Let Us Have Gender Freedom . . . and God Sees that It Is Good

The announcement that the Trump Administration is considering fundamental changes in federal regulations to enforce strict binary gender norms for all Americans is distressing, demeaning, ugly, to say the least. However, it occurs to me that this may be a good time to reflect theologically about gender; can those of us who oppose the various attempts to control others’ bodies find guidance from biblical texts and spiritual reflection? 

I have been engaged in various small ways supporting transgender people for many years, including during my time as Pastor of MCC Richmond VA where I worked closely with an active trans community on several projects. 

Additionally, over the past several years, I have begun to identify as gender queer—still am comfortable being a man in my birth body, but clear that my understanding of that gender differs from the norm. This process began many years ago when I started wearing long, dangly earrings that many say are feminine. (see my earlier posts, “Choosing to Be Me Again” and “Why Do Watches Have Gender?”). 

More recently, as the controversies swelled about bathroom and locker room usage, I began to reflect theologically about gender and specifically about the movement by many, particularly in church and government, to enforce rigid gender norms. 

I begin from a truth I learned long ago from Martine Rothblatt in her book, The Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender (1995). She writes

“There are five billion people in the world and five billion unique sexual identities. Genitals are as irrelevant to one’s role in society as skin tone.”  (xiii)

Of course, we know that skin tone and gender play powerful roles in how society is organized but her point is apt: neither makes any real difference, except as society creates and enforces, and we often reinforce, structures to keep these two aspects of ourselves in line. 

She also wrote that it is time to end the classification of people by sex, “because in truth our sex is as individualized as our fingerprints and as special as our souls (my emphasis).” (157). I hope to return to this proposal on another occasion. 

As special as our souls…………indeed. There’s where God comes in. 

The Hebrew text in Genesis 1:27 reads, “And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Jewish Study Bible). Those who seek to get everybody in one or the other box, male or female, rely on this text and others to say that what God has ordered must be followed. 

Of course, there are a number of objections to be raised about these arguments. First, for me, is the reality that the Bible, in Hebrew and Christian texts, makes many claims about what God orders and commands. Some faithful people believe that every word is dictated by God, but even if you do, and I don’t, we still have to engage in interpretation to understand what the commands mean for us now. My point: We don’t actually have any assurance that the statement in Genesis 1:27 means that there are only two genders. 

Second, could it not mean that God’s creation of each human involves our being some sort of combination of both? A footnote in The Jewish Study Bible, for example, says, “Whereas the next account of human origins (Gen. 2:4b-24) speaks of God’s creation of one male from whom one female subsequently emerges, Gen. Chapter 1 seems to speak of groups of men and women created simultaneously.”

A note in The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation, points out that the Hebrew for God in this passage, Elohim, is actually a plural (literally “gods” or “powers”), but is ordinarily treated as a singular noun. “This verse and two others (Genesis 3:22 and 11:7) are notable exceptions. The ‘us’ has been explained as the majestic or imperial plural; others see it as God including the angelic host; still others, as a reflection of the more ancient polytheistic roots of the story.“ (There are times when the word is used of lesser, foreign gods, but to the best of my understanding and searching these three instances are the only times in the ancient text has God referring to God’s self as “us.”)

Might another way to read that is to see is that these groups, and God, are not as rigidly defined as we have been taught to believe? We now know, thanks to genetic studies, that many of us are not purely one or the other, that our genes are combinations of X and & Y chromosomes in varying proportions. I think of “effeminate men” and “mannish women” in this regard, Among some Native American tribal traditions, Two Spirit persons exhibit behaviors and attributes of both genders and are considered to have special spiritual powers. Is not God all of these, and more? 

However, theologically speaking, there is a larger issue at play here. When we interpret biblical texts—and that is what we always must do, interpret them because we cannot ever be absolutely certain of the intention by those who repeated these texts and eventually wrote them down—what is our standard of interpretation?

Do we interpret in opposition to what we see around us, that is, do we insist that any new realities discovered since the texts were recorded and canonized be disregarded and/or declared the work of evil forces? Or do we seek to bring the reality in front our eyes and the texts into harmony? Do we see in the texts the promise of more wisdom or do we simply repeat the wisdom from before? Do we let creation unfold or do we insist that God created everything eons ago and nothing has changed? 

Indeed, do we let God continue to create or do we give God thanks for what God has done and then, in effect say,” Stop God, we don’t want anything new, don’t give us any new ideas, any new information?” In my view, this is idolatry, creating a false idol, calling it God, and insisting that there is nothing new in God’s universe. 

When human beings play God by not letting God be God we suffer. In this case, transgender, gender variant, gender queer, folks suffer. What is being considered by the Trump Administration is codifying that which was never meant to be codified, at least not by God, who is the author of change and growth every moment of every day. 

As I have written elsewhere, “We serve a God who is always messing with our all-too-human arrangements, our desire for things to be neat and tidy and easy” (See “Faithful to a Very Queer-Acting God, Who Is Always Up to Something New” in Queering Christianity: Finding a Place at the Table for LGBTQI Christians, Shore-Goss, Bohache, Cheng, and West, eds. Praeger 2013). 

In that same essay, I quote Lisa Isherwood and the late Marcella Althaus-Reid, 

God dwells in flesh and when this happens all our myopic earth-bound ideas are subject to change; the dynamic life-force which is the divine erupts in diversity and the energy of it will not be inhibited by laws and statutes. Far from creating the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, this dynamism is always propelling us forward into new curiosities and challenges. It does not shut us off from the world; it is the world drawing us into more of ourselves as we spiral in the human/divine dance (“Queering Theology,” in The Sexual Theologian: Essays on Sex, God, and Politics, T& T Clark, 2004). 

This proposal by the administration—and supported by many in various religious groups—is anti-God. They claim they are serving God, but it is a hollow God they serve, as indeed are all our efforts to contain God in our self-justifying insistence on things remaining exactly as they were (or at least as we think they were). 

We must of course oppose it, and all like-minded efforts to limit and even eliminate human and natural diversity from the globe. It is always a tall order to stand against forces of repression and injustice, against those who refuse to see God really at work in changing us and the world. 

But we can do so knowing that God’s creation has many more than two genders. Indeed, the creation of genders is an on-going act of God because God is still creating humans.  Further,  even as we labor as faithfully and courageously as we can and as we know our own limits, God is not going away, God adapts and prods and beckons us in directions new to us (though not to God).  I say this not so much to offer comfort to those under threat from this proposal and many other efforts to limit humanity, but rather to affirm the reality that all things are, despite opposition, becoming new. 

Thanks be to God for all we have received, are receiving, will receive!

Stripping Down

In many venues, I identify as a Queer Theologian (and poet), but I have made a deliberate choice here to leaven that with the idea of nakedness–because I believe (I want to say I know if it does not sound too dogmatic), that when we are most vulnerable we are most true to our inheritance as offspring of God.

In her graceful and very wise book, Queer Virtue: What LGBTQ People Know about Life and Love and How It Can Revitalize Christianity, Elizabeth M. Edman shares a definition of priesthood that was given to her by a friend:

A priest is someone who stands in a place of remarkable vulnerability, and by doing so, invites other people to enter the sacred. 

This expansive understanding of priesthood fits well, as Edman says, within the Protestant concept of the priesthood of all believers. In that way, it undercuts the clerical hierarchy that is so often an impediment to spiritual growth and health among “lay” people. Indeed, it may help end what is often seen as a binary of lay/clerical difference–a chasm which leads too many non-clerics to think they have nothing useful to contribute to spiritual life and too many clerics to think, or at least act as if, they have everything that is needed.

There is institutional authority vested in the office of priest or pastor, or rabbi or imam–depending on the tradition and the community, it can be a lot. However, it is the authority of personal and interpersonal vulnerability that is far more powerful in ways that transcend the usual humanly created boundaries. And that authority is available to all the faithful. We are called to be, as Edman says, a priestly people.

I am a nudist at heart, but I did not change this blog name simply to take my clothes off (or feature others who do so) online–although that may happen from time to time. At the same time, I recognize being physically naked as part of a continuum of spiritual and emotional nakedness and vulnerability.

I still wear a clerical collar when I go to church, but I am not sure entirely why. I have no formal or pastoral role in worship, and even if I did it is not my clothes that make it possible. It may be a sign of comfort for some, but increasingly I chafe and wish to dress as more myself.

I started this most recent journey in my life by taking off all my clothes and discovering much joy in nakedness by myself and with others. Now I see that I may want to consider each item of my costume–not as a form of striptease but as a way of really exposing, at some deep levels, all of me.

Taking off the collar may be a greater signification of my priesthood–a priest forever, as my friend and mentor, Carter Heyward, has written–than wearing it. Then I am more likely to stand in that place of remarkable vulnerability and thus invite people to enter the sacred.

That is my desire, and I believe it is God’s desire for me, and you, and all creation.

 

 

Whose Land Is It, Anyway? Part 3

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[A continuing exploration of the painful situation in Israel/Palestine; see two earlier posts, “Whose Land Is It Anyway? and “Whose Land Is It, Anyway? Part 2]

Land, for many, if not for most, people can be a loaded term. In one sense, it is ground beneath our feet, the ground on which our home stands or the ground on which we raise a garden, or the ground on which our town or city stands, or the ground of our state or nation–a physical “thing” of soil and rocks and sand and muck.

In another sense, however, it is something less tangible and more emotional–and thus very powerful. Land is for many not only about where we stand or sit, but where our heart, our soul, feels at rest and even at peace (while guns may be firing all around us). Land is home, that is, a particular piece of land, a particular patch of ground, is home, is where we belong.

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And because we belong there, it is easy to begin to believe, to know, that that ground, that land, belongs to us, belongs to me and the people with whom I identify and among and by whom my identity is forged and maintained. Of course, land in the tangible sense is finite, there is only so much land on the globe, and it cannot expand. Thus, it often comes to pass that we, or some others, say, out of what seems like necessity (because there is not enough room for everyone), “if this is our land, then it cannot also be their land.”

As I wrote in Part 2 of this series (see link above), this became the situation in the United States as regards the conflict between European settlers and their offspring on the one side and the native peoples already here on the other.

There is another story about land and conflict that is well-known, and powerfully formative, for many of us, namely the mission of the ancient Hebrews to take possession of the land they were promised by their God. It is a story that begins with Abram who becomes Abraham as he follows God’s direction and whose son and his sons and beyond them get the people to Egypt where, alas, they become slaves. And then their God, the God whose true name is not to be said by humans, called Y H W H (Hebrew has no vowels, but often pronounced YahWay, more or less, and often written today as Yahweh), best translated from the ancient Hebrew as “I AM WHO I AM” (see Exodus 3:14-15), seeing their oppression and distress, told them to leave Egypt and go to a new land, a land of milk and honey. This is the Exodus, as inspiring a story as any people could want, the story on which other oppressed peoples have grounded their own struggles and journeys for liberation ever since.

One idea of the route of the Exodus lds.org

The Hebrews wander for 40 years and many die. Many also are born. It is this people, those who were slaves in Egypt and their offspring, who, without the leader who brought them out of Egypt, enter the new land, their land, the land promised by their God.

There was a problem however. People were already living there. So, according to biblical texts, the Hebrews were told, by God, to drive them out, to make room for the keeping of the divine promise. These peoples, maybe native to the land or maybe they too came from somewhere else and claimed the land, were often called Canaanites (and there were other peoples as well).

According to the Book of Joshua, the Hebrews under his leadership bested the Canaanites, killing many of them and driving out the rest to settle in other locales. This is the same Joshua who led the destruction of the walls of Jericho and the slaughter of all its people.

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However, much of this story is now in doubt. Archaeologists have dug extensively throughout the region and there is good reason to doubt the historicity of much of the conquest. It is even possible that those we call Hebrews who came into the land were people already living in Canaan. And it seems clear that many of these Canaanites were incorporated into Israel (seemingly totally “melted” into that pot without retaining any part of their previous identity).

Of course, facts discovered by later scholars do not eliminate the power of the narrative to shape history. Most of us read biblical stories without intellectual and historical companions at hand. And we have to remember that land is more than ground, that it also is the emotional, filial and familial, and national, bonds buried deep in the ground–and that history is more than facts.

Dr. Robert Allen Warrior pbs.org

In view of the persistent power of the narrative, some Native American liberation theologians, most notably Robert Allen Warrior, have raised issue with using the Exodus story as a master narrative, or template, for the liberation of oppressed peoples. He writes,

…the narrative tells us that the Canaanites have status only as the people Yahweh removes from the land in order to bring the chosen people in. They are not to be trusted, nor are they to be allowed to enter into social relationships with the people of Israel. They are wicked, and their religion is to be avoided at all costs. –from Warrior’s essay, “A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys and Indians”

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Why is this so important to Warrior and other native writers? As people descended from those living on, thriving in, this land when Europeans arrived and began their push to own all that land, they see themselves as Canaanites. Thus they see not only liberation but also conquest, with themselves as the conquered.

As we go forward on this journey of wrestling with the contemporary question of Israel/Palestine, “whose land is it, anyway?” all the layers of that ancient story (and the subsequent historical archaeology discoveries)–and the interplay of liberation and conquest–must echo in, and touch, our thoughts.

Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

The Hard Truth of Beloved Community – 2

In talking to Jonathan the other day about a person he had not met I indicated she was a person of color, African American to be precise. 

Then, I realized I had done it again. Earlier, in the same conversation, I spoke of another person he had not met, who is not a person of color, but in that instance I did not mention that fact. I felt no need to describe what is essentially the default position. Among people who label ourselves white, we assume that our racialized identity is the norm. We don’t have to specifiy skin color, it is assumed to be ours. 

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This is often called “white privilege”–the unearned status to be, and to assume to be, the norm. 

This came back to me as I watched an excellent film about racism on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. “Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity” is a 75-minute film intended to lay out the various components of the system that put in place, and keeps in place, racial inequality. 

The film has enough didactic material to help the viewer understand the structural elements, and enough personal story-telling and commentary by a wide variety of individuals to give it depth and make it interesting and lively.  The audience, mostly people who call ourselves white, at the New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt–part of the monthly social justice oriented monthly series, Meal & Reel at the New Deal, sponsored by an alliance of activist groups– was appreciative of the film.

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There was discussion, too. And that is where I noticed how the people of color in the room were much more ready to talk. Some who call ourselves white did talk, though a disproportionately small share (in terms of the ratio of attendees who were not people of color). 

Of course, the people of color had interesting, insightful, and important things to say. I am glad they spoke. 

What disturbs me, however, is how we who call ourselves white talk so little about race and racism. Even more, most of the time (as was true at the film-showing Monday night), when we do talk it seems to be about a time we noticed some other person who looks like us acting unjustly toward a person of color (and occasionally that includes our speaking up to object) or a time we realized the deleterious effects of racism on a person or persons of color. 

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What we do not do is to talk about our own racism, our own learned attitudes and behaviors, our own complicity in maintaining systemic structures of racialized inequity. Partly this is due to the fact that the structures are hard to see. They are designed to work without our having to make any conscious choices. That is one reason it is called privilege–it is an accident of birth that goes with us throughout life. Membership has its privileges. 

But that does not let us off the hook. 

If we want racial justice, if we want a beloved community where all thrive–and I believe the overwhelming proportion of us who call ourselves white very much want that–we are going to have to get confessional. We will not overcome systemic racial inequities until we do the hard work of being open and honest about what we feel and what is at work in us. When we do that, we can change ourselves, and help others change, too. That is how the nation will really change, from the ground up. We can undo the white privilege that undergirds racialized inequity. 

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For me, to start, I am going to really work at monitoring my speech patterns, and though patterns, too, to find out how I create my identity as a person I and others call white as the norm, and thus how many times and ways I replicate the model of racialized social domination in my daily patterns of living.  

And I am going to write about it, and I am going to tell others. I am committed to breaking the codes by breaking the silence. 

What about you? Where will you start? Feel free to write me here, with your ideas and personal commitments. 

 

Was He . . . or Wasn’t He?

The death of David Bowie has not only denied us more amazing music and cultural creativity but also the answer to a question that continues to burn in some hearts. That question: was he straight, gay, or bisexual . . . or something else? 

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I did not realize the level of interest in this question until a clergy friend of mine,  not gay although certainly supportive of LGBT equality, asked me what I thought about Bowie’s sexual orientation and how I thought the LGBT community viewed him as a sexual being. He seemed genuinely puzzled by the lack of clarity about his orientation (really, I think, because he just assumed Bowie was gay). 

And then, I watched a post by comedian Sam Kalidi on Queerty (click here for link) in which he pasted together interviews with Bowie about his sexuality. Bowie was quite funny as he more or less dodged answering the question, except one time when he said he was bisexual (and in the same interview, said he was very promiscuous). 

No one asked him if we were queer. And that’s how I tag him–queer, as in not wanting to be locked up in unhelpful boxes. 

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I have written elsewhere about queerness, specifically about God’s queerness (“Faithful to a Very Queer-Acting God Who Is Always up to Something New” in Queering Christianity: Finding a Place at the Table for LGBTQI Christians Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2013). Although I am not equating the late British singer and actor with God, I do see in Bowie behavior similar to what I identify as God acting queerly . . . “to act unconventionally or oddly, irregularly in response to the normal . . . interfer[ing] with and spoil[ing] the expected by acting outside normative social boundaries and rules.”

As I am using the term, it is not a catch-all term for LGBT people or certainly the old pejorative term applied to homosexual men. Instead, it is a capacious term, leaving boundaries open for people who live, who act, in ways that feel congruent with their own selves whether or not their actions, their lives, fit within existing social molds.

And that it seems to me is how Bowie often acted. Indeed, as my clergy friend said, he seemed gay, and he certainly helped create gay sensibility. But that doesn’t mean he had to “be gay,” whatever that means (at least not to fit the expectations of others). 

I identify as a gay man, I am married to a man (18 good years, and counting), and we have sex with each other. I like looking at men, clothed and naked and in between, and being naked with them, too (but sex only with my husband). That surely makes me gay. And as a political and social statement, I am glad to stand on that ground with gay brothers, lesbian sisters, and bisexual and trans siblings of all sorts. 

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But I really am more queer than anything. I wear earrings, long dangling ones most of the time, and I like to wear skirts or sarongs (I used to do this at Radical Faerie gatherings, and occasionally I would ride the New York subway that way on the way to a gay club, but it has been some time since I have done so). The latter is not because I want to be a woman, but because I like the bodily freedom of not wearing pants. 

I just like to be playful with my body and I don’t think much of rigid gendered behavior; I certainly don’t want to enforce rules on people, other than the prescription to do no harm to others or myself. 

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This is how I saw Bowie. As you can see from the videos, he could be very funny. And who knows how he actually identified himself to himself. Probably bisexual, if he had to choose. But somehow I think he did not really want to choose, and maybe he never really did. 

I honor him for that. I doubt anyone has any doubt of his solidarity with LGBTQI folks and other sexual minorities, so he did not need to declare sides for that reason. What he leaves us, I think, is a legacy of living as himself, creating his own persona not bound by the rules or boxes of society. 

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Thank you, David Bowie, for sharing your freedom. I am inspired, and I trust others are, too. I am glad you are shaking things up a bit even now on earth, and suspect your spirit is having good fun with your fellow angels right now. 

A Pilgrimage Home

These wintry days in the northern hemisphere mean layers of clothes even inside and more darkness, too.

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As someone who likes to wear as little as possible as often as possible–barefoot is always my desire, and nakedness often a delight–this is not good news.

And yet the darkness can be a joy. I appreciate slowing down as dusk descends, preparing for dinner and an evening of quiet at home. Also, I most definitely enjoy morning darkness in which to meditate before dawn, and even to go walking in the winter grayness, seeing the tree limbs arched gracefully against the sky.

But more in these days of angry talk about people from other places and locking up more of our own citizens–usually people whose skin is darker than mine–I am cherishing even more darkness. I mean the darkness that actually expands our awareness of life, the beauty of cultures and lands and people and beliefs that have their own integrity, and challenge and enrich my own.

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It seems no accident that in a nation built from the ground up on the architecture of white supremacy there is little valorizing of darkness. Of course, this is in line with so much Christian theologizing that turns to light to overcome darkness. I have not done sufficient research to determine the intertwining history of all this, but clearly neo-platonic dualisms, Euro-American colonialism, manifest destiny, theological paeans for light over dark, all help produce an ideology of dark/black/native as less worthy than its “opposites,” and even downright bad or evil.

A key element in the work of those of us not dark–by whatever definition–to heal our nation is to begin to celebrate what is dark. It is right to oppose the targeting of immigrants and the mass incarceration of black men, and many other policies and attitudes built on negative views of darkness, because we believe in justice and equality, but we must go further: we must valorize, we must celebrate that which we have ignored, belittled, and oppressed and tried to kill. Even more, we must let darkness change us.

We must claim our own darkness.

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I have written elsewhere about how my mother and my aunt repeated many times to me that my grandmother was “the first white child born in Stanton, Michigan.” (map left) Somehow that was seen as a mark of distinction for her, for us, a heritage of which I was to be proud.

As a child, I suppose I did see it that way. But along the way I began to think about all the babies born there before her, and after, who did not, do not, meet the definition of “white.” There were, are, beautiful babies, too.

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And more to the point, our ancient heritage, black, white, native, brown, is rooted in Africa. We are all, at base, African.

Perhaps it is time go home, not as missionaries, to change people there, but as pilgrims on a spiritual journey to be changed, to come into our own deep, dark selves.

And absent the opportunity for that, we can open our borders, our minds, our hearts, to those who have much to teach us right here, right now.

I Am a Writer. Repeat. I Am a Writer. Repeat . . .

Getting organized, and staying organized, are probably the greatest challenges of my life.

I do not seem to know how to organize even my desk, let alone myself. I manage to keep our over-crowded home (we didn’t downsize enough when we moved here in the summer and we are struggling to do so now) in fairly good order–with Jonathan’s help–but my study is simply chaotic (see picture).

Some of this is due to my still trying to figure out how to live my new life as a writer. This is the first time in almost 50 years of working that I have worked for myself by myself. Perhaps this is part of finally growing up!

Maybe also I am having trouble accepting my newfound call to write, still doubting that I have the capacity to pull it off. I know I carry around some sense yet that I am a fraud, that I don’t really know how to write, that if I really pour myself into this I will stumble and fall.

Of course, I have more to learn about my new profession–it would be sad if I thought otherwise, even had I been writing all my life–and yes I may stumble and fall. But I have done that before and have always picked myself up, with God’s help and my friends and family. I can do that again.

But a fraud? How can I be a fraud when the call on my soul is so clear? It would not be the first time I doubt God, but if the past is any indication that is a losing proposition! If there is one thing I have learned it is that trusting God is the way forward in life.

Of course, that does not mean I cannot or should not argue with God. I agree with those interpreters of the Book of Job who say that the reason God rewards Job and chastises his friends is because Job cared enough, believed enough, to argue with God while they counseled him to simply give in.

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But I don’t feel like arguing with God. I think, I believe, God is right. Or to put it even more clearly, I believe God (something that is far more vital than simply believing in God, good though that is).

And I believe, I feel certain, that I heard God correctly through the voice of the trees in Yosemite a year ago (see “And The Writing Keeps Crying Out”). My call feels genuine and powerful.

So, to get back to organization. A writer needs a good space for writing. I need a good space for writing.

Today, I will do some sorting and sifting and concentrate on how to begin to make this space work for me. No more being overwhelmed by chaos. I will at least begin to tame it.

Stay tuned for progress reports. And feel free to share tips and ideas you have for conquering the Disorganizing Syndrome.

Choosing to Be Me Again

Wearing earrings to my first Open Mic Poetry Reading at the New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt, October 20 2015

My life has undergone a wonderful shift, reclaiming a piece of my personal identity I gave up five years ago: I am wearing earrings again.

I don’t remember exactly when I started wearing earrings–one in each ear, usually somewhat long and dangly–but it was some time in the early to mid-90s. Nor do I remember exactly what prompted me to have my ears pierced, but it was probably because it had been the custom for many gay men to wear one earring in the left ear. I thought then, as I do now, that I like both my ears and would not favor one over the other.

I do remember finding a pair of long, dangling rainbow earrings at a flea market in Brooklyn and buying them, and finding great pleasure in wearing them. They were my first (other than boring studs and rings). Sadly, I have lost them.

But I have many other pairs. I kept them when I stopped wearing them in 2010, thinking I might resume the custom later.

Why did I stop?

Pastoring with earrings before 2010

Leaders in the congregation where I served as pastor told me that although they supported my habit, they also believed it cost us members. Not wanting to hurt the church, I took off my earrings. I remember well how many in the group applauded when I did this; a few others did not. They told me they were unhappy that I given in to these opinions.

The truth is that the number of visitors to the church did not increase nor did our rate of new member retention improve.

What caused me to return to this practice?

Some of my earrings, on a holder created by my daughters 20+ years ago

First, I have been missing the joy I felt in choosing earrings each day, and looking for new ones, too. I also felt I had lost a part of myself.

But what pushed me at this time was participating in a online symposium for my denomination, Metropolitan Community Churches (see October 16, 2015 “What’s Sex Got to Do with It?”), “Who Are We, Really? Re-Engaging Sex and Spirit.” As I listened to presentations and prepared my own remarks for a panel on healing queer bodies and healing the Body of Christ, I realized I had been living in denial. I denied my own sense of self by removing the earrings, and I had become disconnected from the me who is gender queer.

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I am male-bodied and glad of it. I like having and using a penis and other aspects of male embodiment. I am gay and glad of that, too. I like other penises, and other aspects of male embodiment in men generally (and my husband’s in particular!). But I have my own ways of expressing those truths, and one way is by decorating myself in ways that honor my own particularities. Those decorations include earrings (and wearing colorful socks that match or accent the rest of my clothes, and using scarves and various other items of clothing).

Those practices have caused people to ask me if I am transgender. I have to say “No” even as I honor my trans siblings as they explore, express and live their truths. I am glad to be on the gender continuum with them, as a gender queer.

And there is one other aspect. As I age, my relationship with sex has changed. I no longer take it for granted. My body requires more attention, to be healthy, of course, but also to be sexy and sexually active. For reasons I do not fully understand, earrings help me feel more sexual and desirable, even to experience more desire. I do hope someday to wear only earrings at a nude or clothing optional beach (just have to be careful not to lose them!).

And then there is one more very important thing: I really want to undermine the rigid gender binary (for more on this, see “Why Do Watches Have Gender?”). This is the spiritual and political activist in me. I seek to undermine any system that undercuts the souls of God’s people in all our wondrous, divinely-inspired and created, variety.

So, the earrings are back!

I’m back!