Soulforce

Sabotage Christian Supremacy

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Graduating with “no idea what I’m doing” was not an unfamiliar sentiment among many of my class peers and students about to burst from the bubble of their Christian university into “the real world”.

I remember realizing that for the first time in my life, I would no longer be bound to laws (social or institutional) of a Christian community. Needless to say my freshly liberated gay self had somewhat of an inflated perception of what entering the workforce as someone passionate about LGBTQ organizing but with little analysis beyond “Church bad, gay not-so-bad” would be like.

The first couple of weeks post-graduation consisted of firing off resumes to any Craigslist ad that had the words “entry level” and an unhealthy amount of late nights out. When my graduation money started to run out, my friends drove me three hours to Lead Field Organizer interview with a big name LGBT rights organization that stone-faced asked me if I had any experience beyond “t-shirt protests”. That interview lasted a total of ten minutes and needless to say they never called me back.

So I started (and swiftly ended) a photography business with my second cousin. I became a pseudo assistant for a professor from my alma mater until our relationship fell through when I found myself wrapped up, once again, with student protests on campus. I canvassed for three months with a bunch of strong willed and lovable environmentalists who taught me how to hear “no” over and over again.

And I guess it was that learned persistence that caught the attention of the owner of a restaurant who hired me to be an office assistant, then catering assistant, and now server at one of my favorite restaurants in LA.

And somewhere in the midst (or aftermath, more like) of all that Soulforce found me.

When Haven called me to ask if I wanted to temporarily move out of my new apartment to start the Los Angeles Equality Ride House with a complete stranger from Michigan I said, “Sure!”

Two and a half years later I’ve taken on some huge projects, met young folks from all over the country fighting the power, driving across five states lines within two weeks with the Beyond Equality Riders confronting religious schools with anti-LGBT policies, had the honor of meeting my Soulforce elders and breaking bread with the very people who created this legacy I now get to be a part of,

[Image – Equality Ride House group photo]

[Image – NCAA protest banner]

paid my respects to Pulse and been witness to moral arrest (experiencing how strenuous the process of bailing someone out of jail is!),  

[Image – Soulforce squad with paper birds]

and overall was induced into the beautiful queer world of organizers, activists, people of color from all walks of life who have forever changed how I view the world, and subsequently myself.

I was officially employed by Soulforce as our first National Campus Organizer in July 2015, and here I am again a little over two years later feeling just as lost as I was when I was twenty one.

Only now, I feel like I could burst at the idea of colonization and Christian supremacy and religious liberty and the ways racism is embedded in evangelicalism, the co-opting of religion by power, and what it means to reclaim spirit and possess moral courage. And that’s just scratching the surface of how Soulforce has forever affected my brain.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged, supported, and challenged me along the way. I cannot give express enough gratitude for the love and windows of opportunity for growth you’ve opened for me.

And I’m so looking forward to re-entering a new chapter of my life with these tools on my belt, the spirit of Soulforce in my heart, and of course my brilliant queer friends by my side.

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Jordyn Sun is our National Campus Organizer, who is departing from her formal role at Soulforce after nearly three years of forging the vision and heart of all our Youth work. Jordyn will continue to live in the Los Angeles area and carry out the work of soulful activism for our collective liberation wherever she goes. We, the Soulforce community, thank Jordyn for the gifts of her brilliant commitment and discipline, endless enthusiasm, deep magic, and vibrant authenticity. We love you Jordyn!

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As a gender nonconforming queer person from a military family, this has been a rough week for my people.

I have deep political and spiritual convictions that call me, personally, to demand an end to our military industrial complex. That conversation is deeply nuanced and complicated for me. And, at the same time, the rumors this week of a ban on trans people joining the military has also taken me way back to my childhood, being raised slightly-off base in a military town.

Growing up, I learned some basic lessons in kindergarten with the other Army/Navy kids. Lessons like: It is never acceptable to tell someone they don’t belong, or hurt them, just because they are different than you. If someone else is being bullied, you stand up for them. Everyone you meet is someone’s child, partner, parent, friend, or sibling.

Our Trans family has experienced some deep hurt this past week:

Why is this kind of onslaught of hate ever acceptable in a society that prides itself on its diversity and tolerance? Why would people treat each other in ways most kindergarteners would find reprehensible?

The only way to make violence against our communities – physical, emotional, economic, and spiritual violence – “acceptable” is to make us unacceptable through painting us as deviant, immoral, and dangerous.

Because Christian Supremacist logic is based on extreme binaries (everything is black or white, good or evil, right or wrong, etc) and the idea that order (rather than chaos) is the ultimate sign of goodness and godliness. Anything that falls outside precisely “male” and “female” is considered morally reprehensible.

Ideals of what is called “Biblical manhood and womanhood” aggressively organizes all humans into two very small boxes that reinforce patriarchy and heterosexism. Everything else is an “indoctrination by liberal politics” or a “distortion of God’s intentions” (Focus on the Family, 2017).

That is the kind of spiritual violence that makes it socially acceptable to joke about the murder of Trans Women on national radio, or to nonchalantly tweet out the ban of a whole group of people from an arm of the government.

At Soulforce, we’ve just finished our first-ever session Vacation Bible School, created for LGBTQI Youth to unpack the messages we receive about ourselves and reclaim our spirits in an online learning community. 

In our four-week course, two sessions of 19 LGBTQI people studied the wild and wonderful diversity of creatures who defy the gender binary that we as humans have assigned to them, and paired those lessons with Bible stories that give us a queerer perspective on scripture.

Spending time with other Trans and Gender Nonconforming folks, cherishing stories like that of male seahorses who give birth to their young, or the queer reading of Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors, changed my understanding of what is truly natural, sacred, and possible for me and my people.

And it reminded me that we have to seek out, with our full spirits, the things that give us life as LGBTQI people, because we will be otherwise pummeled by the vitriolic messages coming at us from the Right Wing.

Now, many political analysts have tried to assure us that 45’s tweets are just political grandstanding, and that Texas’s SB3 will never make it past the Senate. Regardless, these events show that there is a status quo in place that accepts this kind of discrimination as par for the course. 

Dehumanizing Trans and Gender Nonconforming people like me is incredibly dangerous, because it re-affirms that our bodies and our communities are unnatural, scary, burdensome, inappropriate, invalid, and ultimately less than fully human and fully sacred.

This blatant violence against our most vulnerable communities is what comes when discrimination is just allowed to BE. We will not sit idly by when a barrage of hate visits itself on our people.

This is exactly the right time to be in solidarity with each other. For us to show up and say NO to spiritual and physical violence. And if it doesn’t come from our leaders, our politicians, or our media, our then it has to come from the ground up – from all of us.

Some of the things we in Soulforce are doing this summer to resist violence are:

  • Convening our online Vacation Bible School through the month of July for LGBTQI Youth to learn about trans-affirming theologies and join together in spiritual community
  • Developing a trans theological resource to combat Right Wing theologies by equipping all of us with the tools we need to defang scripture used against Trans and Gender Nonconforming people
  • Unpacking political and spiritual violence with Trans and Gender Nonconforming faith leaders at the Trans Faith and Action Network retreat in Asheville, NC, August 18-20. (Want to join us? Let me know you’ll be coming!) 

Thank you, always, Soulforce family, for joining us in political and spiritual resistance.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dallas, TX, April 3, 2017 – Activists from Soulforce — which works for the liberation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) students on Christian campuses among other programs — were detained by police and security and threatened with criminal trespassing despite never receiving a trespass warning and having tickets to the Final Four championship game on Sunday.

Soulforce activists were stopped before entering the arena and questioned by security and police for several minutes. They were eventually allowed to take their seats but were followed by security every time a member went to the restroom or concession stand. Soulforce unfurled a banner, during halftime to respect the players, that urged NCAA to stand in solidarity with LGBTQI people on religious campuses. The banner was snatched by security and Soulforce was then detained again.

WATCH VIDEO of the ACTION

“The NCAA still has 30 schools that actively sought the right to discriminate against women, trans, and queer people on their campuses,” said Yaz Mendez Nuñez, Soulforce Programs Director. “Those schools are not in line with NCAA values and they are not safe places to host NCAA games.”

At least 30 members schools of the NCAA have applied for Title IX exemptions for a range of gender justice issues, like being pregnant or transgender. The Trump administration has now offered a blanket waiver to all religious schools. That waiver grants the schools the legal freedom to discipline, expel, or fire people who break the religiously motivated rules. Unlike the response to HB2, NCAA has remained virtually silent as 30 member schools have guidelines that goes against the NCAA’s nondiscrimination policies.

The current question put to the NCAA in North Carolina is whether the organization will allow championship games to return to the state, but the debate does not address the issue of member schools that have anti-LGBTQI policies and would still be able to host games under the current rules.

“The experience was intense. While we were questioned the first time, arena officials alluded to potential violence saying that ‘these are Texas fans and you don’t know what they’ll do if you disrupt their game,’” Haven Herrin, Director of Soulforce and one of the three individuals detained by NCAA. “The surveillance and escorting of our people, many of which are trans and/or non binary, to the restroom is not the type of response we expect from an organization claiming allyship to LGBTQI community.”

After 15 minutes, Soulforce was eventually released without charges pressed. Soulforce demands the NCAA follows through with their commitment to inclusivity and nondiscrimination and urge the 30 member schools to #GiveBackIX.

About Soulforce:

Soulforce’s purpose is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance. For more information, go to Soulforce.org.

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Until about ten years ago, I perpetuated hate–specifically especially homophobia and transphobia–in the name of what I understood to be compassion. I used to espouse a version of love that could  “love the sinner, not the sin”- I understood queerness and transness not as identities but as addictions to be overcome. I used to believe that who we are in our genders and orientations could not possibly be a source of pride, let alone a source of joy + love + fulfillment, and the latter collection of things is what I deeply wanted/want for everyone in the world!

There was a very real transformation that happened within myself, one that was the fruit of a very real compassion in me that I believe exists in others, too. That compassion and welcoming were always there, it was just that I once had a more limited understanding of how to channel them and a much much much more limited understanding of how aspects of my faith were tied to ideologies and structures that perpetuate systemic oppression.

A few years ago, after I came out to someone from my family of origin who loves me a lot, she said, “You know, I just really hoped that things would be… simpler for you. There’s a certain way that God wants family and gender to work that really works for me and makes a lot of people I know very happy, and because I love you so much, I want that for you more than anything.” The message that has been echoed to me a lot is: any version of romantic/sexual love that goes beyond one cis man and one cis woman for life, any identity that veers from expected gender norms or family shapes, any of this doesn’t make someone unwelcome at church or unworthy of God’s love, but it does mean they are “well… … …just not God’s ideal”.

I heard her telling me her truth from her experience, and I also appreciate that she was open to hearing me when I said that her version of “simple” simply wasn’t simple or obvious for so many, including me. I shared that for myself, for many many folks I know personally, and for many many many folks beyond that, her version of a God-ordained “ideal” that was “simpler” perpetuates an ingrained sense of fundamental unworthiness and missing the mark. It perpetuates a deep fear, hatred, and erasure of LGBTQI folks. I expressed that to her that she may not mean badly by holding those beliefs, but that those beliefs are tied to the condoning and perpetuation of very real violence.

It’s no secret that in the States, over a quarter of trans kids attempt suicide, more than 40% of homeless teens are LGBTQ (all of these statistics are far far heavier for folks who are not White), violence against trans women (especially transwomen of color) is through the roof, and you all know the dire statistics around so-called conversion therapy and so on and so on and heartbreakingly so on.

Which brings me to:

The National Religious Broadcasters Network the loudest mouthpiece globally for the U.S. Christian Right Wing’s anti-LGBTQI, anti-Muslim, and anti-Woman rhetoric. Their shows are broadcast to over 25 million homes per day.

This 73-year-old organization released an updated statement of faith last year, the majority of which is dedicated to their positions on mandating the “simpler” versions of what they believe is capital-“R”-Right about our bodies and our love and our desire.

Furthermore, they state that the Board of Directors of the NRB are the capital-“A”-Authority in terms of interpretation around those things.

These beliefs and statements are NOT harmless. Believing that core aspects of someone’s identity are “just not God’s ideal” opens the door wide to looking the other way when kids bully other kids for not fitting into that “simpler” frame, and to actively fighting (or just as bad, trying to be “neutral” on this violent moving train) against rights/protections around basic human needs like housing and healthcare, etc, etc, etc. The violence goes far beyond queer and trans folks too!!! To quote Soulforce: “[The NRB] spreads pervasive messaging which denies the humanity and divinity of our queer, trans, intersex, immigrant, Muslim, Black, and otherwise marginalized families.”

I’m focusing on queer and trans folks here because that is the arena in which I, personally, have done the biggest 180. And since I underwent such a big shift, I have to believe that, within and/or outside of any faith tradition, that kind of expansion is possible for others, too. I was liberated by this, and now I am continually gradually liberated by the ways society is opening to be able to hold more of me and more of us.

Something I dig about Jesus, in my own understanding of him, is that if he existed, he embodied radical compassion and “radical wonder and radical welcoming” (which is a phrase by badass trans thought leader Kate Bornstein).

Looking at the world right now, I am aware of how very far there is to go in terms of compassion and wonder and welcoming. I am often terrified and overwhelmed. I don’t have many answers or the right ways to say things, and I have so very much growing and learning to do, in all the ways.

But I am committed. I am committed to the work of transformation and radical compassion, wonder, and welcome.

Queer and trans kids, queer and trans adults, queer and trans elders, I see you, I love you, I will relentlessly keep on fighting for your rights and for a culture that radically welcomes all of who you are, and I will proclaim your humanity and divinity and worthiness and gorgeousness – during our time in Orlando, with Soulforce and beyond.

If you want, you can read more about the defiantly prayerful vigil we have held for all 86 hours of the National Religious Broadcasters conference in Orlando – around a Living Altar of Resistance that remembers our dead and fights like hell for the living – for all who are targeted by Christian Right communications. And for those who do not already know about the great work Soulforce is doing in general, check us out and sign up for the mailing list!

#KeepPulseAlive #Soulforce #StopKillingUs

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ORION JOHNSTONE ​is a queer, non-binary, human/composer/organizer with a ferocious commitment to our collective liberation.  Learn more at www.orionjohnstone.com.

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“The NCAA must divest from all religious discrimination.”

Dallas, TX, April 2, 2017 – Social justice organization Soulforce, which works for the liberation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) people, brings their rainbow-full campaign Give Back IX to the women’s Final Four championship game this evening at the American Airlines Center.

At least 30 members schools of the NCAA have applied for Title IX exemptions for a range of gender justice issues, like being pregnant or transgender. These waivers grant the schools the legal freedom to discipline, expel, or fire people who break the religiously motivated rules.

“That the NCAA has member universities that discriminate against their own students is exactly why it finds itself ensnared in legal battles like the repeal of HB2 in North Carolina,” says Soulforce Director Haven Herrin whose hometown is Dallas.

The group has been campaigning at NCAA games for over a year now, using t-shirts, banners, tailgating, and fan engagement to encourage the NCAA to continue to use its powerful position to advocate for LGBTQI rights.

It remains to be seen how the NCAA will respond to the contentious repeal of HB2 in North Carolina which, among other things, barred transgender people from using the restroom that best aligns with their identity. The NCAA’s threat to keep championship games out of the state for the next several years was a strong catalyst for the revision of HB2.

The Soulforce activists will be at the women’s basketball final game of the Final Four championship which starts at 5pm.

“Sports is a place that gives architecture to gender and then puts a whole lot to money behind those ideas. It is critical that the NCAA have our backs and show what solidarity looks like,” says D.J. Hudson, Soulforce’s Nonviolence and Direct Action Consultant.

The group will be in the stands at the game, ready to cheer on the teams and celebrate LGBTQI athletes. Previous actions have resulted in security taking away the group’s banners or removal.

About Soulforce:

Soulforce’s purpose is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance. For more information, go to Soulforce.org.

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Orlando, FL, February 28, 2017 – Members of Soulforce, a social justice organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) people by challenging the Religious Right, was arrested last night in an act of civil and spiritual disobedience at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Proclaim conference.

The NRB conference brings together several thousand Christian communicators and the businesses, like Facebook, that cater to them to discuss messaging strategies, media deregulation, and “religious liberty.”

The latter is a catch-all phrase for the anti-LGBTQI, Islamophobic, and anti-Woman rhetoric that the organization and its members espouse in countries around the world.

The police presence was intense throughout the day on Monday; security personnel and police worked together to track the Soulforce members as they simply walked from one part of the hotel to the other. A room change from a higher floor to a lower floor had to be approved by the manager.

Soulforce was processing peacefully outward from the hotel to public property around sunset while singing when a dozen police and security personnel descended upon them and formally declared them “trespassers.”

 D.J. and Alba refused to be processed to the trespassing notice behind closed doors.

The group was then escorted back inside the convention center to be photographed, so they raised the urgency and volume of their protest. Their singing grew louder, echoing in the rotunda, and they unfurled their banner reading “#KeepPulseAlive” for all guests and attendees to see.

“We came in singing, bearing our message and our cross with just a few of the hundreds of doves our members have decorated and sent us to be a part of our witness. The police actually brought us into greater tension with the attendees of the conference,” said D. J. Hudson, Soulforce’s Nonviolence and Direct Action consultant and one of two arrested this evening.

Supporters stopped to share their support and their grief at the NRB’s presence in Orlando with the activists.

Soulforce holds that the NRB creates the environment where physical violence can fester, including the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando. NRB’s code of ethics and statement of faith focus primarily on, and are hostile towards, homosexuality, transgender people, and sex.

While most of the protestors were escorted off site by police, two remained, Rev. Alba Onofrio and D.J. Hudson. They held onto a cross covered in doves and chanted, “No justice! No peace!” as police placed them in handcuffs.

“I am called to honor the death of our ancestors and fight like hell for the living. The NRB offers a death-dealing theology that is at the very foundation of white supremacy, Islamophobia, and patriarchy. It is my Christian duty to fight evil and expose false prophets,” said Rev. Alba Onofrio of Soulforce.

The group had many more strategies for getting their message out for the rest of the week, strategies they will now adapt for implementation after being banned from the World Center Marriott.

More information about the campaign can be found at: www.soulforce.org/keeppulsealive and #KeepPulseAlive.

For any questions or more information, please contact Soulforce at haven@soulforce.org.

About Soulforce

Soulforce’s purpose is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from religious and political oppression through spiritual healing, radical political analysis, and strategic direct action. For more information, go to Soulforce.org.