LGBTQ2IA+

Bonnie Violet takes some time to share with Tina what the letters of the LGBTQ2IA+ community mean. 

#googleisfree

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Transcript

0:20

[Music] you never will

0:31

[Music] me

0:37

[Music]

0:45

hey everybody welcome to season four of splintered grace we're excited to be back with you guys just a quick reminder

0:51

of who i am my name is tina frank and i'm a mature christian who follows the teachings of jesus christ

0:58

and i am bonnie violet a trans femme genderqueer spiritual drag artist identity doula and digital chaplain

1:05

while many family members are choosing to no longer speak to each other we have chosen to sit at the table and engage in

1:11

an anti-cancer culture conversation to find peace and restoration

1:17

uh uh queer chaplain i mean split of grace is brought to you by a queer chaplain productions and each week we go

1:24

live for our vodcast audience on facebook youtube and twitch and can uh

1:30

and you can listen to us um pretty much immediately after our live um

1:35

our live show about an hour after uh we begin so it's about a 45-minute show um but give me 15

1:43

minutes to to upload it to the podcast format

1:48

so hey we're going to start out with an amazing topic over the over the um

1:53

break we had and some of the conversations that we had i got a lot of questions about what some of the

2:00

letters mean and i hope i'm saying that right so i don't want to be offensive so we're going to talk today about some of those meanings

2:06

we're talking about specifically the lg bt q2 ia plus acronyms and what goes along

2:13

with those so if you if you're like me um and i i don't want to be offensive but i want to understand everybody i'm

2:19

going to take notes so i have my pen so bonnie violet we appreciate you taking

2:25

the time to share this because we want to get to know you guys you and everybody else around you much better

2:32

great thanks so much tina thanks for popping us into that good morning uh to uh whoever is saying good morning to us

2:38

on fig and facebook land let's not show me your name but either way i'm glad that you uh could join us

2:44

this morning um so yeah so um just kind of preface a little bit you know

2:49

lgbtqia plus kind of uh the the letters that i put in the

2:56

description um you may see a combination of these letters you might see less of the same

3:02

letters you might even see a few more of the letters and um the

3:08

lgbtqia plus community is often lumped together but it's a very

3:13

unique and diverse group of people and every letter is you know like it does mean a

3:20

different uh like maybe identify like a different identifier i mean it's not all the same

3:26

like for instance there's um there's gender um and there's sexuality or sex um so

3:34

like or sexual orientation so that's the whole thing it's not like it's like oh these are all different kinds of sexual orientations or these are all kinds of

3:41

genders or um so it's kind of like a combinat like those things are kind of put

3:47

together so i think sometimes it can be confusing to folks who aren't uh kind of part of the lgbtq

3:54

um ia plus community and even at that some some folks might still have a hard

4:00

time understanding the other if um their gender is different

4:06

than say you know like just because a person is gay does not necessarily mean they're gonna understand what it means

4:12

to be trans um though um in kind of a heterosexual world a

4:19

non-lgbtqia world um people might see it as one in the same um

4:25

did you say that it's okay to just use a few of the acronyms so if i was to i don't know write something to someone or

4:31

or make an announcement of some kind would i need to have all those acronyms to be appropriate

4:37

i think part of it is just you know i i guess i was prefacing that in the sense of you might only see

4:43

like lgbt um was commonly um all you saw everywhere for a long time right um and

4:49

then you started seeing the q and the i and the two and the plus and um so any

4:56

sort of i guess kind of delineation of those is probably they're probably trying to get to saying the whole group

5:02

of folks okay but you know there is some historical context to that as well and there also

5:07

might be some specificity for instance i was um like so

5:13

the two um is is for two spirit

5:19

um and two spirit is something that i don't know a lot to speak on so i would really

5:26

encourage folks to kind of google a little bit but my understanding like two spirit is kind of it's an indigenous

5:33

term and i don't i feel like it's in a term that was given

5:38

like it's not like not every tribe not every group of people they had

5:46

what what we might say are two spirit people but they might have had different names

5:51

for that um within their own tribe and their own group of people so

5:56

i'm not going to speak too much on that but i just want to bring up that if you see the two as people are including the

6:03

two-spirit community um and you know maybe there'll be a time that we can um

6:09

have someone share that share a little bit more with us on that um but also one of the things that we're gonna talk a

6:15

lot about is or what i'm gonna kind of refer folks to is to google um i know

6:20

that sounds that might sound like a a lot for um for some folks and might sound a little

6:27

um simplistic for others um but i think if you know being able to google these

6:32

terms and um you know reading up on on what people say about it there's great

6:38

videos that explain things to you as well there's things that you can read

6:43

i know that it can be a little overwhelming because there's so many resources and it can sometimes feel like

6:50

well which what's the right one or which yeah which one's telling my truth

6:55

or this one says this and that one says this and this one says yeah yeah and to some degree you know i think that

7:02

kind of speaks to the fact that there are so many like different narratives to

7:07

all these types of folks and different understandings and i would encourage you to read the resources of people of the

7:16

the terms and definitions that are created by the people who are part of the community

7:22

so you know to know that it's an lgbtqia plus organization that's educating you

7:29

on what the words mean um versus maybe somebody who's not part of community

7:34

who's trying to talk about who we are it's it's kind of in the sense of you know i'm not familiar with the two-spirit community

7:40

so like i could only go so far um right but if i put into google two spirits

7:46

then most of that information that i would need to know would come up so that i could discern what's going to be

7:52

viable and what's not yeah you would be able to see like a lot of different things to kind of sift

7:57

through also i mean it'd be great to look at you know things that are made by two-spirit folks

8:02

talking about their situation again true spirit is kind of like a it's like an umbrella term so there's a

8:09

lot of pieces that are also part of the two-spirit um you know community so

8:15

um and that that was one of the things that like and i think in a lot of ways of talking about the

8:20

lgbtqia plus community in some ways it seems very like maybe very basic or very simple l is for

8:28

lesbian b is for bisexual and it should be able to say oh lesbian is women who

8:33

have sex or who are attracted to other women or you know um those sorts of

8:38

things however um not all lesbians identify the same way

8:45

um and like you might have because it can get complicated real quick that's what i was worried about

8:52

so the l is for lesbian though right yes okay and now you're going to clarify between the different types is that what

8:59

we're we're headed to i mean i think the thing that's important about any of these sort of identifiers is that

9:06

people tell you how they identify and just like just like when i say

9:14

um you say you're a christian it's important for me to

9:19

not like in you telling me you're a christian you are telling me some things about you

9:25

like in that but you're not telling me everything about you you might be

9:30

telling me that you you know that you you follow christ right like that should be like a basic that probably any person

9:37

who identifies as christian they're christ-like or they're working to be in christ like right um but

9:44

there's a ton of different ways on how people will attempt to do that or see

9:50

you know understand how it is to um to live that way um and so

9:57

yeah so lesbian kind of in the basic idea is just uh same like same gendered

10:04

women so women who love women um and sexuality is not always just about like

10:11

the sexual behavior it's also about just um attraction

10:16

and connection and those sorts of things so you can kind of um maybe have feelings towards somebody

10:23

that is sexual but not actually have sexual actual behavior and then you have your own personal sexuality

10:30

right right um so when we're talking about lesbians we're typically

10:35

that's talking about sexual orientation okay uh my next question

10:40

yes so sexual orientation is kind of like who you are attracted to who you um

10:48

who you have sex with who you i identify being in romantic relationship with

10:54

um so that's a sexual orientation um being gay um is also

11:01

a sexual orientation and typically being gay it just means you're same

11:06

like you're saying gendered love and you might hear that as well but gay often used means men who

11:12

love other men yeah but sometimes lesbians will say

11:20

they're gay too because basically it just means that you love the same sex the same gender

11:27

which is a whole other kind of confusing thing there is a difference between sex and gender as well

11:32

um sex is kind of like they say sex well and they they don't

11:38

even know that really um i've i haven't thought about some of the

11:44

when i first grew up when i first was teaching about like uh sex education when i was uh in my early 20s and stuff

11:50

they would say um you know sex is what's between

11:56

your legs whereas gender is what's between your ears but i

12:03

yeah that's what i've heard i i kind of feel like i want to like

12:08

not really fully think that that might not be like the best way to talk about it anymore

12:16

um okay yeah so that's that's honest i mean if

12:21

someone else has some comments out there that can guide us a little bit in that then i work hard for that but i

12:27

appreciate your bit of clarification because i'm coming from like far

12:32

over here and a lot of the people that i talk to are so i'm hoping that this little bit of education that you're able

12:38

to give us uh will help us out a little bit right well and so yes yes

12:44

so you have your lesbian gay bisexual is also an orientation

12:49

uh sexual orientation yes in the sense of like i have sex with both like

12:56

my same gender and other gendered folks um

13:02

and then and then you have trans and non-binary folks who also we have sexual lives and

13:09

um sexual relationships as well and so sometimes we don't fit directly into

13:16

these lg b worlds because they are kind of based

13:21

on a gender right that is either male or female and so let me ask you real quick the t

13:26

then is for trans lgbt is trans okay go ahead i'm sorry i didn't mean to interrupt you bonnie oh yeah no problem

13:33

so bisexuality um is basically the idea and initially it was thinking that there

13:39

was only like a man and a woman so you are either a woman who likes a man and a woman or you're a man who likes men and

13:46

women whether it's sexually whether you're physically attracted or you're

13:51

emotionally attracted or connected um uh in the in those ways again sexual

13:56

sexuality isn't always behavior um so it's not always the act of sex

14:02

though sometimes it is right it does include that okay um

14:07

so and transness is all about gender not about sexual orientation

14:13

so the t or transgender and transgender is an umbrella term

14:20

for some people and for others it might be how they identify

14:26

and that might mean that if they identify as transgender that might be mean that they were assigned male at

14:31

birth and they they've transitioned to female or vice versa

14:39

that might be how somebody identifies so transgender trans um transsexual

14:45

those are all kind of similar terms transsexual is an older more it's a more older term

14:52

for transgender what we would call transgender people today um

14:58

and there are some folks who still identify as transsexual um okay so

15:03

there's a difference between transsexual and transgender there so

15:09

there could be okay but not like in a very general way no they're kind of one in the same i i

15:17

think that it's important to understand that if somebody identifies as transsexual versus transgender they

15:23

probably do have a little bit different understanding of their gender um and maybe their sexuality

15:31

as well partially you know i think that you know i think one of the things to kind of

15:36

understand too is that like that's i think important to understand with like when we're talking about

15:42

anything we're like trying to explain something to somebody from their point of view

15:48

so if you're hearing words or you're coming to know words that you knew one way or you know like for me for instance

15:54

i identify as being trans femme gender queer so

16:00

i don't and i'll say that i'm trans in kind of a more um umbrella kind of

16:05

term um but i wouldn't necessarily say that i'm just trans i wouldn't say that

16:10

i'm just i don't know i feel like i need to say more than just say i'm trans for me to

16:15

say that i'm trans means because of my understanding of man and woman and kind of growing up in a very rural

16:22

um just the the era and the time that i grew up in i didn't know much about

16:28

trans people or that gender could be more than just a

16:33

a man and woman and not just such a like a very um gender like gender-rolled kind

16:39

of um man and woman um can i ask a question yes please

16:45

hopefully it'll be hopefully it'll be something that that what oh i hope it's okay

16:51

so um you had said and i know you said this isn't probably the best way to describe it um the difference between the

16:58

sexuality and the and the gender so when we're talking about this so

17:03

some people are obviously born male or female so the gender transition or the trans

17:09

the trans part comes from from the mindset correct so people are either assigned assigned

17:16

male at birth assigned female at birth some folks are identified as intersex

17:21

you know some folks are born with multiple genitalia or

17:26

parts of both you know so folks in those situations back in the

17:32

day they might have chosen to remove certain body parts in order to choose one or the other

17:38

um or there might not have been a a way for that to happen and so

17:43

sometimes folks um and or there are also folks that they wouldn't necessarily surgically change any of that sort of

17:49

thing they just um you know they just identify as

17:55

you know intersex um and you know and and uh and sometimes times sometimes it's not always about

18:01

like the the outsides it's sometimes the insides you might have uh people who are assigned women

18:08

assigned female at birth who might you know later on you might find out that they have testes inside inside

18:15

their uh you know inside their their body um and you might find people who are

18:20

assigned male at birth who might have like some of the um the the female reproduct what are

18:25

thought to be female reproductive organs within them as well and so those are more internal things that you're maybe

18:31

not going to see um and maybe not even know about until later on in life because when you say

18:37

assigned are you talking about when they're born at the hospital someone the doctor says it's a boy or it's a girl okay okay

18:45

yeah i mean you don't hear people say it's a it's non-binary it's transgender you know those are

18:51

it says it looks like that stuff can be not seeable

18:56

yeah and that's why gender is kind of like it's what's in between your ears it's like it's how you

19:03

see and feel like how you see yourself um and that's something that's in your

19:08

head it's it's not always your like i guess what your body you know

19:13

what i mean like your body could not like for instance i have a penis but i see myself as as more

19:21

feminine or as a female so the gender aspect is is my

19:26

my femininity and like that's the gender but i guess the sex is the fact that i have

19:32

i was assigned male at birth i gotcha if that makes sense

19:38

it can get a little um and then we all get to have our own experience with these sorts of things

19:44

and our own understandings and so that's why i think it's really important it is important for us to like

19:50

google and look up the general ideas of these words and what they mean and then the more we come to learn about

19:56

these letters and these words and then we see how they intersect with the other worlds

20:02

because you have trans people who identify as trans you have people who are trans who transitioned

20:10

say from male to female who identify as female so they would not even connect to the

20:16

idea that they were trans so they would see themselves as a female and they like other other females so that that then

20:23

they would be um you know they would be a lesbian

20:28

whereas other folks would would not you know they would just always identify as trans like i think regardless of what

20:35

i do with my body and how i continue to see myself i think i'll always

20:40

um like i'll always identify as being trans or identify as being non-cis

20:48

and so cis another word is that one of the words is that one of the letters that we're talking about

20:54

it's not actually okay but i i do think it's important to talk about and so um one of our it's interesting it just

21:01

says facebook user on on what's coming across here um but this person is saying

21:06

and i haven't read it yet so i'm just but i'm going to read it out loud they say um it is more than a mindset the

21:12

brain on scans actually lights up based on your

21:18

sex that you are you can be be sex a man but the brain lights up as

21:23

woman and so forth does that make sense so it's melinda so thank you melinda i'm

21:29

not sure why it's not sharing that so thank you though um so yeah i mean that's that's definitely

21:35

one way again it's another way to kind of describe it then i think some people will understand that and other people

21:42

will maybe not quite um and they might need more more information um

21:48

so just like there's not any one narrative of being christian or being straight or

21:55

whatever you know and a lot of a lot of like do you identify as being straight tina

22:01

um well based on what i know that to me so i would say i would say yeah i'm only

22:06

attracted to men more specifically my husband right yeah and so i think i think oftentimes

22:13

people who are straight or heterosexual they never really like identified themselves that way because that was

22:20

kind of thought to be like the norm like that's just what you are you don't question it you don't like it's just who you are

22:28

was that your kind of your experience yeah i never had any reason to question it i never had any attractions outside

22:34

of that okay yeah and so um to bring up the term cisgender and i

22:41

think i just want to say lester c it's cis so just to kind of go back to that

22:46

idea of like for folks i know that like so this is for lgbtq folks to be talking about this

22:54

sort of stuff um with folks who are not part of the community it does take a lot of emotional labor like it's it's um

23:01

it's it's sometimes very hard to hear that people can't see your humanity and that's not what they're saying but

23:07

that's often times that you hear what you hear um in the in the things that people say

23:13

when they're trying to come to understand things so for folks who are not who are part of the lgbtqi community it's just if you're

23:21

not one of us you have no reason to think about sexual orientation or or gender because you

23:28

never needed to do that now i do i would argue that i do think that that women still dealt with the idea of like

23:35

like masculine masculinity infinity femininity as you grew up i know you've shared in previous um

23:42

episodes about kind of general gender roles that were attached to expectations because you were you

23:48

know a woman versus a man and so those sorts of things i think do impact

23:54

um say heterosexual or cisgendered people

24:00

um but but again it's just i think that most folks don't really think about it

24:05

until they have to and then gender and sexuality feels like these foreign things to folks who

24:12

who haven't needed to kind of explore that and and even if i just go back to when i

24:18

was trying to like understand who i was because i grew up in a world in which i didn't see lgbtq

24:24

people and if i did i didn't know and i didn't you know what i mean it just wasn't talked about and so there was this kind of like

24:31

feeling of of figuring it out on my own even though i was already i was already that

24:36

i just didn't know how to explain who i was and you know what i mean and how i was

24:44

and that's something that i've just come to understand more of the more that i've lived my life

24:49

um so i know we are starting to talk about cisgender so cisgender is cis which

24:58

basically just means same so it's just the idea of like

25:03

your gender matches the sex you were assigned at birth so you um were assigned female and you see

25:10

yourself as a female so you're cisgendered okay

25:16

um you're not transgender basically

25:21

[Music] yes um and so then that's the l the g the b the

25:29

t um under trans also though there's non-binary um some non-binary folks will

25:36

identify as trans some will not um non-binary just means that i'm not male or female for some

25:44

folks they might think they might say you know i'm kind of male i'm kind of female

25:49

or like i'm part male and part female some people might say i'm not either

25:54

like i'm just i don't identify with either i'm just kind of in this other

25:59

space um so it again it's kind of just different people's

26:05

understanding as some people have spent more time kind of thinking about this and they might

26:10

think like oh well i'm i'm um they might have a little bit more words to describe

26:16

uh beyond uh being non-binary um they might be able to like i say trans-fem

26:22

because i feel like i'm more on the trans femme side um

26:27

than say like a masculine side gotcha

26:32

yeah um any questions so far

26:39

or in the audience either yeah um

26:44

i'm just going to throw this out there i don't want to be upsetting for you or anybody but it seems a lot of this is based on um

26:52

your sexual preferences versus on okay see and so that's what i'm hearing

26:57

so i'm figuring i'm hearing something um different um so based how you're feeling one way or the other

27:05

is based on what not just who you're attracted to then so what gives someone

27:10

that idea just because i'm i'm born biologically and given this assigned this

27:16

yeah yeah so what besides other than my physical attractions to other people

27:22

what other signs would i look for um to say that that my assignment might be

27:27

not right inappropriately so so you're kind of talking and about two

27:32

different things oh okay so gender gender is more about like

27:38

gender does not include like sex it's not like who you

27:44

who you who you are attracted to it's how you see yourself in the world how you identify

27:51

um it informs yeah like male female trans non-binary

27:57

um bigender trigender you know demisex those sorts of things then when you get

28:03

into where sexuality is more about who you're attracted to so

28:09

gender might be more about you um whereas sexuality it sexuality is about you too

28:16

right um like you do have your own sexuality without having sex and there are folks who are asexual who

28:23

who do not you know have sex with other people or not drawn to have sex with other people and again there's lots of

28:29

variations of being asexual um but um

28:34

yeah so sexuality is also for you um but often times it it can involve other

28:40

people whereas gender is me a lot thank you because that helps me a lot no problem

28:47

the queue is often the cue can be referred to as i've heard it been questioning so it might be somebody

28:54

who's questioning um their gender or their um sexual orientation

29:01

um q is also sometimes queer um and so queer

29:06

queer for some people could be about their gender or their sexual orientation

29:12

or it could be a combination of um i identify as queer

29:18

um and some folks like queer is a very um

29:23

it's a very it can be a very kind of polarizing term you know queer is a slur

29:30

you know it is it is um you know it's it's uh

29:36

it's been a not kind way um to talk about gays and lesbians and

29:42

trans people in the past and so there's a very much older generation who

29:49

um do not identify with being called queer and would find it very offensive

29:55

and and kind of do our challenge with the fact that there are so many young kids like myself and

30:00

younger who love to identify as queer um so like for me i identify as queer and

30:07

to me my queerness is my sexual orientation meaning that it's not heterosexual

30:13

it's queer it's not heterosexual and it's not like yeah i'll just leave that it's not

30:19

heterosexual so it's queer but i also think my gender is not cis so it's queer i also think that

30:25

queer for me is the way that i see myself in the world and the way that the world

30:31

sees me so i seem odd or are just outside of the

30:37

norm of the world and that's where i believe god wants me to be and creates

30:43

me to be and i believe that's where god that's where god does the work with me

30:48

and does the work with i think healing world in the way that i'm brought to

30:53

be a part of you know like creating the kingdom of god on earth and so that's just like for me like so

31:01

queer is it's also my politics it's you know it's it's all those sorts of things for me it's all wrapped in but

31:07

you might just have like somebody who's a gay man who says i'm a gay man and so that makes me

31:12

queer and that's and that doesn't mean that i'm my politics you know i could it could be

31:18

like i'm queer that means i'm a gay man i happen to be republican and i blah

31:23

blah blah but the queerness is the fact that i i'm gay um for others it might be more than that

31:30

so again it's just kind of like that's one of the challenges i think about talking about some of this stuff

31:36

is that there's not there is some i guess simplicity behind it but like with

31:44

everything there's nuance right um and so one of the things that i encourage folks

31:51

to do it's like you can learn about the letters and i think it's important to to stay up on him because

31:57

i think we learn we've learned better about how to explain

32:03

um as as time has passed so you know like for instance i did a lot of talking

32:09

about lgbtqness before i saw myself as a trans person um

32:14

and now that i've been a tran living as a trans person i'm still kind of coming to understand some of

32:20

these things because i never had to really think about or i never would think about what it

32:25

meant to be trans when i was just a gay dude because of my own internalized

32:30

transphobia because as a person who grew who was assigned male at birth and grew up i was

32:38

attacked because of my femininity um and and

32:44

i thought it was because i was gay not because i was trans and maybe it was both because maybe i was just gay and

32:50

now i'm trans or maybe i've always been but those sorts of things can kind of um

32:56

i don't remember quite exactly why i was going with that but those those could come across as two

33:02

different things right so um it seemed more okay

33:07

to be gay than to be trans in my understanding and

33:13

i was still trying to figure out myself and i was confused and so i didn't want other people to be confused about

33:20

my confusion either if that makes i mean you you know what it's like to

33:25

to grow older and come to understand yourself differently and have one

33:31

identity and understanding of yourself and then life happens or you learn

33:36

something new and you're like oh wait that doesn't that doesn't fit anymore can you think of anything for you

33:42

that comes to mind that it's a similar experience when you hear that um

33:48

i i can't i've always i mean knowing who i am was always part of my

33:55

uh way to interact okay so i know and i've never questioned

34:01

my gender uh my biological male or female i've

34:07

never had i've never had a desire to question that so for me the only changes that i've

34:13

i've pursued or desired were spiritual changes where i can be closer to um

34:21

what i felt was my purpose and that and peace and so for me that's been a spiritual journey

34:27

not necessarily a physical journey of of my life does that make sense

34:33

i do um i understand what you're saying yes and i think that's important for

34:39

i think people when understanding when you are i think a lot of the times we are challenged to um

34:45

same our experience with folks who are different from us and i think it's really important for us to

34:52

i know a big part of my beginnings was to look for the sameness in someone and

34:59

i think the more i can see that we're different and we have different experiences

35:04

the better i am in in my understanding and being in relationship with uh with someone else

35:11

because um and so i think that's great that you're not like that you can see that these are i guess different sorts of

35:16

situations yeah well i don't i don't consider myself the same as anybody

35:22

just because i have the same anatomy um i'm very unique i'm very unique in the

35:27

way i think i'm very unique in how i live my life how i interact with people um but i've never had a moment where

35:34

i've questioned um and i've always i mean i've had moments where i haven't gotten along with people for sure or someone would

35:41

say something to me that would challenge the path that i chose for my um

35:47

for my life knowing that i was trying to move forward but um nothing that that i

35:53

couldn't actually just adjust or disassociate i've disassociated with

35:58

people in my life who have thought okay so you're not um you're trying to make me like you i

36:04

don't want to be like you in the spiritual sense or in the motivation sense

36:09

so anyway sorry i feel like i'm not making any sense at all no i get it and there i think there is some like physical

36:15

aspects and i think um i i what i would like to tell or what i

36:20

would like to also be able to say in this is that our experience with our bodies with our

36:26

physical with our gender with our sexuality with our sexual orientation like i that is

36:33

part of our spirituality as well like our spirit and our spirituality and god is a part of that and

36:39

i think oftentimes it's troubling or i've been challenged when when it's thought that

36:46

these things aren't related you know my understand like my transness and me

36:52

living into my trans identity is a direct result of me living a spiritual life

36:58

and my constant seeking in connection with you know with uh with a god with a

37:04

higher power with that you know you know what i mean like creator like though that sort of connection and

37:10

spiritual seeking has impacted my physical um body it's in fact it impacted my mind

37:18

it's impacted every like so many things about me and um i think it's so damaging

37:24

and that's why i like to do work as a queer chaplain is to like you know that is i lost when we identif when

37:32

our identity and identity changes when we see ourselves differently we die and

37:37

then we live again right that's a very biblical thing you have to die in order to whether you have to like it since

37:44

sin dying that we we receive her to eternal life is that right so it's like ending dying to self

37:51

that's right it's dying to self which is really around i think identities and beliefs when we come to see or

37:56

understand something different than our previous understanding that is a death

38:02

that can be a loss in our we can experience that as a loss but it's also a birth

38:07

and i think often times when that identity change or that death

38:13

um is labeled with gay lesbian bi transgender

38:19

um you know any of those sorts of things then somehow

38:24

we feel like that is not a spiritual experience it actually might even be an anti-spiritual

38:30

experience and for me i feel like that's where it becomes

38:36

harmful or can become harmful for people when it doesn't need to be when

38:41

um coming to understand yourself more and coming to understand how you are created and we're created to be like

38:49

that's a beautiful and amazing thing to happen and and that's a you know that's

38:54

a god thing that's that's you know that's how create i think create creation works and

39:00

and so it's just like i don't know i just feel like for so long we've been not allowed to to

39:06

identify as spiritual and all these sorts of things um and uh i think that's that's something

39:13

that's that's that's sad i'm seeing it happen less less and less but um

39:19

you know that when we feel like it separates us then it leaves big hole like for me

39:25

left a huge hole in my heart i lost community i lost a sense of myself and

39:31

that led to drug use and sexual assaults and violence and all these sorts of things

39:37

that kind of came my way because i you know i i think in a lot of ways i just wasn't

39:44

life happens sometimes but i do feel like you know it's a big part of that is that i felt like i was not

39:49

worthy of god anymore because of those things and that's just

39:55

a lie you're right that is a lie yeah and and and in that it built up all

40:02

the shame and the secrecy and then all this division and separation from

40:08

parts of myself and you and you know like literally you

40:14

um but also you know just like people out in the world and that and so um you're exactly right that's the power

40:20

that a lie can carry in our lives and so we want to try not to be liars or to live out the lie

40:27

um so yeah agreed so we are like you know we are running out

40:33

of time you still have letters left well i think i mean i think we have the i and

40:38

the a which are intersex and asexual i did i did bring those up a bit out of order

40:45

um one of the things that i do want to again disclaimer is like i am not the um representative or the speaker for

40:52

the lgbtqi a you know plus community um i um

40:59

i can only share my experience and my understanding of my experience and how that might relate to others so um

41:06

i there is so much i didn't say today and i don't want anyone to think that i

41:12

was attempting i didn't say enough about intersex i didn't say enough about asexuality i'm not i don't

41:19

i don't know a lot about that and i haven't spent a deep amount of time

41:24

coming to understand again i've googled it or i've learned about it a little bit but i don't feel like i'm

41:30

comfortable enough to speak about it on a public platform and i would just i just want to

41:35

encourage people to like you know google is free um and there are a lot of really

41:40

great resources out there if you're concerned about trusting the resource

41:46

um just look to see if it's created by the community who um

41:51

who who it's about you know make sure that it's queer stories and like that it's being written by

41:58

folks who are part of the community um a great way that i learn as well too is to watch

42:03

i like to watch things so there's like there's films you can watch there's youtube videos you can watch there's i

42:10

think it's it's been helpful for me too to even like watch movies about um about groups like i've learned a lot

42:17

about my transness and my queerness by watching movies um

42:22

uh about trans people and gay and lesbian people a person living with hiv

42:27

watching old hiv films have been really powerful and helpful for me too and understanding

42:33

more of myself and you know i've learned about other

42:39

other racial groups and other just people who are different from myself um in similar ways reading their

42:47

reading their biographies or um watching movies about them you know

42:52

those sorts of things and those folks who are doing that they're inviting you into that experience i know sometimes it

42:57

can feel a little like i don't know like like you're taking or

43:04

you're going into somebody else's space and i think that's something to be really mindful of

43:09

um and we'll talk a lot ab we'll talk about that next week we're going to talk about allyship

43:14

and how do we how do we um you know how can we be allies to

43:20

people who are different from us we'll talk specifically around lgbtq ia

43:25

plusness um but um we'll be talking about just allyship in general so we'd

43:30

love to hear from you if you have questions thoughts or comments about today's episode um as well as next week

43:36

um when we you know when we're back here did you have any like anything you'd

43:42

like to say before we go no no i appreciate you opening up and sharing with us and giving us a bit of a

43:49

foundation to start from um to gain some some more understanding so as we hear these terms hopefully

43:55

it'll help us um and and maybe help us to ask more questions because i'm a firm believer

44:01

that asking questions is the opportunity to learn and understand about the people that were around or the situations that

44:07

we face awesome great thanks so much and thanks everyone who joined us live as we said at the

44:13

beginning of the show um we are we are going to be live every thursday morning at 8 a.m in phoenix that's mountain time

44:21

right now 9 a.m in the pacific standard time 10 a.m in central

44:27

and 11 a.m and eastern if you're outside of any of those time zones i'm sorry you'll have to like kind of i'm

44:33

impressed you remembered all of those you'll have to kind of check it out i've i've gotten a lot better at least with

44:39

the four time zones in the us um with just all the traveling and that

44:45

that i'm doing i'm grateful i only have to worry about one oh right the one never turned in

44:51

that's right it never changes yes yes so um so also to learn more

44:56

about splintered grace and a queer chaplain you can check out the links in the description of the video or the or

45:02

the podcast that you're listening to queer chaplain is um you know uh i guess

45:08

it's a it's something that it's my ministry that i've been working on for a few years now and it left my work

45:16

18 months ago to really pursue and uh we have a queer chaplain does splintered grace podcast we also do a dragon

45:23

spirituality series where we interview drag queens and and drag kings and other

45:29

um artists and lace their narratives with a spiritual thread i do the same

45:34

series with trans individuals and talk about and help them lace their narrative with the spiritual thread we do groups

45:41

and workshops on lacing your narrative with the spiritual thread um and i'm working on a spiritual drag con and um

45:48

this stuff is beginning to happen and will continue to happen as i get your

45:54

support people's both support uh financially but also like in like sponsorships like i've had wonderful

46:00

people that have let me come stay with them and um introduced me to to folks to

46:06

interview and to collaborate with so we do have a patreon um that again the links are in the description and i can

46:12

go ahead and put it in the banner now um that you could um you know if you wanted

46:18

to try to support the work of splintered grace and a queer chaplain i would like to take a moment to thank

46:24

casey mark todd jonathan gabriel jeff jeffrey violet and joey who are or have

46:32

been um patreon members in the past um the patreon link is again in the description it's just

46:39

patreon.com forward slash bonnie violet and there you could sign up to contribute um monthly at like three

46:45

dollars or seven dollars or ten dollars or a hundred dollars you know whatever it

46:50

is that you feel like you um could contribute would be super super helpful in continuing uh not only this podcast

46:57

but some of the work that i guess spins from it

47:03

uh i think that's all i wanted to share today so we'll see you all next week

47:08

do you want to join me in saying goodbye tina bye everybody have a great week bye bye

47:15

splinter grace podcast is brought to you by a queer chaplain

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me