May 15, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode of Prideful Connections, we sit down with Rev. A. Reilly Paige (they/them), a minister dedicated to creating spaces where everyone—especially LGBTQ+ individuals—can encounter the Divine without fear or judgment. Growing up in a conservative church in the Midwest, Reilly has made it their mission to be the pastor they once needed. Now serving as Associate Minister at First Congregational Church in Guilford, they are passionate about full inclusion, radical love, and the power of community. Join us as we talk about faith, authenticity, and what it means to truly belong.
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Welcome to Prideful Connections, wherewe have conversations without judgment.
Today, I am proudand honored to have Riley with us.
And, just to give you a little bitof a background of for Riley and I,
(00:53):
I, maybe about a almost a year ago
was struggling with my faithand the church that I go to.
And I had gone into Riley's church
and realizedthat that was definitely the place for me.
And then Riley and I had coffee.
Do you remember that? Yeah.
And that's how I got to know you. Yeah.
(01:14):
So welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.Glad to be. Here.
And I'm Tony is going to be good today.
Right, Tony? No.
Yeah, that was Riley. Now welcome.
Thank you. Super happy to see you.
So to the degree that you're comfortable.
Yeah.
Would you like to tell us a bit
about your journey, about your story,about how you felt, how you discovered
(01:36):
that you maybe a little unsureor uncomfortable?
Yeah. Yeah.
So it's it's a really strangesort of story.
At least I think it's strange.It might be totally normal.
It's not like,you know, we bring this up at, you know,
cocktail parties and, like, how did youhow did you figure out that you're queer?
Althoughsometimes that does happen, but,
(01:58):
so I grew up in the Midwest,in southwest Michigan,
and in, in the 80s and 90s,
and I was always a tomboy.
I, I have an older brother,but we weren't particularly close.
And as I grew up,
I felt like I was really badat being a girl.
(02:21):
Like, there were things about being a girlthat I just didn't identify with.
Particularly, like makeup fashion.
Some of that was being in a bigger body,but some of that was just being clueless.
And a really formative memorythat I have is I was at a sleepover
(02:41):
and we were watching Never Been Kissed.
And there's this big scene at the endwhere Drew Barrymore
and the guy, the male love interest,like, run onto the baseball
field and like, they have this, like,climactic kiss at the end of the movie.
And my friends kept, like, rewindingthat scene and watching it and swooning.
(03:03):
And I was sitting there going, what?
The actual I what arewhat is what is fun about this?
And, and
growing up where and when I grew up,
I was definitely,
a James Dobson raised kid.
Focus on the family.
I don't know, can I say those names?
(03:25):
On the page, say whatever you want.
Okay.
And that particularbrand of conservativism,
really reinforced,
traditional stereotypical gender roles.
And, was very skeptical of homosexuality
(03:48):
and, really demonized and villainized.
You know, you struggledwith your sexuality.
You didn't you didn't like. You weren't.
There was no such thingas, like, having pride.
And I didn't know anyone who was queeruntil I was in high school.
And one of my brother'sbest friends, came out,
(04:10):
and she stood up on their wedding,and she was sort of the first
gay, lesbian person that my family knew.
And so I paid really close attentionto how my parents talked about her.
And so when I came out,
when I was in my late 20s,I was about to be ordained
into the ministry,and I wanted to give my parents,
(04:34):
their full
like I wantedto give them informed consent,
whether or not they were going to supporttheir queer minister kid.
And so I wrote them a
letter because I'm chicken.
And, I try folded the letterand put a sticky note,
(04:54):
on the outside of the trifoldthat said, you
might want to sit down for this, like,ever that dramatic, right?
And, so rightly.
Yeah.
And, you know, when my mom called me,she's like, we thought you had cancer.
Like, but
it's actually probably very smartthat you did it that way.
Yeah.
And she's like, you know, some of thepuzzle pieces are falling together for me.
(05:19):
And I showed your dad and he said,
you know, doesn't make a whole lotof a difference to him.
And I had no idea howthey were going to react in my.
And I had talked to my cousin andmy brother about coming out ahead of time.
And their advice was,make sure you're financially independent
because we had no idea.
Not a bad piece of advice.
(05:40):
Yeah, yeah. But I was ordained.
I remember having conversations
with the leader of my local churchgroup and saying,
you know, we need to problem solvebecause I'm gay and this denomination
is really struggling with whether or notto include queer folks.
(06:01):
And there's and they're stillat this point, struggling with that.
And her immediate reaction was,are you sure you don't want to go
join a different churchthat's already had this figured out?
And I think that came from a placeof wanting to keep me safe.
But it also told me like,oh, you're not going to fight for me.
And so I was I eventually shifted
(06:21):
denominationsinto the United Church of Christ, who has
had a
placeset on the table for me for a long time.
And this is not new to them.
So when I, I was in my second ministry
setting in upstate New York, out
(06:42):
married to a woman.
Really, supported me.
Riley is, my last name
when I was born,and so I was going by Riley.
Like, one name, like Cher or Madonna.
Like, people just forgot what my firstname was, which is was delightful.
(07:05):
Went through a divorce.
The church was great through my divorce.
Little old churchladies threw me a divorce shower. Wow.
Because I had, like, lost all of my linensand all of my kitchenware.
And the divorce.
And so I got, like, towels and potsand pans from little church.
Like,they had me register like it was the best.
That's awesome.
It was so. Hard. That was. So sweet.
(07:27):
And, got remarried
and I.
I lost that job.
And that's that's a whole sort oftraumatic story that's unrelated to this.
But in that job I had identified
as trans or part of the trans communityfrom the pulpit.
And then two weeks later, I lost that job.
(07:48):
And those two things are not related.
I did not lose that jobbecause I identified as non-binary trans.
But in my mind,those two things are connected.
Right.
And as I started to understand my genderand move away from the name
I was born with and, and getting marriedgave me a last name.
(08:09):
So I stopped being share and,you know, Riley.
And then taking my wife's name, Paige,
really helped, but, I,
I was in seminary, and so this was,
I don't know, eight years
before I started identifyingas trans publicly.
(08:33):
I was in seminary,and one of my, colleagues was doing
their master's thesis on non-binaryliberation theology
or gender queer liberation theology. And
at one point, and I, I'm I'm
identifying as queer at this point,you know, as publicly as I can.
And they they said to me at one point,
(08:57):
I think,
I think you're gender queer,and I don't know if I like, literally
shoved them or just in my mind, IDbut I was like, I'm not your project.
Yeah.
And there was probably a square in theresomewhere. And
and then like two years later, I'm binding
and I have a closet full of,you know, shirts and ties,
(09:20):
and I call them and I'm like,you get to say at one time,
I told you so, you know, like and itand so like the, the,
the gender and sexuality, really feel hand in glove.
I always felt,you know, awkward in my own body.
Again, some of that was growing upin, like, a diet culture and,
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some of that was growing up in this, like,very traditional.
Like I remember saying,I truly believe God
has called me to be a wife and a motherbecause that was the line.
And if like, no boy is interested in me,
then and ifI'm not and if I'm not interested in boys,
(10:03):
I have to trust that God is going tosomehow make something happen.
And so I have to believethat this is God's call in my life,
and somehow it's going to happen.
Turns out like my wifecalls me her husband.
And so like, I'm a really great love that
I'm her. I'm her husband.
And I've gotten to do ministrywith kids and camp stuff with kids
(10:25):
and get gettingto be sort of that parental or like third,
person in a, in a kid's lifeand be able to speak to them and say,
you know, like you might feel weird
and, and I might be the first personyou've met who's kind of
in the middle of some genders,but I'm not going to be the only one.
And so I've gotten to love onall these kids
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and be formative in their liveswithout actually having to be a parent.
And that's like
the best gift of my life.
So, so Iso I have a question for you. Yes.
You know, some of our viewers
might not understand what queer queeris like a reclaimed anti-gay slur.
And, you know, some people do I use it.
Do I not use it?What the hell do I do with queer?
(11:07):
But can you explain to the audiencewhat queer means to you?
Sure. Sure. Yeah. Just as far as, like.
I like the word queerbecause it means something.
It means different.
It means, special.
It means, maybe even a little bit,like I have a mystery to it.
(11:27):
I like the in defined ness of queer.
I like that it encompassesboth my sexuality and my gender.
I never really like the word lesbian.
I like the word dike.
I like the way it sounds.
And in my mouth,I like the hardness of it.
I like the K in there.
(11:47):
I used to like dike, too, by the way.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And you and, you know, when people say it
in a way that is a slur like queer and,you know,
when people say it in a way that, like,they want to affirm you.
Yeah. Different energy. Totally. Yeah.
For a while, I identified as a lesbianbecause I had no idea.
(12:09):
You know,
just like a littlea little more butch than than a lesbian.
Yeah. Yeah, that's that was on my.
That was on my early dating profiles.
Yeah.
And, you know,we're all trying to figure it out.
Love that. Yeah. Thank you. Love that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Past a long time.
Yeah. Anybody tell. Your friends.
But, So queer for me, like, I,
(12:32):
I would also if I needed to, like, defineit more.
Would call myself a sapphic queer.
Even though I'm assigned female at birth,I don't identify with the word woman
or girl at all.
I feel like a distance or an other thinglike that word is not me.
And so.
But I am only interested in women.
(12:53):
And that's where that word,that's where sapphic would come into that.
But I like.
But yeah. You.
But do you identify with being a man?
No. Okay.
Yeah I, I mean,both of those feel really foreign to me.
Right now they're,
(13:15):
I feel like there's a right wayand a wrong way to misgender me.
Like you call me ma'am.
No, you call me miss better.
I feel that way because.
Yeah, because me, I'm in command impliesI'm old. Yeah.
But like a sir is is best.
Because there's no, like,
if we're in professional spacesand you know,
(13:36):
me, like, Reverend is perfectbecause Reverend is not gendered.
The guy at, the food truckthat I go to for lunch sometimes
couldn't remember what my title wasand was just like, at, Your Holiness.
And I was like, you're not wrong,but I think I'll take it.
That's great. Yeah.
That's so funny.
(13:57):
And again, not gender.
Not gender, not gendered.
But have you all, like,
when did you know thatyou wanted to be involved in ministry?
I mean, has always been a part of you.
So I grew up going to Christian schools.
I've never been to public school,like so K12
Christian school, Christian college,and then seminary.
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And, always had leadership skills.
Always had really good Bible knowledge.
I mean, anything worth doingis worth doing, like, a lot, right?
And because of where I grew up,
the Christian school was as is, as bigas a public school.
Like, it's just, culturally a thing you do.
(14:39):
So, I probably gave
my first sermon in chapelbecause we had chapel three times a week.
My senior year of high school.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
And, came home to my mom,and her first reaction was.
Oh, and you decided to wear your hairlike that?
That's typical mom response.
(14:59):
Yeah, I was in pigtails at the time.
And I, when I was in college,I didn't really know what to do.
My aunt told methat getting a communications degree
was going to be a good idea,because that's where the world was moving.
I graduated college in 2003.
Great economictime to graduate from college.
(15:19):
But I ended up with, with a degree in
communications, emphasis
and marketingand a, an English to a double major
and a minor in philosophy,which means I was underqualified
or overqualified for everything,like two broad to do anything specific.
And so for two years,
I did summer camp and substitute teaching,trying to figure my stuff out.
(15:43):
And then I went to seminary because the
the weekend I graduated from college,
I went on a retreat to upstate New York,
and that was all 20 somethingsand pastors.
And I gave a meditationas part of that retreat.
And one of the minister said, you know,
(16:06):
with your skill set and your background
and what Iwhat you just did there in chapel,
I thinkyou'd be really great for the ministry.
And I said, I don't have it togetherenough to be a pastor.
And she goes,you don't know a lot of pastors, do you?
You know, implyingthat none of us have that right.
And I mean, in any business. Right?Like no one.
(16:28):
We're all just kind of pretendingto be something.
That's right.
And so I let that had a simmerfor a couple of years, like plan
A was to be Mad Men, and, I wasI was going to teach.
I applied to get my, my MFA,
MFA, master's of Fine Arts and poetry,and I was going to become a
(16:49):
into academia and even in seminary,I thought I was going to be an academic.
And then, turns out I'm kind of okay at preaching.
I won the preaching prize.
My my my my, last year seminary.
And I had given this this sermon in class
in my preaching class,and I just felt like it fell flat.
Like when you're talking in
(17:09):
front of a group of people,you get sort of a feedback loop.
And I just felt likeI didn't have it at all.
And my preaching and I told my preachingprofessor I was like, I just want.
And and she looks at me five footnothing African-American, a woman
with a gravitas that only she could hold.
And she looks me in the eyes and says,that was not my assessment.
(17:33):
And like, okay.
And like that.
Then she she was telling mein that moment, like, I know who you are
and know that you have somethingto say, even, even in this room.
And so,
I, I had an internship waiting for me
in upstate New Yorkwhen I graduated seminary,
and from there upI have now been ordained for,
(17:56):
it'll be 13 years, January. Wow.
And, there's nothing I'm better at.
I love, I love preaching,I love the pastoral care part.
I love working with people and sort ofthese really thin places in their lives.
Funeral sickness, hospitalsand also the celebrations, baptisms,
weddings,and being cancer free, like those,
(18:22):
those sort of milestonesand then like kids in church
and trying to be the pastor, I needed,
when I was a kid to show up in this bodyand in the space.
And I know I'm a pretty significant visualindicator when someone walks in the door
and they see me at the front of the roomto know what kind of community
(18:42):
we're trying to cultivate,and I and I carry that in my body.
And I've had to get comfortablewith with knowing that I'm that indicator.
And it's,
it's a great privilege to I.
Love I love you, I love you,I love you, really.
And I'm thinking to myself,you're talking.
I'm like,maybe I need to go to that church.
You know, we had Reverend Aaron Milleron the show, and I, I was I'm always
(19:06):
curious to know if you had an actualcalling to this, like, was there a moment.
Where like this cloud.
Was over and stuff like that.
Can you, did you did you not I mean, canyou talk a little bit about that.
Yeah.
I mean it's a little woo like
I again like in,
in high school you know part of a youthgroup, always a part of a youth group.
(19:26):
And a big part of youth groupretreats is solo time
where you, like, go out into natureand you just sort of, like,
sit and wait for God to,like, talk to you.
And, we were at this camp in the offseason, and I was doing my solo time.
And, as I'm sitting
and trying to, like,listen for the voice of God,
(19:50):
a baby comes and starts
walking on my lips.
I'm just sitting like, real, real still.
And I really felt like in that moment,like that was a thing.
They didn't know what that thing was like.
It felt really special.
And then looking back,I really think that
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that was the Holy Spirit sort of ordainingmy mouth, you know, sort of this,
this ministry that I have that is allabout cooperation and creating something
sweet and beautiful and building,you know, useful things together.
So that's why I have a b.
Oh, there you go.
Tattooed on my arm.
And, so that that again.
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But in retrospect, like thatis the meaning I made in that moment.
But as for like, a distinct call.
So many things,
you know, fell and fell into place.
There was a time inin which I left the church, and
there was a time in whichI was really suicidal.
There are times in which,
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I didn't know if there was
room for me and God's plan.
And so, like, I don't I don't really know
what I believe about,
like, God having designed everythingand we're all just,
like, being tugged along on the paththat was laid out for us.
I don't I don't thinkI really believe that, but I do think that
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certain individualsand moments and books and experiences
kind of kind of fell into place.
Things I tripped over
to sort of bring me to,
to where I amand in the theology that I have
and the and the love that I havefor this work and the hope that I have
(21:43):
for this institution.
Like the church is busted and the churchcan be a place of deep, deep trauma.
And I'm not quite ready to give up on it.
And I don't know why.
Like looking at my my interactionswith the church of my
youth, like you would have think itwould have been like two middle fingers.
Bye. See? Hail Satan. But like. Yeah,
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but for some reason I came out of it
with an unshakable knowledgethat God loved me just the way I am.
And God in the churchare different things.
And so how do I, as a person in this time
and in this place and in this bodyand with these gifts
like help folks reconcile like you,like the church can be something you need.
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You need a community.
You need people who will support you.
Bring your casserolewhen your grandma dies,
who will show up with you to protests,who will,
align their values with your valuesand try to make a difference,
and a place where you can enact ritual.
And I feel seen like we wewe like shake hands on a Sunday morning.
(22:48):
And that might be the only timea person gets touched in their whole week,
or someone looks them in the eye, right?
Yeah. So
have community.
Wherever it is.
I thinkchurch can be a really good option.
You know, I love when you saidthat you want to be the pastor,
the people that you neededand didn't have.
And I remember I struggled a lot with my,my, religion and my spirituality.
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And I started going to United Churchon the grain because my ex-girlfriend
said, we we need to do something.
And I want to go back to church.
I was like, okay, I'll just go.
And, it was, Reverend, what the hell was his name?
John Gage.
I know John.
And he went like this, and he had a tattooof a cross on his forearm, and I'm like,
(23:30):
oh my God, he's tattooedlike I was raised in a Catholic church.
And he was such a super cool guy.
And I said, you know,
there might be a space for me herebecause I never felt like you did that.
I really had a spacein the Catholic space. Yeah.
You know, so I love that.
I love that like
like when I show up for kids, I want toI want to be the person that I needed
when I was their age, but there was nobodythere as I really connect with that.
(23:54):
I love that, yeah.
And as Laverne Cox says, you know,we get to be a possibility.
Models.
I don't need to be a role model.
I don't need people to be like me.But I'm.
But I'm a possibleoh, I love there are possible futures.
With all that being said, yes.
Do you ever get tired like they do?
Ever. Right. Feel that you are.
You always have to be on sure.
(24:18):
Fortunately, I have cultivated a life
where my on is pretty close to my off.
There.
Doesn't take a lot of effortfor me to kind of shift into it.
There is there is sort of this,
this expectation of being the noble queer,
of needing to be benevolent
(24:40):
and forgiving and like, you know,that's not my pronoun, but that's okay.
And,I mean, again, being a pastor, right?
Being sort of softand not and not coming back with,
like, being, you know,
sometimesI just want to be rude, to make a point.
(25:01):
And like, being
being on like I because of who I am.
I'm fun.
Uncle Riley,you know, I'm sort of laid back and goofy.
And then I'm going to say something
super profound or insightful.
I'm still new to this community.
(25:22):
So I also have, the gift of being theclueless outsider or the clueless new guy.
I was like, you know what?
If we do blah blah blah.
And like, last time they did that, itcrashed and burned.
But I don't know that.
So I get toI get to bring in those other things and,
and when and when I'm in spaceswhere I need to be,
(25:44):
like Reverend Riley,
I can be kind of relaxedbecause I am done masking.
I'm done hiding.
I'm done being anything other than I am.
And when I get home,I might be a little more snarky,
and I have a little moreof a potty mouth and like,
maybe be exhaustedfrom all the projections upon me.
(26:07):
But there's a way inwhich I can hold that,
because I'm not also tryingto be something I'm not.
And when I came out fully
queer and genderqueer, I started doing
the best ministry of my lifebecause I wasn't also like,
oh my God, they're going to knowI'm going to lose my job.
They're going to.
(26:28):
As soon as I was in spaces where I knewI was safe and I wasn't going to get fired
for who I wasand who I loved, I was able to just
really open
up and care for peopleand care for the words
and care for the rituals and waysthat I could give my full energy to,
Have you ever been on the other sideof some, like,
(26:50):
pretty nasty, terrible individualswhere you you
you felt,
put down or.
So there was.
I mean, in the church world,
at least in the church worldsthat I've kind of moved in,
there is sort of the polite nastiness,you know,
(27:15):
and I think, you know, friends of mine
who are people of color would,would call this like the northern racism.
Like people will be, like,just completely rude
to your face and smile about it.
Or the passive aggressive,
So a lot of that had happenedwhen people didn't know who I was.
(27:37):
And being in the room,there were spaces in which,
a group of ministers trying to vote
on whether or not the, the church
big C, should issue
a formal apology to LGBTQplus individuals for the way
(27:58):
in which this particular denominationhad hurt them.
Right? Not the denomination.You were now. Correct.
Okay.
And so, and so we're
in a meeting trying to decideif our particular group
is going to sign on to that,to that motion.
And the room was split
(28:21):
and it was, you know, on one and one hand,we need to we need to put this to bed.
We need to stop talking about it.
On the other hand, like,
this is a part of our faith,tradition, apology and repentance.
Sin and someone who claimed themselvesto be
an ally spoke against it.
And in my life and knew who I wasand knew who was in the room.
(28:45):
And like, I've
never been ableto have the same relationship with her.
Or you know, that same that same body.
A ministerand his congregation were leaving
because they, they saw the denominationas Thelma and Louise heading off a cliff
with the ordination of, of, of gayand lesbian people into the ministry.
(29:05):
And so we in good conscience can't stay.
And in that meeting,like all that, we're going to miss you.
And we've loved you as a colleague.
And and thank you for all the things.
And, and I'm the preacherfor that meeting.
And so, you know, there have been spaces
that have been hostile
(29:26):
out of carelessness.
No one has ever spit on me.
No one has ever been like,you know, you you, you know, crazy dike,
get out of the pulpit like,no one has been directly nasty to me.
I'm also very charming and disarming.
Yes, you are absolutely.You know, charming.
Almost as charming as I am.
Which is. Which is shocking. Shocking.
(29:46):
But I think that's a defense mechanism,right?
Like like, you know, if itif you if you fall in love with me,
even in these micro interactions, like,you can't be mean to me.
I'm not going to be mean to this facelike that, you know?
You know, like, aren't I adorable?
And I'm going to make you like,you know, so I, you know, there's
(30:07):
I, there'san immense amount of privilege in that.
But I've been in a lot of spacesthat have talked about queer people
as the problem in ministryor some sort of cancer for the church.
They not knowing that you were queer.
Or not, not caring who's in the roomand who that language hurts.
Right.
And but but those one on one interactionsof people being up in my face and nasty.
(30:32):
I have been blessednot to have those circles.
Do you not think, though,that it's possibly worse the other way?
Because these are peoplethat you think you know and you think
are supportive and allies of yours,and then all of a sudden,
in that sort of passive aggressive way,you're finding out
that they're not as opposed tothe person that comes straight to you.
Well, yeah.
And it sucks because it'sthere's also particularly in the church,
(30:54):
there's this family kind, you know,and body of Christ, we're family.
You know,no one I'll clothe yourself in humility
and that neither free nor slavenor junior Greek.
But we are all one in in the faith and
and then to turn aroundand say, you're not you,
you're an abomination.
(31:17):
Hurts because it's we talkwe talk a big game,
but then all of a suddenthere's an asterix on that word all.
And like, I am not an asterix ministry.
There are no know.
Like there's no small print,no exceptions.
Right.
And to feel and to have been
an exception.
(31:38):
You know,
I love being exceptional but thereit's it's a whole different thing.
And, it's painful.
It's really, really painful.
And why,
why queer people need to be visiblein all spaces because of those places
where those asterisks have been to show upand just kick them out the window.
(32:01):
Would you be a person that would put an
X on a gender marker?
Typically?
That's a good question.
Yeah, that's a big question. When.
So I know
and I'm comfortablewhen I need a binary gender when I don't.
(32:21):
Okay. And like it.
That doesn't hurt me.
To more of a safety thing.
I feel like when I go to the doctor,it's important for my doctor
to know what my body isand what screenings I might need.
And so I would put an F on that.
On that sex marker for gender,
(32:42):
I would put gender queer and most,most doctors,
that I've interacted with have both
for legal documentsthey all need to match.
Right.
And so, I mean, I haven't,
I hadn't, I haven't done the processof changing all of my legal documents
to match my married name,let alone a gender marker.
(33:07):
And a friend of mine who has an Xon their passport recently traveled.
And because that X is not recognizedinternationally
in the same way,it was incredibly dysphoric
to get, you know, from the border agents.
What do you mean, X?
What are you?
(33:27):
But it's not even recognized,apparently, in this country.
Now. Right.
And again, like I for some people,
that is an incredibly validatingand important thing in their lives.
And that is and I respect that.
And I understand that for methat is not that is not
on my list of things that I need to feelwho I.
(33:48):
That's where you talk about everybody'sjourney is different, right?
Everybody needs different. Things.
It's not a one size fits all.
And whatever makes you feelhappy and whole, then that's great.
But it might not be what the other personneeds.
Yeah.
You know, likeyou got a 20,000 trans people in a room.
That's a lot even for me. That's that's.
Yeah, that's a lot to say.
It does say a thousand.
Every one of them is going to needsomething different to be happy and home.
(34:10):
They should be able to access itwith absolutely.
With no problem at all. Yeah.
You know, does non-binary fallunder the transgender category?
Yeah.
Would you say that you are trans.
Yeah I've started saying
transgender non-binary
recently and I don't know why.
That's just sort of startedfalling out of my mouth.
(34:32):
But yeah.
So if, if transgender is an umbrella,underneath that umbrella would be like
gender queer, non-binary, a gender
two-spirit, A trans male.
Trans female. Yep.
Or mask or femme, you know. Yeah.
And so
(34:54):
I think there's athere's an incredible power right now
to verbally saying I am transgender.
I also know that my experience is like,
I'm not trying to be a man.
I'm not trying to be a woman.
I'm just trying to be Riley.
And so non-binaryor gender queer fits the best.
(35:17):
I think,
gender queer morebecause non-binary sort of assumes
a fluidity between femme and masculinethat I don't embody.
Okay.
Like you're you're never going to see mein a dress, right?
Unless I'm in drag,which I don't intend on undoing.
I was like,I didn't know that was a thing.
(35:38):
That's not a thing I don't like.
You know, I do. I do have a drag name.
Should that ever happen.Just just understand. Okay.
But so so I think non-binary
implies a fluidity that I don't have.
So trans trans mask, trans masculine,
gender queer
(35:58):
because I'm sort of queering masculinityin some ways.
Queering femininity in some ways,
fits best.
But, right now,
I think politically.
Aligning myselfwith the transgender community
(36:19):
is really importantand feels right for me.
So saying non-binary, transgenderor transgender non-binary
like feels like the formal.
Yeah, because.
If you didn't say them together,
most people think transgender is binary,like you have to be one or the other.
So I love how you saytransgender. Non-binary.
Yeah. Because people will. Yeah. Well,well understand that.
(36:40):
Yeah.
I just want to I knowthis might be off topic, but you know me.
Let's talk about drag names.Isn't that your preferred?
Isn't the name of your first petand the first street you lived on?
Isn't that the way it goes?
Yeah, I think that is that is the.
So that would be Go ahead.
That would be Bobby, even royalty.
Okay. My name is Charlie Shortland.
What's yours?
(37:00):
Are you talking about?
When I was a child, my my,I remember we had so many pets.
Here it goes.
Sarah being the fun one crowd. Oh, sorry.
She let me give her that for this,I wasn't.
I have to think about this on on her.
It's not on her question list.
You went off topic. Got.
But I just love that.But if I. But I think.
(37:20):
But for real though, if I ever did dragmy, my drag name would be Dutch treat
because I'm half Dutch.
And your treat and. I'm a treat.I love it.
You love it.
Let's talk about the pronouns. They them.
Oh, well,I mean, you want to get people riled up.
Oh, every time I try. To talk about them.
(37:41):
Yeah.
What do you think about that?
When I think about you, Riley.
And I see it in Cameron as well.
And you two, Tony, is.
You don't take things to heart.
You are at the pointwhere you're like, yeah,
you know, if you want to use them, great.
If you can, that would be great.
But I think right now
(38:02):
in my congregation, First
Congregational Church,Gilford on the green, it's amazing to him.
The, the way in which
right now is, is, is the time
to get our pronouns rightand to get they them right.
(38:23):
If you're going to,if you want to be an ally,
if you want us to call you an ally,the best thing you can do
is not wear a t shirt
or a pin or a tote bag.
Although those things are helpful.
But for you to to really nail it,
(38:44):
will show me
that you have given some care to that.
And one of the things that I've decidedthat I need to do right now is to stop
letting people get away with it and to sayand to stand up for myself because I'm
I'm more interested in being polite than I
am, and people respecting meand like, that's got to stop.
(39:06):
Absolutely.
Cuz look where it got us.
Right? So,
everybody has a pronoun.
A pronoun isn't a scary thing.
It's a part of speech.
We use them all the time.
Except for Elmo.
Have you ever noticedElmo doesn't use personal pronouns?
I know that maybe I should just be.
No, like Elmo.
(39:27):
Elmo doesn't use I.
Because he always saysElmo goes off in the third.
Correct?
So like,maybe we all need to take a little,
you know, Sesame Street detour, but I, I,I mean, in a lot of ways, I listen.
I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind, butbut when you said like,
well, I'm lighthearted about it, I'm not.
I might use him pronouns.
(39:47):
If you can't respect my pronouns and youcan't, I can't have you in my my bubble.
No, I don't mean you're lighthearted.I mean you're not, said the.
And sometimes I say sometimes.
Most of the time.
I believe the problem iswhen you have people on social media,
there's a particular personI'm thinking about who
just screams and yells at peoplewhen they use the wrong pronoun,
even though they're at a restaurantand the person is unsure
(40:11):
which pronoun to use, and that kind of,
that kind of
rhetoric, unfortunately, iswhat people will immediately say.
They'll immediately go.
They won't go to the Tonys or the ralliesthat are like kind about it.
They will go to
the people that just go off on youif you're using the wrong pronoun.
And I and I respect that reaction.
(40:33):
There is there is a way in which
this rhetoric about
erasure of transand non-binary identities.
I understand that rage.
I totally get it.
Again, like I, I would neverbecause my mama raised me right.
(40:54):
But to my own detriment sometimes.
Right.
And you call me sir.
Great.
When my wife and I go out to dinnerit's ladies can I get you anything else.
And I just want to scream.
What about trigger.
Trigger 82.
You trigger trigger a. Trigger like what?
But like sir is okay for you.
(41:15):
So so so you're definitelymore comfortable with the masculine.
Yeah, I am Okay.
My God, you just triggered me so much.
I remember when I first started.
Like, I would hate that when I was offwith my girlfriend.
You know, if we went out to breakfastand they said, hey, ladies, it would.
My whole day. Yeah. Was ruined.
It just, I don't know, there's a feelingit's like, no, no you don't.
(41:38):
That's notI never corrected anybody. Nope.
Because there's a shame in that too.
Right.
And I, I recently read somethingand I can't remember on what social media
platform it was,but it was my invitation for you
that I extend to you, telling youthat what my pronouns are
and what my name is, is an invitationinto relationship with me.
(42:01):
I'm inviting you to see me for who I am.
The waitress at Ihop doesn't need that.
Yeah, that is a micro interactionand she is doing the best job she can,
and lord knows she's not getting paidenough to deal with my bullshit.
So like
and not to saying that standing upfor yourself is yes, but she's I.
(42:24):
I'm not going to vomitall of my rage onto this this this person
who is low stakes not going to have a longlifelong relationship with.
Right.
So if, if if I am correcting youand want you to get it
rightthat I am investing in our relationship,
The community at your church, for example,should be getting it
(42:45):
right at this point.
Yeah, they're they they aretrying really hard and a lot of them do.
Okay.
Right now we have a we have an intern
from Yale, Dib,that's also, a non-binary person.
And so we, like, help each other outand, like,
correct people on each other's behalf,which is really
I recommend it very much to have somesomeone else do the correcting for.
(43:07):
Yeah.
And I have to agree like,you know, it's not an option.
It's not an optionto call me anything else.
But what I want to be reference to,I'm telling you,
it's just like,you know what you use, what pronouns?
Sarah. She her, she, her.
So if we were sitting here and you came inand I said to Riley,
can you have him, sit over therebecause we're setting up the equipment.
(43:27):
And you looked at me.You're like, she her.
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
But can you have him sit therebecause they're going to
totally be in the wayif if he doesn't move over there,
how safe and comfortablewould you feel in the space?
How much you wouldyou feel like you belong here?
Are you being respected
because that happens to trans peopleand non-binary people all the time?
Sometimes some people, every timethey have an interaction with somebody.
(43:49):
Yeah.
I'm telling you how I identify respect it.
That's that's all.
I mean, it's not rocket science.
Yeah.
And there's notthere's not great gender neutrals.
So at the galathe other night when I gave some remarks,
I addressed the room as like a steamedguest or like a steamed all
and in
(44:09):
and I
that was a conscious choicebecause what I wanted
to come out of my mouth was,ladies and gentlemen.
Yeah.
And I knew that we had more than ladiesand gentlemen in the room
and in my congregation.
I will say, beloved, I will call the roombeloved, as opposed to,
you know, men and women are like familyof God about.
Inclusive, inclusive.You know, it's wonderful.
(44:31):
And it takesit takes a second to reorient.
But the people in the roomwho need to hear that we don't use
masculine pronouns for God,who need to hear that we're using gender
inclusive languagewill ping it and go, oh,
this community's donea little work around this,
and those who don't need to hear it,who are on the binary, who don't have
(44:53):
issues with God being a boy, likethey won't even notice the difference.
True.
And and so like that little intentionalitydoes so much for folks
who are starving to be included,or at least not excluded.
Just with language.
I love it because that's the truth.
(45:14):
Like, we can't worry about the peoplewho don't need to hear that message.
We need to focus on the peoplewho do need to hear that message
that everybody's belong.
Everybody belongs in this space.
Because if you don't feel like you belong
somewhere,you're not going to keep going back.
And those are the peoplewho most likely need to be in that space,
or the people who are a lot of transand non-binary people isolate, you know.
(45:34):
Right. There are plenty.
There are plenty of spacesfor heterosexual, cisgendered people.
You know,
there are three churches on the GuilfordGreen.
And, you know,
there are plenty of spaces, but
we want to cultivate a space
where folks feel comfortable.
(45:57):
I remember last year when Guilford
put up the pride flag for the first time,and I remember taking a picture of it.
And I think I've said this to you
before, both of you probably,
and sending it to Cameron,who wasn't there to be able to see it.
And I said, I,
I keep thinking thatthis would have been wonderful
to you to see as you were growing up,just that kind of visibility.
(46:18):
And he said it worked, really would have.
And I remembertalking to somebody about it and I said
it shouldn't bother a personthat this flag is up, that you don't even
really have to look at it,but it means the world to somebody
who is part of that LGBTQ community,because it just shows a bit of,
that they're seeing that they're included,
(46:38):
that they're loved, that they're wanted.
I did want to go back to somethingthat you had just said, though, because
it was, oh, I think there's four churchesI don't want to keep, keep adding fresh.
Yes, because I was like.
Imagine somebody getting up for not.
I definitely don'tI. Don't want yeah. No, no.
Great catch. Great catch. Yes.
Yes I want to recognize. Yes, yes.
(46:59):
We have all. Four of the househouses of worship. Yes.
And it's a very small it's a small green.
And although I do, I do believeit is the largest green in Connecticut.
No way. Actually, I think you're right.
It's a larger than New Haven.
This is not the pointthat we're talking about.
We don't. You can fact check us later
(47:21):
on the shoreline.
Maybe it's a town of.
Between Guilford and Branford,I don't. Know.
Yeah. Haha.
Thank you for being here.
Is there anything else that you like?
I do think that you are a great imagefor these young kids.
Thank you.
And, is there anything that if you did,
(47:42):
you could would like to say to somebodywho's struggling with belonging?
We only have a few minutes.
Riley. Don't go, you know.
Yeah, because I have a question to leave.
Oh, okay.
It's cliche, but it works.
(48:03):
But in a lot of ways, it gets better.
And there are spaces
where
you will feelsuch a deep sense of belonging.
There are spaces being curated for youright now.
There are people who want to love you
and want to see your successand your happiness and your thriving.
(48:25):
And if that is notwhere you're at right now,
you part of that is wait and find.
Find your people, find your, find your,
your besties, your supporters,whether that's online or on a on a team or
whatever.
But the where there isthe world is so big
(48:49):
and when we see our worlds is small
and see our possibilities as limited,
that is when we start to despair.
And so any way that you can safely
find spacesto be yourself, to give yourself
the little injection of hope that you need
until you have the, the autonomy
(49:14):
and the and the money toto do whatever you want to do,
to build to to choose your own family,
to choose your course of life.
It's hard to do both.
Like hang on because.
Because there's there's more.
Yeah.
That's beautiful.
(49:34):
So when you came into the spacehere. Yeah.
The first thing I noticedwas your t shirt.
Yeah. And it made me smile.
Yeah.
And I think today I foundI found joy in your t shirt.
Oh. Thank you.
And I'm probably going to go Google itand buy one.
But anyway, what brings you joy?
I know it'sbeen it's a tough time right now.
And I would love to hearwhat brings you joy.
Yeah.
So I am And neither of you know this,I don't think, but I,
(49:59):
I have this little personal projectright now, that I refer to as Joy Scouts
because I was was neverI was never a scout,
because I grew up in a place where
anything secular, you had a crappierChristian version of it.
So I had, like,Jesus, Girl Scouts kind of,
where I earned badges in, like, microwavecooking and flower arranging.
(50:22):
So, so now,because I've got a little bit of money,
and access to some things, I,I take classes here and there on things.
So what I've done for Joy Scouts,I've done a pottery class.
I've done, write your own solo show,like acting, writing class.
And right nowI'm in a blacksmithing class.
(50:45):
I, I've seen them on Facebook. Yes.
And I am.
So at the end of the month,I will have made a knife.
And I didn't fire.
Do you watch. It?
I of course.
God, I love that show. Sorry. Plugging.
Yeah, yeah.
So things that give me joy are likeI learning.
I'm a big, reader.
I do a lot of audiobooks
because that way I can also like,do laundry while I'm reading.
(51:07):
And, I, my wifeand I refer to it as my hot boy walk.
Go for a walk around my neighborhood.
Yeah. And, victory in your walk.
That's awesome.
When you, when you do, glassblowing,let me know.
I, I took a class, I loved it.
I took a class at, ManchesterHot Glass in Vermont.
(51:27):
Really?
And it was aas a birthday gift for my wife.
And so, it is it is hard.
Yeah. It's not an easy thing.
No, I mean, I made a Christmas ornament.That was all they let us do.
But I would love to get into that more.
So let me know if you ever want to.
Yeah. Do a class. I'll do it with you.
Yeah. Awesome. Sounds good. Tony.All right.
Well, I thank you so. Much, my honor.
Thank you forthank you for the work that you both do.
(51:48):
And, the, the friends and visibilitythat you raise up.
And, I appreciate you. So.Give another plug for the church.
Yeah.
First Congregational Church,
Gilford, Connecticut,on the green services at 830 and 10 a.m.
830. Yeah.
That's it. Everyone.Thank you again for joining us.
We'll see you next time.
This episode is brought to youby Alex Incorporated.
(52:09):
Alex is a nonprofit organizationdedicated to creating
a safe, compassionate community.
While empowering Lgbtq+ youth, families,
and allies through educational,emotional, and financial support.
We hold annual events to raise fundsin support of these goals.
Visit Alex Inc.. Org for more information.
Thank you to our sponsor, health CareAdvocates International.
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The views expressed by our guest on
this podcast are not necessarilythose of its sponsors.
Welcome to Prideful Connections, wherewe have conversations without judgment.
Today, I am proudand honored to have Riley with us.
And, just to give you a little bitof a background of for Riley and I,
(00:53):
I, maybe about a almost a year ago
was struggling with my faithand the church that I go to.
And I had gone into Riley's church
and realizedthat that was definitely the place for me.
And then Riley and I had coffee.
Do you remember that? Yeah.
And that's how I got to know you. Yeah.
(01:14):
So welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.Glad to be. Here.
And I'm Tony is going to be good today.
Right, Tony? No.
Yeah, that was Riley. Now welcome.
Thank you. Super happy to see you.
So to the degree that you're comfortable.
Yeah.
Would you like to tell us a bit
about your journey, about your story,about how you felt, how you discovered
(01:36):
that you maybe a little unsureor uncomfortable?
Yeah. Yeah.
So it's it's a really strangesort of story.
At least I think it's strange.It might be totally normal.
It's not like,you know, we bring this up at, you know,
cocktail parties and, like, how did youhow did you figure out that you're queer?
Althoughsometimes that does happen, but,
(01:58):
so I grew up in the Midwest,in southwest Michigan,
and in, in the 80s and 90s,
and I was always a tomboy.
I, I have an older brother,but we weren't particularly close.
And as I grew up,
I felt like I was really badat being a girl.
(02:21):
Like, there were things about being a girlthat I just didn't identify with.
Particularly, like makeup fashion.
Some of that was being in a bigger body,but some of that was just being clueless.
And a really formative memorythat I have is I was at a sleepover
(02:41):
and we were watching Never Been Kissed.
And there's this big scene at the endwhere Drew Barrymore
and the guy, the male love interest,like, run onto the baseball
field and like, they have this, like,climactic kiss at the end of the movie.
And my friends kept, like, rewindingthat scene and watching it and swooning.
(03:03):
And I was sitting there going, what?
The actual I what arewhat is what is fun about this?
And, and
growing up where and when I grew up,
I was definitely,
a James Dobson raised kid.
Focus on the family.
I don't know, can I say those names?
(03:25):
On the page, say whatever you want.
Okay.
And that particularbrand of conservativism,
really reinforced,
traditional stereotypical gender roles.
And, was very skeptical of homosexuality
(03:48):
and, really demonized and villainized.
You know, you struggledwith your sexuality.
You didn't you didn't like. You weren't.
There was no such thingas, like, having pride.
And I didn't know anyone who was queeruntil I was in high school.
And one of my brother'sbest friends, came out,
(04:10):
and she stood up on their wedding,and she was sort of the first
gay, lesbian person that my family knew.
And so I paid really close attentionto how my parents talked about her.
And so when I came out,
when I was in my late 20s,I was about to be ordained
into the ministry,and I wanted to give my parents,
(04:34):
their full
like I wantedto give them informed consent,
whether or not they were going to supporttheir queer minister kid.
And so I wrote them a
letter because I'm chicken.
And, I try folded the letterand put a sticky note,
(04:54):
on the outside of the trifoldthat said, you
might want to sit down for this, like,ever that dramatic, right?
And, so rightly.
Yeah.
And, you know, when my mom called me,she's like, we thought you had cancer.
Like, but
it's actually probably very smartthat you did it that way.
Yeah.
And she's like, you know, some of thepuzzle pieces are falling together for me.
(05:19):
And I showed your dad and he said,
you know, doesn't make a whole lotof a difference to him.
And I had no idea howthey were going to react in my.
And I had talked to my cousin andmy brother about coming out ahead of time.
And their advice was,make sure you're financially independent
because we had no idea.
Not a bad piece of advice.
(05:40):
Yeah, yeah. But I was ordained.
I remember having conversations
with the leader of my local churchgroup and saying,
you know, we need to problem solvebecause I'm gay and this denomination
is really struggling with whether or notto include queer folks.
(06:01):
And there's and they're stillat this point, struggling with that.
And her immediate reaction was,are you sure you don't want to go
join a different churchthat's already had this figured out?
And I think that came from a placeof wanting to keep me safe.
But it also told me like,oh, you're not going to fight for me.
And so I was I eventually shifted
(06:21):
denominationsinto the United Church of Christ, who has
had a
placeset on the table for me for a long time.
And this is not new to them.
So when I, I was in my second ministry
setting in upstate New York, out
(06:42):
married to a woman.
Really, supported me.
Riley is, my last name
when I was born,and so I was going by Riley.
Like, one name, like Cher or Madonna.
Like, people just forgot what my firstname was, which is was delightful.
(07:05):
Went through a divorce.
The church was great through my divorce.
Little old churchladies threw me a divorce shower. Wow.
Because I had, like, lost all of my linensand all of my kitchenware.
And the divorce.
And so I got, like, towels and potsand pans from little church.
Like,they had me register like it was the best.
That's awesome.
It was so. Hard. That was. So sweet.
(07:27):
And, got remarried
and I.
I lost that job.
And that's that's a whole sort oftraumatic story that's unrelated to this.
But in that job I had identified
as trans or part of the trans communityfrom the pulpit.
And then two weeks later, I lost that job.
(07:48):
And those two things are not related.
I did not lose that jobbecause I identified as non-binary trans.
But in my mind,those two things are connected.
Right.
And as I started to understand my genderand move away from the name
I was born with and, and getting marriedgave me a last name.
(08:09):
So I stopped being share and,you know, Riley.
And then taking my wife's name, Paige,
really helped, but, I,
I was in seminary, and so this was,
I don't know, eight years
before I started identifyingas trans publicly.
(08:33):
I was in seminary,and one of my, colleagues was doing
their master's thesis on non-binaryliberation theology
or gender queer liberation theology. And
at one point, and I, I'm I'm
identifying as queer at this point,you know, as publicly as I can.
And they they said to me at one point,
(08:57):
I think,
I think you're gender queer,and I don't know if I like, literally
shoved them or just in my mind, IDbut I was like, I'm not your project.
Yeah.
And there was probably a square in theresomewhere. And
and then like two years later, I'm binding
and I have a closet full of,you know, shirts and ties,
(09:20):
and I call them and I'm like,you get to say at one time,
I told you so, you know, like and itand so like the, the,
the gender and sexuality, really feel hand in glove.
I always felt,you know, awkward in my own body.
Again, some of that was growing upin, like, a diet culture and,
(09:42):
some of that was growing up in this, like,very traditional.
Like I remember saying,I truly believe God
has called me to be a wife and a motherbecause that was the line.
And if like, no boy is interested in me,
then and ifI'm not and if I'm not interested in boys,
(10:03):
I have to trust that God is going tosomehow make something happen.
And so I have to believethat this is God's call in my life,
and somehow it's going to happen.
Turns out like my wifecalls me her husband.
And so like, I'm a really great love that
I'm her. I'm her husband.
And I've gotten to do ministrywith kids and camp stuff with kids
(10:25):
and get gettingto be sort of that parental or like third,
person in a, in a kid's lifeand be able to speak to them and say,
you know, like you might feel weird
and, and I might be the first personyou've met who's kind of
in the middle of some genders,but I'm not going to be the only one.
And so I've gotten to love onall these kids
(10:46):
and be formative in their liveswithout actually having to be a parent.
And that's like
the best gift of my life.
So, so Iso I have a question for you. Yes.
You know, some of our viewers
might not understand what queer queeris like a reclaimed anti-gay slur.
And, you know, some people do I use it.
Do I not use it?What the hell do I do with queer?
(11:07):
But can you explain to the audiencewhat queer means to you?
Sure. Sure. Yeah. Just as far as, like.
I like the word queerbecause it means something.
It means different.
It means, special.
It means, maybe even a little bit,like I have a mystery to it.
(11:27):
I like the in defined ness of queer.
I like that it encompassesboth my sexuality and my gender.
I never really like the word lesbian.
I like the word dike.
I like the way it sounds.
And in my mouth,I like the hardness of it.
I like the K in there.
(11:47):
I used to like dike, too, by the way.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And you and, you know, when people say it
in a way that is a slur like queer and,you know,
when people say it in a way that, like,they want to affirm you.
Yeah. Different energy. Totally. Yeah.
For a while, I identified as a lesbianbecause I had no idea.
(12:09):
You know,
just like a littlea little more butch than than a lesbian.
Yeah. Yeah, that's that was on my.
That was on my early dating profiles.
Yeah.
And, you know,we're all trying to figure it out.
Love that. Yeah. Thank you. Love that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Past a long time.
Yeah. Anybody tell. Your friends.
But, So queer for me, like, I,
(12:32):
I would also if I needed to, like, defineit more.
Would call myself a sapphic queer.
Even though I'm assigned female at birth,I don't identify with the word woman
or girl at all.
I feel like a distance or an other thinglike that word is not me.
And so.
But I am only interested in women.
(12:53):
And that's where that word,that's where sapphic would come into that.
But I like.
But yeah. You.
But do you identify with being a man?
No. Okay.
Yeah I, I mean,both of those feel really foreign to me.
Right now they're,
(13:15):
I feel like there's a right wayand a wrong way to misgender me.
Like you call me ma'am.
No, you call me miss better.
I feel that way because.
Yeah, because me, I'm in command impliesI'm old. Yeah.
But like a sir is is best.
Because there's no, like,
if we're in professional spacesand you know,
(13:36):
me, like, Reverend is perfectbecause Reverend is not gendered.
The guy at, the food truckthat I go to for lunch sometimes
couldn't remember what my title wasand was just like, at, Your Holiness.
And I was like, you're not wrong,but I think I'll take it.
That's great. Yeah.
That's so funny.
(13:57):
And again, not gender.
Not gender, not gendered.
But have you all, like,
when did you know thatyou wanted to be involved in ministry?
I mean, has always been a part of you.
So I grew up going to Christian schools.
I've never been to public school,like so K12
Christian school, Christian college,and then seminary.
(14:18):
And, always had leadership skills.
Always had really good Bible knowledge.
I mean, anything worth doingis worth doing, like, a lot, right?
And because of where I grew up,
the Christian school was as is, as bigas a public school.
Like, it's just, culturally a thing you do.
(14:39):
So, I probably gave
my first sermon in chapelbecause we had chapel three times a week.
My senior year of high school.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
And, came home to my mom,and her first reaction was.
Oh, and you decided to wear your hairlike that?
That's typical mom response.
(14:59):
Yeah, I was in pigtails at the time.
And I, when I was in college,I didn't really know what to do.
My aunt told methat getting a communications degree
was going to be a good idea,because that's where the world was moving.
I graduated college in 2003.
Great economictime to graduate from college.
(15:19):
But I ended up with, with a degree in
communications, emphasis
and marketingand a, an English to a double major
and a minor in philosophy,which means I was underqualified
or overqualified for everything,like two broad to do anything specific.
And so for two years,
I did summer camp and substitute teaching,trying to figure my stuff out.
(15:43):
And then I went to seminary because the
the weekend I graduated from college,
I went on a retreat to upstate New York,
and that was all 20 somethingsand pastors.
And I gave a meditationas part of that retreat.
And one of the minister said, you know,
(16:06):
with your skill set and your background
and what Iwhat you just did there in chapel,
I thinkyou'd be really great for the ministry.
And I said, I don't have it togetherenough to be a pastor.
And she goes,you don't know a lot of pastors, do you?
You know, implyingthat none of us have that right.
And I mean, in any business. Right?Like no one.
(16:28):
We're all just kind of pretendingto be something.
That's right.
And so I let that had a simmerfor a couple of years, like plan
A was to be Mad Men, and, I wasI was going to teach.
I applied to get my, my MFA,
MFA, master's of Fine Arts and poetry,and I was going to become a
(16:49):
into academia and even in seminary,I thought I was going to be an academic.
And then, turns out I'm kind of okay at preaching.
I won the preaching prize.
My my my my, last year seminary.
And I had given this this sermon in class
in my preaching class,and I just felt like it fell flat.
Like when you're talking in
(17:09):
front of a group of people,you get sort of a feedback loop.
And I just felt likeI didn't have it at all.
And my preaching and I told my preachingprofessor I was like, I just want.
And and she looks at me five footnothing African-American, a woman
with a gravitas that only she could hold.
And she looks me in the eyes and says,that was not my assessment.
(17:33):
And like, okay.
And like that.
Then she she was telling mein that moment, like, I know who you are
and know that you have somethingto say, even, even in this room.
And so,
I, I had an internship waiting for me
in upstate New Yorkwhen I graduated seminary,
and from there upI have now been ordained for,
(17:56):
it'll be 13 years, January. Wow.
And, there's nothing I'm better at.
I love, I love preaching,I love the pastoral care part.
I love working with people and sort ofthese really thin places in their lives.
Funeral sickness, hospitalsand also the celebrations, baptisms,
weddings,and being cancer free, like those,
(18:22):
those sort of milestonesand then like kids in church
and trying to be the pastor, I needed,
when I was a kid to show up in this bodyand in the space.
And I know I'm a pretty significant visualindicator when someone walks in the door
and they see me at the front of the roomto know what kind of community
(18:42):
we're trying to cultivate,and I and I carry that in my body.
And I've had to get comfortablewith with knowing that I'm that indicator.
And it's,
it's a great privilege to I.
Love I love you, I love you,I love you, really.
And I'm thinking to myself,you're talking.
I'm like,maybe I need to go to that church.
You know, we had Reverend Aaron Milleron the show, and I, I was I'm always
(19:06):
curious to know if you had an actualcalling to this, like, was there a moment.
Where like this cloud.
Was over and stuff like that.
Can you, did you did you not I mean, canyou talk a little bit about that.
Yeah.
I mean it's a little woo like
I again like in,
in high school you know part of a youthgroup, always a part of a youth group.
(19:26):
And a big part of youth groupretreats is solo time
where you, like, go out into natureand you just sort of, like,
sit and wait for God to,like, talk to you.
And, we were at this camp in the offseason, and I was doing my solo time.
And, as I'm sitting
and trying to, like,listen for the voice of God,
(19:50):
a baby comes and starts
walking on my lips.
I'm just sitting like, real, real still.
And I really felt like in that moment,like that was a thing.
They didn't know what that thing was like.
It felt really special.
And then looking back,I really think that
(20:12):
that was the Holy Spirit sort of ordainingmy mouth, you know, sort of this,
this ministry that I have that is allabout cooperation and creating something
sweet and beautiful and building,you know, useful things together.
So that's why I have a b.
Oh, there you go.
Tattooed on my arm.
And, so that that again.
(20:36):
But in retrospect, like thatis the meaning I made in that moment.
But as for like, a distinct call.
So many things,
you know, fell and fell into place.
There was a time inin which I left the church, and
there was a time in whichI was really suicidal.
There are times in which,
(20:59):
I didn't know if there was
room for me and God's plan.
And so, like, I don't I don't really know
what I believe about,
like, God having designed everythingand we're all just,
like, being tugged along on the paththat was laid out for us.
I don't I don't thinkI really believe that, but I do think that
(21:22):
certain individualsand moments and books and experiences
kind of kind of fell into place.
Things I tripped over
to sort of bring me to,
to where I amand in the theology that I have
and the and the love that I havefor this work and the hope that I have
(21:43):
for this institution.
Like the church is busted and the churchcan be a place of deep, deep trauma.
And I'm not quite ready to give up on it.
And I don't know why.
Like looking at my my interactionswith the church of my
youth, like you would have think itwould have been like two middle fingers.
Bye. See? Hail Satan. But like. Yeah,
(22:06):
but for some reason I came out of it
with an unshakable knowledgethat God loved me just the way I am.
And God in the churchare different things.
And so how do I, as a person in this time
and in this place and in this bodyand with these gifts
like help folks reconcile like you,like the church can be something you need.
(22:27):
You need a community.
You need people who will support you.
Bring your casserolewhen your grandma dies,
who will show up with you to protests,who will,
align their values with your valuesand try to make a difference,
and a place where you can enact ritual.
And I feel seen like we wewe like shake hands on a Sunday morning.
(22:48):
And that might be the only timea person gets touched in their whole week,
or someone looks them in the eye, right?
Yeah. So
have community.
Wherever it is.
I thinkchurch can be a really good option.
You know, I love when you saidthat you want to be the pastor,
the people that you neededand didn't have.
And I remember I struggled a lot with my,my, religion and my spirituality.
(23:10):
And I started going to United Churchon the grain because my ex-girlfriend
said, we we need to do something.
And I want to go back to church.
I was like, okay, I'll just go.
And, it was, Reverend, what the hell was his name?
John Gage.
I know John.
And he went like this, and he had a tattooof a cross on his forearm, and I'm like,
(23:30):
oh my God, he's tattooedlike I was raised in a Catholic church.
And he was such a super cool guy.
And I said, you know,
there might be a space for me herebecause I never felt like you did that.
I really had a spacein the Catholic space. Yeah.
You know, so I love that.
I love that like
like when I show up for kids, I want toI want to be the person that I needed
when I was their age, but there was nobodythere as I really connect with that.
(23:54):
I love that, yeah.
And as Laverne Cox says, you know,we get to be a possibility.
Models.
I don't need to be a role model.
I don't need people to be like me.But I'm.
But I'm a possibleoh, I love there are possible futures.
With all that being said, yes.
Do you ever get tired like they do?
Ever. Right. Feel that you are.
You always have to be on sure.
(24:18):
Fortunately, I have cultivated a life
where my on is pretty close to my off.
There.
Doesn't take a lot of effortfor me to kind of shift into it.
There is there is sort of this,
this expectation of being the noble queer,
of needing to be benevolent
(24:40):
and forgiving and like, you know,that's not my pronoun, but that's okay.
And,I mean, again, being a pastor, right?
Being sort of softand not and not coming back with,
like, being, you know,
sometimesI just want to be rude, to make a point.
(25:01):
And like, being
being on like I because of who I am.
I'm fun.
Uncle Riley,you know, I'm sort of laid back and goofy.
And then I'm going to say something
super profound or insightful.
I'm still new to this community.
(25:22):
So I also have, the gift of being theclueless outsider or the clueless new guy.
I was like, you know what?
If we do blah blah blah.
And like, last time they did that, itcrashed and burned.
But I don't know that.
So I get toI get to bring in those other things and,
and when and when I'm in spaceswhere I need to be,
(25:44):
like Reverend Riley,
I can be kind of relaxedbecause I am done masking.
I'm done hiding.
I'm done being anything other than I am.
And when I get home,I might be a little more snarky,
and I have a little moreof a potty mouth and like,
maybe be exhaustedfrom all the projections upon me.
(26:07):
But there's a way inwhich I can hold that,
because I'm not also tryingto be something I'm not.
And when I came out fully
queer and genderqueer, I started doing
the best ministry of my lifebecause I wasn't also like,
oh my God, they're going to knowI'm going to lose my job.
They're going to.
(26:28):
As soon as I was in spaces where I knewI was safe and I wasn't going to get fired
for who I wasand who I loved, I was able to just
really open
up and care for peopleand care for the words
and care for the rituals and waysthat I could give my full energy to,
Have you ever been on the other sideof some, like,
(26:50):
pretty nasty, terrible individualswhere you you
you felt,
put down or.
So there was.
I mean, in the church world,
at least in the church worldsthat I've kind of moved in,
there is sort of the polite nastiness,you know,
(27:15):
and I think, you know, friends of mine
who are people of color would,would call this like the northern racism.
Like people will be, like,just completely rude
to your face and smile about it.
Or the passive aggressive,
So a lot of that had happenedwhen people didn't know who I was.
(27:37):
And being in the room,there were spaces in which,
a group of ministers trying to vote
on whether or not the, the church
big C, should issue
a formal apology to LGBTQplus individuals for the way
(27:58):
in which this particular denominationhad hurt them.
Right? Not the denomination.You were now. Correct.
Okay.
And so, and so we're
in a meeting trying to decideif our particular group
is going to sign on to that,to that motion.
And the room was split
(28:21):
and it was, you know, on one and one hand,we need to we need to put this to bed.
We need to stop talking about it.
On the other hand, like,
this is a part of our faith,tradition, apology and repentance.
Sin and someone who claimed themselvesto be
an ally spoke against it.
And in my life and knew who I wasand knew who was in the room.
(28:45):
And like, I've
never been ableto have the same relationship with her.
Or you know, that same that same body.
A ministerand his congregation were leaving
because they, they saw the denominationas Thelma and Louise heading off a cliff
with the ordination of, of, of gayand lesbian people into the ministry.
(29:05):
And so we in good conscience can't stay.
And in that meeting,like all that, we're going to miss you.
And we've loved you as a colleague.
And and thank you for all the things.
And, and I'm the preacherfor that meeting.
And so, you know, there have been spaces
that have been hostile
(29:26):
out of carelessness.
No one has ever spit on me.
No one has ever been like,you know, you you, you know, crazy dike,
get out of the pulpit like,no one has been directly nasty to me.
I'm also very charming and disarming.
Yes, you are absolutely.You know, charming.
Almost as charming as I am.
Which is. Which is shocking. Shocking.
(29:46):
But I think that's a defense mechanism,right?
Like like, you know, if itif you if you fall in love with me,
even in these micro interactions, like,you can't be mean to me.
I'm not going to be mean to this facelike that, you know?
You know, like, aren't I adorable?
And I'm going to make you like,you know, so I, you know, there's
(30:07):
I, there'san immense amount of privilege in that.
But I've been in a lot of spacesthat have talked about queer people
as the problem in ministryor some sort of cancer for the church.
They not knowing that you were queer.
Or not, not caring who's in the roomand who that language hurts.
Right.
And but but those one on one interactionsof people being up in my face and nasty.
(30:32):
I have been blessednot to have those circles.
Do you not think, though,that it's possibly worse the other way?
Because these are peoplethat you think you know and you think
are supportive and allies of yours,and then all of a sudden,
in that sort of passive aggressive way,you're finding out
that they're not as opposed tothe person that comes straight to you.
Well, yeah.
And it sucks because it'sthere's also particularly in the church,
(30:54):
there's this family kind, you know,and body of Christ, we're family.
You know,no one I'll clothe yourself in humility
and that neither free nor slavenor junior Greek.
But we are all one in in the faith and
and then to turn aroundand say, you're not you,
you're an abomination.
(31:17):
Hurts because it's we talkwe talk a big game,
but then all of a suddenthere's an asterix on that word all.
And like, I am not an asterix ministry.
There are no know.
Like there's no small print,no exceptions.
Right.
And to feel and to have been
an exception.
(31:38):
You know,
I love being exceptional but thereit's it's a whole different thing.
And, it's painful.
It's really, really painful.
And why,
why queer people need to be visiblein all spaces because of those places
where those asterisks have been to show upand just kick them out the window.
(32:01):
Would you be a person that would put an
X on a gender marker?
Typically?
That's a good question.
Yeah, that's a big question. When.
So I know
and I'm comfortablewhen I need a binary gender when I don't.
(32:21):
Okay. And like it.
That doesn't hurt me.
To more of a safety thing.
I feel like when I go to the doctor,it's important for my doctor
to know what my body isand what screenings I might need.
And so I would put an F on that.
On that sex marker for gender,
(32:42):
I would put gender queer and most,most doctors,
that I've interacted with have both
for legal documentsthey all need to match.
Right.
And so, I mean, I haven't,
I hadn't, I haven't done the processof changing all of my legal documents
to match my married name,let alone a gender marker.
(33:07):
And a friend of mine who has an Xon their passport recently traveled.
And because that X is not recognizedinternationally
in the same way,it was incredibly dysphoric
to get, you know, from the border agents.
What do you mean, X?
What are you?
(33:27):
But it's not even recognized,apparently, in this country.
Now. Right.
And again, like I for some people,
that is an incredibly validatingand important thing in their lives.
And that is and I respect that.
And I understand that for methat is not that is not
on my list of things that I need to feelwho I.
(33:48):
That's where you talk about everybody'sjourney is different, right?
Everybody needs different. Things.
It's not a one size fits all.
And whatever makes you feelhappy and whole, then that's great.
But it might not be what the other personneeds.
Yeah.
You know, likeyou got a 20,000 trans people in a room.
That's a lot even for me. That's that's.
Yeah, that's a lot to say.
It does say a thousand.
Every one of them is going to needsomething different to be happy and home.
(34:10):
They should be able to access itwith absolutely.
With no problem at all. Yeah.
You know, does non-binary fallunder the transgender category?
Yeah.
Would you say that you are trans.
Yeah I've started saying
transgender non-binary
recently and I don't know why.
That's just sort of startedfalling out of my mouth.
(34:32):
But yeah.
So if, if transgender is an umbrella,underneath that umbrella would be like
gender queer, non-binary, a gender
two-spirit, A trans male.
Trans female. Yep.
Or mask or femme, you know. Yeah.
And so
(34:54):
I think there's athere's an incredible power right now
to verbally saying I am transgender.
I also know that my experience is like,
I'm not trying to be a man.
I'm not trying to be a woman.
I'm just trying to be Riley.
And so non-binaryor gender queer fits the best.
(35:17):
I think,
gender queer morebecause non-binary sort of assumes
a fluidity between femme and masculinethat I don't embody.
Okay.
Like you're you're never going to see mein a dress, right?
Unless I'm in drag,which I don't intend on undoing.
I was like,I didn't know that was a thing.
(35:38):
That's not a thing I don't like.
You know, I do. I do have a drag name.
Should that ever happen.Just just understand. Okay.
But so so I think non-binary
implies a fluidity that I don't have.
So trans trans mask, trans masculine,
gender queer
(35:58):
because I'm sort of queering masculinityin some ways.
Queering femininity in some ways,
fits best.
But, right now,
I think politically.
Aligning myselfwith the transgender community
(36:19):
is really importantand feels right for me.
So saying non-binary, transgenderor transgender non-binary
like feels like the formal.
Yeah, because.
If you didn't say them together,
most people think transgender is binary,like you have to be one or the other.
So I love how you saytransgender. Non-binary.
Yeah. Because people will. Yeah. Well,well understand that.
(36:40):
Yeah.
I just want to I knowthis might be off topic, but you know me.
Let's talk about drag names.Isn't that your preferred?
Isn't the name of your first petand the first street you lived on?
Isn't that the way it goes?
Yeah, I think that is that is the.
So that would be Go ahead.
That would be Bobby, even royalty.
Okay. My name is Charlie Shortland.
What's yours?
(37:00):
Are you talking about?
When I was a child, my my,I remember we had so many pets.
Here it goes.
Sarah being the fun one crowd. Oh, sorry.
She let me give her that for this,I wasn't.
I have to think about this on on her.
It's not on her question list.
You went off topic. Got.
But I just love that.But if I. But I think.
(37:20):
But for real though, if I ever did dragmy, my drag name would be Dutch treat
because I'm half Dutch.
And your treat and. I'm a treat.I love it.
You love it.
Let's talk about the pronouns. They them.
Oh, well,I mean, you want to get people riled up.
Oh, every time I try. To talk about them.
(37:41):
Yeah.
What do you think about that?
When I think about you, Riley.
And I see it in Cameron as well.
And you two, Tony, is.
You don't take things to heart.
You are at the pointwhere you're like, yeah,
you know, if you want to use them, great.
If you can, that would be great.
But I think right now
(38:02):
in my congregation, First
Congregational Church,Gilford on the green, it's amazing to him.
The, the way in which
right now is, is, is the time
to get our pronouns rightand to get they them right.
(38:23):
If you're going to,if you want to be an ally,
if you want us to call you an ally,the best thing you can do
is not wear a t shirt
or a pin or a tote bag.
Although those things are helpful.
But for you to to really nail it,
(38:44):
will show me
that you have given some care to that.
And one of the things that I've decidedthat I need to do right now is to stop
letting people get away with it and to sayand to stand up for myself because I'm
I'm more interested in being polite than I
am, and people respecting meand like, that's got to stop.
(39:06):
Absolutely.
Cuz look where it got us.
Right? So,
everybody has a pronoun.
A pronoun isn't a scary thing.
It's a part of speech.
We use them all the time.
Except for Elmo.
Have you ever noticedElmo doesn't use personal pronouns?
I know that maybe I should just be.
No, like Elmo.
(39:27):
Elmo doesn't use I.
Because he always saysElmo goes off in the third.
Correct?
So like,maybe we all need to take a little,
you know, Sesame Street detour, but I, I,I mean, in a lot of ways, I listen.
I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind, butbut when you said like,
well, I'm lighthearted about it, I'm not.
I might use him pronouns.
(39:47):
If you can't respect my pronouns and youcan't, I can't have you in my my bubble.
No, I don't mean you're lighthearted.I mean you're not, said the.
And sometimes I say sometimes.
Most of the time.
I believe the problem iswhen you have people on social media,
there's a particular personI'm thinking about who
just screams and yells at peoplewhen they use the wrong pronoun,
even though they're at a restaurantand the person is unsure
(40:11):
which pronoun to use, and that kind of,
that kind of
rhetoric, unfortunately, iswhat people will immediately say.
They'll immediately go.
They won't go to the Tonys or the ralliesthat are like kind about it.
They will go to
the people that just go off on youif you're using the wrong pronoun.
And I and I respect that reaction.
(40:33):
There is there is a way in which
this rhetoric about
erasure of transand non-binary identities.
I understand that rage.
I totally get it.
Again, like I, I would neverbecause my mama raised me right.
(40:54):
But to my own detriment sometimes.
Right.
And you call me sir.
Great.
When my wife and I go out to dinnerit's ladies can I get you anything else.
And I just want to scream.
What about trigger.
Trigger 82.
You trigger trigger a. Trigger like what?
But like sir is okay for you.
(41:15):
So so so you're definitelymore comfortable with the masculine.
Yeah, I am Okay.
My God, you just triggered me so much.
I remember when I first started.
Like, I would hate that when I was offwith my girlfriend.
You know, if we went out to breakfastand they said, hey, ladies, it would.
My whole day. Yeah. Was ruined.
It just, I don't know, there's a feelingit's like, no, no you don't.
(41:38):
That's notI never corrected anybody. Nope.
Because there's a shame in that too.
Right.
And I, I recently read somethingand I can't remember on what social media
platform it was,but it was my invitation for you
that I extend to you, telling youthat what my pronouns are
and what my name is, is an invitationinto relationship with me.
(42:01):
I'm inviting you to see me for who I am.
The waitress at Ihop doesn't need that.
Yeah, that is a micro interactionand she is doing the best job she can,
and lord knows she's not getting paidenough to deal with my bullshit.
So like
and not to saying that standing upfor yourself is yes, but she's I.
(42:24):
I'm not going to vomitall of my rage onto this this this person
who is low stakes not going to have a longlifelong relationship with.
Right.
So if, if if I am correcting youand want you to get it
rightthat I am investing in our relationship,
The community at your church, for example,should be getting it
(42:45):
right at this point.
Yeah, they're they they aretrying really hard and a lot of them do.
Okay.
Right now we have a we have an intern
from Yale, Dib,that's also, a non-binary person.
And so we, like, help each other outand, like,
correct people on each other's behalf,which is really
I recommend it very much to have somesomeone else do the correcting for.
(43:07):
Yeah.
And I have to agree like,you know, it's not an option.
It's not an optionto call me anything else.
But what I want to be reference to,I'm telling you,
it's just like,you know what you use, what pronouns?
Sarah. She her, she, her.
So if we were sitting here and you came inand I said to Riley,
can you have him, sit over therebecause we're setting up the equipment.
(43:27):
And you looked at me.You're like, she her.
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
But can you have him sit therebecause they're going to
totally be in the wayif if he doesn't move over there,
how safe and comfortablewould you feel in the space?
How much you wouldyou feel like you belong here?
Are you being respected
because that happens to trans peopleand non-binary people all the time?
Sometimes some people, every timethey have an interaction with somebody.
(43:49):
Yeah.
I'm telling you how I identify respect it.
That's that's all.
I mean, it's not rocket science.
Yeah.
And there's notthere's not great gender neutrals.
So at the galathe other night when I gave some remarks,
I addressed the room as like a steamedguest or like a steamed all
and in
(44:09):
and I
that was a conscious choicebecause what I wanted
to come out of my mouth was,ladies and gentlemen.
Yeah.
And I knew that we had more than ladiesand gentlemen in the room
and in my congregation.
I will say, beloved, I will call the roombeloved, as opposed to,
you know, men and women are like familyof God about.
Inclusive, inclusive.You know, it's wonderful.
(44:31):
And it takesit takes a second to reorient.
But the people in the roomwho need to hear that we don't use
masculine pronouns for God,who need to hear that we're using gender
inclusive languagewill ping it and go, oh,
this community's donea little work around this,
and those who don't need to hear it,who are on the binary, who don't have
(44:53):
issues with God being a boy, likethey won't even notice the difference.
True.
And and so like that little intentionalitydoes so much for folks
who are starving to be included,or at least not excluded.
Just with language.
I love it because that's the truth.
(45:14):
Like, we can't worry about the peoplewho don't need to hear that message.
We need to focus on the peoplewho do need to hear that message
that everybody's belong.
Everybody belongs in this space.
Because if you don't feel like you belong
somewhere,you're not going to keep going back.
And those are the peoplewho most likely need to be in that space,
or the people who are a lot of transand non-binary people isolate, you know.
(45:34):
Right. There are plenty.
There are plenty of spacesfor heterosexual, cisgendered people.
You know,
there are three churches on the GuilfordGreen.
And, you know,
there are plenty of spaces, but
we want to cultivate a space
where folks feel comfortable.
(45:57):
I remember last year when Guilford
put up the pride flag for the first time,and I remember taking a picture of it.
And I think I've said this to you
before, both of you probably,
and sending it to Cameron,who wasn't there to be able to see it.
And I said, I,
I keep thinking thatthis would have been wonderful
to you to see as you were growing up,just that kind of visibility.
(46:18):
And he said it worked, really would have.
And I remembertalking to somebody about it and I said
it shouldn't bother a personthat this flag is up, that you don't even
really have to look at it,but it means the world to somebody
who is part of that LGBTQ community,because it just shows a bit of,
that they're seeing that they're included,
(46:38):
that they're loved, that they're wanted.
I did want to go back to somethingthat you had just said, though, because
it was, oh, I think there's four churchesI don't want to keep, keep adding fresh.
Yes, because I was like.
Imagine somebody getting up for not.
I definitely don'tI. Don't want yeah. No, no.
Great catch. Great catch. Yes.
Yes I want to recognize. Yes, yes.
(46:59):
We have all. Four of the househouses of worship. Yes.
And it's a very small it's a small green.
And although I do, I do believeit is the largest green in Connecticut.
No way. Actually, I think you're right.
It's a larger than New Haven.
This is not the pointthat we're talking about.
We don't. You can fact check us later
(47:21):
on the shoreline.
Maybe it's a town of.
Between Guilford and Branford,I don't. Know.
Yeah. Haha.
Thank you for being here.
Is there anything else that you like?
I do think that you are a great imagefor these young kids.
Thank you.
And, is there anything that if you did,
(47:42):
you could would like to say to somebodywho's struggling with belonging?
We only have a few minutes.
Riley. Don't go, you know.
Yeah, because I have a question to leave.
Oh, okay.
It's cliche, but it works.
(48:03):
But in a lot of ways, it gets better.
And there are spaces
where
you will feelsuch a deep sense of belonging.
There are spaces being curated for youright now.
There are people who want to love you
and want to see your successand your happiness and your thriving.
(48:25):
And if that is notwhere you're at right now,
you part of that is wait and find.
Find your people, find your, find your,
your besties, your supporters,whether that's online or on a on a team or
whatever.
But the where there isthe world is so big
(48:49):
and when we see our worlds is small
and see our possibilities as limited,
that is when we start to despair.
And so any way that you can safely
find spacesto be yourself, to give yourself
the little injection of hope that you need
until you have the, the autonomy
(49:14):
and the and the money toto do whatever you want to do,
to build to to choose your own family,
to choose your course of life.
It's hard to do both.
Like hang on because.
Because there's there's more.
Yeah.
That's beautiful.
(49:34):
So when you came into the spacehere. Yeah.
The first thing I noticedwas your t shirt.
Yeah. And it made me smile.
Yeah.
And I think today I foundI found joy in your t shirt.
Oh. Thank you.
And I'm probably going to go Google itand buy one.
But anyway, what brings you joy?
I know it'sbeen it's a tough time right now.
And I would love to hearwhat brings you joy.
Yeah.
So I am And neither of you know this,I don't think, but I,
(49:59):
I have this little personal projectright now, that I refer to as Joy Scouts
because I was was neverI was never a scout,
because I grew up in a place where
anything secular, you had a crappierChristian version of it.
So I had, like,Jesus, Girl Scouts kind of,
where I earned badges in, like, microwavecooking and flower arranging.
(50:22):
So, so now,because I've got a little bit of money,
and access to some things, I,I take classes here and there on things.
So what I've done for Joy Scouts,I've done a pottery class.
I've done, write your own solo show,like acting, writing class.
And right nowI'm in a blacksmithing class.
(50:45):
I, I've seen them on Facebook. Yes.
And I am.
So at the end of the month,I will have made a knife.
And I didn't fire.
Do you watch. It?
I of course.
God, I love that show. Sorry. Plugging.
Yeah, yeah.
So things that give me joy are likeI learning.
I'm a big, reader.
I do a lot of audiobooks
because that way I can also like,do laundry while I'm reading.
(51:07):
And, I, my wifeand I refer to it as my hot boy walk.
Go for a walk around my neighborhood.
Yeah. And, victory in your walk.
That's awesome.
When you, when you do, glassblowing,let me know.
I, I took a class, I loved it.
I took a class at, ManchesterHot Glass in Vermont.
(51:27):
Really?
And it was aas a birthday gift for my wife.
And so, it is it is hard.
Yeah. It's not an easy thing.
No, I mean, I made a Christmas ornament.That was all they let us do.
But I would love to get into that more.
So let me know if you ever want to.
Yeah. Do a class. I'll do it with you.
Yeah. Awesome. Sounds good. Tony.All right.
Well, I thank you so. Much, my honor.
Thank you forthank you for the work that you both do.
(51:48):
And, the, the friends and visibilitythat you raise up.
And, I appreciate you. So.Give another plug for the church.
Yeah.
First Congregational Church,
Gilford, Connecticut,on the green services at 830 and 10 a.m.
830. Yeah.
That's it. Everyone.Thank you again for joining us.
We'll see you next time.
This episode is brought to youby Alex Incorporated.
(52:09):
Alex is a nonprofit organizationdedicated to creating
a safe, compassionate community.
While empowering Lgbtq+ youth, families,
and allies through educational,emotional, and financial support.
We hold annual events to raise fundsin support of these goals.
Visit Alex Inc.. Org for more information.
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