice, and had previously invited Andersen to help create Montgomery County (MoCo) Pride with Stevie Neal. McCrory recommended UCCR and Davis shared that the church has its own hanging system, but for Andersen, their enthusiastic acceptance of the show sealed the deal.
“They were very happy to be asked,” Andersen said. “They didn’t just agree; they were very passionate about this. There couldn’t have been a better place to host this.”
Pastor Rebecca Savage echoed this assertion. Andersen approached her in October 2023, and Savage acknowledged that she knew from the beginning that it would be an important gift for her followers. Savage explained that showcasing gay and transgender people in places of worship is important, as their portraits will be hung in the sanctuary during Sunday morning’s Transgender Visibility Day services, and that it “doesn’t just challenge exclusion.” “This is a declaration to the world that the LGBTQ+ way of life is sacred, beautiful, and an essential expression of God’s creation.”
“This visibility is both healing and life-giving, especially for transgender youth and families who need to know that there is a faith community that wholeheartedly celebrates them, especially right now,” Savage continued. “Being ourselves,” she said, visualizing our beloved transgender leadership and holding space for joy and celebration in a time of intense violence. Savage said the church “has been a beacon of hope within our congregation and beyond, testifying to the power of love, equality and justice as sacred promises.”
However, there were time constraints. The exhibition opens in March 2024, so all photos had to be taken by December 2023. And to our surprise, there was great interest in participating in this project. She had already taken some photos, but when a friend’s child asked if a friend could join them, she realized she needed the extra push to get the photos taken and processed in time for printing, so she reached out to Sarg Wismas, a non-binary photographer who had recently opened her own photo shoot. exhibition “divine identity” and other photographers from Los Angeles, London, and Baltimore participated.
She also contacted Gaithersburg native Natasha Nazareth and Elias Nikichuk, who works locally and provided photographs for the exhibition.
She also welcomed her child, Emery, as her official youth advisor, recognizing that the show’s most important audience are transgender and non-binary children. As a result, 26 joyful photos of transgender and non-binary adults and children were selected by LGBTQ youth across the country, who shared their selections through a virtual survey that helped the group meet a last-minute deadline. Sadly, Stevie (nickname for the beloved Petra Stefani) Neal passed away before the project was announced, but their estate covered the cost of printing the photos.
Soon, UCCR was filled with photos of happy, joyful transgender people. UCCR designated a room to display them, but because there were so many, the photos spilled into hallways, entryways, and wherever else they could fit. That was just the first of many surprises.
She expected to only display it at the church in Rockville, but at the opening Ms. McCrory said she wanted to display it at Bethesda United Church of Christ (UCC), where she was then a member and now works as an interim pastor, so she went to Bethesda UCC next, but since the church members attend other parishes, that wasn’t their final destination, and she shared that she wanted to display the photos in their own worship space, and soon the photos were sent to Christ the Servant. Lutheran Church in Gaithersburg, Pilgrim Church in Wheaton, Hope United Church of Christ in Alexandria, Photoworks in Glen Echo, and finally Third Space in Baltimore, which I recently visited at the recommendation of one of my photographers. Friends of Baltimore photographer Octavia Bloom wanted to bring the show to their hometown.
The exhibition at Third Space ended on August 8, but as before, another church, the Sandy Springs Meeting House, came forward to host the exhibition. The brick Sandy Springs Meeting House was originally Built in 1817 Held ever since, the Sandy Spring Meeting of the Society of Religious Friends has become one of the oldest Quaker meetings in Maryland. Sandy Spring just installed a hanging system this month, borrowed from a local artist, and hopes to open the show to the public soon.
To some, the choice to display the exhibition in a church may seem strange, or at least surprising, but for Andersen, it was a meaningful choice. For Andersen, it helps counter the narrative that the church is a place of hostility and part of a campaign against us. Recognizing the history of harm that churches and other religious institutions have caused through conversion therapy, exclusion, hate speech, and more, Andersen’s exhibition shows how places of faith can be important centers of LGBTQ advocacy and organizing. In fact, D.C. has a rich history of LGBTQ activism based and supported by faith communities.
“The fact that it was held in a church made so many people happy, and it brought so many people to tears because the resistance and hatred of lesbian, gay, bi, transgender people is so biblical in both its scale and its alleged origins, and it was so symbolically important for a church to host this exhibit, because churches have been places of hostility,” Andersen said.
Andersen said many of her friends who came to the show haven’t visited a church in decades because they (sometimes rightly so) view it as a completely hostile place. When they went to the church exhibit and received a kind reception, she said it was the same for many transgender and non-binary children and adults, and their parents, who face a world of negative representation. That means either hostility from conservative or Christian nationalist groups, or the media portraying transgender and non-binary people as victims.
Andersen wanted to create a show that offered hope to transgender and non-binary kids, much like It Get Better did years ago. Sharing videos and photos of happy and joyful LGBTQ adults as a way to share positivity and hopefully prevent suicide among LGBTQ children. The follow-up was more timely than ever before. death of benedict The day before, Benedict was assaulted by other high school students in the women’s restroom and later died by suicide.
“The purpose of the show was to counter all the negativity, because now that the Republicans are running and Trump is president, there’s a lot of animosity and hostility and people are trying to pass these hateful laws, and we knew this must be having a negative impact on the mental health of transgender kids.”
Andersen hopes the exhibition, at Sandy Springs Meeting House this fall, will enrich this rich tradition and spark new conversations and perhaps even happier tears.
Shows are held from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. most days except Mondays and Saturdays. Viewers are encouraged to first call Sandy Springs Meeting House at 301-774-9792 during weekdays. The show will continue until the end of December.
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
