tranSpirit with Rev Kai Daniel Moore

Rev Kai Daniel Moore is a trans pastor and theologian who believes that queerness is a holy thing!

They are currently finishing a PhD at the Graduate Theological Union, exploring what queer theory can illuminate about the Christian story. His ministry and teaching centers on the claim that even the messiest parts of human life are part of our spiritual journeys. Kai officiates flat track roller derby as Bruise Almighty, and their forthcoming dissertation (and book!?) is called The Scandalous Body of Christ.

 Rev Kai’s website - https://revkaimoore.com

 Hosted by B0NNi33 Vi0L3T, a conversation about being trans and spirituality.

This was LIVE streamed, June 4, 2021 at 7PM PST on YouTube, Facebook & Twitch @ a queer chaplain & @ Glide on YouTube & Facebook.

To watch the on YouTube https://youtu.be/cffgmNRIhkc

Glide Memorial Church  at https://www.glide.org

Splintered Grace - Tina, a conservative christian woman and Bonnie Violet, a trans genderqueer drag queen have an anti-cancel culture conversation. https://linktr.ee/aqueerchaplain

Glide Pride Team https://www.glide.org/church/pride-2021

 To learn more about a queer chaplain

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🌐 a queer chaplain
Bonnie Violet, is a trans femme genderqueer spiritual drag artist & a digital queer chaplain.

Splintered Grace

Bonnie Violet & Tina Frank

Tina, is a conservative christian woman and Bonnie Violet, a trans gender queer drag queen. While many family members are choosing to no longer speak, we have chosen to sit at the table and engage in difficult conversation to find peace and restoration.

🌐 https://linktr.ee/aqueerchaplain

🌐 a queer chaplain
Bonnie Violet, is a trans femme genderqueer spiritual drag artist & a digital queer chaplain.

🌐 a queer chaplain
Bonnie Violet, is a trans femme genderqueer spiritual drag artist & a digital queer chaplain.

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Transcript

0:00
the queer and the activists of the
0:05
Seminary part uh was a pretty easy fit of the like because especially
0:12
um in my Quaker School growing up that you know I had a class uh required class
0:18
in 10th Grade Called Peace Justice and social change and so we talked about all of these people who like
0:25
um this this is what kind of what faith meant to me growing up was like you have these convictions and they lead you to do things in the world
0:32
um and that's part of what really clicked for me um doing this activist work in
0:38
Providence was like oh this is not just something that people tell me in Sunday school
0:43
um this is something like our beliefs can actually like mean something about the way that we live in the world and the way that we interact
0:49
with one another right [Music]
0:58
hey y'all going it's Bonnie Violet um and you are on the trans Spirit podcast and I just wanted to take a
1:04
moment to say um it's National Trans Awareness Month
1:09
November 2022 and I'm currently working on creating a new uh trans Spirit Series
1:16
where I'll be interviewing 12 trans folks from around the globe hopefully
1:22
um to hear and capture their um stories with spirituality and their
1:28
trans identity that's trans non-binary um intersex
1:35
um basically non-cis gendered folks or folks who might be in the trans umbrella
1:41
I'm kind of open to whatever but I'm really curious to understand someone's gender outside of the CIS gender world
1:49
I'm in their experience with spirituality um so I am working on that in the
1:54
meantime I did want to continue putting out some episodes so what I'm going to do is
2:00
um be uploading some of my previous interviews with drag artists who were also trans talking about their spiritual
2:07
experience and other episodes or interviews that I've done that involve
2:12
trans people talking about their spirituality I hope that you enjoy this and I'll keep you posted on the next
2:20
series and uh yeah I'd love to hear from you please rate and review that helps other people find out about the podcast
2:27
um and feel free to engage with the links in the description you can support the work of a queer chaplain and
2:33
transparent by supporting our patreon um just go to go to the links check things out
2:39
I'm not going to be labor this any longer enjoy the podcast love you and uh
2:45
I see you I feel you I'm so glad that you're in the world with me my trans
2:51
siblings [Music] my guest this evening is Reverend Kai
2:59
Daniel Moore so here we go okay
3:04
hey great today how's it going not bad thanks thanks for having me with you for sure fancy seeing you here this
3:12
this random just chance that we happen to be in the same space huh yeah yeah
3:18
glad you could uh join me tonight as well um so let's start with how do you
3:25
identify kind of introduce introduce the group to introduce yourself a little bit hey yeah well I am currently a PhD
3:35
student in theology at The Graduate theological Union in Berkeley
3:40
um I hail from the East Coast originally and I'm also a pastor in the
3:45
Presbyterian Church USA yeah
3:51
all right so a lot of the times I like to start a little bit kind of like where it began I know that we all have
3:57
different experiences around spirituality um I feel like sometimes it can change over time I don't think we grow up
4:03
knowing exactly who we are and got enough figured out maybe you did um
4:08
not so much yeah so you could do you mind telling me a little bit about
4:15
um your childhood about like growing up whatever it feels like you want to share yeah
4:20
um I feel like I've always been in the church in some way or another um and that's really it's grown and
4:26
evolved and changed over the years but um yeah I was born uh grew up in raised
4:32
in a Presbyterian Church on the east coast and um also went to a quaker school
4:39
um so I had uh you know church on Sundays and meeting for worship on on Wednesdays which was lovely and
4:46
um uh so church was always a a really good place I had friends there and I you know
4:53
I was was a weird queer kid growing up even if I didn't use those words then
4:59
but um church was a place where I had friends and uh could do things and the
5:05
when the community like supported me and liked that I was there um you know when I was in high school
5:12
and most of the other high schoolers are off being you know doing cool high school things and uh and I'm there and
5:19
they appreciated that um and so then
5:25
yeah church has always been a good place for me growing up and then I started to
5:31
discern uh a call to Ministry to lead Church in some sort of way and then
5:37
that's where where things started to get a little crunchy for me um how old were you how old were you when
5:45
you first started feeling that or thinking that um really maybe once I graduated college
5:53
um it I had a great time in undergrad um was an American Studies major did a
6:00
bunch of activism around homelessness issues in Providence uh where I was in
6:05
school and uh one of the one of the people I was organizing with
6:10
um had grown up Catholic and was intending to go off to Seminary and be a priest and I was like I've never thought
6:17
about that and I respected them so much uh in the organizing that we were doing together and then
6:24
um and it became a really sort of uh it wasn't meant to be a faith-based group that we had
6:30
um but it turned out that we were all there motivated by our faiths in in
6:36
different kinds of ways and so we ended up talking about that a lot about the sort of the drive to do this um activist
6:43
work because of these different commitments from our faith traditions and um and that became a thing that
6:50
really supported that work um so that's what I yeah no sorry go ahead
6:56
so then I graduated and was like what do I do with my life and uh was thinking
7:01
about maybe Seminary is a place that I can sort of put this uh this activism
7:08
and Faith thing together in a particular kind of way
7:13
um and applied to Seminary sort of without necessarily intending to go off and be a pastor but it was like this is
7:20
the thing that makes sense um and I wound up at Union Seminary on
7:25
in New York which has this real tradition of uh socially engaged
7:31
politically engaged Faith work um which was great it was a great place
7:36
for me to be um and then and then I started started thinking about like okay well do I want
7:42
to actually be a pastor and be in a congregation and how does that work um and at that point
7:49
um this was I guess 2006 when I started Seminary and the Presbyterian Church very uh loudly
7:58
did not ordain queer and trans people at that point and were you identifying as queer or
8:04
trans at that time oh oh yeah um uh definitely queer
8:12
um I knew that I was queer I've always known that I was non-binary but didn't really have words for it uh it just sort
8:19
of was a thing like growing up was like I don't know it was just this thing in the back of my mind that I didn't really
8:25
uh work through very much until uh until pretty recently but
8:32
um but it was uh I definitely knew that I knew that I was queer uh even if I
8:37
didn't quite uh know the the shades of what I meant by that
8:42
and so it um it was a like a natural integration of all those things
8:48
did you ever have any hesitation of I guess being queer going to Seminary being an activist it
8:56
always feel like those things fit or uh the Seminary part fit the the queer
9:01
and the activists and the Seminary part uh was a pretty easy fit of the like
9:07
because especially um in my Quaker School growing up that you know I had a class uh required class
9:15
in 10th Grade Called Peace Justice and social change um and so we talked about all of these
9:20
people who like um this this is what kind of what faith meant to me growing up was like you have
9:25
these convictions and they lead you to do things in the world um and that's part of what really
9:31
clicked for me um doing this activist work in Providence was like oh this is not just
9:37
something that people tell me in Sunday school um this is something like our beliefs
9:42
can actually like mean something about the way that we live in the world and the way that we interact with one another right so that really clicked for me more
9:50
than just kind of going to church every Sunday and like saying the stuff but actually kind of putting it into action
9:55
by doing doing the work you said your activism was around homelessness in the
10:01
beginning yeah yeah when I was in Providence um we were it was a group of uh students
10:07
from my school and we paired up with um a group of uh homeless and formerly homeless activists organizing around
10:15
um there were some city ordinances about uh like failure to move and loitering
10:21
and that kind of thing were that were really being used to criminalize homelessness and so we were organizing
10:27
specifically around um uh getting those ordinances um
10:33
whatever you do to laws to get them or whatever yeah yeah getting rid of them yes yeah
10:41
and so what when did you get out to what brought you to California or when did you land here
10:47
uh California was um I've been here since 2015 I came out
10:52
here for my PhD work um that uh there's a whole chunk of East
10:59
Coast things I was I was uh uh ended up serving a church in Delaware
11:05
uh immediately before I came out here which was really amazing I was also in campus ministry at that point
11:12
um too so uh and I really enjoyed that work um uh I was I was out as bisexual there and
11:22
not as genderqueer in any way I was sort of consciously uh like not that I was
11:30
closeted about that consciously but like oh I have some stuff I need to work through about that and I am not in a
11:37
space where I can work through that right now right and what position did you have there
11:44
were you what what role did you have it in Delaware I was I was an associate pastor at the church and uh one of the
11:52
pastors one of the campus pastors at University of Delaware as well awesome yeah yeah so a lot of fun and
12:00
very very public uh as you know the sort of church leader um which I love that
12:05
I've always been like these kind of uh here's what I'm doing here like here's
12:10
how I'm uh vulnerable and what's going on for me right now and let's do that together
12:16
um uh but that's not necessarily a place that I could be uh for very long and certainly
12:24
not well transitioning right and you said and so are your Presbyterian is that correct and you've always been kind
12:31
of in that I want to say like elk or realm if you will denomination yeah yeah uh actually
12:38
yeah born and raised Presbyterian and now I'm already in there which is is feels like a strange thing uh for a
12:46
queer and trans person but it makes total sense for me I'm just like yeah this is this is the tradition where I
12:52
feel at home even as my uh I really have been have interacted with
12:58
a lot of different Traditions um and have really been served by that and so I my spirituality is is much I
13:05
think broader than um than most people think of of like this very narrow like Protestant thing
13:12
um that's sort of where I'm grounded right and the Presbyterians is like a part of Christian like it's a off it's
13:20
you know it's Christianity and with one form of another could you like for folks who maybe don't know the difference or
13:26
know what like what makes a presbyterian a presbyterian uh yeah it's um it's one of the it's a
13:34
Protestant denomination um and it's sort of the the quote unquote Mainline
13:40
um which is like white mostly white pretty traditional kind of thing um
13:46
and in some ways the the distinctions are becoming more about the form of
13:51
government like the way that we organize the church rather than theological differences but there are some
13:58
theological differences too um that it tends to be um
14:04
it's in it's under this large the umbrella of sort of progressive-ish uh
14:10
uh Protestant denominations um especially over the last few years
14:16
um since in 2011 we changed the rule prohibiting queer and trans people from
14:23
being ordained and um so the the official stance of the church
14:28
has shifted a little bit to the left but also there's been a lot of churches who have left the denomination because of
14:35
that um they started their own new uh Presbyterian denomination because that's what we keep doing
14:41
um yeah and so the uh it's become a much more uh liberal denomination over the
14:47
last few years yeah seems like a lot of like communities of Faith have kind of
14:53
had they've just been split and it's and it's always us queers that are like
14:58
dividing it up yeah yeah there's it's a it's a huge uh issue these days for a
15:05
lot of traditions [Music] it's great um I think a lot of folks a
15:11
lot of folks or I want to say a lot of folks but I think there's this perception that um transness and we
15:18
exist maybe even in particular like with the Christian belief or understanding can you kind of share with that how
15:25
like I know it wasn't necessarily something you've like fought with or was like I don't know if this fits but can
15:31
you explain what maybe how you understood it to fit I guess if that makes sense yeah like how my transness
15:39
fits with my christianness there we go yes
15:47
yeah well it uh it's never really been a question like obviously it fits because
15:52
I am both of these things and so right yeah um but I think uh it's been really
15:59
interesting over the last few years um I think
16:04
uh well I started more explicitly socially transitioning in like
16:11
2015 16 or so like not long after I moved to California and was like oh hey
16:16
I'm not not in this really public-facing role anymore I can do a little bit of this work
16:22
um but I've also been um really working in that time on like
16:28
finding a spiritual practice that works for me finding a like way of of praying particularly that works for me because a
16:36
church has been always a thing for me but like never uh I've tried out and struggled a little bit to
16:43
find a like specific spiritual practice that works for me um and over about the same time that
16:50
I've been transitioning actually I've really kind of sunk into
16:55
um a kind of prayer meditation thing that has been really fitting for me I
17:01
think I kind of uh what changed as I Maybe started letting it be a physical
17:08
practice too like um I would uh my church wasn't ever like
17:14
a kneeling or you have to fold your hands and bow your head kind of kind of
17:19
tradition but letting myself like what does it feel like for me to kneel uh and
17:25
pray and like to actually um and to try out like child's pose or
17:31
like laying down face up or face down or like getting these sort of physical
17:37
postures that um help me sort of sink into a prayerful kind of space
17:45
and uh one of the I think one of the things
17:50
that I think I've really started to feel or learn from that is really a sense of
17:56
of God's presence like with me in this very sort of physical intimate kind of
18:02
way um that this language about it or imagery
18:07
around creation and goddess Creator like choosing to sustain my life every day and
18:15
um and that my prayer is like my choosing to be in relationship with that
18:22
um that like energy Spirit um as I said and so it's this sort of like
18:28
really evolving um kind of feeling really sustained in my in the
18:36
things that are going on with my body the like the sort of evolution transition of it and feeling like
18:42
leaning into God as Creator like holding me in that right right and is that would you say
18:49
that's kind of like for me the understanding of that is kind of that's kind of where spirituality lands I know
18:54
like a lot of the times when I don't know you people you hear spirituality and they think like it's this woo-woo
19:01
kind of like Crystal's new way like which it could be and that's great like that's great but um but like to me my
19:07
understanding of spirituality is like religion is going to church doing the things to me I felt like it was
19:13
something I did when I was young I guess in my understanding and like spirituality to me is like what the
19:20
adults do I guess I don't know that's like a horrible way to say it but it just feels like a graduated version It's
19:25
a way that I can go directly to the Divine without having to like
19:31
I don't know go through somebody else or I don't know yeah yeah and I hear that and I uh I
19:38
definitely I don't I don't want to separate them too much because I uh because I really love church too and
19:46
um and it is a place that I like that feeds my spirituality like that um
19:52
I'm a singer I I grew up singing in church like all the time and um and so hearing people saying hearing the old
20:01
hymns um like really hit something for me um that uh like spiritual I guess uh and
20:09
that is really sort of connecting and so I um I think it's it's useful to like
20:15
rhetorically to distinguish between religion and spirituality in that way but I especially as a pastor I really
20:21
want to don't want them to be separate um want to have the religious spaces be
20:28
uh shaped in such a way that people can have spiritual experiences in them I was
20:34
is there do you see trans do you see your transness impacting the way that you Pastor or
20:41
yeah or how you Pastor uh yes sort of to be determined uh a
20:48
little bit because um I've been in grad school uh for most of my transition and
20:54
um so I like and I kind of needed that to like step out of such a public role in order to like do this work on myself
21:02
um and I'm now kind of feeling like it's not done but it's like I it's a it's
21:09
solid enough that I can come back out uh a little bit in public and
21:14
um you know I'm hopefully graduating in September I just scheduled my dissertation defense for September uh so
21:22
um I'm applying for jobs and uh as like in Ministry and that kind of thing
21:27
um so it will um but I haven't quite figured out how
21:33
yet right so folks are hiring there's a link in the description reach out to Kai
21:40
um yeah what is it that Drew you to being a pastor oh
21:46
um people really working with people like
21:51
um I think the the thing that I really always say is just how much I love people and love being with people and
21:57
um the experience of like really connecting deeply with people and
22:04
the stuff that matters to them and um being able to
22:10
uh to use my own experience of like all of the internal wrestling that I've done
22:16
and the stuff that I've been through to be able to use that to like open up
22:22
what the world means how we can understand the world um in a way that can help other people
22:31
the other like I love all the different parts of it like I love leading worship and I love preaching and uh but also I
22:39
love um the Theology of it like the the work I'm doing now
22:46
um in grad school is really kind of a deep dive into
22:52
um how how I can articulate the Christian tradition in a way that um
22:59
that feels liberative for queer and trans people especially and and other people who've been alienated for the
23:05
from the church um it's really like wanting to get down to the nitty-gritty of like how we
23:11
articulate what it means to be Christian um right do you want to talk more about
23:16
that like you're what you're working on right now I can stop me when this when
23:22
this goes uh super long because I can talk about this forever um but uh okay so my
23:32
um I'm in the theology area and I also work um with uh queer Theory and philosophy
23:39
so I'm doing a lot of uh Foucault and bodies and uh Power and that kind of
23:47
things but my dissertation work um is specifically looking at the crucifixion of Jesus and
23:54
um seeing some kind of like okay queer Theory queer theology has something that
24:02
we can say about this particular very bodily experience and
24:08
um it's about looking at the cross and
24:15
thinking through Power and okay and Imagining the cross in a way or the the
24:22
death of Jesus more more broadly um in a way that is not totally
24:27
disempowered is not just a sacrifice um is not just this like very
24:35
emptying submission kind of thing but to be able to say um like okay how how can we see like
24:44
personhood in this um in this broken body that is really marginalized and how can
24:52
um how can we see Power there um so yeah it's really fun um so I'm
24:58
using Foucault and kind of doing a fukkotian analysis of the crucifixion in
25:04
a way to um I feel like what's Foucault oh sorry
25:10
yeah Michelle Foucault uh uh French philosopher who died of AIDS and is uh
25:18
uh favorite of of cool theorists um
25:24
um is a bunch of a lot of theories of how power Works um looking at specific uh institutions like uh prisons and
25:34
mental institutions ends and hospitals that kind of thing to really analyze how
25:40
power works it's very it's very kinky that didn't quite make it into his work um because French and the the mid 20th
25:49
century but you know yeah awesome um yeah
25:56
so uh yeah so I guess the thing that I want to say about my dissertation is
26:02
um uh reading this uh this death as
26:09
um through the lens of uh looking at particularly
26:14
um the image that I was using before George Floyd's death
26:20
um was this photo from a black lives matter protest in I think Baton Rouge
26:26
um in 2016 I want to say uh the woman in a spaghetti strap dress uh being
26:31
arrested by a couple Riot cops that um uh Aisha Evans was her name and it
26:38
was this really striking image that went pretty viral um
26:43
and the thing that strikes me about it is the the two different very very
26:50
different kinds of power that they have there you have she's got um you know it looks like she has
26:55
nothing she's just you know bare shoulders fluttering in the breeze and
27:01
um but she said in interviews later statements later um you know she's thinking about her son
27:07
she's thinking about her training in the history of black resistance movements and about her community and her family
27:15
and all of this sort of web of support um and so she's got this kind of
27:21
internal strength and um faced with these like uh the
27:27
institutions of the state they've got all of this sort of uh like armor and uh
27:33
you know and they're white and they've got this whole line of Riot cops behind them and it's all of this sort of
27:38
external signifiers of power of like oh is of like power as aggression and
27:45
dominance and um and she's there just like exuding
27:50
this confidence and um and she uh she said in a statement to um
27:57
that she was she wanted to see the eyes of the cops eyes
28:03
um and have them acknowledge her personhood right and it's sort of this this really
28:10
embodied uh kind of power that um you know is willing to accept this kind of
28:16
bodily vulnerability for this bigger message with this um you know broader
28:21
Community Support that vulnerability doesn't quite uh have the same meaning
28:27
that she's got she's got a different kind of power than this sort of um state power
28:35
so uh especially as so as we're looking at like all of these activists like
28:40
going out into the streets in the middle of a pandemic and risking all this like tear gas and police violence for the
28:47
sake of this much bigger message of like black lives matter and
28:52
um and so using this image to read the crucifixion to see Jesus in that same
28:59
kind of way of you know accepting this bodily risk uh for the sake of getting
29:06
out there and um uh delivering this message about about
29:12
who God is and about Judgment of sin of well to use to use very Christian
29:19
language but judgment against um like you are crucifying my people
29:24
like this has to stop and uh and really putting himself on the line in order to
29:30
deliver that message yeah stop killing us yeah yeah exactly
29:37
um so powerful with it I personally like I you know I don't know what to do with
29:42
Jesus like I don't know what to do with her in the Bible and stuff but I've come to hear the Bible so differently and
29:49
like it's almost kind of embarrassing but I'd never heard like I I guess I I don't know I just
29:57
hadn't been exposed a lot but hearing like the story of the eunuch the Ethiopian eunuch which in some ways is a
30:03
black Trans woman right like you know Loosely right um like in nowadays I think it's been
30:09
really helpful for me to begin to see how that relates to my to what's going
30:14
on in the world right now and also like how to like my place like my place in
30:19
the world like I think my spirituality has really helped me know how to respond to all of the stuff that's happening
30:26
that can be so it can be hard to know how to react and
30:31
what to do and it feels like when I go connect with my spirituality that's like here's your answer like duh stupid like
30:39
this is what you do yeah yeah so I'm going to take like a quick second
30:45
for folks um please do like if you have any questions um please feel free to put them in the
30:51
comments um wherever you're watching folks are watching us on Facebook YouTube and
30:56
twitch so please do leave us questions or comments we're just going to take I'm just gonna I'm just gonna take a little
31:02
break so people can catch their breath like literally probably like 30 seconds or so and we'll be right back
31:09
[Music] foreign
31:23
[Music]
31:53
it's just a little pause I guess um folks didn't have any questions yet but feel free if you have any questions
31:59
at any point in time please do ask them if we don't want to answer them we won't
32:04
but feel free to ask I don't say that to be mean but some questions just aren't
32:09
um don't need to be answered I guess in this particular form or whatever so don't let that keep you from asking the
32:15
question just know that if we don't it just might not be you know we all have our comfort levels
32:21
I guess so that felt a little weird a weird statement but I'm just putting it out
32:27
there I think when we're up in the public you know there's so many
32:32
um there's just so much that can come out come at us I know I've been um and I don't know if you've experienced this
32:37
kind of being now queer trans person in um
32:42
Ministry um there are a lot of Christians who
32:48
believe we're doing it all wrong and they like to tell us that we're not
32:54
um How do you have you dealt I'm not going to assume have you dealt with that and how do you
32:59
um how do you respond or react to those sorts of situations
33:06
yeah um I've definitely dealt with that especially around uh the issue of being
33:12
ordained but that was um it was still very much a contested issue
33:18
uh in the Presbyterian Church when I was I was ordained in 2013 and they changed the rules in 2011. so that was one of
33:25
the the first handful of out queer folks it was ordained and I um
33:32
uh when I was I was examined by my Presbytery which is what the like
33:38
interrogate you about your theology or whatever uh before you're ordained um
33:44
and uh that was that was a little bit of a sort of hostile uh like I was getting
33:51
up and literally there's there's a couple hundred people who are allowed to ask me whatever they want about whatever
33:56
they want in terms of my faith or life or anything and so I got a lot of that kind of
34:02
um aggression thrown at me there um and
34:08
um particularly there but my strategy uh in general is
34:13
to be better at it to like that
34:19
that's a funny way to say it um just that to really dig into my love of the
34:26
Christian tradition in a way and my belief that it can be better um I think that's what I was really
34:31
thinking about about what you what you said before the break um of the all of the ways that the
34:37
Christian tradition has been really harmful in people's lives that we've you know we have caused so much harm in the
34:45
world and to specific people's lives and like we can't get away from that but
34:51
also that doesn't have to be the only thing it is um that I believe it can be more than
34:57
that um you know and I you know my experience in the church has been really positive for the most part and I want to
35:04
make that possible for other people and I and my theological work is about
35:09
wanting to articulate the um a real faithful version of of the
35:16
Christian story that is absolutely built um in and around queer and trans lives
35:23
and bodies and um and motivated by the um and integration of you know science
35:31
and contemporary theories um in order to uh
35:38
sorry I'm trying to read this comment out loud so stacy says hi I'm so proud
35:44
of all the things that you are doing in the community I'm from Chicago churches I'm from Chicago churches can churches
35:51
I'm glad be a little different they're sorry and the story you can just say oh
35:57
the story you just said really touched me this is so powerful I'm really enjoying this conversation I apologize
36:02
if that if I butchered that but it's up on the screen for those who are watching
36:08
thank you Stacy and thank you for and I'm sorry uh to get interrupted there
36:14
but I um yeah this that I really believe it can be better we can do it better
36:21
um so that's the thing that has really helped to um uh
36:26
to uh to react to the the haters and to
36:31
survive uh really um yeah I've been
36:38
like where do I want to go with that there's so much like like there's like so much for me personally like I've just
36:43
been really I grew up Christian I've struggled you know I haven't been somebody who's felt
36:50
like I could exist in my fullness within my Christian understanding and I've
36:57
become more open about it and I feel like the more that I've connected to my spirit you know to me I
37:04
feel like I have an experience I have a spiritual experience I've had an experiential experience I'm continuing
37:10
to be created by my creator um so it's like still happening but
37:16
everything that I learn or I like fall short like the Bible to me it's like I
37:22
want to try to like twist it and turn it and make it work for me and then sometimes it feels like too much
37:28
too much work you know what I mean like to have to do like the mental gymnastics of all that yeah yeah it's a lot
37:37
um yeah but uh this language about about creativeness uh really like I think
37:44
there's um I think there's really something generative to to do with it in terms of
37:50
being able to think of ourselves and our transness as ongoing creations of God
37:56
and to to recognize the way that you know bodies are changing all of the time
38:02
and that you know we're we are created to to grow up and there's there's no
38:08
there is nobody that doesn't change and it's part of this part of this sort of evolution
38:14
um is really part of for me it's really really integrated with
38:20
um with my own spirituality and being conscious of where I'm being led in my own life that
38:27
you know I feel like my transition has been kind of an exploration the whole
38:33
time like I've never really known where I'm going like what's your goal and what
38:38
am I I'm not I'm not doing things in order to get to a goal I'm sort of like uh maybe I think I think hormones feel
38:46
good right now it feels like maybe a thing I want to try and then like okay yeah this is feeling good I want to like
38:54
go into this a little bit lean into this and um it's sort of a it's a process of of
39:00
sort of evolution and Discovery um in not in the way of like of this
39:07
sort of like introspective like I am I am pulling away the layers to find some
39:13
like internal truth of myself but it's this kind of uh forward directed
39:19
um like exploration journey of evolution of like
39:25
what does God want for me now right yeah yeah especially with me like uh uh
39:32
I'm disabled as well I was in a car accident as a teenager and so like it's that that was my first transition
39:39
um and it's this sort of Leaning into my body as evolving
39:46
um and it's been trying to not fight my body in that way and just to figure out what what feels good and and that's the
39:54
sort of really counter-cultural thing this to paying attention to feeling like we're not supposed to do that yeah we're
40:01
not supposed to like feed into our desires or we're somehow supposed to like sacrifice ourselves or deny
40:08
ourselves even like in the name of God which I just don't believe that that's even what God wants for us like God
40:15
didn't give us all this beautiful life for us to just like be miserable
40:21
no I mean I think we have to watch our desires because they can get a little wonky they can go a little too far but
40:28
you know desires are a gift from God I think yeah yeah no I think it's I think it's a
40:34
thing to to explore and uh to balance and to Value along with you know how do
40:39
you want to be in the world and relate to people um what are the what are the sort of ethical values
40:45
um but also like what um paying attention to my own my own desires and needs is is a value of mine
40:53
too and so to kind of balance all those things like and and I've found like they
41:00
tend to be uh more in alignment than you might expect that's not like oh I have
41:06
to I want things that are hurtful to other people like if I'm really being honest
41:12
of like the things that I that are generative for me are also generative for the people that I'm in relationship
41:17
with because because those relationships are so life-giving for me right Becky
41:23
Becky does have a question she says what is your religious perspective on sexual
41:28
relationships do you Pastor to lgbtq issues of promiscuity uh the same as
41:34
hetero promise promiscuity yeah I think the question of of sexual
41:41
ethics like is always a big one and the thing that um is really important for me to
41:47
um that I always thought I always want to emphasize is um that you know we have these rules
41:54
about like if you're in a straight monogamous relationship like that's okay and it's all the other kinds of
42:00
relationships that we have to then ask like well are you being ethical about this and what are you doing
42:06
um how can you justify this um when there are lots of uh you know
42:11
unethical behaviors that happen in in straight monogamous relationships too
42:17
um and so I think it's really important that we start to start to broaden this conversation and we talk about all kinds
42:24
of relationships in terms of like how are you uh relating to one another how
42:29
is this life-giving for one another what are the um
42:34
what are the ways that you treat each other responsibly and um
42:40
act in uh act on your desires in ways that that
42:46
serve the relationship and don't break it down those are the kinds of questions we need to be asking rather than like
42:53
about the specific form of you know like what are the genders and numbers of the people that you're in relationships with
42:59
right I think I think it's possible for faithful life-giving relationships to
43:06
come in pretty much any configuration agreed um but that those there are these these
43:12
deeper kinds of introspective questions you need that we need to be asking about like you know does this relationship
43:19
does these things that you're doing actually um serve you and to serve that
43:24
relationship right well and I think as like a pastor as a spiritual person like is God in that relationship if if you if
43:33
God can't be in that relationship from your experience then then that's where
43:38
something is wrong like that might be where something is wrong and that's something that only like you can know
43:44
personally like you have to get honest with yourself about what's what's correct and what's not correct for you
43:50
but I know that um I know a lot of people feel weird to invite God into
43:55
your sexuality but I think that it's been really huge for me to be able to to do that and not in a sense of like
44:03
being having a lot of Partners or doing all these sorts of things in and of itself is not sinful and is not bad it's
44:10
what those things how those things impact my life and impact the lives of the people that I'm doing that with that
44:17
matters the actual thing itself really doesn't matter
44:23
yeah yeah no I think the comment about in
44:29
into your relationships I think that's it's it feels a little bit like uh I
44:34
feel like I'm gonna offend both my Christian Community and my queer Community by saying that of like you
44:40
know praying before you go on a date like that those are things that I do
44:45
um of like really actually being uh attentive to uh like the to what God
44:55
wants how uh or that's maybe not what I mean uh but like where God is uh for you
45:02
and how that how those relationships are are fitting into your life in a in a spiritual way
45:08
yeah I think that's something that can be really challenging I was talking with the some other Faith Christian faith
45:14
leaders and that are queer folks and we were putting together like this Coalition of talking about what is a
45:20
queer sexual ethic like a Christian sexual ethic even like how do you talk
45:25
about reproduction with queer folks and um STDs or even like polyamorous
45:31
relationships or even marriage or you know like what is and again I think that
45:36
all really just comes down to like you being able to like really
45:43
land in yourself and like really just kind of like I don't know be able to take an assessment of what's around you
45:50
yeah yeah absolutely yeah
45:55
go ahead no I think I think people have uh well and maybe this is this is my
46:01
Quaker background uh popping up of um the
46:08
being able to access uh being able to hear God uh directly like being open
46:14
listening for like what is God saying to me uh what is the Divine saying to me or
46:20
whatever whatever language like feels good um uh to really be open to like how am I
46:27
being led here what is the thing that feels uh life-giving for me and for
46:33
these people that I'm in relationship with or trying to be in relationship with um what are the uh what are the
46:39
formations and what are the agreements what are the actions that are going to actually like serve to build us up
46:47
um and to build up this relationship because I believe like the the act of being in relation is one of the like
46:54
most holy things uh do them like we see God in each other and we build up god
47:00
um or we we help to make God's presence visible and felt when when we relate to
47:06
one another in um in positive ways and there and there are ways that our our
47:13
choices and our actions can can build that up and there are other choices uh
47:19
we can make that really um that break that down and so it's a it's
47:24
a paying attention to like what are what are the actions what are the choices that are gonna actually make this
47:30
relationship more holy and more whole and I mean I think in a lot of in my
47:36
experience I know it was like really difficult for me to integrate the two my sexuality and my spirituality but like
47:43
as soon as I did it made my sexuality actually easier to do this you know what
47:49
I mean like and honestly like I started my spiritual journey after get like getting sober and stuff like I've had
47:56
more person like I'm not necessarily talking about but I've had more sex and sex types of sexual relationships since
48:03
I've leaned into a spiritual way of living than I ever had before that
48:09
because I was too I was full of shame I was full of like everything had to be
48:14
done in the dark or you know like it couldn't be talked about and so like to me it's just like inviting your spirit
48:20
into that is just like shutting a little light in in those areas it's just made it easier really yeah yeah that makes so
48:27
much sense to me I like I really feel that yeah like when you when you are yourself and when you're present to
48:34
yourself um it's so much easier uh to be in a relationship with other people and those
48:39
relationships end up being uh being better and you you can treat those other
48:45
people better when you're able to to treat yourself better right and that's the thing that's so like frustrating to
48:51
me because I would not have had that shame and that crap if I didn't learn it in
48:57
church like you know what I mean like if I wasn't told you know what I mean like I don't know I go back and forth with that because God never told me that like
49:05
God never told me like you can't be who you are it was like everyone else told me I couldn't
49:11
yeah I don't know yeah we get so many of those messages
49:17
from everywhere and the church is is one of the worst on that too yes so the big
49:23
question is I'm not sure how you integrate all this but how do you be trans and queer and spiritual and a
49:30
pastor and do roller derby
49:43
this just like fits for me I don't know I wouldn't know how to separate them
49:48
um and uh I miss roller derby we haven't been able to to do it since before the
49:54
pandemic though so love to my dirty friends I'll see you again
50:00
um but uh for me it's like it's just a part of uh what we were talking about being
50:06
authentic like showing up like bringing all of yourself like I I tried to
50:12
compartmentalize myself a little bit uh and it just doesn't work for me uh it
50:18
doesn't work for me to like be the you know super Pious uh holy person who
50:24
doesn't uh curse and doesn't talk about sex uh over here and to then like you
50:33
know go to punk shows and roller derby and whatever uh on the other hand that
50:38
um and I think it's a counter-intuitive thing
50:45
or it's a it's a counter-cultural thing and a lot of those different spaces I often feel like
50:51
um you know I in the roller derby world people look at me a little weird from
50:56
the pastor thing uh sometimes and uh definitely my churches haven't quite
51:02
known what to do with me um all the time but um
51:07
I it's I wanted I want to I feel like one of
51:14
the beautiful things that queerness has to offer the world and transness has to offer the world is remaking the world
51:22
into spaces where we can bring these things together yeah yeah that there's
51:27
no reason those things have to be separate and that it's part of this sort of artificial kind of categorizing that
51:34
we've done of like oh the the holy stuff belongs over here and the and the buffet
51:40
and stuff belongs over here and like that's so arbitrary and
51:46
um I'm not sure whoever like made those decisions about what you know what category but
51:51
um like the binary of it and this the light the light and the like the black
51:56
and whiteness of it all I heard somebody say recently the shades of light that there are the shades of light which I
52:03
really love that rather than Shades of Gray like shades of light like that's kind of badass yeah I like about it
52:09
there is a lot more between in the between you know and to me that's where
52:14
that's where God is God God lies in between of things and I want to be
52:20
closer to that so like I often find myself like in that tween like I love being in that tween because it feels
52:27
I think I feel closest to the divine um
52:32
yeah Stacy Says um oops uh sorry I stacy says I I I'm
52:40
messing up I I'm so used to using the controls and I somebody else is doing that tonight so I should let her do that
52:46
I'm really sorry Perry so stacy says we must understand that God loves us all and we too support each other to make
52:54
this world better and having these conversations really do help and they are needed and then um just for a change
53:01
of voice do you want to read Nora's oh yeah Stacy also says Kai my God continues to bless may God continue to
53:08
bless you and all you do amen and then if you want to read Nora's comment yeah
53:13
and to you as well Stacy may God bless you yes Nora says uh being spiritual LED
53:18
uh led me be what God intended for me to be which I came full circle at Glide gave me that space and be present and
53:26
dance which I am one with God Nora thank you so good so good so we
53:33
have hit that like 50 we're 55 minutes in so I don't usually like to go over an
53:38
hour because then I have to edit and she really got that skill yet so um is there
53:45
anything you'd like to say before we go um uh mostly just thank you for making
53:51
this space I love um I love the opportunity to talk about about transness and queerness or uh
53:59
transness and spirituality like especially for me like um I've talked uh before about queerness
54:07
and my faith uh but the talking explicitly about the trans stuff is is
54:12
still new for me too so thanks for uh inviting me to be here and to help sort
54:19
of start to articulate some of this stuff perfect thank you so much I really do appreciate appreciate it I'm going to
54:24
go ahead and say goodbye to you real quick and then it'll just be me on the screen to say goodbye to everyone else but thank you so much Kai thank you good
54:31
night I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone oh that was such a good conversation I can't wait to have more
54:37
like I was sharing with Kai about this before like these conversations like I have such a desire and I need them just
54:45
as much as I hope you all do and I hope that it's helpful for you so I just feel really um
54:52
fed and really just lifted you know so thank you so much Kai for helping me
54:58
with that this evening [Music]
55:04
great episode that was do take some time and rate and review this episode or the
55:10
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55:17
hear um guests you'd like to see on there are you interested in being involved in some way please do reach out you know right
55:24
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55:32
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55:53
please do like seriously like reach out if you're interested you're feeling
55:58
drawn to it this work can feel really isolating alone sometimes and just have being one
56:05
other person with me in some form or fashion really means a lot so thank you so much for listening to the
56:12
podcast and supporting the work of a queer chaplain take care and I love you
56:17
all so dearly bye-bye [Music]