Annual Pride Service

More Information

Gather in the Sanctuary for our all-ages worship. All ages worships are an opportunity to worship together as a family and in community. We include interactive elements to engage and encourage youth and children’s participation. There is a rug in the Sanctuary for young children and a caregiver/nursing chair. Children can sit with families. In the Sanctuary foyer, we have bags to gather seasonal and themed worship tools students can take to their seats. We strive to make these services inclusive of learning styles and needs. With your help, we can envision a meaningful and loving Sanctuary. We do not have other programming for children and youth on these mornings, except where otherwise noted.

If you don’t have a chalice, but want to light one, check out our Making a Chalice at Home page.

Both virtual and in person services are followed by coffee hour.

Children’s Story

Sermon Audio

Sermon Text

I am the great-granddaughter of Dominga, the granddaughter of Rosario, the daughter of Lily, the mother of Erick. My name is Rev. Maria Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa, I am a Queer Unitarian Universalist Minister, and Latinx immigrant from Chile. 

Coming out is described as a process of understanding, accepting, and valuing your sexual orientation/identity. It involves exploring your identity and sharing your identity with others. Coming out can be a gradual process or one that is very sudden. The first step usually involves coming out to ourselves.  Coming out can be a very difficult process and it can also be a very liberating and freeing process. We may feel like we can finally be authentic and true to who we are. Some people come out once and some people come out several times during their lifetime, slowly, when it feels safe and the right thing to do for us. There is no one way to come out. It is a journey on the path to becoming our authentic selves…

I came out when I was almost 30 years old. I had never imagined falling in love with a woman. For years before I came out, I was an LGBTQ ally, would march in solidarity at every Pride, was part of the movement during the AIDS pandemic, represented LGBTQ people seeking political asylum and humanitarian waivers, and considered myself an advocate and ally…until I fell in love…and it changed my life. Coming out changed my relationship with my mother, my friends, and my family. Coming out was scary and very risky. Back then I thought I had to come out to everyone and felt that I had to give people an ultimatum: accept me, love me as I am or get out of my life. This resulted in a lot of hurt feelings and broken relationships. Back then I didn’t consider the religious and cultural barriers affecting us. I was angry at the church and so I left it and was unchurched for many years. I was angry at friends and family who would not immediately embrace my new identity and left them too. 

I immersed myself in this new world, became and AIDS activist, got  a crew cut, changed my clothes, stop reading books written by men, and only listened to women’s music…and while that gave me an opportunity to learn about the women’s movement and feminism from a queer perspective, in time I discovered that in order to find and build community, I needed to be able to bring my whole self and that I needed to be among people from my culture…. Being a lesbian separatist was NOT me. It was that search for a community that brought me closer to Latina Lesbians like myself. It started my search for community, and for support as moms trying to raise and protect our children from homophobia and bullying. We formed a support and advocacy group for latinx  lesbian moms looking for community, and sharing resources and support when dealing with custody issues and job discrimination. And while this group of friends became a supportive community, the spiritual element was missing. I could be an activist and an advocate, but coming out as a religious and spiritual person to the LGBTQ groups was not seen as cool or something you shared in public. 

I first joined the Episcopal Church in New York CIty which offered inclusive services and programs for LGBTQ people and families. But when I moved to Boston, I found the Unitarian Universalist church which welcomed me and my son, where I could bring  my whole intersectional self as a queer mom, as immigrant, as latinx, and as social justice activist with deep roots in liberation theology, the Catholic Church and indigenous spiritual traditions. 

Coming out has become a spiritual practice and every time I hear my voice telling my story, I feel more certain, more proud, more compassionate towards myself and towards the person I am coming out to. I no longer come out to give an ultimatum, but to reveal my authentic self, to create a space where all of me can be seen and known, offering the same grace to the person in front of me. Coming out is still risky, we are still vulnerable to bullying, to stereotypes, and to the religious and cultural barriers that separate us from friends and families…AND coming out is still a very intimate personal act as well as a public act of resistance against oppression. 

Some people might say that I could pass as straight, pass as white, pass as someone born in this country, and pass as someone without religious beliefs…But I choose to come out to honor my inherent worth and dignity, to honor our Unitarian Universalist values, and to create authentic communities where we really see and embrace each other… I am grateful for the family members, especially my mother, who have embraced my queer self and showed me unconditional love. I am grateful for the friends who took the time to learn, to listen and to make room in their hearts for our friendship to be transformed into something beautiful. And I am grateful for this welcoming community, for our families and our youth. May they know that we love them unconditionally, and that we embrace their true selves. Coming out is an act of solidarity with those coming out at 30, 40, 50, 70, or kindergarten or 5th grade. Coming out for me is now a spiritual practice, a ministry, a blessing. A constant reminder that I stand on the shoulders of transwomen warriors like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. Proud and courageous Puerto Rican and African American warriors who despite living under  tremendous dangerous conditions, found a way to offer hope by  creating a safety net, an underground railroad for homeless trans youth. Our shared ministry includes being co-conspirators against bills and laws founded on hatred and transphobia. As a queer elder and Latinx UU Minister, I proudly lift up the names of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, founders of STAR, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). This was before we used the term transgender. STAR  was founded in 1970 by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, the first street activists in New York City to fundraise and advocate on behalf of homeless trans youth. 

And more than 50 years later, here we are, facing waves of anti-trans bills that jeopardize the very lives and well being of our trans youth. Right now there is a rainbow bridge being created as we speak, to bring to safety  trans people living in states where anti trans bills threaten their very existence. Entire families are being torn apart, families facing impossible choices in order to protect the most vulnerable members of their families. At times we believe that we have come so far from that night in 1969 at the Stonewall Inn. In some ways we have, and right now it feels like we are being thrown back into times of horror, persecution, invisibility, and inhumanity. Today let us recommit ourselves to live into the true spirit of Pride, to be part of not only the rainbow that rejoices and expresses our pride in parades and dances, but also the rainbow bridge to safety, to justice, to freedom. No matter how you identify and express your gender identities, we must become the warriors that Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson taught us to be: an active part of this new revolutionary movement: the rainbow bridge to protest and resist unjust laws, to challenge hateful politicians and inhuman laws. To bring our most vulnerable ones to safety. Until all of us are free, none of us are free. Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson: PRESENTE! 

Amen and Blessed BE!