#religious queerphobia

[suprememayobros2]

How about you fuck off and die

[bekandrew]

I'm not going to give it even more free advertisement since Tumblr decided to allow it to be blazed (though I did take screenshots), but holy transphobia AND biphobia batman. Just reported a long ex-bi catholic blazed post that went on about how Tumblr fandom culture turned the speaker bi and seemingly randomly had some digs in there about how harmful """"gender ideology"""" was for children.

[jarredlharris]

Live-threading my thoughts while listening to the Thereafter podcast episode featuring Celeste Irwin.

The following is a transcript of the live-thread I posted while listening to Therafter podcast episode 103.

Okay folks, it's time to live-thread my thoughts while listening to the most recent episode of @thereafterpodcast! Let's do this!

.@thepursuinglife and @cortlandcoffey are going on about how great the Tuesday morning Clubhouse chats are. They really are amazing. @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey and @thepursuinglife are offering alternatives to doomscrolling and I love it. @thereafterpodcast

At the risk of damaging my relationship with @thepursuinglife, I just couldn't get into Gilmore Girls. But to each their own. @thereafterpodcast

A sign of how old I am: @cortlandcoffey said "I need my space," and my brain immediately screamed "TOM!" IYKYK @thereafterpodcast

Wait, there's a Hulu documentary about Black Twitter? Details, @cortlandcoffey! @thereafterpodcast

It's hard to believe that @cortlandcoffey and @thepursuinglife have only known each other for somewhere around four years. They seem like old friends at this point. @thereafterpodcast

On to the interview with @celestefinally! @thereafterpodcast

I miss the days when @cortlandcoffey framed the first question as a request to learn the guest's origin stories. We all need to feel like comic book characters from time to time. @thereafterpodcast

.@celestefinally mentioned her own journey from being LGBTQIA+ non-affirming to realizing trans. I can relate as a cis gay man. That journey can be wild. @thereafterpodcast

.@celestefinally mentioned that when she first came out, other trans people had trouble trusting her. I can understand that. On the flip side, I appreciated the gay person who came to my defense when a former colleague brought up my own non-affirming past in one group. I think there's a careful line we need to draw between understandably protecting ourselves and digging up other people's dirty laundry from their past. @thereafterpodcast

And yeah, there are times I think digging up dirty laundry from the past is 100% justifiable and even necessary. But to me, that just makes that line fuzzier and walking it that much more difficult. But it does not erase the line completely. At least that's my opinion. @thereafterpodcast

At any rate, I do respect @celestefinally for being able to understand and sympathize with those that were still wary at first. I think that's also a good thing. (I understood my own former colleague's issues with my past. After all, he was part of that past. I just appreciated the reassurance that my past wouldn't necessarily haunt me forever.) @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey: "I never understood the people that seemed excited that God was a homophobe." 🔥 @thereafterpodcast

.@celestefinally is talking about having a vague sense of her transness at a much younger age, but didn't have the language for it. That seems to be a common theme I've seen. @thereafterpodcast

.@celestefinally mentioned evangelicals' claims that people deconstruct just because we wanted to sin and I'm trying REALLY HARD not to go into my usual rant on that topic. @thereafterpodcast

.@celestefinally: "Justice someday doesn't undo injustice done today." 🔥 @thereafterpodcast

.@celestefinally is talking about the positive impact transitioning has had on her life overall and I'm here for it. @thereafterpodcast

@celestefinally is talking about the things she considers when determining whether to continue engaging someone who says they're "in process" regarding LGBTQIA+ inclusion/affirmation and it's fantastic stuff. @thereafterpodcast

A mildly humorous play on words that occurred to me: @celestefinally is the transparent trans parent. (I never claimed to be original.) @thereafterpodcast

.@celestefinally is talking about the fact that people can do both beneficial and valuable things and harmful things and that's so important to keep in mind. @thereafterpodcast

.@celestefinally is talking about some of her own interactions with Julie Roys. This is an important thing people need to hear and know about it. @thereafterpodcast

.@celestefinally makes the powerful point that an unwillingness to take correction makes a person unsafe. @thereafterpodcast

So @thenewevangelicals is going to a Preston Sprinkle event? (May have already happened since this interview was recorded in March.) I'm imagining our own version of the Driscoll vs. Lindell fallout. @thereafterpodcast

So happy to hear @celestefinally mentioning @rabbidanyaruttenberg's book "On Repentance and Repair." (Which I still need to read.) @thereafterpodcast

Okay, please tell me I'm not the only person in deconstruction spaces that WASN'T inspired by RHE? (No actual shade to RHE. Her books weren't around yet when I left Christianity.) @thereafterpodcast

Another great episode! @thereafterpodcast

[cotidianoseeder]

My mental state now.

[666godsperfectidiot]

Thinking about queer trans Catholic kurt and how he would look in the mirror, wishing he would stop thinking all these "horrible throughs" about being born a man because God made you the way he wanted why would you go against that ? Just thinking about how he would look at someone of the same gender and long to hold them to feel what true love feels like but again that goes against everything he has ever been taught and kurt loves God just as much as the people he considers family so going against God is like stabing his best friend in the back . Thinking about how long it probably took for him to un learn all that self hatred he has to learn not only how to love himself but to learn how to love life

[hana-bobo-finch]

shoutout to all my queer folks out there we are GOING to survive even if everything seems hopeless

[8-rae-rae-8]

CW Abuse, queerphobia, neglect, religion, attempts of cleansing via religious practices, minor Agere

Johnny was pushed to leave his house as an older teen. Each straw snapped in half as his parents picked at his brain. Seventeen with nowhere to go. A fresh mohawk on his head, eyeliner traced around his bright blue eyes. All he had were the clothes on his back, he didn't have time to get anything else. Not between his mother's shouting and his father being home soon. All he could do was get out his window with a protein bar, wallet, and a half empty bottle of water.

Where was he supposed to go looking like this? With no one close enough to run to, no family that dared to bring him in. They would tell his mother or the cops anyway.

He had enough money in a bank account he could withdraw from, a bus ticket to get past the boarder couldn't be too expensive. If he could just get there and find somewhere cheap to stay, where no one would look for him, he'd make it eventually. Make it where, he didn’t know.

A job was out of the question for now, no proof of residency. The ticket over the boarder was already expensive enough, a hotel was out of the question.

“You’re not the son I raised.”

“God, I fear the adult you’ll grow into.”

The way his mother spoke to herself, bled herself dry pleading to a god that would never reach his hand from the heavens and ‘save her from her son’s madness’.

The way she screamed as he locked his door and opened his window.

“You’re dead set on ruining everything and everyone!!”

She had hissed. She pleaded for him to straighten out, be normal. But no, he dressed in patches, spikes raised on his shoulders, a rainbow painted on his back pocket. Faded and dulled over the years of his parents painting over it with black paint to simply ruin it. Ruin his identity, ruin his image.

“Save the son I disciplined and praised.. For the one who disobeyed me.”

His mother sat on her knees, hands folded in prayer. In pleas. His father joined every so often, muttering prayers at her side. Sycned words, as if they knew what the other would say.

“There’d be time to rectify him.”

Time to fix him.

Time to break him apart and mend him in their image.

That’s how he knew he needed to go. His last straw snapped in half. He needed far away. Across the boarder, safe somewhere else. Somewhere the cops wouldn’t be looking. Somewhere he could slip in.

His first night is spent mapping out the city. Mud stained boots washed by puddles and rain, revealing their old rose design on the side. The yellow stitching stained brown long ago. Walking till his heels bled and his lungs no longer filled with air. The best place to sleep was some shitty motel that was suspiciously cheap. Thirty pounds a night.

Good enough for him.

With the amount of money from his card now transferred to cash, he broke the debit card up and threw it out before he got his place in the motel. Some dull town near Newcastle. Good enough for a sleep now he knew the area. He walked long enough to know that no one was coming for him.

They never did. Not friends, not family. Not even the people that could make a good buck off him, like employers.

In the cold of the motel, he was alone. He shed his drenched clothes to dry on a towel rack. There were no bandages to clean up his heels, just scratchy towels. But home didn’t offer that comfort either. That forsaken house was freezing, colder than any unfamiliar place could be.

Johnny couldn’t recall the many things that made it that way. It had just been so cold for the longest time. He could point out feelings and sensations, but never a full event, like his mind forced him not to remember what all happened. Just in the last week, he could remember the way his skin crawled as his pastor touched his shoulder and pulled him in for a chat. Never was he allowed to stay home, not since he started showing signs of being ‘impure’.

Impurity. That’s why he screams to be seen. As more than a mess, as much than an infection for people to hide their children from. Impurity, rectification… A disease to be healed.

At thirteen, he was first called a devil’s spawn. An evil creation. A faggot over something so simple as art. A piece to study anatomy leading to him losing all access to the outside. His parents even faked his sick days to pull him to church daily until he was deemed cleansed.

His mother’s scolding stuck in his head, no more than words and a tone that conveyed his apparent betrayal.

“You can throw your life away, just not at my expense.”

Over art. Like he was throwing everything away over pencil and paper. His parents surely saw it like that. Constant reminders that he was being watched by an unseen god and angels felt so completely stupid to him, but had him checking corners and his closet every night like habit.

Even still, he checked the motel’s closets and bathrooms. Like he swore he needed, or they would find and watch him. Even so far away from their church.

The sheets scratched at his skin. Maybe he should have thought about his comfort, but that wasn’t exactly something he was sure he could even get. Comfort, far from anything even semi-familiar. So, so very far from everything he knew. In a new town, with bloodied heels and a broken mind. Pieces chipped off every second, he was sure.

What else could be that hazy feeling behind his eyes?

What else could be forcing him to get comfortable, dispite the horrendous sheets?

His eyes shot around the room. Door locked, bathroom light on, closet shut. Then his eyes closed, nearly as if forced by exhaustion and something creeping around in his head. So very alone, but something trying to warm him. It was gentle, like the hum of a lullaby.

Johnny tugged the fabric of his tanktop into his mouth, suckling at the fabric. Each movement helped him relax into the cheap bed, his body heat warming the blankets with ease. He ran hot dispite the chill of the air around him.

He could get himself far enough, he could run till he couldn’t move. But he dreamed of someone coming to save him. Someone like him, someone who would love him unconditionally. Someone turned to two, then three and four. People who would love him with every ounce of their beings.

[i-am-trans-gwender]

Finding out that Hozier's "Take Me To Church" is about how Churches suppress natural sexuality, especially queer sexuality, was honestly a big surprise. Growing up in a Conservative Christian environment I was forced to hear that song so much that the song coming on feels like a Rick Roll. In retrospect the lyrics are so obvious how can any one think it's Pro traditional Christian values?

"Every Sunday's gettin' more bleak a fresh poison each week" 

"If I'm a pagan of the good times my lover's the sunlight"

"No masters or kings when the ritual begins. There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin"

[h1biplvm]

"religious trauma isnt that bad" i literally have problems listeting to "arabian nights" bc ever since someone pointed out that the lyric "suns from the west" was about the islamic day of judgement it has brought me anxiety

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

A thought 🤔 & question❓ about discrimination

The Thought: It's occurred to me that disablism (that is, discrimination against those with actual -- or perceived -- disabilities) can really be summarized as: "Limiting, or outright denying, a person's social authority and personal autonomy."

The Question: Would it be accurate or appropriate to use this summary for discrimination against other marginalized groups, or for all of them? Could this be another way of defining discrimination in general?

[phoenixyfriend]

Yikes

[wereh0gz]

I'm definitely not the only queer person who's kinda wary of Christian ppl they encounter online right?

Like I see a profile that clearly states they're Christian and they post like Bible verses and shit and I'm just. Hoping they're not queerphobic. Or saying some dumbass shit like "hate the sin love the sinner" or whatever while pretending that's not queerphobic

If they're interacting with me first it's pretty safe to assume they're not gonna be like that bc I'm very obviously queer (🏳️‍🌈 + pronouns in bio) but if it's someone who hasn't interacted with me at all I kind of instinctively avoid interacting with them out of fear of them being that way. Y'know

[religiousqueer-inbox]

queer religious culture is growing up in church loving the people in the church knowing that they wouldn’t love you if they knew

i think a lot of people can relate to this.

[sagegreensage]

As a non-Christian leftist queer person living in The South™️, I am so kin with all of the animals that camouflage as different animals to avoid predation.

[egharcourt]

Hot take for queer christians or affirming christian allies, but focusing on picking apart mistranslations in the clobber verses as the means to address homophobia, transphobia, or queerphobia in the church community is literally not gonna take us anywhere further. Okay, now we've disproved that Lev 18:22 doesn't imply whatever the English translation means. Oh and Deut 22:5 applies to a certain context. And then what. Do we just acquiesce in the fact that, after providing a rebuttal to some points raised by exclusionists, we still gotta sit in this unwelcoming and often spiritually stifling environment that they created.

I think what's fundamentally imperative is understanding what the core tenets of the Christian religion stand for (aka the Great Commandment). The second commandment, "love your neighbor as yourself" already makes it clear that there's no room for prejudice and bigotry. Bring up the verses and stories where the laws change to empower women, sexual minorities and outsiders in social systems that initially deny their rights (the daughters of Zelophehad, Isaiah 56:3-6, Acts 10:9-16). Stories about people who were underdogs, or from such communities, praised, promoted, and occupying an important position in the narrative.

The Bible's a big book and any argument can be extracted out of it to befit one's agenda. With so much hateful and intolerant rhetoric being thrown around, it's way better to highlight the passages that reaffirm marginalized people are blessed and cherished and deserve a place in faith, ESPECIALLY for vulnerable queer folk within the religious community that are told they can't belong. That's all I'm saying.