Many of you have noticed changes in my Twitter and Instagram bio, that I’ve been “interested” in more queer events on Facebook, and others have had the pleasure to meet Les, my partner, in person or you’ve known her from her own work in faith-based LGBTQ and transportation advocacy (and you should get to know her videos and life coaching and endometriosis advocacy and our merch line we colaborated on together!). She’s been with me on all my speaking visits over the past two years and we’ve both been helping each other with our various business and community ventures.

Plus, two years ago today, on National Coming Out Day 2018, after a wonderful date night at Midlands after years of knowing each other casually, we decided to start a life journey together, as lovers and friends.

However, in the past and directly, I’ve been hesitant to talk about this part of my life and it has affected how I do this work and how much I pride myself on being transparent. Yet, I believe that this is the time to address this. I wrote a draft of this about 18 months ago, but I believe today is the day to bring this draft into the light.

For My Family and A Note on My Theology

Before I get started, a warning to both family who are reading this and finding out for the first time and family who may have spoken to my mom or who are concerned about my mom.

First of all, I still love you all and if that love doesn’t extend back to me, I understand. Secondly , I told mom privately when I was last home in Greensboro in the spring of 2019 and I ask that you allow her the space to process this and that you refrain from asking her any questions or making judgements on her and how she’s raised me and treated me over the years.

If you are tempted to make these and other similar judgements, please remember that this is not about you. This is not an attack on my mom (or on you, mom), our family, our reputation and as church people. This is not an attack on my family raising me in the best way they knew how. This is not me wasting my beauty or my brain or giving up.

I identify as a pansexual polyamorous non-binary femme (pronouns she/her/they), who is willing and able and has fallen into a committed, loving, monogamous relationship no matter who or how that person presents/is. This also does not mean I’m turning into a male person or will start presenting more masculine as a rule. I still like all the same things I like. I’m happy with my body and how it’s proportioned. Also, I support all other sexual and gender expressions that are loving and consensual.

I know this is an agree-to-disagree notion some of you. I believe we were born holy, are always holy, but sometimes fall astray and need reminders from God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and folks sanctioned under their power to share this truth. I also know everything under the banner of gender and sexual uniqueness is under the purview of the perfect creation of God. The verses that explciitly condem same-sex or gender-noncomformity I believe have a context for which they were written, that doesn’t necessarily affect our situations. I also believe that we can support civil rights for everyone, without necessarily understanding each individual. We were not all created queer and not every queer expression, just like not every hetero expression of love is holy. But some of us were created queer, our queerness is holy and we need to acknowledge this in our faith communities.

One way I illustrate this is that many of us, especially in the black church, have no issue with allowing women to participate in the full body of worship, namely being or speaking in the pulpit. Yet, the Apostle Paul found that to be a distraction in one of the churches he was writing to and he told those specific women to not speak. However, women spoke and were active in church work in other places, plus, there were lots of women doing work for Jesus and all through the Old Testament. I believe that the scripture we have was God’s word for those specific people and much like God spoke directly to them, they (and yes they, I’ll save that for another post), still speak to us and work with us with the situations they gave us to live out.

And yes, I made a choice, but it’s only a choice to no longer live a lie.

Why Am I Talking About this Now

I’m suffering through purple rage and I need to let it go to keep my business and creativity alive.

I built this site nearly a decade ago (and my work on blogs over the last 15 years) to be real, raw and honest about what we can do for the community. Over these years, I’ve been exposed to so much outside of my childhood bubble and I’ve grown so much. Yet, not addressing this directly and firmly has been eating away at me and making me publicly rageful, jealous and resentful. If you’ve been at a happy hour (or even on a few Zoom calls) with me recently, you’ve witnessed some of this. I apologize for anyone I hurt with this behavior, but know I’ve been trying to sort through things a lot of us do as teenagers. Writing this post is helping me heal and start the process of healing relationships–both with people as well as with my work and visibility. I also forgive you, but understand if you can’t forgive me.

We need to stop being prejudiced, racist, and genderphobic in our own community of queer people and in how we apply our urbanism.

I’m sick of the white gay men purporting to speak for (or in some cases use their power to tear down) neighborhoods and spaces that have rich culture and life without them getting into the mix and meddling with what makes those communities special or even better, using their priviledge as white bodies to help us be heard or raise money. This is the root of a lot of the protesting around prides over the last few years, that in their corporatization, they’ve started to mirror non-queer society in how they margialize non-cis, non-white bodies. I’ve felt compelled to always live in cities and move to larger ones, because I’m committed to building community in the black queer community. Because of what I shared above, we struggle a little more at times. Love is defintely love, but it’s really sweet when I can wake up next to my black lesbian partner and have her understand what we need and the struggles. I also hope that as more folks feel comfort in being out and proud, that we get more diversity in expressions and more people feel comfortable dating each other. However, we do not need to favor whiteness or cisness or even wealth. We all have worth and value.

The Death of a Inspiration

The person that helped me to start unpack my harmful theology, not just around queerness, but around patriarchy and white supremacy in our churches and our faith, Rachel Held Evans, died on Saturday May 4, 2019 from complications of the flu, a UTI and an antibiotic she took to heal those other two. She was only 37 (just four years older than me!) and left behind a husband, a three-year-old and a barely one-year old. She was white, grew up in the Evangelical bubble (church, college and also early writings on faith and action), straight and cis and she had her own blind spots around race and even with our affirmation as queer. But she got up daily for over a decade and through her blog and books confronted the notion that only straight cis white men get messages from God that hold weight and authority. Her breakdown of Proverbs 31, her attempt to follow all the rules in the Bible for women, her making peace with needing a different worship experience and now, all the people across the Christian world who have something positive to say about how she challenged them, and challenged them in the way those of us who are current or past evangelicals know and appreciate, with lots of well-stated scripture and a heart for love. She truly had a prophetic voice and it’s this voice that continues to inspire me to speak truth to power, over myself and over our communities.

Final Thoughts

I’m in love and she’s my best friend and she makes me a better urbanist, a better Christian and a better citizen, friend, daughter, etc. Our urbanism needs to make room for queerness that isn’t just white and cis male. Our faith communities really need to examine how we look at the words that God has given us and the internal words that the Spirit speaks to us. Also, for those of you who don’t practice or hold different beliefs outside of the Christian fold, know that I love and respect you too and just like I’m Black, I’m also queer and Christian and that’s the spirit of where this comes from.

Finally, this is something I’ve known about myself since puberty and something that I take one day at a time. However, I do believe it is time for me to speak about this so that I can know where I stand with everyone in my life and so we can continue the greater work of restoration in our communities.