In this episode Rev. Deborah and Elizabeth talk about the relationship (and tension) between the Queer community and the Christian community. They discuss their experience with the church and how it has treated the LGBTQIA+ community and the history of the Queer movement in America, and how that has differed from the international community.
Transcript
Transcription provided by automated service.
[00:03] Rev. Deborah Duguid-May (DDM): Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.
[00:09] Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe (MET): And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.
[00:11] DDM: This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy and action. Action. So today we’re going to be looking at gender and sexuality and transness and for myself I think it’s 1 of the most interesting concepts to look at theologically. But a little bit about, so we name where we come from. I myself am lesbian, but honestly I’ve always wondered if I’m trans and
[00:58] DDM: again like we were saying Elizabeth, you know if 1 had different options I wonder whether I would have chosen something different. You know, I grew up in a culture where it was illegal to be gay. Many of my friends were jailed simply for being gay. Grew up listening to the hate speech and violence directed towards the gay community. And honestly, it was frightening as a young person growing up. So I married at 18, had children, but as I grew older and funny enough, it was primarily through prayer and spirituality that I really got to know myself
[01:32] DDM: so much better and it just became increasingly clear that I was not a heterosexual woman. I divorced at 32 after 14 years of marriage, but the church was not in any way ready to hear the voices and experiences of gay people. And so I remained closeted as a priest in South Africa for a number of years until that option became internally impossible for me. I was doing human rights work over in the West Bank in Bethlehem. And I met my wife-to-be, we got married and have now been married for 15 years.
[02:10] MET: First off, I cannot imagine the internal fortitude that took, so props to you. I have a much more ridiculous story. I’m gonna start with kind of a funny observation. And that is when I was growing up, my parents were absolutely horrified by the topic of sex. Like I could probably count on 1 hand, the number of times I have heard my mother say the word sex. The reason this is applicable is because on the 1 hand, I grew up in a tradition that is completely and 100% hostile to the queer community, right? Like Southern Baptists do
[02:58] MET: not like queer people. But my parents were so terrified to even mention sex or sexuality in my home that they never got around to instilling in me a hatred of homosexuality. Right? Like they just couldn’t mention it. So they were so averse to talking about sex that like they didn’t even, they couldn’t even talk about the fact that there were people who were same sex attracted. And I just like didn’t absorb that for my overall religious environment for whatever reason. So I just didn’t learn to hate gay people. And I distinctly remember 1 time when I
[03:40] MET: was in junior high and a friend made some disparaging remark about gay people. And I said, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. And this group of church people turned on me and they were like yes there is and they kind of really attacked me and started yelling at me about the bible and this verse and gay people are going to hell and I was so confused because the Bible as I understood it was all about love and not judging people. So I didn’t really say anything, but I was like, what is going on? And now I
[04:09] MET: run in very different circles and a number of people that I am very close to are queer. And I look back to that kid in junior high that I was, and I’m actually pretty proud of her. Like I knew at the age of 13 or 14, that people are people and deserve our love and respect. And I just had to get away from the others who were confused about it.
[04:30] DDM: But you know, I was thinking as you were sharing about your parents, my heart kind of felt, oh my God, I felt sorry for them, you know, because it can be so hard in these cultures. But it’s interesting how that puritanical western upbringing really created these very unhealthy understandings of and relationship to our own bodies. Right. And, and I think as well, you know, I wondered to what extent that shaped this very unhealthy reading of scripture, right? Because you know what always amazes me on this issue is when you actually go back and look at scripture,
[05:04] DDM: scripture itself, Old Testament, the New Testament, you don’t find that marriage is the primarily that Western concept of 1 man, 1 woman.
[05:14] MET: I always laugh about like biblical marriage or traditional marriage. I’m like, yeah, knock yourself out with that in the U S today, buddy.
[05:21] DDM: Polygamy is the dominant form of marriage in the scriptures, right? Yeah. And you find other forms of quote unquote, legitimate sexuality. I remember the first time I ever read, and I wasn’t in the church, but I had been given a Bible, and so I used to sometimes read it at bed at night. And I remember the first time I turned to the book of the Song of Songs.
[05:44] MET: Were you shocked?
[05:45] DDM: I was. I was like, oh wow, this is all in the Bible. A lot about breasts and
[05:50] MET: breasts are like gazelles.
[05:52] DDM: I know. And I was like, you know, I was really pleasantly surprised. Right. But again, that speaking of sexuality in very explicit terms. And so I think in some ways, if we’re honest, the Bible does not reflect the discomfort that the West has around sexuality. The West is uncomfortable with sexuality and they’ve transferred that onto scripture. It’s not there in scripture. And so I think many of the Western churches attitudes to bodies and to sex is actually far more cultural than it is biblical. But if we go back now to looking at gender plurality, right, and
[06:35] DDM: the full diversity of human sexuality, I think it’s so important always to go back to that Genesis creation story, right, because in the very beginning, Our translations say in the very beginning God created Adam, but the Hebrew doesn’t. The Hebrew says God creates the Adama. And Adama is translated as earth creature.
[07:01] MET: In my mind, I like that God created the earthling. Yes, the earthling. That’s what
[07:05] DDM: I wanted to say. The earth creature, the earthling, exactly. And so this Adama that comes into being in the Hebrew Genesis story is both fully male, fully female, and fully everything all around that, right? So God creates this earth creature or earthling in, and then this is important again, in the Hebrew text it says in their image, not in his image or her image, but in their image. And you know, again, the West always thinks of God as individual, as singular, right? And I think that’s again, that transference of Western individual culture onto God.
[07:50] MET: Can I interrupt you really quickly?
[07:51] DDM: Absolutely.
[07:52] MET: That is so fascinating, thinking about what we talked about in our very first episode, when I was talking about like my tradition being like hyper individualized. Yes. And making like that connection to what we talked about in our first episode. Oh my gosh, I’m like so fascinated by what you’re talking about.
[08:08] DDM: So God is not individual in the Hebrew scriptures and singular, right? God is their, them, our, God is community, God is plurality, right? And I think in the same ways that the being of God, if this earthling is created in the image of God, it is fully male, female, and everything else that weaves in between that. So again, the West, from this individualistic, very binary kind of concept, tends to transfer that onto God. And so the debates of, well, is God he or she? God is both and more, right? Because God
[08:48] DDM: is plurality. And so, you know, 1 thing when we talk about this issue, I think we’ve got to remember is that others cultures and traditions don’t see people or sexuality in the same way as the West. Unfortunately, where missionaries and the church got imported as a colonial strategy in colonialism, I think you do see the damage that it’s done to indigenous cultures and the way in which they relate to their own bodies and sexuality. But the image in scripture is definitely of God being imaged as plural, right? And so what does it mean to be created
[09:26] DDM: in the image of a God who understands themselves as plural? What would it mean to begin to see ourselves perhaps more in terms of plurality of being? And so secondly God creates this original earthling encompassing all of maleness, femaleness in one being and so that Earth first Earth creature is beyond binary right holding all forms of gender and sexuality in 1 and so I really think that Genesis story holds a very radically different way of understanding who we are as human beings. We’re not singular, we’re not binary, we all are so much more and beyond what
[10:10] DDM: any of us have maybe previously thought or known ourselves to be. And so I wonder if in our current thought patterns, I mean, if you listen to our current dialogues, there’s a lot of stress on, well, which box do you fit into? Are you male or you female? Are you bi or are you trans? I find myself wondering from the scriptural perspective, if this is still far too confining and narrow, asking for us to be 1 thing instead of the space for many. And I think really scripture has been co-opted by Western conservative culture to say
[10:47] DDM: things that it doesn’t say, right? It’s being used by the Western church as a tool to control people’s bodies and sexualities in ways that scripture was never intended to be used. And I think unfortunately that distorted use of scripture has really been used in highly oppressive ways, limiting human fullness, rather than ways of opening up new ways of being and exploring who we are in a far greater, more expensive way.
[11:19] MET: Okay. Can I ask you a question? And if you’re not ready to just like launch into this discussion, that’s fine. I’m asking you a question you may not be ready to talk about. This is not a personal question either. I’ve heard you talk about translation issues with largely like Leviticus and kind of those clobber passages. Could you give just like a brief overview of those kind of like, why, why do we freak out about some of these issues? Why do we freak out about some of these verses that seem to imply these behaviors are
[12:04] MET: so bad. And what is your response to that?
[12:08] DDM: Right, so largely I think it’s that whole lost in translation issue.
[12:14] MET: Yeah, I’d love to hear your take on that.
[12:15] DDM: So we’re dealing with scriptures that are written, first of all, in a context that is thousands of years removed from ours, number 1. So we’re dealing with a vastly different cultural context. We’re dealing with cultures that had very different worldviews and ways of understanding things, but they also had very different ways of understanding language. Language was not used and understood in the same way that it is in a western English approach. We’re also dealing with in the Old Testament scriptures that are written in Hebrew. In the New Testament we have Aramaic and Greek.
[12:54] DDM: And so when in the past people were translating these scriptures, very often they translated them from their own cultural perspective, which we all tend to do unless we’re acutely aware of it. And even then it’s going to impact it. But they also translated them with their own cultural prejudices. And this affects many issues in the scripture. So 1 of the issues would be obviously the issue on sexuality and homosexuality in specific. Just like I said to you, God didn’t create Adam, God created the Adama, right? Which is a huge difference, right? In the same way, when
[13:35] DDM: the, in the, in the Hebrew Old Testament scriptures, when they’re speaking about temple prostitution, because there was this concept much like tantric Hinduism, right? Where you would go to the temple there would be a temple prostitute you would sleep with that person and through that sexual act of union find union with God and Whenever they use the term for for temple prostitutes. They very often replace it with Homosexuality It had nothing to do with homosexuality, it had to do with with temple prostitution. So that’s a huge 1 in the Old Testament that you constantly find being
[14:14] DDM: repeated. And in the New Testament, the issue there is around what is, when they’re speaking about Paul is speaking about culture, he appeals to the argument of culture. Well, this is culturally done. Well, you know, in the West and in Greco-Roman culture, yes, women have long hair culturally, so perhaps that’s appropriate for them. In Africa, long hair is not appropriate. To have long hair, we’d have to straighten it and, you know, do kind of all kinds of techniques to try to make it grow long. It’s not natural for us. So, you know, appealing to what is
[14:53] DDM: natural and what is cultural is a very flexible concept. But then also In the New Testament, again, we find a mistranslation where Paul is speaking at 1 stage in what some Western, at a cursory glance, looks like homosexuality, but the words used actually arserecoitai and malacoitai, it’s referring to the sexual act of an older, more powerful man having sex with a young prepubescent boy.
[15:30] MET: Which would have been hugely important for Greco-Roman.
[15:34] DDM: Which was common in their day, but now in a Western culture, we wouldn’t consider that would be pedophilia Yeah, and we wouldn’t and you know, that would not be accepted obviously in our culture. So again, it wasn’t it wasn’t the consensual relationship of 2 adult men having a lifelong nurturing relationship. It was a more exploitative practice. So unfortunately, right throughout scripture, we find these places in scripture where there’s just has been horrendous translations. And it’s just kind of been in this catchall phrase of homosexual, which which the original text was not referring to at all. So it’s a pretty
[16:14] DDM: dishonest, you know, debate.
[16:17] MET: That’s fascinating. Thank you for that. I’m so glad I asked that. Okay, so speaking of cultural context and kind of where we are and who we are in this, I want to provide a little bit of background for our listeners about kind of what the queer movement has been for the last few decades in our cultural moment, at least here in the U.S. And it’s important to know that the queer movement in the US has been influential in other parts of the world. It has kind of spilled out across the borders and had a
[16:55] MET: difference in other places. So I am gonna focus on the queer movement here in the US, but acknowledge that it has, like the queer movement is vibrant and happening in other parts of the world. Absolutely it is. But I’m just going to focus on the movements that have happened here because that’s the context in which we’re working. I do want to note though, that for example, in a lot of places in the world, they have like pride celebrations and that kind of thing. In the summer months, That is because of Stonewall. Stonewall was something that happened
[17:38] MET: in the 1960s in America. So it is important to note that like the American queer movement has had impact worldwide. So let’s talk about that.
[17:49] DDM: That’s definitely true. That’s definitely true Because I remember my first time coming to the USA and I went to San Francisco. I knelt down. I placed my hands on the ground and I was like, I am finally on holy ground. Because San Francisco, for many of us living in other countries around the world, had become, it was the holy land, you know? It was the place that captured all of our visions and dreams of being free, you know?
[18:17] MET: Yeah, So actually, so let’s talk about that. Let’s go back in time a little bit. Let’s talk about, let’s start with Stonewall. In 1969, it really wasn’t okay to be out, if you will, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t gay bars. The thing about the gay bars, mostly in New York, was that they were kind of this open secret and a lot of them were actually run by the mob, if you can believe it. I know, right?
[18:49] DDM: Interesting.
[18:49] MET: It was a bit of a scam. You knew the bars were a front for the mob and they were laundering their money there, but it was the only place that queer people could go. So you couldn’t really complain about the drinks that were overpriced and watered down Because that was sort of all you had And the cops were well aware of this situation, but many times they were on the dole So they just let things slide and that was kind of the only queer community that you had in New York at the time.
[19:20] DDM: I’m sure some of the cops were in there too darling.
[19:23] MET: Yeah for sure village people all over the place right?
[19:28] DDM: Absolutely.
[19:30] MET: But for whatever reason on June 28th in 1969 in Greenwich Village at the Stonewall Inn, the cops weren’t having it anymore. There’s some background to that. In the early 1960s, the mayor of New York went on this crusade to shut down all the gay bars. So in late June, the cops went undercover and many of them were sent to smoke out these supposed reprobates in Greenwich. So on the early morning of the 28th, 2 cops tried to start arresting people at Stonewall. And what happened was the patrons fought back. They just weren’t having any of it.
[20:11] MET: The cops tried to line up and cart out a bunch of the patrons, but there were over 200 people there and they just pretty much said, no, we’re not going. And the story is that Marsha P. Johnson, a trans woman of color was the first person to throw a brick. And that’s what happened at Stonewall. Marsha P. Johnson said, I’m not going, I’m not having it. And she threw a brick at a cop. And that is what started Stonewall. It spilled out of the bar and into the streets and people from all over the neighborhood, which
[20:45] MET: was a very queer friendly place just came flooding out and this bottles were thrown and Like windows were broken and bricks and rocks were being thrown and people were out there screaming queer power and gay power and it turned into a multi-day riot Okay, this leads me to a few observations before I move on. For 1 thing, we have to acknowledge that the movement for queer rights and acceptance, and I am making a generalization here, people usually think of it as starting with Stonewall, but there were things like the Madison society and other attempts to make progress
[21:20] MET: for the queer community that had existed previously, but for a lot of people they think of it starting it as Stonewall. This movement was anti-cop, anti-establishment, and riotous from the beginning, right? Like this was an anti-establishment movement and pride and the gay and trans rights movement has a long and storied history of being what you would call like extra rhetorical or extra legal, right? It moved outside of normative means. It was radical, that’s how it started. It was violent in many ways. And this also speaks to the nature of things like Pride or pro-queer movements today.
[22:08] MET: So for example, there is an ongoing debate about the appropriateness of family-friendly Pride or pro-queer events. On the 1 hand, the queer movement has always been about fighting the establishment, celebrating sexuality, and even celebrating sex and the body and free will.
[22:30] DDM: That’s what I was thinking of, sorry to interject. Yeah. You said that because again, that ties in family, quote unquote, family friendly, is that again, our aversion to dealing with and engaging with the body and sexuality. Exactly. Normative. Yes. Right.
[22:46] MET: Yes. Well, and that’s exactly what I was about to say like this celebration of the body and sex doesn’t necessarily lend itself to what we would think is kid-friendly events and There’s a lot of people who think maybe we shouldn’t demand that queer people make their events into something that they were never intended to be. On the other hand, there are a lot of 11 and 12 year old kids out there that know they are gay or know they are trans. And it would be really nice to have events where they could go and find a
[23:24] MET: community and have a safe place. So this is actually a conversation that happens, you know, every summer, like who gets to be involved, where do we get to go, who gets to be included, that kind of thing. So all of that is to say the fight for queer rights started out as this radical fight against the establishment But what is interesting and that in the last few decades? Queer Activists and allies have absolutely co-opted the tools of the establishment to advance their cause Specifically what I want to point out is that much of the advancement in
[23:55] MET: the queer rights in the last 20 years Has come through the court system Okay, I’m gonna warn you This is 100% up my alley In my other life. I am a free speech and legal rhetoric scholar, and I spend a lot of my time with things like Supreme Court opinions. Let me tell you something. I am such a nerd about things like this, but like years ago when the Obamacare decision came out, I remember exactly where I was. We were at the Children’s Museum that day, And I was so glad that my child was well behaved
[24:32] MET: because that meant I could pull up the Supreme Court decision on my phone and read it while my child played with foam blocks. So like reel me in. Okay, my producer is nodding right now. He remembers. Yes. Okay, so I’m gonna give you a quick rundown of queer rights in the last few years. I actually am going to take us back a few decades to 1967, which sounds like a long time ago, but it kind of is to Loving v. Virginia. This may seem not completely relevant, but it 100% is. Loving v. Virginia was what you
[25:10] MET: would call a miscegenation case. Basically it was about interracial marriage. There was an interracial couple that was arrested just for being married in Virginia and the Supreme Court decided that You have a right to marry who you want in 1967 right like in many ways that should have been the end of the discussion. The Supreme Court decided you have a constitutional right to marry the person of your choice. The end. What we argued about for the next, what, 60, 70 years, I guess, was what marriage means. So we know you have a right to get married
[25:53] MET: and we know you have a right to marry who you want. What people argued about was the definition of marriage. Does marriage automatically mean between a man and a woman? And people argued about that forever. Okay, fast forward to 1986, there was this really important case called Bowers v. Hardwick. And it’s like, I’m gonna tell you these things, you’re gonna be like, people cannot think this way, but they do In 1986 the Supreme Court decided that there is no protection for homosexual sex Like can you imagine being the people who present these arguments in front of
[26:30] MET: the Supreme Court? But the Supreme Court decided that you do not have a right to have certain kinds of sex. Right, you’re looking at me like this is nuts. It is nuts.
[26:45] DDM: It’s incredible how the government can feel it can overstep into your bedroom.
[26:51] MET: This got shaken up in 1995 with Romer v. Evans. This was a really complicated scenario, but basically what it boiled down to was Colorado passed a law that said you couldn’t discriminate against gay people. Then there was an amendment passed that said you couldn’t have a law that said you couldn’t discriminate against gay people. And then the Supreme Court came in and said that amendment is discriminatory so you can’t have that amendment. It was very complicated, but basically they said, no, you can’t say, you can’t have laws that are like against gay people. So progress, right?
[27:34] MET: The big turning point was in the early 2000s with Lawrence v. Texas. And I have to tell you a personal story. I remember when Lawrence v. Texas came out because I was at a party, I was, you know, 2021, maybe a little bit older than that. And we’re all sitting around at this party, standing around with our red solo cups, we’re like young adults, you know, cheap beer, whatever. And Lawrence V. Texas came out and Lawrence V. Texas overturned Bowers. And Lawrence V. Texas said, basically, you can have sex with who you want however you want
[28:06] MET: right like anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional and I remember standing her off my friends drinking our cheap beer and talking about how this changes things right Like Lawrence v. Texas is going to change the lives of people we know and love. And it was kind of 1 of the first moments where I had this realization that like the stuff that happens out there in the political and legal world, literally changes lives. And I don’t think I had recognized that outside of, you know, presidential elections before, but I realized this Supreme court decision, which seems so foreign
[28:45] MET: and out there and not related, was literally going to change, you know, my friend Bob’s life. Like his relationships would be different from here on out after that. And that was huge for me. Then in 2013, you had the US v. Windsor decision that was the DOMA decision that basically said there is this Definition of Marriage as being between a man and a woman in federal law and that was struck down, which led the way just 2 years later for Obergefell v Hodges. And that is the decision. It’s pretty simple. Some folks wanted to get married, so
[29:27] MET: they went to court and they won. So in 2015, gay marriage was made legal. There have been any number of cases come through since then that was like the Bostock case that dealt with trans rights. And there are a number of cases coming through the courts right now dealing with gender affirming care. But what people are really worried about right now is that Roe v. Wade has been struck down. That may not seem pertinent, but what most people don’t know is that Roe was decided on the merit of privacy, not abortion. You had a right to
[30:02] MET: abortion not because you specifically had that right, but because you had the right to make private medical decisions between you and your doctor. That right to privacy is very much in question now. And without the right to privacy, which is very much at the heart of the gay rights cases, there is a lot of anxiety about whether queer rights can be rolled back. This cannot be overstressed in the wake of the election. The incoming administration has tried to be very cagey in the last few months on abortion and Dobbs. Trump has tried very hard to distance
[30:41] MET: himself from past statements on this. He’s tried to make his position something like abortion should be a state issue, but that has not been what he’s been about in the past. He has been very proud of the fact that his court overturned Roe. That is huge for gay marriage Because gay marriage is predicated on the rights codified in women’s health cases, specifically a case on birth control, the Griswold case, and Roe. When the court overturned Roe, Clarence Thomas specifically said if he had his way they would come for gay marriage next. And it is very tempting
[31:24] MET: to say, oh that’s settled law they can’t do anything about that. But folks that is what they said about Roe. And another case to consider is a case that nobody ever talks about, which I mentioned just a few minutes ago, the Bostock case from a few years back. Bostock established trans rights as protected by rights that prevent sex discrimination. That has largely gone unenforced and states break it all the time. It doesn’t really have any teeth. But with the anti-trans legislation being pushed through in multiple states and the Trump campaign largely being ushered in on anti-trans
[32:01] MET: rhetoric, we can largely kiss that goodbye. Bostock will be overturned within a year. Okay, so what is the point of all this? I just dumped a ton of information on you. What am I getting at? What I am saying is that the movement for gay and trans rights has evolved a lot over time. It started as something radical and outside of the legal system and grew into a movement that utilized the law for its own ends. However, we are seeing the downside of that too. The movement used the law, but the law has turned in
[32:39] MET: a completely different direction after decades of conservative leadership. And let’s be honest, some of the Dems who have been in charge have been pretty conservative. So where does the movement go from here? So we’ve seen the movement encapsulate some really interesting positions, even binaries, if you will. It started as something radical and has kind of become institutional. The question is, will it need to radicalize again? And that’s sort of a question for any movement that wants to make a difference. The church itself could ask that question. We didn’t start as an institutionalized body. We were outside
[33:20] MET: the norm in the beginning. The early church was persecuted. Then as the church grew, it became institutionalized. Like all movements and organizations, there comes a time to ask, was that the right move?
[33:36] DDM: Absolutely, and the cost and what we’ve lost in that process of becoming institutional. But you know, I think the problem for me is that institutions always want us to fit into categories, because we’re so much easier to manage and control that way. But from a scriptural point of view, how do you make the miracle and the magnificence of a human being, an earthling, right? Fit into a category. I mean we were never created for that by God in the very beginning, you know, and even liberation movements I think often tend to want to create new categories
[34:12] DDM: into which we must fit. But why that constant need to define and to name who we are again going back in singular ways. You know, like I think to scriptures, God is both light and darkness. God is the still small voice and the thunder. God is male and female and them. And this is the garden whose image we are created. We are not 1 thing, but everything. And so much more than we realize and know right now. And I think so often it’s not just society that is constantly seeking to limit us. I mean, that whole
[34:49] DDM: story you were telling about the legal definitions and arguments in court. I mean, it’s a constant need to define, categorize, and box, right? And once we’ve nailed down this little box, now we’re gonna turn even to the definition of marriage. Right. I mean, I always laugh when we want to even as the church define marriage. Marriage is this very amorphous concept in scripture. Right. I mean, it really is, you know, and how much of our definitions of marriage are actually just more cultural definitions with a little smattering of of of of of kind of sort of
[35:22] DDM: theological sprinkles on the top.
[35:23] MET: And I have to tell you like when you talk about this, there’s a part of me that gets anxious because you know in my job what do we do? Define your terms, define your terms, state your claim, define your terms. So like, nebulous, amorphous, oh no.
[35:37] DDM: And yet I think that’s the movement of the Holy Spirit.
[35:40] MET: You’re 100% right. I’m just like, that’s just my context.
[35:43] DDM: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think part of the problem for me, just as a priest and as a human being, just kind of watching what’s happening in our world today, is that I feel like the LGBTIQ, whatever letters you want to use in that, that community of people have really become weaponized in the political debates, which we see playing out in the legal courts, right? Gay people and especially nowadays, I mean, if we’re talking about the last 6 months, trans children being used as a political tool. It stuns me that as communities, we are
[36:15] DDM: prepared to use our children and our children who in some ways are most vulnerable as a political tool in these political games that we’re playing today. I mean, for me, the abuse that is inherent in what is happening is absolutely appalling, right? But it’s such an easy community to target as scapegoats. So we can get our communities to focus on gender alternatives rather than on the massive wealth transfer that’s taking place at the hands of our leaders or the ecological raping that is taking place in our culture. So rather than focusing on those issues, Let’s scapegoat
[36:57] DDM: our young children who are grappling with issues of identity. When has that ever become a crime? When has that ever become a problem in our society? But I also have problems maybe with the way in which we are doing that to some extent because instead of asking our children to name themselves sexually at such young ages, why not just simply give them the space to explore the fullness of who they are? Give them space! Give them space for self-discovery. But I feel like already at such young ages, we are wanting to box children and put pressure
[37:35] DDM: on them to name themselves. Sometimes before they ready. It’s different if a child is clearly able to articulate and name themselves. Wonderful. We should be supporting and encouraging that. But I think there’s a huge pressure to kind of where do you fit and to name that, you know?
[37:52] MET: I feel like I have a lot of confidence in sort of the youngest generation that’s coming up right now. Yes. They are so much more chill about that kind of thing. Absolutely. Like people my age, you know. Absolutely. I see young
[38:13] MET: teens just being
[38:13] MET: cool about that kind of thing. And I remember when I was in junior high and high school, Like gender roles were rigid and sexuality was defined. Like these were hard and fast rules. And young teens that I know are just, They’re just chill.
[38:43] DDM: Trying to live their best life.
[38:44] MET: Yeah, they’re just, they’ve got, you know, they’ve got social media bullying to worry about. They’re not, they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna let gender binaries be the thing that stresses them out.
[38:59] DDM: Right, right, right. But I think for myself, you know, we’re just as a clergy person and as a gay person, you know, that threat of violence for me still is a huge concern, targeted violence against gay community and trans people. You know, I mean, when I was leaving South Africa, I hardly knew a gay woman who had not been raped. And again, if you’re talking about the private, you know, what are the private stories that we’re not hearing? You know, what are the private stories of what people are actually going through to try to forge
[39:31] DDM: a space of Integrity for themselves and at what cost you know And you know so from a church’s perspective I mean if we were to talk about what should the role of the church be in this shifting sea of sexuality and gender identity. I mean, for me, the biblical viewpoint is that we always need to be standing in solidarity. You know, What does it mean to stand in solidarity with those who are most vulnerable in our society? What does it mean to create spaces and space for healing and for transformation? And what for me is the
[40:09] DDM: irony of that word transformation, which we all seem to love so much, is that you don’t know what you are going to become when you are being transformed. You may become something that you had absolutely no idea of. And you know, for all we know when we’re talking about sexuality and gender, we don’t know what transformation is going to mean in another 10 or 20, you know, years time. But for me, when you were talking about institution and destabilization, the Holy Spirit of God, always there to destabilize. If you look at the role of the Holy
[40:39] DDM: Spirit, right? The Holy Spirit is never the aspect of God that has brought stability. The Holy Spirit is always the 1 who is blowing and changing things and enabling us to see and experience things we’ve never encountered before. And so my question is really how might the Holy Spirit be blowing and shaking up our old categories of sexuality, of bodies and of human beings because those old categories have damaged and limited all of us, right? But if you think of that concept of Ubuntu again, I am because you are, I can only be whole if I
[41:16] DDM: give space for you to become whole and isn’t that what God does in creation you know God creates space and says let there be and out of that space everything becomes right so for me sexuality and the full spectrum of sexual expression, it’s not really just about gay people or trans people. It’s about human beings. It’s about earthlings, earthlings loving their bodies, loving their sexuality and trying not to fit into nice little neat boxes because we are so much more than that.
[41:51] MET: Okay. Before we go, I do want to say something specifically to our listeners before we sign off. Depending on where you are in your life, this episode may have hit you a little bit differently. Some of you may be coming from a place of hurt or pain because of something you may have experienced because of churches that you have been to before. Some of you may be trying to figure out how to be the best ally you can be. And some of you may be just confused because this is all a little bit strange to you
[42:32] MET: and maybe you don’t know how you fit into this narrative. The thing we need you to understand above all else is that you are loved and if you have questions or concerns about any of this feel free to reach out to us or to your local church community and if your local church community isn’t supportive let us help you find 1 that is. This podcast comes to you from Trinity Episcopal and at Trinity Episcopal we celebrate diversity. If you need some of that and you think we can help you, let us know. But most importantly, this
[43:10] MET: is a message of hope and inclusion. If God’s love encompasses all, it is incumbent upon us to do the same. So if you are hurting, you are not alone. Thank you for listening to The Priest and the Prof. Find us at our website, PriestandProf.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@PriestandProf.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at priestimprof.org/donate. That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope
[43:57] MET: you have enjoyed our time together today.
[44:00] DDM: Music by AudioNautix.com
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