Life as a trans non-binary minister - Mini-documentary with OTN Co-Chair Alex Clare-Young
OTN Co-Chair Alex Clare-Young.
PHOTO: The Times.
THIS WEEK is Non-Binary Awareness Week, an opportunity to reflect on the changes, challenges and triumphs of the past year for people whose identity does not conform to the gender binary of male or female.
On Wednesday, International Non-Binary People’s Day, The Times released a sensitive and beautifully-shot mini-documentary about our OTN Co-Chair Alex Clare-Young.
The six-minute film, It wasn't a choice: My life as a trans minister, was set in the context of a trans awareness workshop Alex ran in April at the church which hosts Open Table Northallerton,
While it presents trans identities in an uncontroversial way for the target audience of The Times, which has not always been fair and accurate in reporting stories about trans people, it does introduce non-binary visibility to viewers. The film opens with the words,
I’m Alex Clare-Young, I’m a transmasculine non-binary minister. I believe that everyone has spiritual needs and spiritual wellbeing and that, to a certain extent, the church has failed some communities.
At the end of the film, over archive footage of Alex aged 15 playing the clarsach (folk harp), Alex answers the question ‘But how did you know?’
It’s an internal sense of knowing. We just know. It’s something completely innate.
In a blog post about the video, Alex acknowledges that some people may be uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of them speaking now as a transmasculine non-binary person over a video of Alex presenting in the past in a much more feminine way. They explain:
Each of us has the right to see our past in the way that we choose... For me, this juxtaposition speaks powerfully to my own sense of being non-binary. In the TV series 'Feel Good', Mae Martin explains that they don’t feel like a boy, or a girl, they just feel like Mae. That is my sense of myself, too. I’m just Alex. How do I know? I just do.
Non-binary is an umbrella term which is used by some people whose identity
a) sits outside of,
b) sits between, or
c) contains
elements of male and/or female.
Every non-binary person will have a slightly different sense of what that means for them. Alex’s blog explains what it means for them, and offers some simple tips for creating more accessible and affirming work, community, and faith spaces for non-binary people.
