80 episodes

Join seminary graduate Avery Arden as they converse with transgender persons of various religions about their experiences with faith and gender. Discover the wonderful diversity of gifts and wisdom that trans people offer their communities.

Find episode transcripts at blessedarethebinarybreakers.com/podcast

Blessed Are the Binary Breakers Avery Arden

    • Religion & Spirituality
    • 5.0 • 13 Ratings

Join seminary graduate Avery Arden as they converse with transgender persons of various religions about their experiences with faith and gender. Discover the wonderful diversity of gifts and wisdom that trans people offer their communities.

Find episode transcripts at blessedarethebinarybreakers.com/podcast

    Ash Wednesday, Saint Valentine & Amatonormativity, Isaiah 6

    Ash Wednesday, Saint Valentine & Amatonormativity, Isaiah 6

    Listen or read along in the episode transcript for two reflections kicking off the Lenten season:

    Ash Wednesday coincides with Valentine's Day this year — what can Ash Wednesday + the story of Saint Valentine teach us about facing our own mortality and resisting the pressure to put romantic love on a pedestal?

    Next, let's connect the glowing coal touched to the prophet's lips in Isaiah 6 to the ashes we wear on our foreheads today. Why are physical signs of spiritual truths important? How does acknowledging our limitations open us to divine blessing?

    Announcement: The Blessed Are the Binary Breakers podcast will likely be updating more sporadically this year! To keep up with all that I'm up to, visit linktr.ee/queerlychristian. Interested in hiring me to workshop with your faith community? Learn more here.

    Talking Points:


    (0:00) Housekeeping — my plans for 2024
    (2:51) Connecting Ash Wednesday and the legend of Saint Valentine of Rome
    (4:30) Resisting amatonormativity on Valentine's Day and throughout Lent
    (6:50 - end) Connecting Isaiah 6's glowing coal to Ash Wednesday

    Resources:


    Sign up for Daily Ripple⁠!
    Resources to learn about Palestine and ways to get active
    Learn more about amatonormativity and how it's harmful
    QSpirit's article reading Saint Valentine's story through a queer lens

    ___

    This show's theme song is "Aetherium" by Leah Horn. This episode also makes use of "His Last Share of the Stars" and "Reality Cartwheeled" by Doctor Turtle.

    Find more episodes & resources at blessedarethebinarybreakers.com.

    • 11 min
    Poems for Palestine — Christmas joy must birth solidarity

    Poems for Palestine — Christmas joy must birth solidarity

    Listen to — or read along in the episode transcript — Jewish, Christian, and Muslim poems by Palestinians and their supporters. Poetry empowers us to imagine liberation that we can then work towards, together.

    Some pieces explore the Nativity story through this lens: Christmas joy must break bread with pain, birthing solidarity with all oppressed peoples.

    Talking Points:


    (0:00) Ross Gay on mixing pain and joy to birth solidarity; poetry as resistance
    (7:11) Aurora Levins Morales on the history of antisemitism + envisioning solidarity & interdependence in “Red Sea”
    (12:30) Najah Hussein Musa dispelling anti-Palestinian myths in “Bethlehem”
    (14:42) Avery Arden — “Christ is Barred from Bethlehem” 
    (17:48) Basman Derawi — memorializing a fun-loving friend killed in an airstrike in ”His Name Was Essa”
    (19:52) Hiba Abu Nada, killed in an airstrike, longs for safety in “I Grant You Refuge”
    (23:30) Rev. Munther Isaac & Avery Arden — Christ born into rubble
    (28:10) Refaat Alareer & Ibtisam Barakat — poetry helps us imagine the liberation we can then fight for
    (33:36) Avery Arden & Ainsley Herrick — “O Come O Come Emmanuel” rewritten for Palestine’s plight

    Visit the episode transcript for all links to the various poems; here are some key resources:


    Rev. Munther Isaac's sermon "God Is under the Rubble in Gaza"
    Aurora Levins Morales' article "Latin@s, Israel and Palestine: Understanding Antisemitism"
    Fady Joudah's article "A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation"
    The "We Are Not Numbers" project
    Refaat Alareer's lecture on poetry
    For shareable versions of my poems / song, visit binarybreakingworship.com.

    This show's theme song is "Aetherium" by Leah Horn.

    Find more episodes & resources at blessedarethebinarybreakers.com.

    • 35 min
    Emma Cieslik's Queer and Catholic Oral History Project

    Emma Cieslik's Queer and Catholic Oral History Project

    I sit down with public historian Emma Cieslik (she/her) to hear all about her Queer and Catholic Oral History Project, supported by the Pacific School of Religion.

    For Emma, the word catholic is truly "universal" — she's interviewed Roman Catholics and folk Catholics, ex-Catholics and "it's complicated" Catholics, queer religious and lay folk. In documenting these diverse perspectives, Emma is preserving the beautiful breadth of queer Catholic stories and gifts so that no one can claim they don't exist.

    ⁠Click here to view the project's webpage⁠. For links to other articles and projects Emma mentions in her interview, as well as for resources on current events in Palestine, visit the episode transcript.

    Find Emma on Twitter or Instagram @eocieslik. Reach out to her at eocieslik@gmail.com or queerandcatholicoralhistory@gmail.com.

    ___

    Talking Points:


    (0:00) Opening remarks
    (2:27) Emma's background: Raised Catholic with Purity Movement influence; museum studies focused on accessibility and storytelling
    (7:44) The draw to oral history — prioritizes telling marginalized people’s stories in their own words
    (11:04) Support from Bernard Schlager and the Pacific School of Religion; interviewing ex Catholics, a seminarian and a trans priest, members of various ethnic Catholic churches…
    (27:22) Outreach Conference panel: highlighting the unique experiences of queer Catholic women
    (29:30) More on emphasizing the many ways one can be Catholic; Catholic influences in mainstream culture
    (35:15) Appropriation vs. appreciation vs. reclaiming Catholic imagery & traditions
    (42:52) Queer Catholics drawn to Santa Muerte — knowing what it’s like to live with death
    (51:25) Wrapping up

    __

    This show's theme song is "Aetherium" by Leah Horn.

    Find more episodes & resources at blessedarethebinarybreakers.com.

    • 53 min
    From rejection to radical welcome: Isaiah 56 through a trans lens

    From rejection to radical welcome: Isaiah 56 through a trans lens

    Isaiah 56:1-8 shares God's message of not only tolerance but radical welcome for the ultimate Others of the biblical world: eunuchs. How did Isaiah 56's author come to understand Divine affirmation for this denigrated group, when Deuteronomy 23's author had offered only rejection? And why does this scripture resonate deeply with many transgender persons of faith today?

    Click here for an episode transcript.

    For my Isaiah 56 translations notes, click here.

    For other thoughts and resources on Isaiah 56 and biblical eunuchs, scroll down to "Better Than Sons or Daughters" on this webpage.

    Talking Points:


    (0:00) Message from a listener — Rowan brings news of London Pride, finds blessing in their daily work
    (4:28) Introducing my sermon on Isaiah 56:3-8; reading the scripture passage
    (7:30) My personal story — realizing my church's promise of unconditional welcome was conditional, after all; finding solace in God's good news for eunuchs and foreigners in Isaiah 56
    (11:53) Eunuchs as the "Ultimate Other"; differences from and resonances with today's transgender community
    (16:28) Historical context — how Judah's traumatic exile moved rejection of eunuchs from the political to the personal
    (19:55 to end) The challenge to faith communities today — to live into Isaiah 56's radical welcome, we must ensure trans folk are not merely tolerated, but fully belong

    ____

    This show's theme song is "Aetherium" by Leah Horn.

    This episode also makes use of "Green-Fields" and "Arrival" by Scott Holmes via Free Creative Commons (CC-A-NC) License. Find the songs at scottholmesmusic.com.

    • 26 min
    Embodying Authenticity with Jayne X Praxis: Sex, Sigils, & Sacred Clowning

    Embodying Authenticity with Jayne X Praxis: Sex, Sigils, & Sacred Clowning

    Jayne X Praxis (she/they) is many things — she’s Buddhist and a tantric witch; she’s an ordained minister and a Satanist; she’s a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence and a licensed therapist — but above all, Jayne is forever becoming more and more their authentic self, and they invite you to do the same through curiosity, humor, and embodied self-exploration.

    Content Warning: swearing and sex talk; religious trauma; mentions of childhood sexual trauma.

    Click here for the episode transcript.

    Talking Points:


    (0:00) Introducing Jayne
    (2:05) Growing up with a conservative minister father, anti-sex views; coming out as bisexual in college and engaging in gender-f*****y
    (6:30) Adding Jayne to their name, rolling it back after getting married, returning to gender f*****y and embracing nonbinary identity after
    divorce
    (12:49) Exploring spirituality: DnD; Wicca and paganism; ordination in the Universal Life Church; Shambhala Buddhism and embodiment
    (22:43) Tantric practices help Jayne recover her body, discover the connections between sexuality and gender
    (26:06) Resisting imposter syndrome to find political and spiritual meaning as a witch; discovering the magic in simply living as trans
    (34:22) The power in naming, sigils, storytelling; sex as spiritual; unlearning sexual shame
    (43:03) Satanism and Lucifer as queer rebel; shock can wake people up!
    (47:17) Sacred clowning: get people thinking by making them laugh; joining the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to spread joy and challenge guilt
    (1:06:00) Wrapping up: embrace authenticity and ask lots of questions

    ___

    Visit Jayne's blog: https://paregoric.wordpress.com/

    Jayne's Resource Recs:


    Becoming Dangerous: Witchy Femmes, Queer Conjurers, and Magical Rebels by Katie West and Jasmine Elliott (find⁠ here⁠)
    Witches, Sl-ts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive by Kristen J. Sollee (find ⁠here⁠)
    Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa (find ⁠here⁠)

    __

    This show's theme song is "Aetherium" by Leah Horn. This episode also makes use of "Know No No-Nos" by Doctor Turtle

    • 1 hr 9 min
    Our Pride is Not a Sin — A Queer & Disabled Christian Lens

    Our Pride is Not a Sin — A Queer & Disabled Christian Lens

    June was Queer Pride Month, July is Disability Pride Month, and that means it's the prime time of year for certain people to remind us that "pride is a sin, didn't you know?" So I called up my dear friend Laura, a fellow disabled trans Christian, to discuss how the kind of pride that marginalized communities use as an antidote to shame is not sinful, but indeed essential in our pursuit of justice and abundant life for all!

    Listen as Laura and I — interspersed with excerpts from Eli Clare's 1999 text Exile and Pride — contrast marginalized pride with nationalist, supremacist pride; explain why "awareness" and "acceptance" aren't enough; and emphasize the need to join pride with witness.

    Click here for an episode transcript.

    Hear more from Laura on their podcast, the Autistic Liberation Theology Podcast. Click here for their website of essays and biblical Playmobil art.

    Talking Points:

    (0:00) Intro to the topic, Laura, and Eli Clare's book

    (4:37) Disabled & queer pride as an antidote to internalized ableism

    (12:40) Why awareness & acceptance aren't enough

    (17:48) Pride in the essential gifts we bring

    (23:47) Pride as sin — opposite of humility vs. opposite of shame; "the last will be first"

    (34:50) We need to join pride with witness, remember our history and those we've lost

    (44:45) A Christianity we can be proud of? Reclaiming the cross; Autistic Jesus

    (52:00) Wrapping up — a final excerpt from Eli Clare

    ___

    This show's theme song is "Aetherium" by Leah Horn. This episode also makes use of "His Last Share of the Stars" and "I Snost, I Lost" by Doctor Turtle.

    • 55 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
13 Ratings

13 Ratings

Ziel Starfallen ,

Phenomenal Hope for trans people of faith

This podcast is a Godsend. Faith can be such a mixed bag for queer people, especially trans people. Even if we are blessed enough to be accepted, very rarely are we the focus of the messages and theology. This podcast is full of bold and beautiful queer people with wonderful insight on their religions and faith journeys. I would highly recommend it to any queer person of faith.

cheesecake-factory ,

Insightful & wonderful

This podcast is super interesting and so important. Thanks Avery and to every interviewee for sharing!

NEONGLF ,

Let Avery open your Mind, Heart & Soul

Let Avery Smith open your mind, heart and soul to their world. Enjoyable to hear their stories and look forward to more.

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