The Sovereign Rights of Bodies
We must protect the rights of others to live, thrive, and evolve in an authentic way.
Dear Reader,
This is day 14 of our daily vigil for Great Salt Lake. I just returned home from Walking the Waves, our Monday- Friday morning ritual that begins with me standing alone on the southeast corner of the Utah State Capitol grounds. When I arrive, the sun is just beginning to crest above the Wasatch mountains to the east. A soft pink light hovers above the snowy Oquirrh range to the West, the sky often reminiscent of the transgender flag.
I tie one end of a twenty-foot-long blue and white sun-printed wave to a lampost, and I walk to the other end. Together, the lamp post and I hold the wave high so people can find us from far away. Before long, Joan arrives and unties the lampost end. Others come, and we unfurl more waves. We greet each other and acknowledge the land. Soon, we are moving slowly and silently around the Capitol. We carry the nearly weightless waves in a graceful swirl around the sharp granite corners of the imposing edifice, creating great beauty at a site of much cruelty.
We walk counter-clockwise to call on the help of our benevolent ancestors and to remember ways of right relationship with life and lakes and all beings. It is beautiful to move in this way, in gentle ritual and community. Everyone is invited. If you are near Salt Lake City, you can join us until March 1st, when the legislative session ends. Wherever you are, you are welcome to join us online for the silent meditation devoted to imperiled waters, which meets an hour earlier. This meditation is ongoing and gathers Monday- Friday at 7 pm MST.
Last week, I was compelled to spend more time inside the building than I had hoped. Instead of starting with saving the lake, the Utah legislature crashed out of the gates with a bill dismantling our state programs on diversity, equity, and inclusion. They followed with an anti-transgender “bathroom” bill and another bill that will block personal legal rights for Great Salt Lake. I am vehemently opposed to all three measures but was only able to testify against the last two in this series of assaults. I was unable to complete my testimony in the hearing before I was cut off, so I sent it to Governor Cox with a request to veto the bill. I am also sharing it here.
Please write to Governor Cox requesting his veto of HB 257 ( anti-trans measures) and HB 261 (dismantling of DEI programs). If you don’t live here, you might ask him how Utah will welcome the world for the Olympics if we allow this hostility against our own to harden into law.
I have more to share about the bill against sovereign rights for the lake, but I’ll wait a week to complete the picture. For now, let me say these issues couldn't be more interconnected. When we embrace them as such, we will be potent and coherent in our collective response.
We walk the waves and celebrate the species in order to build a culture honoring the life that loves life. Our culture determines our values, and our values define how we vote and live. We will persist in creating this culture until the inherent rights of sovereign bodies are honored, proclaimed, and defended.
Thank you for proclaiming the rights of sovereign bodies from wherever you are and however you can. Proclaim them for all people of all genders and let the word people include lakes and rivers.
Meanwhile, as we walk may the waves soften the granite edges. As we speak, may our love erode the edifices of hate.
love,
Nan
Dear Governor Cox,
Just over thirty years ago I was pregnant with my only child. When I was 4 months pregnant, I got an ultrasound. At first, the lively image was unrecognizable, but when they zoomed in on the heart, I witnessed the miracle of four pulsing chambers.“Your child has a strong heart,” someone proclaimed. They were right.
When they zoomed back out, my baby turned over and mooned the camera. An unmistakable tiny bum came into view, connected to two little legs and between them a smaller third appendage. “It’s a boy!” someone said. They were wrong, but I wouldn’t know that myself until fifteen years layer when my daughter would muster the courage required to tell me.
When I dropped her off for her first day at junior high, I trembled. I feared she would be bullied. She was equally confident and scrawny. She loved to read history and wear turtlenecks. Because she was somewhat effeminate, I suspected she might be a gay boy. Like most cisgender people in Utah then, I knew very little about transgender people or their lives. The possibility of her true identity had not occurred to me.
At a family gathering that Thanksgiving, I was sitting next to her on the couch. I looked down at her slender neck and saw a very dark mark that went all the way around. When questioned, she confessed to me that she had tried to end her life. I began to keep vigil. She would narrowly survive the next eight years of bullying and depression.
Countless transgender children are now in equivalent danger. HB 257 denies their very existence. How could anyone feel welcome in a world that proclaims you don’t exist?
When my daughter first told me who she was, I was uneducated and uniformed. Nevertheless, I knew to believe her. The expert on any experience is the person having the experience.
By the time she told me who she was, I knew her life was at stake. Fighting for her life became the organizing principle of my own.
Against all the odds, she survived her adolescence to grow up into a kind, strong, and compassionate woman. She’s married and thriving in Tucson. To me she will always also be the girl who lived, miraculous as Lazarus. If you sign this bill, she will not feel safe enough to come back home to Utah, not even for a visit.
My daughter survived to become herself. This law would criminalize her existence. No parent should ever have to bury their child. In this case, many deaths are preventable. I implore you not to harden hate into law. You must veto HB 257. Please imagine these children are your own kids.
with hope for a safer state,
Nan Seymour
all of this, nan.
all of this.
all of this.
So grateful for your clear sight and compassionate heart, Nan! Thrilled to find you, and so grateful for your advocacy. Your letter on behalf of your daughter is just beautiful. Your work on behalf of the lake is equally beautiful. Thank you for showing how they’re related, how they’re the same.