I needed a walk after that phonecall. It was a Friday night in mid-September. The air was soft, not too warm or cold, as the stars came out slowly – except for one bright, fast, shooting star. I also came out that evening. At the end of a weekly phonecall with my mom, I told her that I was gay. I could relax a little more now that I had opened that door, letting the breeze of a new life come in. Capturing these moments in my journal, I wrote that this night felt “liberating and frightening.” Liberating because I had wanted to open this door for so long, but was afraid to. Frightening because I could not grasp how this would change my life.
I’m here to tell you, over a decade later, that I am still liberated and frightened. I’m not unique in this, either. When queer and trans people live authentically in this world, we may do so at great risk. But still, the reward of being freely ourselves is worth it. And still, coming out authentically can be lonely.
Many of us believe that “coming out” is a risk we have to take on our own. It’s up to us to be brave and put ourselves out into the world as individuals. We come out the same way we come in to this world. We’re convinced by American culture that we have to be rugged individualists. And if we’re brave enough to do that, we will be rewarded. Today, though, I know that isn’t true.
As it happened, that wasn’t the last time I came out. The second time I came out was at my college congregation. The Sunday after the phonecall, the young adults gathered together for our weekly lunch after the service. I was feeling especially heartened that morning. A seminarian visited us to lead worship, and shared his own story of growing into his identity as a gay and religious man. I didn’t say anything to him at the time, but I felt held like I never had before. And in the upper room of our fellowship hall, I was held again. The other young adults in our congregation met me with love when I opened up to them.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that community gave me the strength to come out. I knew it was a safe place to be brave. I also knew that if something went wrong in my wider life, it would be my refuge. The minister was a gay man. And so was the Board Chair, and the Youth Coordinator. And that young adult group was the queerest crowd I had ever met. I took this all for granted when I came out. But it couldn’t have been clearer. I had spent the whole year before this making a home in a community that would love me as a young queer person. I knew that in my bones because I saw how it loved and cared for so many people like me.
That is one of the greatest gifts our communities can give of ourselves. Places that affirm that everyone has unquestionable worth and dignity make room for all kinds of people to come in through their doors. Living that out, though, is an intentional practice. And it’s one we can easily slip up. Our reading this morning tells us that. We heard how Gail Geisenhainer’s journey into our faith was full of switchbacks and perilous outlooks. Despite her great reservations, she found welcome. Elsewhere in her story, she tells of how she braced herself for the worst with her favorite battle-armor.
“They would embrace me in my full Amazon glory,” she writes, “or they could fry ice. I carefully arranged my outfit so it would highlight the rock-hard chip I carried on my shoulder, I bundled up every shred of pain and hurt and betrayal I had harbored from every other religious experience in my life, and I lumbered into that tiny meeting house on the coast of Maine1.”
Despite her well-earned reservations, she found welcome. Instead of wariness, the women at the door greeted her with gentle hospitality. That hospitality stuck – enough that Geisenhainer became a minister in our faith. But, as we heard, the road was bumpy. Someone hurt her one morning in the service. I couldn’t blame Geisenhainer if she decided to call it quits. That makes her return to the congregation all the more striking.
Geisenhainer tells us she made a personal choice about personal responsibility. Beyond the threads of the story we heard earlier, she explained herself this way:
“I was in the throes of learning my first lessons of being in covenant with a congregation. When we covenant to walk together through all that life brings, it means that when things get ugly, we don’t walk away. Oh, how we may want to walk away! But our covenants call us to abide and work things through2.”
I have never heard the stakes of covenant described so clearly. Covenant calls us to return in our own time when we’re hurt. But there is a prick of danger here. Think for a moment about what this story says to other queer and trans people. It sounds encouraging to tell the queer people who come after you that, “I can be brave, and you can too.” And that’s true. We find our courage in each other’s lives. But the danger here is what this message expects from whom. What does this say to someone coming in with Geisenhainer’s same doubt and pain? It sounds to me like, the burden of making yourselves at home is all on you. [pause] Imagine this. Someone tells you that you have to push a boulder up the hill. And you have to do it all by yourself every time. And sometimes people will push the boulder down on you, and you will just have to keep going. That’s not very welcoming.
But the truth is, it wasn’t all up to Geisenhainer to fit in and make things right. The part of the story that catches me the most is what happened the week she decided to come back. She tells us that “one by one, folks stood up and awkwardly announced that not everything said last week was right, or true, or representative of who we were as a Unitarian Universalist congregation.” One by one, the congregants came forward. We can imagine they were trying to make repair possible. They said, we can do better than we did last week, and we will. They took that first step toward repair sheepishly, but they moved in the right direction. And kept moving that way.
Compassion, and the willingness to dress the wounds we cause, seem in short supply these days. That’s what makes living our values such a blessing. We do believe that everyone has inherent worth and dignity. And our Shared Value of Equity transforms that belief into loving practices. It challenges us to make a world where people know they have worth and dignity because we experience it in action. It’s there when we welcome someone new and nervous to sit with us in worship. It’s there when we march in the Pride Parade or testify for trans rights at the statehouse. It’s there when we open our own lives up enough to let someone else in. Communities that can do this give people on the margins a place to come into. I’m one of those people. Some of you are, too.
Those communities have held me through change. How I understood myself continued to change after the first and second times I came out. The more I got to know myself, and the more queer and trans people I got to know, I kept pulling at the threads of my gender and sexuality. And the more I pulled, the more I watched the identity of a gay man unravel before me. I came in to knowing that I was never interested only in men. I was bisexual all along. I came into knowing that I wasn’t even a man, and never had been except by pretending. Through all that unraveling, my people held me.
Unlike those first few comings out, I don’t remember the first time I told someone I was genderqueer. I don’t remember the second time either. But I remember so many of the times and spaces where I could be trans and feel safe, seen, and loved. Those places have been few and far between. I became painfully aware of that after I graduated college and moved home for the summer to rural Iowa. The UU congregation I joined became one of the few places I felt safe and fully embraced as a trans person.
Unless they were exceptionally awkward, I rarely remember the times I’ve “come out.” I don’t remember all the conversations where I pushed against someone else’s assumptions. I don’t remember the times I confirmed what people suspected to be true. I do remember all the times I’ve “come in”. All the times I’ve grown in to a deeper understanding of myself. And it’s always in the company of others. Through all of the changes I’ve experienced, spaces filled with grace have consistently greeted me. Grace that allows me to just be without justifying myself. I remember all the moments of grace where I have shared space with people who just let me be.
Our tradition has held open the space for so many of us queer and trans people to grow in the grace of being. I have found spaces where I could be trans long before saying anything. This is a faith where, by the grace of the people around us, we can grow into ourselves in deep love. This truth shows us how troubled our narratives of “coming out” really are. It isn’t enough to come out of the closet if there’s nowhere to come in to. In fact, not having a place to come into can be pretty lonely. I’ve found sanctuary in communities that held space for me and my unspoken complexities. There is a grace we share when we hold and make space for each other to come in to ourselves – our genders, our lovings, our longings – as fully as we can.
That’s the love we need in the world. This is a frightening time for trans people specifically, and queer people too. The fights some of us thought were over are coming back. This past week, the Supreme Court began hearing a case that conversion therapy bans may be unconstitutional. Many wonder across the country how long same-sex marriage will go seriously unchallenged. This is a critical time for our congregations to be places of refuge and resistance. To be places where we say – and mean – “Come in, Come in, Whoever You Are. This is a place of strength and love.” Where we build and sustain accessible and inclusive communities. Where we prepare to meet a world of hate with love.
There is so much to consider as we build the world we dream about. Some of us have come out and come in to ourselves, alone and with each other. As we go out into the world, may we help each other build places of refuge. And some of us have never had to come out or hide in the first place. May we strengthen the sanctuaries of our faith. Whoever we are, may we create space for each other’s coming in. May we hold each other in grace.
1. Gail R. Geisenhainer, “A Different Church,” in The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide, Fifth Edition, ed. Peter Morales, 15-19 (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2012), 16.
2. Ibid., 18.