Coming Out as Revealing Truth
"Coming out isn’t a one-time thing. It’s a process. It’s often painful, but more than anything it’s exhausting. To put yourself on display, to tell your deepest truths, to hold them up, and then to allow other people to cast judgment on them is tiring. It’s not about telling your secrets; it’s actually about revealing your truth. The problem with the way society has set up coming out is it allows other people the opportunity to decide whether or not they will except your truth."
— In the Margins
Evangelicalism and the Body
"Growing up in the evangelical church, I was taught to distrust myself. Not just my physicality, but also my mind. We were taught we were fragile people, riddled through with a sin nature. Everything we wanted to do was evil and wrong. If we desired something, those desires weren’t to be trusted. When you couple those teachings with the culture of dismissiveness toward anyone who grew up in a female body, you have a recipe for disaster. Intuition, our God-given gift to help us protect ourselves in dangerous situations, is seen as something to be ignored instead of as the gift it is. Pushed aside. Dismissed."
— In the Margins
God and the Body
"My experience with transition was that I couldn’t really be close to God until I could make peace with my body. Until I could move through the world as I knew I was intended to. My transition was a homecoming, a process of making peace, fulfillment of my calling."
— In the Margins
Joseph and Other Dreamers
"Joseph’s story also asks us to consider what might happen if we make space for the dreamers. How many more people might have been saved had Joseph been given a place of leadership sooner? What other creative solutions might have avoided a famine altogether? Whose gifts are we continuing to ignore in our communities? Who are we asking to dim their light so as to not make us uncomfortable? What might happen if we allow those lights to shine at full radiance?"
— In the Margins
Making Space, Making Change
"How many of the challenges we’re facing today are a result of people who aren’t fully alive? Who are so concerned with hiding their own faults they cannot be present for others? Our systems are unjust, yes, but so are individuals who cannot make space for others."
— In the Margins
The Meaning of Transition
"I wasn’t separate from my body. My brain wasn’t at war with my body. They were designed to work together, to be in harmony. These ideas of flesh and spirit being at war with one another weren’t the truth; the truth instead was, “the kingdom of God is within you.“ (Those words from the gospel of Thomas helped me unlock this truth, as I will discuss below.) Within each one of us is what we need to know to find our purpose, but even more importantly, to find our healing. The work of spirituality became, for me, a journey back to myself. A journey back to trusting my body."
— In the Margins
The Necessity of Gender Talk
"When we talk about gender, people often think we’re talking only about queer and trans folks, or women’s issues. They don’t see the larger picture of how all of us are caught up in a system of gender that is literally killing us. From men who refuse to see doctors because they are “tougher“ than their medical issue, to doctors who refuse to believe women when they say they are in pain, to trans folks who struggle to receive any health care at all, the system of rigid boxes and binaries impacts our physical health on a daily basis."
— In the Margins
Perceptions of Transition
"For people who didn’t know me well, my transition might have looked fast. The amount of time from coming out as transgender to starting hormones was about nine months, but to me, all of it simply felt like catching up. My brain was catching up to what my body had always known."
— In the Margins
Proper Names and Pronouns
"What does it cost us to honor another person's experience and identity? What does it cost us to use the name and pronouns that are correct? What does it cost us to offer empathy even if we lack understanding? It doesn’t cost much — maybe a bit of discomfort, maybe stumbling on a learning curve, maybe some relational mistakes that feel embarrassing.
"On the flipside, what does our lack of honoring others cost? Our refusal to use correct names and pronouns? Our refusal to offer empathy? The cost is deadly, but cisgender people are not the ones to pay it. The burden is on those who are already depressed and marginalized; the cost is paid by the very people who cannot afford to pay it."
— In the Margins
Queer Community as Christian Community
"Queer and transgender people are continually sharing what little they have, passing the same $25 around their social circle, so that no one goes hungry until payday. We throw parties for one another to raise funds for life-saving surgery that insurance companies refuse to cover. We take turns giving and receiving because we know that we need each other to get by. Jesus’s message comes through loud and clear for us, and when we see the early church described in Acts 2:44–45, it looks familiar: “all the believers were united and shared everything. They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them.”
"We see that they shared all things in common; we read those verses, and say, 'Yep, that sounds about right.' We recognize ourselves in the story."
— In the Margins
Resurrection, Reconciliation, and Resilience
"These resurrection stories seem to indicate that reconciliation is found in person-to-person encounters. In the way a friend says your name, in the forgiveness offered when you don’t deserve it, in the recognition of your new reality. When we hold space for one another’s resurrections, and when we are seen in our own resurrections, we have courage to take up the work again. We have the courage to get back into the fight. We have the courage to believe that even death is not the final word."
— In the Margins
