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🏳️🌈I wanted to ask my transgender lesbian friend EVERYTHING! So I did…
Qs for @vicavsteel
❤️ How have you stayed married to the same woman all these years?!
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The answers will leave your cup FULL.
🎤 About my guest:
Lesbians and queer womxn, have you ever wondered what it would be like to embrace a year of firsts at 59? Vica-Etta Henrietta Steel has done just that! This year, she got her first tattoos, performed in her first burlesque shows, and took on a leadership role in both traditional ministry and the public square. She’s all about celebrating Queer joy, finding love in herself and the world again, and building deep relationships rooted in mutuality and meaningful conversations.
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TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@vicavsteel
Instagram @vicavsteel
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What does it feel like to walk into a women's restroom?
Are you afraid of how people aregoing to treat you?
Sophics. And allies, you're listening to
Queer Women Rising. That's women with an X.
Because we are inclusive here. When we hear the stories of
(00:21):
queer women who have gone beforeus, we see evidence that there's
nothing we can't do. And yes, we can too.
It's time for you to level up inlife, in love, and step into
your most authentic, abundant reality.
(00:42):
You won't be the same after thisepisode.
It's your turn to let go of goodfor greatness.
Your best life is now. Let's rise, let's rise.
Let's. Rise.
(01:08):
Hello, my lesbian loves. Today I'm going to share a
conversation that's different, aconversation with a transgender
friend of mine, Bika Etta Henrietta.
Personally, as a lesbian woman who is very, very, very much
(01:30):
cisgender, I have so many questions to ask.
I come from a very small town. I grew up in evangelical
religion that did not accept me as a lesbian and certainly would
not accept my transgender friend.
(01:51):
And I thought, what would it be like to have an episode of my
podcasts where I ask all the questions that most people don't
feel comfortable to ask. And we go there because people
are afraid of what they don't understand.
When people are not willing to ask questions, not willing to be
(02:16):
curious, they make themselves sodifferent from each other.
We're actually so close to beingthe same.
We all want love. We all want acceptance.
So if you feel like, well, maybeyou couldn't relate to this
conversation, if you have been through any religious trauma, or
(02:36):
you experience society not accepting you as you are, or you
simply want to learn about the transgender experience, I
implore you to keep listening because this is how we grow.
So let's start by asking a question.
Is 59 years old too old to embrace your true self?
(02:58):
Never. We know what it's like to not
embrace our true selves. As queer women, I think we've
done it. I didn't embrace my true self
until nearly 30 and I'm so proudof Ricotta Henrietta for doing
this. Even if it is a later in life,
(03:19):
it's never too late to embrace who you are.
So many of us find ourselves midlife late light, just
changing things in our world. And at 59, it's been a year of
embracing first. Viga Etta Henrietta is proof
that it's never too late to explore new passions.
(03:41):
This year, she got her first tattoos performed in burlesque
shows and stepped up as a faith leader in both traditional
church settings and the public square.
But Vika Etta Henrietta's journey isn't just about these
bold moves. It's about embracing queer joy
in a world where our stories areoften centered on pain.
(04:03):
We're going to dive into her unique path from ministry to
burlesque to the meaning behind the tattoos.
Because I'm genuinely curious and the people who walk this
journey or may not have walked this journey with her.
Because when we come out, if youare a lesbian here listening,
when we come out, we know we lose people along the way.
We don't really lose them. Apparently we never had them.
(04:25):
But it's something in the queer experience that we all can
relate to. And I'm sure as someone in a
transgender experience, you are more susceptible to losing
people. So I, I want to hear this
journey. Welcome to the Let's welcome her
(04:45):
and everyone. Oh my gosh, I've been waiting to
have this conversation and no matter how nervous I am to ask
the questions I'm just going to ask.
Hi, we've been waiting to do this for so long.
We have. Your videos on TikTok on my bad
days, no matter what you're talking about, we get in
(05:07):
Rihanna. I I just feel the love pouring
from your heart. Thank you.
I mean, and it's the core of whowe have to be in the world, in
the world that tries to harm us,to tear us down, if we can just
keep falling in love, right? It's the central commandment of
every religion I've ever seen tofall in love, to fall in love
(05:30):
with your neighbor, to fall in love with yourself, to fall in
love, we say in my faith tradition, to fall in love with
God. But what's God, right?
Who's God? How do we define what that means
in the world? I think the best explanation
I've heard is from Sufi wisdom, which is wherever you look,
(05:52):
there is the face of God. It's not a human face, right?
The face of God is the tree bark, is the cracks in the
sidewalk, is the moment when youkiss.
The face of God is love. You're so good, you're so
poetic. I like to have Angel bumps and
(06:14):
it's so it's so true. The moment I was able to step
away and still keep the pieces of my faith that that feel true
and feel love and feel like unity, but but let go of
everything else is the moment I was like, you know, I don't
know, but God's just everywhere and and that felt so good.
What is your faith tradition? I'm curious.
(06:36):
So I was raised Catholic and I left it to faith and defined
myself as atheist, agnostic spiritual, which is beautiful.
Most of my friends are in those categories.
One year after coming out, I started realizing that some
Christian faith traditions had come back to queer and so I
(06:58):
joined the ELCA, which is a Lutheran denomination that
accepts queers and leadership. I'm openly queer transgender
woman. The pastor of my church is a
transgender man. Our population at our church is
not queer openly. They're mostly older sis hat
white folk who are lovely and beautiful in community.
(07:23):
And then I also do ministry on the street and in TikTok, where
I speak mostly to people who arenot Christians.
And what I say again and again on repeat, be who you are, love
who you are. What's your faith, right?
And maybe it's Pagan, maybe it'sBuddhist, maybe you're atheist.
(07:45):
My dance teacher defines her faith as in dance, right?
There's no limit If we're falling in love to how we define
it. There are no binder boundaries.
There are no binaries. I keep falling in love.
What? What keeps calling you back?
And not from a place of oh, I think it's impossible because I
(08:06):
myself am called back to faith as a queer person.
But what keeps calling you back to faith where the majority of
Christians actually reject you and reject you to the harshest
degree? Because right now, transgender
people are under attack more than ever.
(08:27):
So first, I'm going to just put this caution out there.
If you're listening to this and you're harmed by faith and
thinking that this might be me trying to tell you why you
should come back, I will never do that because you're beautiful
as you are. I look at it as I can no more
control my faith, that I controlmy identity.
(08:49):
I am queer, I am lesbian, I am transgender, I am Christian.
It's just true, right? And I had the joy in my studies
to be able to read the Bible haltingly in the original Greek
and Hebrew. And what you start to find
(09:10):
really quickly when you actuallystart reading and not just
reading excerpts and reading little pieces.
The Bible is not a set of rules.The Christians you're talking
about want to make the Bible into dogma, into rules.
The Bible's a conversation. It's one way of a conversation
with God that makes sense to me.A friend of mine, I don't know,
(09:34):
I had it here a minute ago, gaveme a book on green witches,
which is a specific type of witch that resonates with me,
too. It's another way to speak with
the divine. And I can't help but be who I
am. And when I speak, I speak to
help those Christians come to newer understandings that say
(09:57):
you don't have to be bogged downby rules either.
It's about love. It's about the conversation.
Pay attention to the conversation God's having with
us, whether in the Bible, whether in poems, whether in the
wind that's blowing the grasses outside your door.
Where do you feel heaven? Where do you feel whole and full
(10:21):
and beautiful and wonderful? I feel like just talking with
you is like ease to the nervous system about topics that have
traditionally been extremely triggering to me and so many
people and you break it down into this wholesome just God is
is all around in love and I lovethat.
(10:42):
So thank you. I I have to know because I've
never asked So I've asked when Iwas really little and I was
brought up to believe that gay is bad, right?
Less most of us were. I asked one of my gay guy
friends who is just fabulous to this day.
He's just a fabulous man with the most fabulous outfits and
(11:03):
beautiful house and sexiest husband.
He truly is living his best life.
And I asked him when I met him because his mother came from a
very small town. He came from a small town.
He grew up extremely poor and, and grew up with a father who
haunted and fished and he often lived and played in the woods.
(11:23):
He wasn't brought up in the city.
And here's this man dressed so wonderfully without much
Internet back when we were children.
And I said, how did you know you're gay?
And like, how did you learn to be gay?
Learn to be gay, right? Because I didn't know.
I didn't know I was so young. And he told me he would go into
his mom's grandmother's closet and put on her high heels and
(11:46):
put on her perfume. And he did it since he was 5.
And in that moment, I was taughtto believe that gay was a sin.
But in that moment, I knew it couldn't be a sin.
And I started questioning my ownself.
And when I started having attraction of girls, I can
recognize it at 5:00. So I want to know for you
because I don't understand the transgender experience.
(12:08):
I love being a woman. I couldn't imagine body
dysphoria for myself. I can't imagine what that must
feel like. Do you feel comfortable sharing
your first moments of your journey and how that progressed?
I do. And what I'm going to say first
is I so appreciate the way you proposed and asked that question
(12:29):
to me, right? When you see a woman who's
transgender, the first question shouldn't be about our journey
in general. In this case, because that was a
conversation you and I had already had.
It makes sense. I am here for that.
I was assigned teacher at Birthright.
I have been that role all of my life and I continue in that
(12:49):
role. For me, I think the best analogy
I've seen, well, not the best, but the one I think most people
can get about all of this, is I'm left-handed.
I knew I was left-handed before I could say any words.
I reached for the cup on my plate or the bowl or the smash
(13:12):
the food with my left hand. That's always been an integral
part of who I am. Growing up, I always looked to
girls and women and as the people that I would be an
emulate until I was in kindergarten when I realized
(13:33):
that I wasn't allowed to be thatperson and learned in
kindergarten that I had to hide who I was.
And that's a life that I've lived for decades, hiding who I
am. One of the things that people
will say is that women like myself were socialized as boys.
(13:56):
I was not socialized as a boy. I was socialized as a girl who
had to hide. I was the girl in the boys
locker room. I learned anybody who knows me
right if you ask them if I'm shyor if I'm quiet.
And you may already have an answer to this, right?
Do I seem shy or quiet to you? Right And I'm not, right?
(14:18):
As a child, that was my armor. I wore shy and quiet as armor to
protect myself, all the while knowing that I wasn't who they
said I was. I didn't have the right words
for it, any more than I had the words as a baby about being
left-handed, but I knew. We who are queer, many of us
(14:39):
know. Yeah, we do.
We do. And there's no room for negative
comments here and unwelcoming comments, so we're just going to
ignore them? Ignore them.
I well, thank you for sharing that.
So you just knew and at 5:00 what was actually happening that
let you know this isn't OK with is there like a moment where you
(15:04):
let something out for the first time?
You're going to get blocked. Hold on, let me block this
person. I'm used to getting those kinds
of hate comments right. They're tossed out many times,
like referring to the hate comments.
I lived my life in rooms full ofmen because that's where I had
(15:25):
to be. And so many of those men, they
don't actually care about what they're saying.
They do it for the reaction. I stand on the street corner at
our farmers market during the season.
I'm wearing my clergy collar crop top because you got to
queer it. And people will speak hate to me
(15:46):
and I speak love back every single time because that's who
we have to be. But no, I knew because of the
way people would laugh at me, the boys in my family, when I
would do things that were feminine, when I wanted to be
(16:06):
with my sister, I would get laughed at.
When I wanted to stay, I wanted to, I wanted to be with the
women at the holidays, right? I wanted to be in the kitchen
cooking and I would always get shoot out.
And there's a part of me I speakabout a childhood stolen, and it
(16:30):
was stolen from me and my parent.
My mother is a lovely woman. I took her name right.
Henrietta was my mother's name, but she was very much a product
of her time. She wanted to protect me and a
society that would not accept who I really was.
And the reason I have to be out in the world, the reason I have
(16:53):
to be a teacher is because thereare children today.
There are children today being told that they can't be who they
are. I didn't get to see women like
me. It's very likely you didn't get
to see women like you. Many of us didn't, and it
matters. I'll watch like I like I said, I
(17:16):
have my farmers market chaplaincy.
I'm speaking love into the world.
You'll get a person will walk bywith their children shielding
their eyes from seeing me right?But that child, sometimes they
look back I. Was always the kid that looked
back. Right.
That seeing me can matter mattered to me.
(17:38):
To see other queer people comingout, it mattered to me.
Like, I know all the problems with social media, right?
And the way social media can stop people from learning, can
shut us into little communities.Social media saved me because I
got to see women like me, women who don't fully pass as a
(17:58):
cisgender woman doesn't make me less than a woman, right?
I bear the scars of a life that was full of hiding, and I get to
be who I am now. This voice, this, the shoulders,
the hearts of me. I get to be all that.
I am all woman all the time. I'm so just the curiosity, the
(18:23):
questions that are just burning in my head.
OK, thank you for being so vulnerable to share this.
At what point again, if you feelcomfortable, do you feel like
you started openly dressing morefeminine and feeling safe?
Because it sounds like your parents, as much as your mother
loved you, was trying to keep you safe and was so scared.
(18:46):
And you probably weren't allowedto dress feminine, I'm assuming.
But what my mom did right, she did what she could within the
system that was there When I wasin, what's it middle school,
they came out with a brand of underwear and colors for people
who presented as boys. And I wanted those, right?
(19:10):
Nobody else in my family, none of the people who were actually
boys wanted those. But I wanted those because that
was as close as I could get right to being who I was in the
world is to have color underwear.
It's so silly, right? But it's real.
But for the most part, I just kept it hidden.
I would sneak an item from my sister's closet, so sorry, Anne,
(19:34):
and would wonder what happened to things, you know, and try and
hide them. I know my mom knew, but she
wouldn't say. But she did the things that
would help me along, right? And I did a decent amount of
blocking all of it. I spent decades without any
(19:57):
hope. I spent years dreaming of
suicide as my future, as my possibility for any kind of
freedom. And I'm glad that I didn't
follow that course. I'm hopeful that buying by being
present in the world, I can helpothers see that there are other
ways in a world that still wantsto show hate, that wants to live
(20:21):
in hate, that there are ways to find our love.
I mean, just the way you said that, like your mother found
ways the way you said, I'm not sure exactly, but it's so
poetic. Like she saw you and even though
she couldn't give you everythingto help you step into who you
were, she did what she could andin a way that was maybe safe for
(20:46):
you. Was there a certain point after
childhood years where you truly came out?
Or did you go through with the traditional life and marry a
woman as a man? So I worked really hard to hide
all I was and was able to hide that even from myself for
(21:08):
periods of time. I met my wife.
What year was it, 198687 We've been married 38 years come
March. Oh.
My God, so beautiful. Slowly across the course of that
marriage, I let out parts of whoI was to her and she protected
(21:33):
me in ways like my mother did, but would go shopping for me and
different things. It wasn't until come February
was the day I came out six yearsago and can.
You repeat that real quick. We got a little bit of Internet.
(21:56):
You said it wasn't. You said it wasn't until
February, February. 28th OK, so soon I'll be out six years and
that's been a huge change, right?
My wife and I have gone through major changes.
We are staying together, right? We're two wives.
(22:17):
Our relationship is inevitably different.
We are in my podcast, I talk andon my podcast, my TikTok, I talk
about no binaries and I don't believe in binaries.
Even around things like what? What do we define as intimacy?
(22:38):
What do we define as intimacy? I would argue that most times
sex is not the intimate act and too many times it's used to step
away from intimacy. You know what I mean, right?
Yeah, like zone out like it doesn't have to.
It can just be that, and it doesn't have to be more right.
(23:00):
Right, the most intimate acts I've ever experienced are
sitting side by side holding hands with the woman I care
about, right? Deep, long conversations.
I have so many people in my life, hours long conversations
(23:22):
that aren't just oh, my work is this my work is that those are
important conversations, right? That we can have.
But true, like I I was at a party, a New Year's party, and
was sitting down in a quiet space, woman I'd never met
before. We immediately started talking
about death and then what death means to us and how death isn't
(23:42):
something final, there's something beautiful.
Like in tarot card, the death isthe card of change.
We die all the time and we're rise again from who we used to
be. We died to new habits, we die to
(24:03):
limits and we keep being born into new relationships, new ways
of thinking, new places to be. And there's something stunning.
And never letting ourselves stop, but always letting
ourselves give space to die to those things that don't aren't
us anymore and can become who wetruly are.
(24:26):
What's so interesting about thisto me is your relationship
didn't die even though you were coming out.
And so another crazy hard question and you don't have to
answer of course, but your relationship looks different.
Do you and your wife still have sex?
And so that is that's a very personal question and it is one
(24:48):
I will answer because what's truly interesting here, and I'm
a little cautious because I don't want to speak for her, but
she has found the language for who she is in more recent
understanding. So queer, which is to be
asexual, which is stunning and beautiful, right?
(25:11):
To name it, to be able to name it, because for so long women
who are asexual especially were given the language which are
broken. Woman, you know, it's not broken
to be ace. It's beautiful in its way.
And again, sex is an intimacy. My wife and I are intimate in so
(25:31):
many ways that are not sexual. For decades, I didn't want to
have sex terribly. I didn't like it.
I was in the wrong body. I could do it, but it wasn't who
I was and so to be free from that is beautiful right now.
(25:56):
Now that I'm out and openly lesbian, sex is something I
think about again. But I would never force or
require that from my wife because that's not our
relationship. Our relationship is one of deep,
loving intimacy. The intimacy of each morning
having deep conversations. The intimacy of rubbing her legs
(26:18):
at night to help with the soreness and massaging her feet.
Of giving tickles along the leg and the foot.
The intimacy of buying her the decaf coffee she likes single
shot Lotte and surprising her with it before I go into work or
(26:39):
to church or someplace else. The love that you to have for
her is just so beautiful in their respect and it I can't
help but think how funny of God to place you 2 together because
she being asexual and you needing that safe space.
(27:00):
That person that's like hey likeI don't need this from you.
Without saying that I'm assumingthe energy of of the space is is
her just appreciating what you were bringing to the table and
so much so that you're still together is wildly beautiful.
So you said lesbian is a lesbian.
(27:23):
How you identify today out of our alphabet soup of LGBTQIA?
So when I think about my identification, my first
identification is woman. That right there woman, then
queer. And I like queer as the
overarching term. I think it's a lovely term.
Many people my age just turned 60 just looking.
(27:46):
Like a month ago. Fabulous. 1260, by the way.
And so woman, queer, lesbian, transgender, these are my
identifiers within the queer community.
And they're lovely, right? They're delightful, but they're
not all of who we are. They help me frame myself, but
(28:07):
at my core, I don't believe in any binary.
I think of like in the Bible, right in Genesis, at names,
there are no binaries, and it's beautiful.
People often misread those partsand I turn them into binaries.
But if you actually read it, it's all about there are no
binaries. Let's let's give them a little
(28:29):
of. It so let's, let's like one of
the one ways that people try to limit is they'll use a verse
from Genesis, which it says God created them, man and woman.
God created them, OK, and they'll say, oh, see man and
woman, period. But the Bible's conversation,
you don't read pieces of it out of context.
(28:51):
So even within Genesis. So let's go back into Genesis
and read from that same section of Genesis, just a few verses
before God separated light from dark, God separated the land
from the sea. God made man and woman.
We don't deny beaches exist, right?
(29:18):
But beaches exist. We're land and see me.
We don't deny dawn and dusk. We don't deny the transgression
of the sun's light on the moon'sface in the night sky.
All of this is real. There are no binaries, right?
It's to take those verses withinGenesis and say, oh, well, of
(29:39):
course those include, but the man and woman doesn't.
It's like, why? Why would you take one piece and
say only that one? It's binary and nothing else is
No, it's all there. It's beautiful and and.
And why would they only do it inone way except to be creating
(30:00):
division, right? Like if you're going to do that,
that's the goal. It's the problem of any text, I
don't care what the text is, is going to be interpreted.
You can't help but interpret. There are no dogmas.
The problem with too many of ourtexts is a particular identity
(30:26):
is held on to the what they willclaim is the truth that SIS had
male identity theology. When you start opening your mind
up to say that's one identity, not the only one, Let's actually
look at what women are saying across the span of womanhood.
(30:47):
Let's look at what people from marginalized community are
looking and seeing in this conversation with God, with
divine, with the source. That's not limit it to one
identity's take on it. I don't ascribe I'll intent to
people typically, but I do urge that people stop limiting
(31:14):
themselves and putting God in their pocket.
God doesn't fit in our pocket very well, right?
To be wielded as a weapon. Instead, let's sit down to the
conversation over tea or coffee or a nice drink.
This is my lovely little coffee.Oh, yours.
Is so cute. It's a teacup actually, but I
(31:35):
love it so much. Love it.
I painted this one for my partner so we have like little
matching rainbows. Thank you.
OK, what does your ministry looklike now?
You're raised Catholic. You go through transformation.
You find where a church is accepting you.
You preach on the street corners.
(31:56):
People tell their kids to look away.
I I know you still keep going. You don't stop.
So some. But then I also have so many
people come to me crying, young adults, new adults crying
because they never believed there could be a woman like me
in this kind of ministry, right?And like I said, I'm obviously
(32:18):
queer. I've got my crop top, clergy
collar. I've got my tattoos showing,
right? I'm wearing a big flowy skirt.
I'm dancing, twirling. I've got all my burlesque and
belly dance routines. I'm working throughout there,
right? Because it's all beautiful.
I also preach at a church to mostly older sister.
Like I'm working on a sermon. I was working earlier, I'll work
(32:41):
somewhere later, and in that space, all of my work is around
love and who we are, right, Who we are in this world.
The one I'm working on for Sunday deals with heaven because
there's a verse when Jesus is baptized, it says the heavens
(33:03):
opened up. When you hear that, what do you
picture? The heavens open clouds.
Yeah, Sky. Right.
Always in the sky, always in theclouds, Everywhere you look
there is the face of God. Heaven here on earth.
Not some other place, right? Your Kingdom come on earth,
right? That's what that means.
(33:24):
So the heavens open up. It's not a rift in the sky, it's
right here. How did the heavens open up?
Think of the moment when you felt right in the world, when
everything felt complete and beautiful and stunning.
(33:46):
That's heaven. I feel it now.
I feel it not talking to you. You carry the like the grace and
spirit of the Lord so strongly. Henrietta, be good at Henrietta.
God, thank you for bringing you into my world.
And how many people are going tobe touched by this podcast?
(34:09):
So along the way, were there, were there people that they lost
who didn't accept this, Like when you changed your name, for
instance? Yes, most, like most of the
people in my family, the the loss was they just stopped
(34:32):
communicating. They didn't come right out and
try and do harm. My mother was in her last days
when I came out. She saw me and knew me and
smiled, but that was about all she could do at that point.
Do. You think you felt her
(34:54):
acceptance even though she couldn't speak.
Oh yeah, yeah. Not just like I think in terms
of is that there's acceptance, affirmation and celebration.
She's a woman who would celebrate me, right?
Not simply accept. So good.
The more like more of what I've seen, I know there are men out
(35:18):
there who can have deep loving conversations.
The most of the men that I was in circles with didn't.
They were kind of standard, I think, and maybe I'm wrong about
this because I'm not a man so I don't really understand them.
But even though I existed among them, I didn't have long
conversations with men about topics, about personal topics,
(35:41):
about feelings, when I presentedthat way when I was in circles
with them. If you tried turned into the
joke, into the pop culture reference.
And I know there are women who do that too.
But in my circles, this is the change I've had.
I now have friendships, Deep loving, intimate friendships
(36:03):
with women. And again, intimacy.
Not the same as sex. Sex is wonderful and lovely and
beautiful. Not the only way where like I
have one friend, we have, we call him our Infinity.
Phone calls, we'll talk hours about whatever, right?
Deep, loving conversation in ways I never had before I go.
(36:28):
I was out with a woman 9 hours. We sat together 9 hours across
two different spaces, talking the entire time about everything
under the sun and meaningful. Like not not light or fluffy
stuff. A world has opened up to me
since I've accepted it fully andopenly who I am that I never
(36:53):
had. It's not so much losing people.
I gone from black and white to Technicolor, you know, so.
That's so good. And as I started this episode,
we can't lose what we never had.And it sounds like you were
never able to truly be yourself.So they never truly had you and
(37:14):
you never had them. For anyone listening to this,
don't be afraid of of losing someone you've never had.
Just come out and be yourself. OK, Have to ask about the
burlesque because I know people have heard you mention it
throughout the episode. They're like, what?
You're 59, you are living the lesbian life and you burlesque.
(37:36):
How does this, oh, and you're a minister.
How does this all go together? And they have all of this great
ink. Yes, tattoos.
Look how beautiful. And most of this happened during
my 59, right? I'm now 60 and I'm going to make
it even more. I performed 3 burlesque
striptease when I was 59. One in January, 1 in May, and
(38:00):
one in November. How was I?
How did it feel right? My next one is to Angry Woman by
Ash Ashe. Fantastic song.
So when I came out, I knew I needed to breakthrough all the
(38:21):
ways that I had learned to hide among men, but I didn't know
how. So my wife actually took me to
my first time going to get makeup at Sephora, and they put
the makeup on me and I learned about how to do makeup right.
I began to learn. I see so much color now because
I use color in ways I never did before.
(38:43):
I found a dance studio that I thought might be one that I
could go to. It's dance life studio here in
Madison. I don't know if anybody here
Ariel Juliet, if you look her up, she has a TikTok following
in the 1,000,000 now because she's fat and does belly dance
right and doesn't hide her body because our bodies are beautiful
(39:07):
and can be so many ways. But I signed up for course
terrified to go because I didn'tknow how I was going to be
accepted. And I was welcomed so much as
every other person who goes intothat scene is welcomed.
(39:31):
And I started to learn how to unlock my body from decades of
stiffness. I'm still stiff.
I've been taking classes in belly and burlesque for four
years, once a week. I'm still stiff compared to
other women, right, who have hadyears of not having to hide.
But I'm not the only woman who'sstiff, right?
(39:52):
There are cisgender women out there, no different than me that
have learned stiffness for lots of different reasons and some of
the same reasons ways to hide ourselves in society.
But for me like I am not like the.
(40:13):
I'm not the epitome of amazing dancer.
I'm not the best dancer in the room, but it's not going to stop
me. I spent decades hiding myself.
I will not hide anymore. The fact that I'm not that great
in some ways as others is not going to stop me because I'm
great. Because I can get up there and
(40:35):
do the thing right. I can now do the figure eights
with my hips. The breast twirls, the shoulder
shimmies. You know, I learn step by step
by doing it again and again. It's not about being good or
perfect. There are no binaries.
There's not a good bad binary. There's simply a get up there
(40:56):
and be who you are and listen and learn and love.
I've never heard it put that wayin to be honest.
As a lesbian who very much liveslike straight girl life other
than the fact that I sleep with women only, I never understood
like drag shows just straight upnever understood it.
(41:18):
I was like, I don't get it. Like I'll go support someone
who's performing. Of course my ex-boyfriend
actually is now a performer but I I didn't get it.
And the way you just explained burlesque makes me feel like I
can almost understand that, eventhough it's different, very
(41:42):
different. But so it makes me understand
it's, it's the art of not hidingsomething about yourself
anymore. And much like I felt I could get
on social media and be like, I'ma lesbian and I, I, when I
cannot, I was so explicit sayinglike, I love to eat pussies, but
it wasn't, It doesn't mean I'm like a super hyper sexual
(42:02):
person. I was just, I can be seen now,
right? It was the reason why the L
makes me feel so good. The box around who I am makes me
feel so good because I can be seen.
And that just that broke it downfor me.
Thank you for breaking it down in that way.
Although different, it makes me see this thing.
Yeah, very clearly. Now, you said something
(42:24):
interesting. You didn't know if you'd be
accepted in the dance class. And I can't help but ask because
I get frustrated seeing the sickrhetoric about people being
afraid of transgender women in restrooms.
I personally have never felt even a iota of a bad vibe from a
(42:50):
transgender woman. And I'm not just saying that
because I'm talking to you, I sincerely mean it.
I have felt so safe and I am a woman who has been assaulted by
a man before, so I have reason to feel unsafe near anyone that
people would be like, oh that's scary.
That's man in my heart. I've always looked at
(43:15):
transgender women and like, you're a woman.
I'm not afraid of you. You're me, you, you probably
have lived through the same scary experiences with the men
that I have. And this is how I feel.
So I'm I, it's personal, but restroom, are you afraid of how
people are going to treat you inyour restroom?
(43:38):
Very aware of the way people choose anger and fear.
My experience with other women is I am accepted and welcomed by
other women. Mostly right.
There are some that don't, but the vast majority of other women
(43:59):
accept me. The people that don't tend to be
men who are putting on all sortsof other facades about things
and often, like I said, they don't actually care.
They're just doing it for the sake of making a point.
Now, that doesn't mean like the first time I went to a bathroom,
(44:21):
I had a friend go with me. When I'm out traveling, I asked
my friends to either watch or gowith me because I'm concerned
about what men will do to me. And the women who get assaulted
in bathrooms are more often women who are transgender and
(44:42):
we're assaulted by men. We are not men.
And so just to make that really clear, I was never a man.
I performed a role. I pretended, but I was never a
man, and I can't speak for everywoman who's transgender.
I can only speak from my experience.
Just as you can only speak for your particular lesbian
(45:03):
experience, I can only speak formy particular lesbian experience
too. I pay attention when I go to the
bathroom, especially if I travel.
If I see. I've learned that if I see
police cars at a rest stop, I don't stop because especially if
(45:26):
it's in a state where it's not safe because I don't know what
they're going to do right? If somebody gets mad at me for
going to the bathroom, I carry afunnel in my car.
I don't know if that feels like ATMI, but it's a way for me to
make sure I'm safe if it doesn'tlook safe for me to go to the
(45:49):
bathroom. Women who are transgender are
not doing harm to other women. No, that I've now, it doesn't
mean that you can't find some case somewhere, and you can
certainly find cases of women who have harmed other women.
I mean, that does happen in the world, but my experience among
(46:13):
women, that kind of physical anger that was really common
when I sat in rooms full of men,it's not there.
The willingness to listen, to bepresent among women.
Again, I can't speak. I don't know if others have had
different experiences with men. I can only speak to the
(46:35):
experiences I've had. And these are, I have men who
are my friends, right? But I can also recognize that
among women, there's much more safety for all of us who are
women. And the way I see, it's
interesting because I have noticed the way cisgender women
(46:58):
will let me know I'm accepted ina space and one a couple of the
most common, I was going to havesomebody.
How can we do that? How can we show?
It a woman while I'm at the sinkwashing my hands because women
wash their hands. Oh my God, it's so wonderful.
Sorry, will say, oh, I love yourscarf.
(47:22):
Those are beautiful shoes. What a lovely beret.
You know, some comment about something I've chosen about
myself, right? It's not like the stereotypical,
Oh yeah, beautiful eyes, which Ican't control my eyes, right?
They are beautiful, but I can't control them, right?
(47:42):
But I can control what I wear and that kind of thing.
And those are the kinds of comments that are so beautiful,
right? And I recognize it.
And I always say thank you. And then I give a compliment
back to the woman, which is how we do, at least in my
experience, how women do it witheach other.
This is how we share our love and our acceptance and our
(48:03):
warmth and our welcome. You know, it's, it's making me
realize that's how I, I let anyone know that I, I perceive,
I make assumptions. They're queer anyone note,
regardless of gender identity. That's how I connected them.
I I compliment something about their outfit.
The other day there I was in a coffee shop and I could tell, as
(48:29):
far as I could tell, presenting man, but had some feminine
energy just kept staring at me when I walked into this very
small town coffee shop between Baton Rouge and Lafayette in the
middle of nowhere. And I could tell he was like,
whoa, she's got movie star energy.
And I can I know what I carry, you know what I mean.
(48:51):
But when IA young, like young man that's queer, sees that I I
want to honor it and be like, I see you and you don't have to
stay in this small town, but if you do, I'm going to cheer you
on. Like in that moment, like all of
that could be shared and I just was like, I love your necklace.
And he lit up like the 4th of July.
(49:13):
And I never realized why I do that because my partner often
tells me you compliment people so much.
I love that about you. You will find something about.
And now I know I do it to queer people.
It's it's it's me saying you're safe.
I see you because I can't just hold up a sign that says I'm gay
too. I wish I could.
(49:36):
It's one of the things that we talk about privilege in society
and I name as a privilege for me.
This isn't for everybody. I name as a privilege for me
that the particular facts of my journey and every woman has a
(49:57):
journey that we follow and my journey where I can't fully pass
as a cisgender woman because of decades.
It's where I didn't get to do and be who I was.
I was forced to go through the the irreversible changes of a
puberty that's not mine, right. I didn't have those life saving,
(50:19):
saving medicines that at least some children get that are being
taken away too often now. So my privilege that I can walk
into a space and be seen as openly queer, I name myself off
the queer giantess, right? And it can matter, especially as
(50:42):
a woman who is a faith leader. I have the clergy collar.
I thought about wearing it todayand then I didn't.
That says Christian leader, woman, queer, transgender, all
really clear upfront. And it says something different
about the world that I get to simply by being a friend of
(51:04):
mine, more than one who are lesbian and faith leaders but
don't present in sort of stereotypical lesbian ways.
They have to identify who they are in some spaces, right?
They don't get to just walk in and be seen as fully queer so.
I definitely find myself doing that a lot and I love that
(51:26):
you're seeing that as something beautiful about yourself, even
though it did 'cause you pain tonot get to be full of yourself.
And it does cause like, I can't travel like I used to.
It's dangerous for me to go to some states right now.
Like Florida is listed as a no go state.
(51:49):
And if you can get out, get out right now.
I don't live in Florida. I don't know the trans
experience there. But from what I've heard from
others, the laws that have been coming down, the things they're
doing in Oklahoma and Texas and Arkansas, and these are not the
people, right? The people of those states,
because I know people in those states are stunning and they may
(52:10):
not all have the same level of knowledge about queer and
transgender. They are beautiful, wonderful
people. I stayed at the home of a
friend's mom right down in Arkansas and it was delightful.
Went to a local restaurant but going alone to places for me not
(52:32):
safe. Yeah, that makes sense.
That makes sense. And it's something that me being
such a privileged individual would never have to think about,
Although as a woman, I do. You do.
I do think about it in other ways, in different ways.
I think about my safety going into a public restroom depending
(52:56):
on the location I'm at. But like you, at a rest stop, I
actually pop a squat rather thangoing into a rest stop because I
might feel unsafe. So yeah, I keep the toilet paper
in my car and all that. Right.
Things we have to do and it's hard and it's a it's an
(53:16):
experience that women have. We have a local, I live in a
very progressive area of the city I'm in.
There are more, there are a couple bars here I will not walk
into. Other women I know don't go in
those bars either. They're not safe for women.
There are women I do know who would go in.
Like, I've got a buddy of mine. She's a classic Butch tyke.
(53:38):
She'll go anywhere, right? And she would fuck you up if you
wanted to write the language. She'll mess you up if you try
and do anything to her. But that's not me, right?
And that's not so many of us. We need a place that's safer.
Yeah, you just exude so much love before we got.
I need to know the significance of your tattoos.
(53:59):
We don't. Care to share?
I wish I could show them all butI have a wonderful artist.
Nipanette. They worked here at Red Clover.
I'm not sure if they're still there or not, but they've done
all of my ink. The first ink I got, I have a
scar around my belly. And since I wear crop tops, I
(54:20):
noticed people will look away. They don't want to acknowledge
the scars we bear. And so I wanted ink that would
highlight the scars. So it's weeds growing out of the
scar because we have to be weeds, we who are queer, right?
We won't be stopped. And then the ink here, it starts
at my well, it starts at my center, right, just above my
(54:46):
vagina, I guess. And it's a river and flows up in
my heart. It transforms into a tomato vine
in flour. And I wanted a tomato vine
because tomatoes are my favoriteflower and also a tomato vine.
If you break the tomato vine, it'll still grow.
(55:10):
How many of us have been broken or faced being broken?
We can't stop growing. We're going to keep growing and
being and falling in love and doing all the things.
And we taste good, even more green and not red.
(55:30):
That's it, That's it. Thank God I got a little too
much Botox on my lips, so if yousee me laughing, I can't go
higher than that right now. I'm stuck.
I'm frozen. I'm really laughing like this.
OK, I. Swear, right?
I've literally been like biting into an apple doing this like so
(55:51):
if you notice that I'm really smiling big with you.
I'm enjoying this so much. But that's, that's beautiful.
Thank you for sharing the meaning behind that.
Now why? Why a tomato plant other than
the fact that it it, it grows when it's broken?
Tomatoes aren't traditionally flowers and most women want
flowers on. Their body, they are flowers.
(56:12):
Every fruit starts as a flower. Fruit starts as a flower.
And so this is what the tomato flower looks like.
It's typically yellow, so right there, beautiful.
And so when you trace it up my arm, there are some that are in
bud. I'm not sure if I can get it
high enough that you can see theones that are in.
Yeah, that's beautiful. And I love tomato flower, right?
(56:37):
If you've ever gone out and looked at a tomato plant growing
and you see those flowers, I just think they're stunning.
And I just adore that every fruit starts as a flower and at
the base of the flowers where the fruit forms.
So it's beautiful all throughout.
That is beautiful, thank you forsharing.
(56:58):
You've been just answering everysingle question with so much
love. If there's one last thing our
queer community needs to know from you, from God, God speaking
through to you, what is that? I guess it's this.
It's what I've been saying throughout fall in yourself.
(57:25):
Fall in love with yourself, right?
We got a little Internet disconnect. 1 moment, 1 moment,
1 moment. This has been the most glorious
episode. I I pray be good as Henrietta's.
(57:48):
Oh there it is, there we go. I was like, we got to finish the
game, said fall in love with yourself and it cut.
Oh no. So yeah, fall in love with
yourself radically, go on dates with yourself, fall in love with
other people and the the random person, right?
Fall in love with the barista who your smile at.
I'm not talking about taking herout on a date.
(58:08):
I'm talking about just being in love with every step of the way.
Fall in love with walk outside if you can walk right, walk
outside if you can't, maybe lookoutside.
Go outside in some way. See and fall in love with the
winter landscape. Fall in love with the way the
(58:30):
clouds are in the sky. Fall in love with the plants in
your house if you have them. Just keep being there.
And when we fall in love, when we fall in love, we want to know
everything, don't we? We want to know everything.
We're not judging, we're listening and being present.
Fall in love like that. Oh.
(58:50):
So good. But thank you for letting us
fall in love with you, for letting us ask questions without
judging the questions, for hopefully every single person
listening, for not judging and listening and and really
recognizing in this moment. If you didn't know how you would
feel going into this conversation now, you feel so
much ease around understanding atransgender experience, then
(59:13):
maybe, just maybe, other things in your life that you have been
afraid of, other people in the world that you have been afraid
of. Maybe you just needed to be
curious, ask more questions, andhave an open heart to
understand. Because there is nothing to be
afraid of here. There is only love.
And I am so honored that you share your love in a world that
(59:36):
has tried to silence you and belittle you.
And you who you are, belittle exactly who you are, exactly how
God made you. And I'm here to affirm and
celebrate you. And thank you for being on the
show. Vika Henrietta, thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.It's been a delightful
experience and you are also a delight.
(59:57):
Thank. You well, have an amazing day,
but but wait, how can people follow you?
They got to follow you. They're got to be so interested
at this point. If you go to TikTok or
Instagram, it's at Vika V Steel.VICAVST EE L at Vika V Steel.
(01:00:17):
Amazing. I'm going to have you in the
show notes. Y'all need to go follow the
TikTok videos or if I do say so myself, short powerful sermons
that you are going to feel more connection to God in one minute
listening to you than you would like an hour with another
preacher. It's just, it's so much love
(01:00:39):
just oozing out. It's just unconditional and it
just makes you feel seen. So thank you.
Thank you very much. Have such a beautiful day.
You too. Thank you for your time.
Bye everyone. As clear women, that's women
with an X because of course we are inclusive here.
(01:01:01):
As I was saying, as queer women,we haven't always been lifted up
or celebrated. We have often felt left out and
put down in places that historically haven't welcomed
us. In fact, we have been
conditioned by society to be grateful for mere tolerance.
My resilient LGBTQ plus IA community, I am talking to you.
(01:01:26):
I'll bet you've recognized the spark that God put in your
heart, your unique calling to impact the world, and only a way
that you can. A business idea brand to build,
a coaching program to start, theart to create, the song to sing,
the book to write. That relationship you long to
build. But that little light inside
(01:01:48):
your soul has often been blown out by the people around you,
leaving you conditioned to play small and not step into your
full potential. You are not alone and it's never
too late to truly live your mostauthentic dream life.
I would know. I came out late in life, nearly
(01:02:11):
30 a couple years ago after being bullied for months inside
a Country Club right outside of my weights class.
I was assaulted by a bigoted woman who couldn't stand my
queerness. She physically pushed me so I
had a meeting with management. I told them I didn't feel safe.
I brought forth evidence and guess what?
(01:02:32):
They did nothing. Sadly, this is normal.
But in order to create change, we have to be brave enough to be
the change ourselves. So I did a thing.
I started my own virtual CountryClub for queer women.
A safe place for us to create meaningful connections and grow.
(01:02:54):
So if you're looking for a love connection, networking
opportunities or coaching to live your best freedom life, you
want to apply to be a part of our incredible community of
purpose driven, passionate queerwomen.
Join Queer Women Rising, the online queer Country Club for
growth minded women ready to level up in life and love.
(01:03:15):
To apply, DM me the word Rising on Instagram at Sofia Spellino
or chat me the word Rising on Sofia fiaspellino.com.
Now, beyond hosting Queer Women Rising, I am a personal brand
coach and social media strategist.
If you give me a moment to tell you about what I do, I can share
(01:03:36):
how I can help you, just like I've helped many clients before.
Get famous online and make more money.
If you're an exhausted coach or service provider ready to scale
your business for real or you'rejust getting started building
your dream brand from scratch. And if you're ready ready to
build your own profitable personal brand, I can show you
(01:03:58):
how in six months or less. But why should you take my word
for it? Well, I've spent over 10 years
in the social media marketing industry, amassing over 400,000
followers across platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook and
YouTube, as a well as hosting a top charting podcast, building a
(01:04:19):
successful service provider business and coaching powerful
women to build purpose driven, profitable personal brands.
Yeah, I have the social media and sales process strategies
that can help you finally make the money you deserve because I
want to help you build your dream business that gives you
time, freedom and makes real money.
(01:04:42):
So for a limited time, I'm giving away your first steps to
go from less than 5K moms and advance to 10 to 20 K moms.
Grab my newly revamped profitable personal brand
Blueprint. My proven framework to build
yourself a personal brand that motivates, inspires, and sells
so that your business can thrivethe way it should.
(01:05:04):
Just go to the link in the show notes.
Whether you're a novice at creating or you're feeling stuck
hitting a plateau in your business that once had
consistent revenue and need guidance, support and coaching
to get to your next. Level I invite you to book a
strategy. Call to speak with either me or
my team to see if we'd be the right fit to work with each
(01:05:25):
other inside of the profitable personal brand 6 month coaching
program. Mind you, I am extremely
selective and this coaching program is not for everyone and
I'm not afraid to say it. I am only taking on serious,
purpose, driven and committed queer women and allies inside of
my community. If that's you, book your free
strategy call. The link is in the show notes
(01:05:48):
and if you feel yourself come alive and love listening to
Queer Women Rising, please leaveme a five star rating with a
kind review. Wherever you listen to podcasts,
be sure to share the show with apowerful woman you know.
And remember, when you're calledto do something greater in life,
love or business, you will be uncomfortable until you move.
(01:06:11):
So get up and go get what you want.
Let's rise, Let's rise, Let's rise, let's rise.
What does it feel like to walk into a women's restroom?
Are you afraid of how people aregoing to treat you?
Sophics. And allies, you're listening to
Queer Women Rising. That's women with an X.
Because we are inclusive here. When we hear the stories of
(00:21):
queer women who have gone beforeus, we see evidence that there's
nothing we can't do. And yes, we can too.
It's time for you to level up inlife, in love, and step into
your most authentic, abundant reality.
(00:42):
You won't be the same after thisepisode.
It's your turn to let go of goodfor greatness.
Your best life is now. Let's rise, let's rise.
Let's. Rise.
(01:08):
Hello, my lesbian loves. Today I'm going to share a
conversation that's different, aconversation with a transgender
friend of mine, Bika Etta Henrietta.
Personally, as a lesbian woman who is very, very, very much
(01:30):
cisgender, I have so many questions to ask.
I come from a very small town. I grew up in evangelical
religion that did not accept me as a lesbian and certainly would
not accept my transgender friend.
(01:51):
And I thought, what would it be like to have an episode of my
podcasts where I ask all the questions that most people don't
feel comfortable to ask. And we go there because people
are afraid of what they don't understand.
When people are not willing to ask questions, not willing to be
(02:16):
curious, they make themselves sodifferent from each other.
We're actually so close to beingthe same.
We all want love. We all want acceptance.
So if you feel like, well, maybeyou couldn't relate to this
conversation, if you have been through any religious trauma, or
(02:36):
you experience society not accepting you as you are, or you
simply want to learn about the transgender experience, I
implore you to keep listening because this is how we grow.
So let's start by asking a question.
Is 59 years old too old to embrace your true self?
(02:58):
Never. We know what it's like to not
embrace our true selves. As queer women, I think we've
done it. I didn't embrace my true self
until nearly 30 and I'm so proudof Ricotta Henrietta for doing
this. Even if it is a later in life,
(03:19):
it's never too late to embrace who you are.
So many of us find ourselves midlife late light, just
changing things in our world. And at 59, it's been a year of
embracing first. Viga Etta Henrietta is proof
that it's never too late to explore new passions.
(03:41):
This year, she got her first tattoos performed in burlesque
shows and stepped up as a faith leader in both traditional
church settings and the public square.
But Vika Etta Henrietta's journey isn't just about these
bold moves. It's about embracing queer joy
in a world where our stories areoften centered on pain.
(04:03):
We're going to dive into her unique path from ministry to
burlesque to the meaning behind the tattoos.
Because I'm genuinely curious and the people who walk this
journey or may not have walked this journey with her.
Because when we come out, if youare a lesbian here listening,
when we come out, we know we lose people along the way.
We don't really lose them. Apparently we never had them.
(04:25):
But it's something in the queer experience that we all can
relate to. And I'm sure as someone in a
transgender experience, you are more susceptible to losing
people. So I, I want to hear this
journey. Welcome to the Let's welcome her
(04:45):
and everyone. Oh my gosh, I've been waiting to
have this conversation and no matter how nervous I am to ask
the questions I'm just going to ask.
Hi, we've been waiting to do this for so long.
We have. Your videos on TikTok on my bad
days, no matter what you're talking about, we get in
(05:07):
Rihanna. I I just feel the love pouring
from your heart. Thank you.
I mean, and it's the core of whowe have to be in the world, in
the world that tries to harm us,to tear us down, if we can just
keep falling in love, right? It's the central commandment of
every religion I've ever seen tofall in love, to fall in love
(05:30):
with your neighbor, to fall in love with yourself, to fall in
love, we say in my faith tradition, to fall in love with
God. But what's God, right?
Who's God? How do we define what that means
in the world? I think the best explanation
I've heard is from Sufi wisdom, which is wherever you look,
(05:52):
there is the face of God. It's not a human face, right?
The face of God is the tree bark, is the cracks in the
sidewalk, is the moment when youkiss.
The face of God is love. You're so good, you're so
poetic. I like to have Angel bumps and
(06:14):
it's so it's so true. The moment I was able to step
away and still keep the pieces of my faith that that feel true
and feel love and feel like unity, but but let go of
everything else is the moment I was like, you know, I don't
know, but God's just everywhere and and that felt so good.
What is your faith tradition? I'm curious.
(06:36):
So I was raised Catholic and I left it to faith and defined
myself as atheist, agnostic spiritual, which is beautiful.
Most of my friends are in those categories.
One year after coming out, I started realizing that some
Christian faith traditions had come back to queer and so I
(06:58):
joined the ELCA, which is a Lutheran denomination that
accepts queers and leadership. I'm openly queer transgender
woman. The pastor of my church is a
transgender man. Our population at our church is
not queer openly. They're mostly older sis hat
white folk who are lovely and beautiful in community.
(07:23):
And then I also do ministry on the street and in TikTok, where
I speak mostly to people who arenot Christians.
And what I say again and again on repeat, be who you are, love
who you are. What's your faith, right?
And maybe it's Pagan, maybe it'sBuddhist, maybe you're atheist.
(07:45):
My dance teacher defines her faith as in dance, right?
There's no limit If we're falling in love to how we define
it. There are no binder boundaries.
There are no binaries. I keep falling in love.
What? What keeps calling you back?
And not from a place of oh, I think it's impossible because I
(08:06):
myself am called back to faith as a queer person.
But what keeps calling you back to faith where the majority of
Christians actually reject you and reject you to the harshest
degree? Because right now, transgender
people are under attack more than ever.
(08:27):
So first, I'm going to just put this caution out there.
If you're listening to this and you're harmed by faith and
thinking that this might be me trying to tell you why you
should come back, I will never do that because you're beautiful
as you are. I look at it as I can no more
control my faith, that I controlmy identity.
(08:49):
I am queer, I am lesbian, I am transgender, I am Christian.
It's just true, right? And I had the joy in my studies
to be able to read the Bible haltingly in the original Greek
and Hebrew. And what you start to find
(09:10):
really quickly when you actuallystart reading and not just
reading excerpts and reading little pieces.
The Bible is not a set of rules.The Christians you're talking
about want to make the Bible into dogma, into rules.
The Bible's a conversation. It's one way of a conversation
with God that makes sense to me.A friend of mine, I don't know,
(09:34):
I had it here a minute ago, gaveme a book on green witches,
which is a specific type of witch that resonates with me,
too. It's another way to speak with
the divine. And I can't help but be who I
am. And when I speak, I speak to
help those Christians come to newer understandings that say
(09:57):
you don't have to be bogged downby rules either.
It's about love. It's about the conversation.
Pay attention to the conversation God's having with
us, whether in the Bible, whether in poems, whether in the
wind that's blowing the grasses outside your door.
Where do you feel heaven? Where do you feel whole and full
(10:21):
and beautiful and wonderful? I feel like just talking with
you is like ease to the nervous system about topics that have
traditionally been extremely triggering to me and so many
people and you break it down into this wholesome just God is
is all around in love and I lovethat.
(10:42):
So thank you. I I have to know because I've
never asked So I've asked when Iwas really little and I was
brought up to believe that gay is bad, right?
Less most of us were. I asked one of my gay guy
friends who is just fabulous to this day.
He's just a fabulous man with the most fabulous outfits and
(11:03):
beautiful house and sexiest husband.
He truly is living his best life.
And I asked him when I met him because his mother came from a
very small town. He came from a small town.
He grew up extremely poor and, and grew up with a father who
haunted and fished and he often lived and played in the woods.
(11:23):
He wasn't brought up in the city.
And here's this man dressed so wonderfully without much
Internet back when we were children.
And I said, how did you know you're gay?
And like, how did you learn to be gay?
Learn to be gay, right? Because I didn't know.
I didn't know I was so young. And he told me he would go into
his mom's grandmother's closet and put on her high heels and
(11:46):
put on her perfume. And he did it since he was 5.
And in that moment, I was taughtto believe that gay was a sin.
But in that moment, I knew it couldn't be a sin.
And I started questioning my ownself.
And when I started having attraction of girls, I can
recognize it at 5:00. So I want to know for you
because I don't understand the transgender experience.
(12:08):
I love being a woman. I couldn't imagine body
dysphoria for myself. I can't imagine what that must
feel like. Do you feel comfortable sharing
your first moments of your journey and how that progressed?
I do. And what I'm going to say first
is I so appreciate the way you proposed and asked that question
(12:29):
to me, right? When you see a woman who's
transgender, the first question shouldn't be about our journey
in general. In this case, because that was a
conversation you and I had already had.
It makes sense. I am here for that.
I was assigned teacher at Birthright.
I have been that role all of my life and I continue in that
(12:49):
role. For me, I think the best analogy
I've seen, well, not the best, but the one I think most people
can get about all of this, is I'm left-handed.
I knew I was left-handed before I could say any words.
I reached for the cup on my plate or the bowl or the smash
(13:12):
the food with my left hand. That's always been an integral
part of who I am. Growing up, I always looked to
girls and women and as the people that I would be an
emulate until I was in kindergarten when I realized
(13:33):
that I wasn't allowed to be thatperson and learned in
kindergarten that I had to hide who I was.
And that's a life that I've lived for decades, hiding who I
am. One of the things that people
will say is that women like myself were socialized as boys.
(13:56):
I was not socialized as a boy. I was socialized as a girl who
had to hide. I was the girl in the boys
locker room. I learned anybody who knows me
right if you ask them if I'm shyor if I'm quiet.
And you may already have an answer to this, right?
Do I seem shy or quiet to you? Right And I'm not, right?
(14:18):
As a child, that was my armor. I wore shy and quiet as armor to
protect myself, all the while knowing that I wasn't who they
said I was. I didn't have the right words
for it, any more than I had the words as a baby about being
left-handed, but I knew. We who are queer, many of us
(14:39):
know. Yeah, we do.
We do. And there's no room for negative
comments here and unwelcoming comments, so we're just going to
ignore them? Ignore them.
I well, thank you for sharing that.
So you just knew and at 5:00 what was actually happening that
let you know this isn't OK with is there like a moment where you
(15:04):
let something out for the first time?
You're going to get blocked. Hold on, let me block this
person. I'm used to getting those kinds
of hate comments right. They're tossed out many times,
like referring to the hate comments.
I lived my life in rooms full ofmen because that's where I had
(15:25):
to be. And so many of those men, they
don't actually care about what they're saying.
They do it for the reaction. I stand on the street corner at
our farmers market during the season.
I'm wearing my clergy collar crop top because you got to
queer it. And people will speak hate to me
(15:46):
and I speak love back every single time because that's who
we have to be. But no, I knew because of the
way people would laugh at me, the boys in my family, when I
would do things that were feminine, when I wanted to be
(16:06):
with my sister, I would get laughed at.
When I wanted to stay, I wanted to, I wanted to be with the
women at the holidays, right? I wanted to be in the kitchen
cooking and I would always get shoot out.
And there's a part of me I speakabout a childhood stolen, and it
(16:30):
was stolen from me and my parent.
My mother is a lovely woman. I took her name right.
Henrietta was my mother's name, but she was very much a product
of her time. She wanted to protect me and a
society that would not accept who I really was.
And the reason I have to be out in the world, the reason I have
(16:53):
to be a teacher is because thereare children today.
There are children today being told that they can't be who they
are. I didn't get to see women like
me. It's very likely you didn't get
to see women like you. Many of us didn't, and it
matters. I'll watch like I like I said, I
(17:16):
have my farmers market chaplaincy.
I'm speaking love into the world.
You'll get a person will walk bywith their children shielding
their eyes from seeing me right?But that child, sometimes they
look back I. Was always the kid that looked
back. Right.
That seeing me can matter mattered to me.
(17:38):
To see other queer people comingout, it mattered to me.
Like, I know all the problems with social media, right?
And the way social media can stop people from learning, can
shut us into little communities.Social media saved me because I
got to see women like me, women who don't fully pass as a
(17:58):
cisgender woman doesn't make me less than a woman, right?
I bear the scars of a life that was full of hiding, and I get to
be who I am now. This voice, this, the shoulders,
the hearts of me. I get to be all that.
I am all woman all the time. I'm so just the curiosity, the
(18:23):
questions that are just burning in my head.
OK, thank you for being so vulnerable to share this.
At what point again, if you feelcomfortable, do you feel like
you started openly dressing morefeminine and feeling safe?
Because it sounds like your parents, as much as your mother
loved you, was trying to keep you safe and was so scared.
(18:46):
And you probably weren't allowedto dress feminine, I'm assuming.
But what my mom did right, she did what she could within the
system that was there When I wasin, what's it middle school,
they came out with a brand of underwear and colors for people
who presented as boys. And I wanted those, right?
(19:10):
Nobody else in my family, none of the people who were actually
boys wanted those. But I wanted those because that
was as close as I could get right to being who I was in the
world is to have color underwear.
It's so silly, right? But it's real.
But for the most part, I just kept it hidden.
I would sneak an item from my sister's closet, so sorry, Anne,
(19:34):
and would wonder what happened to things, you know, and try and
hide them. I know my mom knew, but she
wouldn't say. But she did the things that
would help me along, right? And I did a decent amount of
blocking all of it. I spent decades without any
(19:57):
hope. I spent years dreaming of
suicide as my future, as my possibility for any kind of
freedom. And I'm glad that I didn't
follow that course. I'm hopeful that buying by being
present in the world, I can helpothers see that there are other
ways in a world that still wantsto show hate, that wants to live
(20:21):
in hate, that there are ways to find our love.
I mean, just the way you said that, like your mother found
ways the way you said, I'm not sure exactly, but it's so
poetic. Like she saw you and even though
she couldn't give you everythingto help you step into who you
were, she did what she could andin a way that was maybe safe for
(20:46):
you. Was there a certain point after
childhood years where you truly came out?
Or did you go through with the traditional life and marry a
woman as a man? So I worked really hard to hide
all I was and was able to hide that even from myself for
(21:08):
periods of time. I met my wife.
What year was it, 198687 We've been married 38 years come
March. Oh.
My God, so beautiful. Slowly across the course of that
marriage, I let out parts of whoI was to her and she protected
(21:33):
me in ways like my mother did, but would go shopping for me and
different things. It wasn't until come February
was the day I came out six yearsago and can.
You repeat that real quick. We got a little bit of Internet.
(21:56):
You said it wasn't. You said it wasn't until
February, February. 28th OK, so soon I'll be out six years and
that's been a huge change, right?
My wife and I have gone through major changes.
We are staying together, right? We're two wives.
(22:17):
Our relationship is inevitably different.
We are in my podcast, I talk andon my podcast, my TikTok, I talk
about no binaries and I don't believe in binaries.
Even around things like what? What do we define as intimacy?
(22:38):
What do we define as intimacy? I would argue that most times
sex is not the intimate act and too many times it's used to step
away from intimacy. You know what I mean, right?
Yeah, like zone out like it doesn't have to.
It can just be that, and it doesn't have to be more right.
(23:00):
Right, the most intimate acts I've ever experienced are
sitting side by side holding hands with the woman I care
about, right? Deep, long conversations.
I have so many people in my life, hours long conversations
(23:22):
that aren't just oh, my work is this my work is that those are
important conversations, right? That we can have.
But true, like I I was at a party, a New Year's party, and
was sitting down in a quiet space, woman I'd never met
before. We immediately started talking
about death and then what death means to us and how death isn't
(23:42):
something final, there's something beautiful.
Like in tarot card, the death isthe card of change.
We die all the time and we're rise again from who we used to
be. We died to new habits, we die to
(24:03):
limits and we keep being born into new relationships, new ways
of thinking, new places to be. And there's something stunning.
And never letting ourselves stop, but always letting
ourselves give space to die to those things that don't aren't
us anymore and can become who wetruly are.
(24:26):
What's so interesting about thisto me is your relationship
didn't die even though you were coming out.
And so another crazy hard question and you don't have to
answer of course, but your relationship looks different.
Do you and your wife still have sex?
And so that is that's a very personal question and it is one
(24:48):
I will answer because what's truly interesting here, and I'm
a little cautious because I don't want to speak for her, but
she has found the language for who she is in more recent
understanding. So queer, which is to be
asexual, which is stunning and beautiful, right?
(25:11):
To name it, to be able to name it, because for so long women
who are asexual especially were given the language which are
broken. Woman, you know, it's not broken
to be ace. It's beautiful in its way.
And again, sex is an intimacy. My wife and I are intimate in so
(25:31):
many ways that are not sexual. For decades, I didn't want to
have sex terribly. I didn't like it.
I was in the wrong body. I could do it, but it wasn't who
I was and so to be free from that is beautiful right now.
(25:56):
Now that I'm out and openly lesbian, sex is something I
think about again. But I would never force or
require that from my wife because that's not our
relationship. Our relationship is one of deep,
loving intimacy. The intimacy of each morning
having deep conversations. The intimacy of rubbing her legs
(26:18):
at night to help with the soreness and massaging her feet.
Of giving tickles along the leg and the foot.
The intimacy of buying her the decaf coffee she likes single
shot Lotte and surprising her with it before I go into work or
(26:39):
to church or someplace else. The love that you to have for
her is just so beautiful in their respect and it I can't
help but think how funny of God to place you 2 together because
she being asexual and you needing that safe space.
(27:00):
That person that's like hey likeI don't need this from you.
Without saying that I'm assumingthe energy of of the space is is
her just appreciating what you were bringing to the table and
so much so that you're still together is wildly beautiful.
So you said lesbian is a lesbian.
(27:23):
How you identify today out of our alphabet soup of LGBTQIA?
So when I think about my identification, my first
identification is woman. That right there woman, then
queer. And I like queer as the
overarching term. I think it's a lovely term.
Many people my age just turned 60 just looking.
(27:46):
Like a month ago. Fabulous. 1260, by the way.
And so woman, queer, lesbian, transgender, these are my
identifiers within the queer community.
And they're lovely, right? They're delightful, but they're
not all of who we are. They help me frame myself, but
(28:07):
at my core, I don't believe in any binary.
I think of like in the Bible, right in Genesis, at names,
there are no binaries, and it's beautiful.
People often misread those partsand I turn them into binaries.
But if you actually read it, it's all about there are no
binaries. Let's let's give them a little
(28:29):
of. It so let's, let's like one of
the one ways that people try to limit is they'll use a verse
from Genesis, which it says God created them, man and woman.
God created them, OK, and they'll say, oh, see man and
woman, period. But the Bible's conversation,
you don't read pieces of it out of context.
(28:51):
So even within Genesis. So let's go back into Genesis
and read from that same section of Genesis, just a few verses
before God separated light from dark, God separated the land
from the sea. God made man and woman.
We don't deny beaches exist, right?
(29:18):
But beaches exist. We're land and see me.
We don't deny dawn and dusk. We don't deny the transgression
of the sun's light on the moon'sface in the night sky.
All of this is real. There are no binaries, right?
It's to take those verses withinGenesis and say, oh, well, of
(29:39):
course those include, but the man and woman doesn't.
It's like, why? Why would you take one piece and
say only that one? It's binary and nothing else is
No, it's all there. It's beautiful and and.
And why would they only do it inone way except to be creating
(30:00):
division, right? Like if you're going to do that,
that's the goal. It's the problem of any text, I
don't care what the text is, is going to be interpreted.
You can't help but interpret. There are no dogmas.
The problem with too many of ourtexts is a particular identity
(30:26):
is held on to the what they willclaim is the truth that SIS had
male identity theology. When you start opening your mind
up to say that's one identity, not the only one, Let's actually
look at what women are saying across the span of womanhood.
(30:47):
Let's look at what people from marginalized community are
looking and seeing in this conversation with God, with
divine, with the source. That's not limit it to one
identity's take on it. I don't ascribe I'll intent to
people typically, but I do urge that people stop limiting
(31:14):
themselves and putting God in their pocket.
God doesn't fit in our pocket very well, right?
To be wielded as a weapon. Instead, let's sit down to the
conversation over tea or coffee or a nice drink.
This is my lovely little coffee.Oh, yours.
Is so cute. It's a teacup actually, but I
(31:35):
love it so much. Love it.
I painted this one for my partner so we have like little
matching rainbows. Thank you.
OK, what does your ministry looklike now?
You're raised Catholic. You go through transformation.
You find where a church is accepting you.
You preach on the street corners.
(31:56):
People tell their kids to look away.
I I know you still keep going. You don't stop.
So some. But then I also have so many
people come to me crying, young adults, new adults crying
because they never believed there could be a woman like me
in this kind of ministry, right?And like I said, I'm obviously
(32:18):
queer. I've got my crop top, clergy
collar. I've got my tattoos showing,
right? I'm wearing a big flowy skirt.
I'm dancing, twirling. I've got all my burlesque and
belly dance routines. I'm working throughout there,
right? Because it's all beautiful.
I also preach at a church to mostly older sister.
Like I'm working on a sermon. I was working earlier, I'll work
(32:41):
somewhere later, and in that space, all of my work is around
love and who we are, right, Who we are in this world.
The one I'm working on for Sunday deals with heaven because
there's a verse when Jesus is baptized, it says the heavens
(33:03):
opened up. When you hear that, what do you
picture? The heavens open clouds.
Yeah, Sky. Right.
Always in the sky, always in theclouds, Everywhere you look
there is the face of God. Heaven here on earth.
Not some other place, right? Your Kingdom come on earth,
right? That's what that means.
(33:24):
So the heavens open up. It's not a rift in the sky, it's
right here. How did the heavens open up?
Think of the moment when you felt right in the world, when
everything felt complete and beautiful and stunning.
(33:46):
That's heaven. I feel it now.
I feel it not talking to you. You carry the like the grace and
spirit of the Lord so strongly. Henrietta, be good at Henrietta.
God, thank you for bringing you into my world.
And how many people are going tobe touched by this podcast?
(34:09):
So along the way, were there, were there people that they lost
who didn't accept this, Like when you changed your name, for
instance? Yes, most, like most of the
people in my family, the the loss was they just stopped
(34:32):
communicating. They didn't come right out and
try and do harm. My mother was in her last days
when I came out. She saw me and knew me and
smiled, but that was about all she could do at that point.
Do. You think you felt her
(34:54):
acceptance even though she couldn't speak.
Oh yeah, yeah. Not just like I think in terms
of is that there's acceptance, affirmation and celebration.
She's a woman who would celebrate me, right?
Not simply accept. So good.
The more like more of what I've seen, I know there are men out
(35:18):
there who can have deep loving conversations.
The most of the men that I was in circles with didn't.
They were kind of standard, I think, and maybe I'm wrong about
this because I'm not a man so I don't really understand them.
But even though I existed among them, I didn't have long
conversations with men about topics, about personal topics,
(35:41):
about feelings, when I presentedthat way when I was in circles
with them. If you tried turned into the
joke, into the pop culture reference.
And I know there are women who do that too.
But in my circles, this is the change I've had.
I now have friendships, Deep loving, intimate friendships
(36:03):
with women. And again, intimacy.
Not the same as sex. Sex is wonderful and lovely and
beautiful. Not the only way where like I
have one friend, we have, we call him our Infinity.
Phone calls, we'll talk hours about whatever, right?
Deep, loving conversation in ways I never had before I go.
(36:28):
I was out with a woman 9 hours. We sat together 9 hours across
two different spaces, talking the entire time about everything
under the sun and meaningful. Like not not light or fluffy
stuff. A world has opened up to me
since I've accepted it fully andopenly who I am that I never
(36:53):
had. It's not so much losing people.
I gone from black and white to Technicolor, you know, so.
That's so good. And as I started this episode,
we can't lose what we never had.And it sounds like you were
never able to truly be yourself.So they never truly had you and
(37:14):
you never had them. For anyone listening to this,
don't be afraid of of losing someone you've never had.
Just come out and be yourself. OK, Have to ask about the
burlesque because I know people have heard you mention it
throughout the episode. They're like, what?
You're 59, you are living the lesbian life and you burlesque.
(37:36):
How does this, oh, and you're a minister.
How does this all go together? And they have all of this great
ink. Yes, tattoos.
Look how beautiful. And most of this happened during
my 59, right? I'm now 60 and I'm going to make
it even more. I performed 3 burlesque
striptease when I was 59. One in January, 1 in May, and
(38:00):
one in November. How was I?
How did it feel right? My next one is to Angry Woman by
Ash Ashe. Fantastic song.
So when I came out, I knew I needed to breakthrough all the
(38:21):
ways that I had learned to hide among men, but I didn't know
how. So my wife actually took me to
my first time going to get makeup at Sephora, and they put
the makeup on me and I learned about how to do makeup right.
I began to learn. I see so much color now because
I use color in ways I never did before.
(38:43):
I found a dance studio that I thought might be one that I
could go to. It's dance life studio here in
Madison. I don't know if anybody here
Ariel Juliet, if you look her up, she has a TikTok following
in the 1,000,000 now because she's fat and does belly dance
right and doesn't hide her body because our bodies are beautiful
(39:07):
and can be so many ways. But I signed up for course
terrified to go because I didn'tknow how I was going to be
accepted. And I was welcomed so much as
every other person who goes intothat scene is welcomed.
(39:31):
And I started to learn how to unlock my body from decades of
stiffness. I'm still stiff.
I've been taking classes in belly and burlesque for four
years, once a week. I'm still stiff compared to
other women, right, who have hadyears of not having to hide.
But I'm not the only woman who'sstiff, right?
(39:52):
There are cisgender women out there, no different than me that
have learned stiffness for lots of different reasons and some of
the same reasons ways to hide ourselves in society.
But for me like I am not like the.
(40:13):
I'm not the epitome of amazing dancer.
I'm not the best dancer in the room, but it's not going to stop
me. I spent decades hiding myself.
I will not hide anymore. The fact that I'm not that great
in some ways as others is not going to stop me because I'm
great. Because I can get up there and
(40:35):
do the thing right. I can now do the figure eights
with my hips. The breast twirls, the shoulder
shimmies. You know, I learn step by step
by doing it again and again. It's not about being good or
perfect. There are no binaries.
There's not a good bad binary. There's simply a get up there
(40:56):
and be who you are and listen and learn and love.
I've never heard it put that wayin to be honest.
As a lesbian who very much liveslike straight girl life other
than the fact that I sleep with women only, I never understood
like drag shows just straight upnever understood it.
(41:18):
I was like, I don't get it. Like I'll go support someone
who's performing. Of course my ex-boyfriend
actually is now a performer but I I didn't get it.
And the way you just explained burlesque makes me feel like I
can almost understand that, eventhough it's different, very
(41:42):
different. But so it makes me understand
it's, it's the art of not hidingsomething about yourself
anymore. And much like I felt I could get
on social media and be like, I'ma lesbian and I, I, when I
cannot, I was so explicit sayinglike, I love to eat pussies, but
it wasn't, It doesn't mean I'm like a super hyper sexual
(42:02):
person. I was just, I can be seen now,
right? It was the reason why the L
makes me feel so good. The box around who I am makes me
feel so good because I can be seen.
And that just that broke it downfor me.
Thank you for breaking it down in that way.
Although different, it makes me see this thing.
Yeah, very clearly. Now, you said something
(42:24):
interesting. You didn't know if you'd be
accepted in the dance class. And I can't help but ask because
I get frustrated seeing the sickrhetoric about people being
afraid of transgender women in restrooms.
I personally have never felt even a iota of a bad vibe from a
(42:50):
transgender woman. And I'm not just saying that
because I'm talking to you, I sincerely mean it.
I have felt so safe and I am a woman who has been assaulted by
a man before, so I have reason to feel unsafe near anyone that
people would be like, oh that's scary.
That's man in my heart. I've always looked at
(43:15):
transgender women and like, you're a woman.
I'm not afraid of you. You're me, you, you probably
have lived through the same scary experiences with the men
that I have. And this is how I feel.
So I'm I, it's personal, but restroom, are you afraid of how
people are going to treat you inyour restroom?
(43:38):
Very aware of the way people choose anger and fear.
My experience with other women is I am accepted and welcomed by
other women. Mostly right.
There are some that don't, but the vast majority of other women
(43:59):
accept me. The people that don't tend to be
men who are putting on all sortsof other facades about things
and often, like I said, they don't actually care.
They're just doing it for the sake of making a point.
Now, that doesn't mean like the first time I went to a bathroom,
(44:21):
I had a friend go with me. When I'm out traveling, I asked
my friends to either watch or gowith me because I'm concerned
about what men will do to me. And the women who get assaulted
in bathrooms are more often women who are transgender and
(44:42):
we're assaulted by men. We are not men.
And so just to make that really clear, I was never a man.
I performed a role. I pretended, but I was never a
man, and I can't speak for everywoman who's transgender.
I can only speak from my experience.
Just as you can only speak for your particular lesbian
(45:03):
experience, I can only speak formy particular lesbian experience
too. I pay attention when I go to the
bathroom, especially if I travel.
If I see. I've learned that if I see
police cars at a rest stop, I don't stop because especially if
(45:26):
it's in a state where it's not safe because I don't know what
they're going to do right? If somebody gets mad at me for
going to the bathroom, I carry afunnel in my car.
I don't know if that feels like ATMI, but it's a way for me to
make sure I'm safe if it doesn'tlook safe for me to go to the
(45:49):
bathroom. Women who are transgender are
not doing harm to other women. No, that I've now, it doesn't
mean that you can't find some case somewhere, and you can
certainly find cases of women who have harmed other women.
I mean, that does happen in the world, but my experience among
(46:13):
women, that kind of physical anger that was really common
when I sat in rooms full of men,it's not there.
The willingness to listen, to bepresent among women.
Again, I can't speak. I don't know if others have had
different experiences with men. I can only speak to the
(46:35):
experiences I've had. And these are, I have men who
are my friends, right? But I can also recognize that
among women, there's much more safety for all of us who are
women. And the way I see, it's
interesting because I have noticed the way cisgender women
(46:58):
will let me know I'm accepted ina space and one a couple of the
most common, I was going to havesomebody.
How can we do that? How can we show?
It a woman while I'm at the sinkwashing my hands because women
wash their hands. Oh my God, it's so wonderful.
Sorry, will say, oh, I love yourscarf.
(47:22):
Those are beautiful shoes. What a lovely beret.
You know, some comment about something I've chosen about
myself, right? It's not like the stereotypical,
Oh yeah, beautiful eyes, which Ican't control my eyes, right?
They are beautiful, but I can't control them, right?
(47:42):
But I can control what I wear and that kind of thing.
And those are the kinds of comments that are so beautiful,
right? And I recognize it.
And I always say thank you. And then I give a compliment
back to the woman, which is how we do, at least in my
experience, how women do it witheach other.
This is how we share our love and our acceptance and our
(48:03):
warmth and our welcome. You know, it's, it's making me
realize that's how I, I let anyone know that I, I perceive,
I make assumptions. They're queer anyone note,
regardless of gender identity. That's how I connected them.
I I compliment something about their outfit.
The other day there I was in a coffee shop and I could tell, as
(48:29):
far as I could tell, presenting man, but had some feminine
energy just kept staring at me when I walked into this very
small town coffee shop between Baton Rouge and Lafayette in the
middle of nowhere. And I could tell he was like,
whoa, she's got movie star energy.
And I can I know what I carry, you know what I mean.
(48:51):
But when IA young, like young man that's queer, sees that I I
want to honor it and be like, I see you and you don't have to
stay in this small town, but if you do, I'm going to cheer you
on. Like in that moment, like all of
that could be shared and I just was like, I love your necklace.
And he lit up like the 4th of July.
(49:13):
And I never realized why I do that because my partner often
tells me you compliment people so much.
I love that about you. You will find something about.
And now I know I do it to queer people.
It's it's it's me saying you're safe.
I see you because I can't just hold up a sign that says I'm gay
too. I wish I could.
(49:36):
It's one of the things that we talk about privilege in society
and I name as a privilege for me.
This isn't for everybody. I name as a privilege for me
that the particular facts of my journey and every woman has a
(49:57):
journey that we follow and my journey where I can't fully pass
as a cisgender woman because of decades.
It's where I didn't get to do and be who I was.
I was forced to go through the the irreversible changes of a
puberty that's not mine, right. I didn't have those life saving,
(50:19):
saving medicines that at least some children get that are being
taken away too often now. So my privilege that I can walk
into a space and be seen as openly queer, I name myself off
the queer giantess, right? And it can matter, especially as
(50:42):
a woman who is a faith leader. I have the clergy collar.
I thought about wearing it todayand then I didn't.
That says Christian leader, woman, queer, transgender, all
really clear upfront. And it says something different
about the world that I get to simply by being a friend of
(51:04):
mine, more than one who are lesbian and faith leaders but
don't present in sort of stereotypical lesbian ways.
They have to identify who they are in some spaces, right?
They don't get to just walk in and be seen as fully queer so.
I definitely find myself doing that a lot and I love that
(51:26):
you're seeing that as something beautiful about yourself, even
though it did 'cause you pain tonot get to be full of yourself.
And it does cause like, I can't travel like I used to.
It's dangerous for me to go to some states right now.
Like Florida is listed as a no go state.
(51:49):
And if you can get out, get out right now.
I don't live in Florida. I don't know the trans
experience there. But from what I've heard from
others, the laws that have been coming down, the things they're
doing in Oklahoma and Texas and Arkansas, and these are not the
people, right? The people of those states,
because I know people in those states are stunning and they may
(52:10):
not all have the same level of knowledge about queer and
transgender. They are beautiful, wonderful
people. I stayed at the home of a
friend's mom right down in Arkansas and it was delightful.
Went to a local restaurant but going alone to places for me not
(52:32):
safe. Yeah, that makes sense.
That makes sense. And it's something that me being
such a privileged individual would never have to think about,
Although as a woman, I do. You do.
I do think about it in other ways, in different ways.
I think about my safety going into a public restroom depending
(52:56):
on the location I'm at. But like you, at a rest stop, I
actually pop a squat rather thangoing into a rest stop because I
might feel unsafe. So yeah, I keep the toilet paper
in my car and all that. Right.
Things we have to do and it's hard and it's a it's an
(53:16):
experience that women have. We have a local, I live in a
very progressive area of the city I'm in.
There are more, there are a couple bars here I will not walk
into. Other women I know don't go in
those bars either. They're not safe for women.
There are women I do know who would go in.
Like, I've got a buddy of mine. She's a classic Butch tyke.
(53:38):
She'll go anywhere, right? And she would fuck you up if you
wanted to write the language. She'll mess you up if you try
and do anything to her. But that's not me, right?
And that's not so many of us. We need a place that's safer.
Yeah, you just exude so much love before we got.
I need to know the significance of your tattoos.
(53:59):
We don't. Care to share?
I wish I could show them all butI have a wonderful artist.
Nipanette. They worked here at Red Clover.
I'm not sure if they're still there or not, but they've done
all of my ink. The first ink I got, I have a
scar around my belly. And since I wear crop tops, I
(54:20):
noticed people will look away. They don't want to acknowledge
the scars we bear. And so I wanted ink that would
highlight the scars. So it's weeds growing out of the
scar because we have to be weeds, we who are queer, right?
We won't be stopped. And then the ink here, it starts
at my well, it starts at my center, right, just above my
(54:46):
vagina, I guess. And it's a river and flows up in
my heart. It transforms into a tomato vine
in flour. And I wanted a tomato vine
because tomatoes are my favoriteflower and also a tomato vine.
If you break the tomato vine, it'll still grow.
(55:10):
How many of us have been broken or faced being broken?
We can't stop growing. We're going to keep growing and
being and falling in love and doing all the things.
And we taste good, even more green and not red.
(55:30):
That's it, That's it. Thank God I got a little too
much Botox on my lips, so if yousee me laughing, I can't go
higher than that right now. I'm stuck.
I'm frozen. I'm really laughing like this.
OK, I. Swear, right?
I've literally been like biting into an apple doing this like so
(55:51):
if you notice that I'm really smiling big with you.
I'm enjoying this so much. But that's, that's beautiful.
Thank you for sharing the meaning behind that.
Now why? Why a tomato plant other than
the fact that it it, it grows when it's broken?
Tomatoes aren't traditionally flowers and most women want
flowers on. Their body, they are flowers.
(56:12):
Every fruit starts as a flower. Fruit starts as a flower.
And so this is what the tomato flower looks like.
It's typically yellow, so right there, beautiful.
And so when you trace it up my arm, there are some that are in
bud. I'm not sure if I can get it
high enough that you can see theones that are in.
Yeah, that's beautiful. And I love tomato flower, right?
(56:37):
If you've ever gone out and looked at a tomato plant growing
and you see those flowers, I just think they're stunning.
And I just adore that every fruit starts as a flower and at
the base of the flowers where the fruit forms.
So it's beautiful all throughout.
That is beautiful, thank you forsharing.
(56:58):
You've been just answering everysingle question with so much
love. If there's one last thing our
queer community needs to know from you, from God, God speaking
through to you, what is that? I guess it's this.
It's what I've been saying throughout fall in yourself.
(57:25):
Fall in love with yourself, right?
We got a little Internet disconnect. 1 moment, 1 moment,
1 moment. This has been the most glorious
episode. I I pray be good as Henrietta's.
(57:48):
Oh there it is, there we go. I was like, we got to finish the
game, said fall in love with yourself and it cut.
Oh no. So yeah, fall in love with
yourself radically, go on dates with yourself, fall in love with
other people and the the random person, right?
Fall in love with the barista who your smile at.
I'm not talking about taking herout on a date.
(58:08):
I'm talking about just being in love with every step of the way.
Fall in love with walk outside if you can walk right, walk
outside if you can't, maybe lookoutside.
Go outside in some way. See and fall in love with the
winter landscape. Fall in love with the way the
(58:30):
clouds are in the sky. Fall in love with the plants in
your house if you have them. Just keep being there.
And when we fall in love, when we fall in love, we want to know
everything, don't we? We want to know everything.
We're not judging, we're listening and being present.
Fall in love like that. Oh.
(58:50):
So good. But thank you for letting us
fall in love with you, for letting us ask questions without
judging the questions, for hopefully every single person
listening, for not judging and listening and and really
recognizing in this moment. If you didn't know how you would
feel going into this conversation now, you feel so
much ease around understanding atransgender experience, then
(59:13):
maybe, just maybe, other things in your life that you have been
afraid of, other people in the world that you have been afraid
of. Maybe you just needed to be
curious, ask more questions, andhave an open heart to
understand. Because there is nothing to be
afraid of here. There is only love.
And I am so honored that you share your love in a world that
(59:36):
has tried to silence you and belittle you.
And you who you are, belittle exactly who you are, exactly how
God made you. And I'm here to affirm and
celebrate you. And thank you for being on the
show. Vika Henrietta, thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.It's been a delightful
experience and you are also a delight.
(59:57):
Thank. You well, have an amazing day,
but but wait, how can people follow you?
They got to follow you. They're got to be so interested
at this point. If you go to TikTok or
Instagram, it's at Vika V Steel.VICAVST EE L at Vika V Steel.
(01:00:17):
Amazing. I'm going to have you in the
show notes. Y'all need to go follow the
TikTok videos or if I do say so myself, short powerful sermons
that you are going to feel more connection to God in one minute
listening to you than you would like an hour with another
preacher. It's just, it's so much love
(01:00:39):
just oozing out. It's just unconditional and it
just makes you feel seen. So thank you.
Thank you very much. Have such a beautiful day.
You too. Thank you for your time.
Bye everyone. As clear women, that's women
with an X because of course we are inclusive here.
(01:01:01):
As I was saying, as queer women,we haven't always been lifted up
or celebrated. We have often felt left out and
put down in places that historically haven't welcomed
us. In fact, we have been
conditioned by society to be grateful for mere tolerance.
My resilient LGBTQ plus IA community, I am talking to you.
(01:01:26):
I'll bet you've recognized the spark that God put in your
heart, your unique calling to impact the world, and only a way
that you can. A business idea brand to build,
a coaching program to start, theart to create, the song to sing,
the book to write. That relationship you long to
build. But that little light inside
(01:01:48):
your soul has often been blown out by the people around you,
leaving you conditioned to play small and not step into your
full potential. You are not alone and it's never
too late to truly live your mostauthentic dream life.
I would know. I came out late in life, nearly
(01:02:11):
30 a couple years ago after being bullied for months inside
a Country Club right outside of my weights class.
I was assaulted by a bigoted woman who couldn't stand my
queerness. She physically pushed me so I
had a meeting with management. I told them I didn't feel safe.
I brought forth evidence and guess what?
(01:02:32):
They did nothing. Sadly, this is normal.
But in order to create change, we have to be brave enough to be
the change ourselves. So I did a thing.
I started my own virtual CountryClub for queer women.
A safe place for us to create meaningful connections and grow.
(01:02:54):
So if you're looking for a love connection, networking
opportunities or coaching to live your best freedom life, you
want to apply to be a part of our incredible community of
purpose driven, passionate queerwomen.
Join Queer Women Rising, the online queer Country Club for
growth minded women ready to level up in life and love.
(01:03:15):
To apply, DM me the word Rising on Instagram at Sofia Spellino
or chat me the word Rising on Sofia fiaspellino.com.
Now, beyond hosting Queer Women Rising, I am a personal brand
coach and social media strategist.
If you give me a moment to tell you about what I do, I can share
(01:03:36):
how I can help you, just like I've helped many clients before.
Get famous online and make more money.
If you're an exhausted coach or service provider ready to scale
your business for real or you'rejust getting started building
your dream brand from scratch. And if you're ready ready to
build your own profitable personal brand, I can show you
(01:03:58):
how in six months or less. But why should you take my word
for it? Well, I've spent over 10 years
in the social media marketing industry, amassing over 400,000
followers across platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook and
YouTube, as a well as hosting a top charting podcast, building a
(01:04:19):
successful service provider business and coaching powerful
women to build purpose driven, profitable personal brands.
Yeah, I have the social media and sales process strategies
that can help you finally make the money you deserve because I
want to help you build your dream business that gives you
time, freedom and makes real money.
(01:04:42):
So for a limited time, I'm giving away your first steps to
go from less than 5K moms and advance to 10 to 20 K moms.
Grab my newly revamped profitable personal brand
Blueprint. My proven framework to build
yourself a personal brand that motivates, inspires, and sells
so that your business can thrivethe way it should.
(01:05:04):
Just go to the link in the show notes.
Whether you're a novice at creating or you're feeling stuck
hitting a plateau in your business that once had
consistent revenue and need guidance, support and coaching
to get to your next. Level I invite you to book a
strategy. Call to speak with either me or
my team to see if we'd be the right fit to work with each
(01:05:25):
other inside of the profitable personal brand 6 month coaching
program. Mind you, I am extremely
selective and this coaching program is not for everyone and
I'm not afraid to say it. I am only taking on serious,
purpose, driven and committed queer women and allies inside of
my community. If that's you, book your free
strategy call. The link is in the show notes
(01:05:48):
and if you feel yourself come alive and love listening to
Queer Women Rising, please leaveme a five star rating with a
kind review. Wherever you listen to podcasts,
be sure to share the show with apowerful woman you know.
And remember, when you're calledto do something greater in life,
love or business, you will be uncomfortable until you move.
(01:06:11):
So get up and go get what you want.
Let's rise, Let's rise, Let's rise, let's rise.
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