“What is faith, if not an acceptance that there are things out there that cannot be explained?You know what you know, because you’ve never lived a life without that truth. That you are different, that your gender did not compute with that label assigned at birth. It does not matter how large a percentage of the general population is perfectly fine with their identity. That does not change you, how you responded to the mechanisms that made you who you are.”

“When we look at stories of renaming in the Bible, we often find that a character is handed a new name they never asked for. While I’m sure Abraham treasured the new name and promise God gave him, and while Peter probably felt honored in the moment Jesus proclaimed him the bedrock of the church, not everybody comes by their new name so easily. Some people have to fight for it.”

“It might seem daunting to a congregation to have to learn about pronouns, or to designate a bathroom gender-neutral, or to have difficult conversations about what it means to affirm LGBTQ+ identities. But transgender people are not a burden for Christianity, or for the church. They come bearing gifts!”

“What God was giving the eunuchs, through Isaiah’s proclamation, was not just a place in society, and not just hope for a future. By giving the eunuchs the same kinds of gifts given to Abraham and Sarah–a name, legacy, family, acceptance, and blessing–God was consciously associating the two stories in the minds of the people. God was giving the eunuchs a story to connect to–a story that set a president, grounded in divine grace. That was the story I needed to hear. I needed to know that my problems were like the eunuch’s problems, which were like Abraham and Sarah’s problems, and that all of these complications were overcome by God’s great love.”

“God’s palette of shifting hues is vast, subtle, and beyond our comprehension. We humans are like those colors. Subtle, shifting, unique. Non-binary. Unable to be labeled or singled out. Beautiful and one-of-a-kind, and seen by God’s eyes alone.”