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Trans Solidarity | Difference Embraced · Pine Street Pod

0:15
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Pine Street Pod, a podcast from Pine Street Church in Boulder, Colorado.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: We're a spiritual community reimagining church and faith for the common good.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: These messages come from our Sunday gatherings, and wherever you're listening from, we're glad you're here.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Learn more and connect with us at Pine Streetchurch.net.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Be sure to follow or subscribe for new weekly episodes.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: And now, here's this week's message.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: So Thursday night, we had a chance really to dive deep into questions uh around the sacred act of being, around uh Ali's journey uh in terms of spirituality and um an ongoing journey of discovery of their own story.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: And so this morning we're gonna take kind of three vignettes and have uh some brief conversation uh in between the songs today.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: But Ali, welcome.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: It's a delight to be with you and what a great weekend we've been able to share together.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being with us.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: We sure have.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: Um Thursday night's conversation was so rich.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: Um you you really pull out things, you pull out unexpected things, I think, from the people that you speak with.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: So thank you.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh, thanks.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: So uh the title of the first piece today is Sacred Act of Being, and um it puts the weight of what is sacred uh not on a doctrine and not on a building or even a tradition in one way or another, but on the act of simply existing.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: It is no small thing to be alive and to exist on this sacred morning in the broken world, Mary Oliver writes.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: And so whether we put our hands over our heart and take a pause and take a breath, we acknowledge the gift and the beauty and the grace of life that every moment is a given moment.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: And what I want to ask you, Allie, this morning, for someone who's navigated that religious and spiritual history in a queer body, what I find in your performance of Dear Steve, it's Allie, is a kind of what I would say a reclamation or a restoring of the words in the sacred act of being.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: My question is, who or what first helped you see your own becoming as a sacred act?
3:10
SPEAKER_01: While Allie is thinking, maybe you all can think about what that is.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean that's that's such a powerful question.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: Um I was thinking about it about 30 seconds ago, just before you you asked the question, I was thinking of another thing that that has been really maybe one of the true privileges I have, because I I think like I think I have always been filled with wonder.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: And um, of course I was given a name for that wonder when I was a little boy, um, and that name was God and all the ways that we understand that.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: Um and then I was in a really bad accident after after I had after I had walked away from belief and faith, a life of faith, after I'd walked away from that, um, and was pretty certain um of my position as an agnostic with atheistic tendencies.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: Um thank you.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: But uh like um naming as as you know is important to those of us who are trans because we're we're trying to give name to that which um had at least for me had didn't have a name.
4:38
SPEAKER_02: And so um in coming back, I was in a coma for a little while, and I had to completely rebuild my life.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: And I reference it in Dear Steve, but I don't really talk about it.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: And there's a there's a point at which um I talk about um something felt really different after this accident, and I didn't know what it was.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: And it was that the names that I had been given for this sense of wonder, it was no longer what I'd been told as a child, and I could now rename all of it.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: And I actually found myself even more filled with wonder at how all this could be, as opposed to having this assigned hand of God, you know, giving us all these things.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: That omnipotence, um, I think clouded for me um some of the wonder that now exists, like in every moment of the day.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: I like I'm surprised by um a random shaft of light.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: Uh when I'm walking my dog, um, if it's just rained and there's on the grass, there's, you know, if you're paying attention to these things, you see these incredible displays of light and sound when when we really pay attention.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: We are surrounded by wonder.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: Um have I gone far afield from your question?
6:07
SPEAKER_02: No.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: Take it where you want to.
6:09
SPEAKER_02: Um I think all of these things are full of wonder, and anything for me that's full of wonder is sacred.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: Actually, and and so I think if we're thinking Madeline Langle, if we're thinking about that quote, there's nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: Um uh every single thing that we can see or touch or smell um in this universe of stars somehow happens to be that's a that's a freaking miracle every single thing.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: I can't get past that.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: I can't get past the wonder of absolutely every single moment.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: That's beautiful.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: You're already sort of answering what my next question is.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of us have been taught, and I think you were taught, kind of given your story of growing up a Baptist boy uh in the church, is that the sacred dwells in tradition, the sacred dwells in a religious building, or the sacred dwells in the realm of religion.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: And I love that you just quoted Madeline Langell.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: That is something that we've used it on hyphenated life to kind of break down the boundaries and the binaries of left and right and black and white, sacred, secular, that all the world is charged with the grandeur of God, um, as Gerald Manley Hopkins wrote.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think there is a sense in which maybe my first favorite poet.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I love him.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: Oh, nice.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sorry.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, what has your own journey taught you about this where the sacred dwells?
8:02
SPEAKER_01: I think you're getting at that already.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: What do you think that could mean for people like probably many of us in this room who have never really had to fight for the right to exist?
8:20
SPEAKER_02: Um again, I'm gonna come at it a little bit from the from the side, if if you don't mind.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: And and it's I mean, it's really nice for me to be talking to a community of of uh believers or of stretchers.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: To me, uh the act of stretching is is is the thing that I that I see in common for all of us.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: Um I keep getting myself lost.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: Um that was something I really wanted to go to.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: Wait, will you get me back on track again?
8:57
SPEAKER_01: Um what would you say to folks who have never really had to fight for their right to exist?
9:02
SPEAKER_01: What what has that meant from through your lens in your life?
9:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay, thank you.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: And I think the the reason that I went to this community of believers is because if we can grant um for a half a second um the idea that we are made in in the image of God, and that the very first thing that we learn about God, at least according to the scriptures, is that God creates.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: And that we have a hand in that creation.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: I think that was for sure the first thing that drew me to jazz, was that I no longer had to read off the page, but I could I could make it and I could be a part of that creation.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: That to me is also what the trans body affords, which is this idea that, or we're all afforded actually that privilege, that responsibility to constantly be recreating ourselves and the situations that are around us.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: Um and I see that as a sac as a as a sacrament.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's interesting to think about in this uh notion of the co-creating of God, that things are not fixed in time, but that what happens at creation and the story in Genesis at creation is not a fixed event in time, but it's something that God hovers over the chaos and the darkness of our own lives is in this constant state of creation.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: So I love how you said that.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: So um, are you ready to sing and play?
10:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Sacred act of being, right?
10:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: This is the sacred act of being.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: And I think of these as um I've oh, this is an example.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: I I've started writing these short musical poems that I'm kind of referring to as resistance jingles.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: I spent uh twelve years being a jingle writer, so I um I love brevity.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Resistance jingle, I love it.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: So this is one of those.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: They fear themselves.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: Hang on one second, please.
11:52
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: Can we give that another try from the start?
11:56
SPEAKER_02: I had to just make a slight adjustment here.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: Sorry about that.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: From the top.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: It isn't you they fear, dear Steve.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: They fear themselves, that unexamined self they stored in the back of the basement shelf.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: A self they locked a self they locked away in a box they accidentally opened and then made sure they quickly forgot.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: A box of pictures and poems and secret hopes they just couldn't allow to be the light of day.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: Treasured and tortured reminders that in spite of who we might like to be, there are ways we simply find ourselves to be we still have yet to name, and so it's this uncertain thing that hovering around the end reminds us of what we all know is children.
13:02
SPEAKER_02: That there are as many different ways as we can possibly imagine, and infinitely more, and that nothing is ever only what it seemed at first.
13:16
SPEAKER_02: That both our name's and God's name are named, simply entry point, that when we say or hear the word I am, we come face to face with an unspeakable unknown, a refusal to be owned by any final reveal or revelation, and so it seems it is in fact the creative act, it is the point, the so-called universal purpose, and so it's in this simple and singular and sacred act of being we see the reflection of one that riddles it, refuses to be unraveled, because it's the imagining that's the beginning of becoming, and becoming it's a profound and solemn and breathtaking task, and it's this impenetrable unknownness, terrifyingly act of living, dear Steve, that I'm afraid they must still fear.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: Was it Florence Reese who wrote this song?
15:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, in 1931 for coal miners in Harling County, Kentucky, and it became a freedom song uh for nearly every social justice movement.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: A freedom song and a and a labor song.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: It was uh kind of the IWW theme song.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: So in the show, this song comes um after you're talking about an encounter or conversation with a stranger on a train.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: And the stranger is this African American man who commented on the skirt you were wearing and noticed you beside him, and he said something like, Maybe you have some idea of what it feels like to be a black man in this country.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, you have talked a little bit, I heard you say last night that this show is your story, but it also transcends your story.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: That it in some ways it's a story about America, I think you said last night.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: Could you tell us a little more about what that moment on the train kind of cracked open in you, this encounter with the stranger?
16:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I don't know if it cracked open or if it reinforced.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: Because I thought from the beginning of the time that I began coming out to myself, I I just knew instinctively that I could not understand myself as a gender person without also understanding myself as a racialized person.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: Um and that the construction of race and the construction of gender were forever entangled.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: Um and uh his invitation um I mean he asked it in a really funny way.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: Um he asked me if I was a tranny, which um you know there are many who would say boy, that was awful of him.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh it was I didn't take it that way at all.
17:11
SPEAKER_02: Um I took it as he truly was wanting to connect with me.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: And he was wanting to connect with me across struggle.
17:23
SPEAKER_02: And um recognizing that there were that I was going that I was that I would have experienced marginalization maybe somewhat similar to his own.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: Um and and so I'm I try to be really careful to not state any kind of equivalence between the construction of race and the construction of gender, but they are so bound up with one another.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: Um get me back on point, because I wonder.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: I was curious about what that moment, that encounter, connected with in you.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: Because it was so important that you included it in your story.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: Um it it it was it was an acknowledgement on his part and an invitation from him to recognize our solidarity with one another.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: Um and as we go into the song, which side are you on?
18:30
SPEAKER_02: I think about so my name is Ally and Steve, I have an N in my name, and that N is really, really, really important to me.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: Because it means a lot of things.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: But one of the things that it means is the constant holding of tension.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: Um and in this case, the sense that we can connect across differences, that our experiences may be really different, but that we can be in solidarity with one another.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: Um and if the which side are you on?
19:04
SPEAKER_02: Florence Reese writes this song after her home has been broken into by men who were hired by the coal mine to break the union strike.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: And her husband was a coal miner, and they came looking for him, and they basically tore the the her cabin apart, and she wrote, Which side are you on in the kitchen cupboard after they left.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: Um in that instance, there is very much a um a call to picking sides.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: There are definitely sides that are apparent in that.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that I try to do in my own rendition of the song is highlight the fact that those sides, which seem really clear at times, sometimes dissolve and we find connection across that divide.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: And that maybe the maybe the mind company thugs have more in common with us than we might believe.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: And so which side are you on for me holds that tension of yes, there are yes, we need to, at one time we need to recognize that there are opposing sides and at the same time look for commonality across that.
20:25
unknown: Yeah.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: Is did I wonder really far a few?
20:28
SPEAKER_02: A plus.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: I think uh sometimes what you're describing, I was remembering King talking about we live in this web of mutuality.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: Wendell Berry says we're communities of one another, kind of uh picking up on St.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: Paul's idea that we belong to one another.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: Um I was thinking about this this week.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: As we think about San Lazro Mobile Home Park, someone said uh this is a mobile home park in Boulder that uh is at risk of losing their land and losing their homes.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a big movement in Boulder to help them save this land, to come alongside them and help them save uh their lives in a lot of ways, a lot of ways.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: And someone had said, we belong to one another, and sometimes we forget that.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: And so what you're describing reminds me of that quite a lot.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: And um, where we are bound together, and you said this encounter on the train, he said, Will you see me?
21:32
SPEAKER_01: Will you see me as well?
21:34
SPEAKER_01: And we talked a little bit about this on Thursday night, the the power of feeling and being seen.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: Recognition.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Recognition, yeah.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: Um you you talked about the web of mutuality, which is a great phrase.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: And I and I think of entanglement and the the way that we are entangled with one another.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: Maybe sometimes.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Across purposes, but always entangled.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Again, get me back to well, I I think, well, I I didn't help you stay on track because I got off track.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: We're the two wanderers.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: All who wonder are not lost.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: So just thinking about this encounter on the train, this idea that we belong to one another, and he is saying, maybe you can see me as well.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: I I felt so much.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, I I had some friends who've heard the story, and they said, you know, that's just A, he, you know, he said, Are you a tranny?
22:42
SPEAKER_02: And then he complimented your skirt.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: Both of these things, we can say sometimes, oh, well, those are inappropriate.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: He shouldn't have said either one of those things.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: I differ.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: No, I'm glad.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: So you don't have to say it perfectly.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: He, but he, I recognized that in that moment I recognized he wanted to connect.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: And um, and we we from the moment that he started talking to me, we connected.
23:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so what what impressed me the most was his recognition of our shared um somebody giving me the word I'm looking for?
23:28
SPEAKER_02: Our shared struggle, thank you.
23:30
SPEAKER_02: It was his recognition of our shared struggle that so impressed me and opened up the this room for for conversation and for a further affirmation of that sense that yeah, um he and I are entangled.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's beautiful.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: So we'd love to hear this.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Which side are you on?
23:53
SPEAKER_01: For those of you who were at the full show last night, you have a fuller context, but thank you for giving us a little more of that context this morning.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: So we would love to hear this.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: Always your questions.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: And in this piece, um Allie finds herself sitting in a storefront evangelical sanctuary with her cousin Terry.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: There are crosses and hymnals and people who might have been friends had you stayed, Allie.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: And you say that you feel at home in this evangelical church, and there are probably all sorts of complex emotions that go into that, but there's this beautiful image that you describe of people stretching toward the sky, toward God, and how that's part of our own journey that we're all stretching.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: And then I was really struck, you say, in this evangelical sanctuary, you say, These are my people.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: And then at the end, you say thank you to Steve for inviting you in and asking you to stay.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: So, with all of that, what does it mean?
30:03
SPEAKER_01: What did it mean to you?
30:04
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to you to walk back into that kind of faith space where you expected judgment, you expected there to be some kind of reaction that would indicate exclusion, but you found some common ground with these folks in the evangelical space?
30:24
SPEAKER_01: Could you describe a little bit for those, especially for those who might not have been able to see the full performance last night, what that was like for you?
30:32
SPEAKER_01: What meaning has that held for you?
30:34
SPEAKER_02: Can I get just a little bit of clarity on your question?
30:37
SPEAKER_02: Because I I felt like you were referencing this space as well, were you?
30:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh I I I mean, I hope not.
30:49
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
30:49
SPEAKER_02: It just seemed it you said it at a certain point as you were setting it up, as you walk back in.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: And I and so I I had you walk in, I had you having me walk back in here, so I just wanted to be sure.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I see them as very different spaces.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I think more so your cousin's church, Terry's church.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: It surprised the heck out of me.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: Um my evangelical cousin had invited me to come back to my hometown, his hometown, our hometown, and go to church with him.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't sure if um I was going to be detransitioned or exactly what was going to happen in that church.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I I knew that my cousin was actually trying to get to know me.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: Um and uh the the congregation was really welcoming, and they all greeted me, um, called me by my name, and treated me with all kinds of respect, even though I knew that they didn't necessarily agree with my life, my lifestyle, my life choices.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: Um but they were there to worship.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: And um, can I just describe a little bit what um I uh I was sitting in the middle of the congregation, I was sitting with my cousin, and there were uh Millican University is in my in my hometown of Decatur, Illinois, and there were about five coeds sitting right behind us, and they all were lifting their hands to God and singing, and and I could tell they were full of the Lord.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: Um we can this is how they would describe it, and so I'm gonna describe it the same.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to describe their reaction in that moment the way they would.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: And um, but so they were full of worship and full of love for God.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: And I it took me about a year and a half to figure out why I couldn't control my emotions in that moment.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I felt such a deep connection with the stretching of their hearts towards this thing that they have given a name, but for which I honestly think no name is adequate.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: Um because you're talking about containing the infinite, and that's an impossible thing to do.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: Um but it's the stretching that's the thing.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: And I could feel that stretching on their part, and that's I felt not only there's their stretching, and I felt like the stranger on the train, I felt a solidarity with them around that very act of arc the arcing of the heart towards this thing that to what's to what Christopher Hitchens would call the internal witness.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: And maybe that's a that's a term that's not necessarily his, but um, but that's what he would, I've heard him use that term.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's good.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: I um I come from that evangelical world.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: Some of us do.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: Um I think we mentioned in the podcast Thursday there um are a lot of, well not a lot, some of us might identify as post-evangelical, and this idea that we transcend and include our stories, some of those painful parts of our story, right?
34:25
SPEAKER_01: Where there's a lot of fear-based religion in that, shame-based religion that I know I've spent a lot of my life deprogramming from.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to think, it's interesting that you asked that question.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: Did you mean this space?
34:39
SPEAKER_01: And I meant your cousin Terry's church, but I think there is a sense in which we wonder whether or not those of us who are seeking healing from harmful religion, can we find healing in the spaces, or at least on paper, where the spaces uh of those places that have hurt us?
35:02
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just really taken with your sense of connectedness with that community, because I would understand why you would kind of psych yourself up for rejection and the fear that is in that.
35:16
SPEAKER_02: And I do, and that I think that is natural for the queer community, is that the expectation is so present that that that that is generally the way I think a queer body it anticipates that that a faith-based community is going to respond with judgment.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: What what would you say has helped you find what I would call a very gracious or spacious place inside of yourself to be able to kind of see the goodness in that, to see the goodness of them stretching their arms toward the sky or God, or even stretching their arms out to you.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: What what has shifted in you, or has there been something that has shifted in you over time, that's given you the ability to see that?
36:14
SPEAKER_02: Honestly, I I I think it's the knowledge that the things I know the most about, I know almost nothing about.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: I think about music that way.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: Um I know a lot about music and I've dedicated my whole life to it, and holy cow, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction that I know.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: And and so how can I not extend extend grace curiosity?
36:51
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know how else to live.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know why I'm thinking of Huck Fenn right now, but as Huck thinks about how he can be less hateful, um for me it's just a a recognition of how little I do know and how much all of us are just um uh surrounded by that which we don't know and that is then full of possibility.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: I I'm gonna stop.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna take the mic out of my mouth now at this point.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: So it's something that Miles said to Coltrane.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Just take the mic out of your mouth.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: Uh I want to uh offer a little bit of space because I know there's speaking of curiosity, some curiosity probably that folks in our community here uh want want to ask you questions about.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, is it okay if we take just a couple of minutes for those questions?
38:03
SPEAKER_01: I'd love that.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: I love this.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: Allie says for every yes, there are a thousand no's.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: She says we're meant- you you pay attention?
38:12
SPEAKER_02: Holy cow, you pay attention.
38:14
SPEAKER_02: I just love that about you.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: Go on, say more about that.
38:19
SPEAKER_02: Um, we are so much the same.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: She says we're meant to grow and change and reach, not to be frozen in time.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: And the show invites all of us to look back at earlier versions of ourselves, maybe the parts we've rejected or wanted to forget, and to meet those versions with gentleness, with self-compassion.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was thinking of a good soul-making question for all of us to ask ourselves, is there, ask yourself, self, is there an earlier version of myself I've been rejecting, or that causes me shame of some kind.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: And what do I need to say or accept or release about that earlier version of myself?
39:15
SPEAKER_01: And that was one of my questions I had for Ali after watching the show for the first time and then the second time, and then last night.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: Do I get extra credit for watching it three times?
39:26
SPEAKER_01: You have so much credit.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: But but what struck me was just this self-compassion, the way you nurture and narrate this story to Steve.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: And that's made me think more about what that has meant for those of us who are restoring our own lives in different kinds of ways.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for that gift.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: But that's something so powerful I noticed about dear Steve, it's Allie, that there was this grace, there was this ability to renarrate those moments of your life earlier on, that you can see it in a different way.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: Can I respond briefly to this?
40:11
SPEAKER_02: Is that a prompt or was that a period?
40:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh let's call it uh a prompt.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: Um because I've been thinking about that, the last question from last night.
40:23
SPEAKER_02: Uh I know I thought about it all during the time I was asleep, and trying to think how do I answer this question?
40:32
SPEAKER_02: It the the question that was I I tell a really, really difficult story um in which I compare a blackface performer with my own co-optation of a Navajo anthem that I wrote for a Dow Chemical Jingle.
40:51
SPEAKER_02: Um so it's you know, just like like fair, the piece.
40:56
SPEAKER_02: Um but they were asking why do you compare, why did I make the comparison between a trans identity and black the blackface mask?
41:11
SPEAKER_02: And it is an attempt to do to do exactly what you're saying, and that is to restory this and to understand um what was going on in that moment, but but then also it is so important for us to heal our racial wound.
41:38
SPEAKER_02: It's it uh it cuts so deep in our in our republic's soul.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: And and so I'm compelled to to try to try to understand that.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: In the same way that Steve might have made choices.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: I don't understand Steve to have been a bad guy.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: I understand Steve to have been making his way through life and sometimes making di making not such great choices.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: Um but then how can we how can we uh acknowledge the put the harm that was done in that and then try to prefigure a new way of of approach?
42:34
SPEAKER_02: I think I'm getting myself lost again.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: But but it's it is an attempt to restory exactly what you're saying.
42:40
unknown: Yeah.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna end with a song called The End of the Parade in just a couple of minutes, but I do want to open up a few minutes for your questions.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: We ask that you keep your questions brief, please.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh no commentary within your questions, if that's okay.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and let Ali respond.
42:57
SPEAKER_01: So as the spirit moves, does anyone have a question that they would like to ask?
43:02
SPEAKER_01: And if uh, oh yeah, we have the mic.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do the Phil Donahue thing back here.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh oh no, we're not gonna do that.
43:12
SPEAKER_02: We're not going to.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, if you want to ask your question, I will I will say your question back.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: So if we don't have a mic.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: So the question is, Allie has two daughters, and when in the chronology of that relationship did you introduce them to Ali?
44:11
SPEAKER_02: Um it took it it took time.
44:14
SPEAKER_02: The the first introduction to to it actually preceded Ali.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: Um I was outed to them as a cross dresser.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: Um in kind of a traumatic way.
44:35
SPEAKER_02: Um and that caused harm in our family and it and it caused uh it was difficult for the it was really difficult for them to navigate.
44:44
SPEAKER_02: They're both um uh they're both incredible young women.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: And um both of them are trans advocates, um active trans advocates, but it's a completely different thing when it's your dad.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: And I mean this is one of the things that I think is really important for us to remember is that these um when your child comes out, there's so much to navigate there, and so there's so much loss to navigate.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: And so for a daughter, the question came up for them well, how much more, what else do did we not know about you?
45:31
SPEAKER_02: So that question was really pressing for them.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: But also the a father-daughter relationship is there's no getting around the fact that it is a highly gendered relationship.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm not gonna go back and change that.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: So it took almost 10 years for them to be willing.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: You asked when I came out.
45:55
SPEAKER_02: Um it was when they were junior and they were a junior and senior high sch in high school.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: They were going into their junior and senior year.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: Um so they were they were older and they'd been, you know, we'd had a whole entire their young childhood and their teen years for the most part.
46:12
SPEAKER_02: So it's a big adjustment.
46:14
SPEAKER_02: Um even still at that point, I think it was about 10 years before they were really able to meet me in person.
46:26
SPEAKER_02: Not I mean, I would see them, but I wouldn't look like this.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: I would look like Steve.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: Um it has been uh navigating that together has been really difficult.
46:45
SPEAKER_02: What I refused to do was let them get an inch away from me.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: I was not gonna let that happen.
46:53
SPEAKER_02: Does that answer your question?
46:55
SPEAKER_04: Sure.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: Can I ask you to say just a little bit more?
47:21
SPEAKER_02: Will you frame it just a little bit more for me?
47:58
SPEAKER_02: Um it actually puts me in mind of of kind of the one thing that that I felt like I learned about being a father.
48:07
SPEAKER_02: Um and this this is from Bruno Bettelheim, which was to to pay attention to your who your kids are, because they're um you might have had a hand in creating them, but they're coming into the world infinitely um with infinite possibilities and and also with some internal things over which you've had no control.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: And so getting to know them and under listening to our kids, paying attention, like you, Andrew, pay attention.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: Um but recognizing what they have.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: So I I think that acceptance is something that a parent can do in the same way that the self needs to do, in that we we recognize, okay, I um I didn't choose to have this internal makeup to to feel compelled to express myself in feminine ways.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: But I've I have found it to be true my entire life.
49:16
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't until I had language to be able to um think of myself as trans as opposed to a a sick cross-dresser, which is I I I put it that way because that is the way I talked to myself before.
49:35
SPEAKER_02: Um so I think that shift from thinking of myself as a sick cross-dresser to thinking of myself as a child of God and as a as a trans child of God, that is, I think that's that act of acceptance that you're talking about.
49:54
SPEAKER_02: Is that it?
49:55
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: Another question.
49:58
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: Any choice that anyone makes requires personal acceptance of that choice.
50:17
SPEAKER_01: Is there a question there or just a comment?
50:20
SPEAKER_01: Just an observation, thank you.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: Maybe another question or two.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: A question that we're not sure what it is.
53:04
SPEAKER_01: No, but but part of what's in it is back to this theme of choice and acceptance.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: And a question I heard there early on was how do parents of trans children help them perhaps to um accept that previous part of who they are?
53:23
SPEAKER_01: Because there's a lot of grief and mourning for parents to navigate that uh in between, which is what you do with Ali and Steve.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: There is so much I want to say.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: Um thank you for I'm I mean, uh also thank you for the way you asked that question.
53:43
SPEAKER_02: Um I think one of the very first things you said is I'm not sure what it is I'm asking, and I'm not sure any of us ever are.
53:51
SPEAKER_02: Um there are a number of ways that I want to try to ask and speak to this, speak to your prompt, your question.
54:02
SPEAKER_02: The first is that in accepting my own self, I had a supreme advantage.
54:08
SPEAKER_02: I had two daughters I loved very much, and I was never going to stop being their father.
54:13
SPEAKER_02: And I recognize that, and that is just not that goes back to that acceptance.
54:18
SPEAKER_02: That's not a choice that I could have made.
54:21
SPEAKER_02: I knew that to be I couldn't make a choice for their lives.
54:29
SPEAKER_02: And I'm only a father in relationship with them, not to them.
54:35
SPEAKER_02: Father is not an identity that I hold all by myself.
54:38
SPEAKER_02: It's all it's a relationship that's held in between two people.
54:42
SPEAKER_02: So I had to hold on to the father.
54:46
SPEAKER_02: And the father was Steve.
54:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they actually, if they saw me right now, they would call me, probably they would call me dad.
54:55
SPEAKER_02: If they were talking to somebody else, they might say Steve.
54:59
SPEAKER_02: They don't you you call me Allie.
55:02
SPEAKER_02: Lots of other, you know, people call me all kinds of things.
55:05
SPEAKER_02: Um but if I may, can I just take a um in this next song that we're gonna sing, um one of the very last lyrics, and it's one of the very last lyrics in dear Steve, is um well, the B section of the last verse goes, A reckless world of change this road has witnessed through the years, and in the shadows wake we make our home.
55:38
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, I don't mean to get emotional.
55:41
SPEAKER_02: I this last the bottom two lines mean so much to me.
55:46
SPEAKER_02: The shadows so when I talk about in in this context, the shadow is is actually the minstrel show.
55:55
SPEAKER_02: But in in our context, our context, I I mean our our our collective shadow, our personal shadows, but it's in that we don't make our home in some utopia in some perfect vision of ourselves.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: We make it we make our home in the midst of trauma and wonder and grief and all the stuff of life.
56:32
SPEAKER_02: That's where we make our home.
56:35
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of that is shadow.
56:39
SPEAKER_02: The the final thing I want to say is something that someone said to me really early on when I was coming out, and they were telling me about they were getting married to their husband their husband.
56:52
SPEAKER_02: There's two men they were getting married, and they were so excited because almost everybody in their family was gonna come.
57:02
SPEAKER_02: And uh he turned to me and said, you know, life is long.
57:10
SPEAKER_02: And so, like, there's time.
57:13
SPEAKER_02: And and sometimes it just takes time to be able to accept those uh parts of our history that are so traumatic for us to immediately accept.
57:27
SPEAKER_02: And that's for us as parents, that's accepting this uh reclaiming this lost.
57:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm putting in air quotes, but loss is I don't want to downplay the that that loss because that is a conception of this human being that you've raised.
57:48
SPEAKER_02: And when that is a huge loss to say goodbye to that particular naming of that person.
57:58
SPEAKER_02: It's essential in the act of love.
58:00
SPEAKER_01: But I'll stop again.
58:03
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
58:04
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Allie and Steve.
58:06
SPEAKER_01: Um we're ahead.
58:13
SPEAKER_01: We'll hear the final musical vignette, end of the parade, and I'll let you get in place for that.
58:18
SPEAKER_01: But uh I just want to say last night, uh again, kind of tuning back into your your trip back to the to Terry's church, this evangelical church, you said that I think you said something like, I felt home.
58:33
SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was at home.
58:35
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we hope you have felt at home this this weekend, and I heard that home is a place you find when you find a place of belonging.
58:44
SPEAKER_01: And so thank you for trusting us with your story and being with us this weekend.
58:49
SPEAKER_01: It really has uh meant a lot to me, and I know to so many in our church.
58:54
SPEAKER_01: I thought you were gonna hold my hand.
58:58
SPEAKER_02: This is not a word I say lightly, but it has truly been a blessing.
59:02
SPEAKER_02: So thank you very much.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
59:05
SPEAKER_01: So this is the end of the day.