Painting of Eli Clare by Riva Lehrer

TRUUsT is excited to announce a partnership with EqUUal Access, an organization of Unitarian Universalists living with disabilities, along with their families, friends, and allies, that works to enable the full engagement of people with disabilities in UU communities and the broader society.

TRUUsT and EqUUal Access are pairing up to bring Eli Clare—one of the foremost thinkers, educators, and activists working at the intersections of disability, sexuality, gender, race, and class—to General Assembly for a workshop on intersections between queerness, disability, trans identity, race, class, and more.

We need your help, though. Although the General Assembly Planning Committee and the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Multicultural Growth & Witness department are contributing funds to this effort, we don’t have quite enough to bring Eli Clare to Columbus this June, so today we have jointly launched a Faithify crowdfunding campaign to raise the remainder of the needed funds. Please contribute what you can and help us spread the word!

In the 2009 foreword to the 10th anniversary edition of his groundbreaking book Exile and Pride, Eli Clare writes:

Building a politics that reflects all the multiplicity in our lives and in the world isn’t optional, but rather absolutely necessary. … When I’m asked, “Tell me, what is your book about?” I always pause. The request seems straightforward. But how do I sum up a book that ranges from the clearcuts of Oregon to the history of the freak show, from the complexities of queer rural working-class organizing to the disability politics of sexual objectification? Inevitably, I answer, “Home.” I mean place, body, identity, community, family as home. I mean the hay pastures, trees, rocks, beaches, abandoned lots, kitchen tables, and sunflowers out back that have held and sustained us. I mean how we have fled from and yearned toward home. In the end, I mean a deeply honest multi-issue politics that will make home possible.

TRUUsT believes that if we truly want to create faith communities and spaces where all of who we are can show up and be held in spiritual community, if we are truly serious about the spiritual practice of radical welcome and inclusion, it is imperative that we celebrate the multi-faceted nature of identity and experience; embrace the intersections of race, class, ability, gender, sexuality, age, and more; and start challenging ourselves to practice and grow Beloved Community from that place.

Hear more from Meredith Plummer, EqUUal Access’s Policy Chair, on the importance of intersections:

Will you help us advance this vital conversation within Unitarian Universalism? Please contribute to the Faithify campaign now, and help spread the word!