Transgender Awareness Week, TDOR, and the Spiritual Power of Elimination
Honoring Trans Lives and Our Shared History
This week is Transgender Awareness Week, leading us toward Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). TDOR began in 1999 when transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith organized a vigil to honor Rita Hester, a trans woman killed the previous year. What started as a local remembrance has become a global tradition. An annual moment when we collectively speak the names of those we’ve lost and refuse to let their lives fade into silence.
Letting Go Without Bypassing Our Emotions
As we move through this month in our spiritual community, we’re also exploring the power of elimination. The sacred capacity to release what no longer serves us. We often talk about letting go as if it’s simply a spiritual to-do list item. But true release is more than a mental decision. It’s a whole-being practice that involves the heart, the body, and the spirit. Letting go in a healthy way keeps us spiritually and emotionally well. And like everything else in nature, it has a rhythm of its own.
Forgiveness and release are important aspects of spiritual maturity, yet they can easily slip into spiritual bypassing if we’re not paying attention. It’s tempting to jump straight to “light and love” when we’re hurting, but that shortcut doesn’t free us. It just delays our own healing. Authentic release honors the truth of our emotions first. It allows us to feel what is ours to feel, integrate what is ours to integrate, and then gently loosen our grip on the pain.
The Natural Rhythm of Spiritual Growth
Everything in life follows a natural ebb and flow. Spiritual growth does too. In our Western culture, we’re taught to measure our progress by achievement and accumulation. But spiritually, depth grows in the in-between moments. Those sacred spaces where we grieve, rest, and reflect. Grief is not a detour on the spiritual path; it is the path. Without honoring the valleys, we can’t fully experience the mountaintops.
The power of elimination reminds us that release is never about discarding our experiences. Just as the food we eat is broken down, integrated, and transformed into something new, our stories, both joyful and painful, become the raw material of our spiritual being. Nothing is wasted. Everything contributes to the unfolding process.
Loss, Grief, and the Queer Community
For the queer and trans community, the need for intentional release is especially acute. We experience loss at disproportionate rates. Loss of safety, loss of rights, loss of jobs, loss of belonging, and, heartbreakingly, loss of life. Even when the world demands our silence, we deserve spaces to breathe, to grieve, to name what hurts, and to release what is too heavy for us to carry alone.
Transgender Awareness Week allows us to witness the realities trans people navigate every day. Legislation that threatens dignity, prejudice that isolates, exclusion from spiritual spaces, and the countless micro-losses that accumulate over time. TDOR gives us a communal moment to pause, remember, and speak truth without shrinking back.
Awareness, Remembrance, and Spiritual Alignment
When we allow them to be, awareness and remembrance are acts of spiritual alignment. They help us separate what is ours to carry from what the world tries to place on our shoulders. They help us eliminate narratives that do not belong to us: narratives of shame, unworthiness, or fear. They help us reclaim the truth that our identity, our deepest, most authentic expression, flows from something sacred and unchangeable.
Our Intrinsic Spiritual Powers Cannot Be Taken Away
For those we have lost, we hold the light of love steady and unwavering. And in the face of political and social resistance, we affirm that no person, policy, or institution has the power to strip away the divine qualities inherent in every one of us. We are expressions of the Infinite. Just like children inherit the traits of their parents, we inherit the qualities of our Source. Love, strength, wisdom, life, and the unrepeatable spark of our individuality.
We’ve spent this year already exploring eleven of the Twelve Powers. Spiritual faculties already within us. No one can take those from us. No law, no ideology, no cultural backlash can reach that deeply. The joy of living as our authentic selves, the peace that arises when we align with Truth, the love we offer and receive, those experiences are untouchable.
Creating Space for Grief, Healing, and Release
So this week, we honor both truth and tenderness. We speak honestly about the challenges we face, and we give ourselves permission to grieve without shame. We remember those who are no longer with us, and we honor their lives by continuing to show up as our full selves. And through it all, we trust the rhythm of spiritual unfolding. We allow the wisdom within us to rise to the surface in its own time. We let the power of elimination do what it does best. Clearing space so that something new, life-giving, and holy can emerge.
We rest in the knowing that this work is not something we do alone or by force. It is something happening through us, as us, and for us. And together, we keep moving toward wholeness, one breath, one remembrance, one release at a time.
Join the Conversation
We’ll be exploring this theme more deeply at our Folx with Faith virtual meeting, featuring Rev. Maggie Alderman, who will lead a discussion on The Power of Elimination.
Visit our events page for details and join us as we release what no longer serves, making space for divine good to unfold in every area of our lives.
This means paying attention to what motivates us and ensuring that zeal is directed by wisdom and Spirit, not fear or greed. When we clear the “money changers” from our inner temple, zeal becomes a holy fire that energizes our path, sustains our faith, and fuels our commitment to God’s love.
About Folx with Faith
At Folx with Faith, we celebrate the diverse ways people embody spiritual zeal and other divine attributes. Our mission is to create safe, affirming spaces where queer people can explore spirituality, heal from religious harm, and live as authentic expressions of divine love. Through courses, blogs, community gatherings, and local chapters, we empower people to engage their spiritual powers, like zeal, to transform their lives and their communities.
How You Can Support Our Mission?
You can help us fulfill our mission by donating to Folx with Faith or starting a local group. It is our mission to create safe spaces to explore and experience spiritual wholeness. Folx with Faith supports the queer community, fostering a celebration of our authentic beings and empowering us to make a difference in the world. If you would like to contribute to this mission or would like to start a local chapter, please let us know. You can contact us or use the links below.
Have a question? Feel free to contact us. You can also sign up for our Newsletter to get the latest from Folx with Faith!
Find or start a local group.
Inclusive Communities
Our A New Thought on Gender course supports leaders in understanding the lived experience of trans and gender-expansive people so they can create safer, more affirming spiritual environments.
Places of Belonging
Belonging is created through intention, education, and the willingness to transform outdated systems. This course equips leaders with tools to build structures, language, and practices that welcome people fully as sacred expressions of the Divine.
Self-Guided Learning
The course is fully self-guided, allowing learners to move at their own pace while engaging with video lessons, reflections, and practical tools. Featuring leading voices like Chris Paul “Rainbows” Farias, Ben Greene, Rev. Dr. Christie Love, Rev. Jacquie Fernández, and James Masters, LUT. These materials blend personal story, research, theological clarity, trauma informed ministry, and best practices for trans-affirming ministry.
References & Additional Resources for Transgender Awareness Week, TDOR, and the Spiritual Power of Elimination
- About the Author
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James Masters (he/they) is a member of Unity Church of Overland Park, where they actively teach classes and participate in community events. They are a Licensed Unity Teacher (LUT) in the Unity movement and have been deeply engaged in spiritual study since 1999, and the New Thought/Metaphysics movements in 2005.
James is a contributing author for the bestselling anthologies The Courageous Heart, Enduring Wisdom, and The Grateful Soul. They are a artist and personal coach specializing in spiritual and relational development, guiding others toward deeper self-awareness and empowerment.
Beyond their work in spiritual education, James has a strong commitment to social justice and community service. They helped establish an all-genders shelter and regularly volunteer to support those experiencing housing and food insecurity. Their knowledge of technology and unwavering compassion for others make them a valuable force for positive change in their community.
