This past week, I was blessed to attend Revoice (an ecumenical Christian conference geared toward LGBTQ+/SSA folks1 who submit to what is often called a “traditional sexual ethic”), and to lead a breakout session on images and metaphors often used to describe Christian LGBTQ+/SSA experience (yeast, eunuchs, Gentiles, addiction, and disability). A few of the pieces of that session have already been posted online (a piece on the metaphor of disability for A Side B Collective here, and a piece on the image of yeast here), but it was excited to give the full session at last!
Revoice is always a mountaintop experience—seeing friends I have not seen in a while, catching a vision again for LGBTQ+/SSA flourishing, being surrounded by LGBTQ+/SSA folks who are striving to follow Jesus, feeling free to bring all of myself without needing to explain—and this means that coming back to the “real world” is always a bit of an emotional valley. I thought that while the conference was still fresh in my mind, I might offer some reflections on my experience. A few things stuck out to me this year, but in this post I will just focus on a couple other images and metaphors for Christian LGBTQ+/SSA experience occurred to me.
Air Benders and Mutants
At the end of my breakout session, a friend in the audience asked a great question, something like: “What are the images or metaphors for Christian LGBTQ+/SSA experience that you had to cut from this session due to time constraints?” In the initial stages of crafting the session, I had thought of another metaphor that I did not end up using, one that could probably best be described as “the superhero”. Two examples from popular culture came to mind for me: the air benders of the animated series The Legend of Korra, and (perhaps more explicitly) the mutants of the X-Men franchise.
The first seasons of Legend of Korra reveal that the Air Nation has remained small, and Tenzin and his family are the last air benders in the world. This comes with profound anxiety about their extinction and the world being thrown out of balance (a key theme of the series). In the first episode of Book 3: Change, air bending abilities begin to appear in the Fire, Earth, and Water Nations, as well as the United Republic of Nations. This is very confusing both for the new air benders, who struggle to come to terms with overwhelming new abilities, and for their families and communities, who struggle to learn how to cope with loved ones who do not match their expectations. As the Air Nation travels around the world to meet these new air benders and welcome them into the community, it grows and balance is slowly restored.
This strikes me as a beautiful image of LGBTQ+/SSA experience. We have struggled to come to terms with overwhelming feelings that appear suddenly and without warning. We have oftentimes unexpectedly appeared in families and communities who expected someone different, and who struggle to understand us. Many of us have found others like us, a community that crosses traditional borders of family and nation. This image might lead us to ask: how can LGBTQ+/SSA people be a part of restoring balance to the world?
That the mutants of the X-Men franchise often metaphorically represent LGBTQ+/SSA people is pretty well established, and the parallels are easy to see. I often think of a scene from the 2003 movie X2, in which Iceman (played by Shawn Ashmore, swoon) “comes out” as a mutant to his parents. His mother’s response reveals the absurdity of the belief that being LGBTQ+/SSA is a choice: “Have you tried not being a mutant?”
Like air benders in The Legend of Korra, mutants in the X-Men franchise struggle with newfound experiences and abilities that they have difficulty managing or even comprehending—an apt description of Queer adolescence if I ever heard one. Mutants also appear unexpectedly in non-mutant families, which means they often feel out of place and their families struggle to come to terms. Professor Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters serves as a new community for mutants who have been forced out of their communities of origin. X-Men also emphasizes marginalization that mutants face from the broader world (a marginalization explored in a slightly different way through the “anti-bending revolution” of Book 1: Air in The Legend of Korra)—an experience to which LGBTQ+/SSA people can relate.
When I shared these connections between X-Men and LGBTQ+/SSA people with a friend of mine, she reminded me of a catchphrase of the series: “protecting a world that hates and fears them.” This struck me as a kind of aspiration for LGBTQ+/SSA Christians, who long to flourish themselves, for the Church to flourish, and for the world to flourish—and yet who often feel marginalized and excluded, even by fellow Christians. The image of mutants might lead us to ask something like: how can Christian LGBTQ+/SSA folks help the Church and the world to grow and reach its full potential?
Canaries in a Coal Mine
Another image that came up for me at Revoice this year (and in the weeks previous, as I was working with Building Catholic Futures for a week of events in St. Louis, which I wrote a little about here) was the image of “canaries in a coal mine.” The phrase comes from the practice of miners bringing canaries into underground mines as a way to detect the presence of dangerous toxic gases. If the canaries died, then miners knew to exit as quickly as possible; if canaries could survive the mines, then miners knew they were safe.
It struck me this year that the things that Side B Christians are working to build and recover—stronger support systems for unmarried people, a robust vision of friendship, a recognition of the beauty and goodness of same-sex love, a special attention on the marginalized—are things that would benefit not only sexual and gender minorities of a certain theological bent, but everyone. Everyone benefits when celibacy is made livable, when friendship is valued, when same-sex love is cherished, when those on the margins are heeded. If sexual and gender minorities who submit to what is often called a “traditional sexual ethic” can thrive in a Christian community, this might be an indicator that many other kinds of people can thrive as well.
Other Images?
I hope to share more reflections from Revoice, but I did not want this first post to be too long and meandering, so I will end here. But I am wondering: what are images or metaphors for Christian LGBTQ+/SSA experience that have been especially helpful or illuminating for you? And conversely, what images or metaphors have been especially harmful or obfuscating? Is there anything striking about the images or metaphors I have mentioned that I have failed to note? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Okay, look, I know this is an obnoxiously clunky phrase, but when Revoice leadership asked me to include the language of SSA (same-sex attracted) in my breakout session, I quickly saw how important it is to do so. If you don’t want to use sexual identity language or the word “trans,” I still think there is something for you in what I write, and there is definitely something for you at Revoice!
As a longtime comics and X-Men fan (since 1980! I was 13 when I discovered the comic, just as Kitty Pryde--also 13, also a genius, also of Jewish heritage--joined the team!), thank you.
As an interesting side note, the X-Men were influential in both my interest in literature and my actual conversion, both stemming from X-Men Annual #4, 1980, "Nightcrawler's Inferno," which got me--yes, at 13--to read The Divine Comedy in its entirety ( I did a book report on it in 8th grade--and then turned it in again in 9th grade in high school, sneakily, but it was all my own reading and work)--I later wound up getting my MA in Medieval/Renaissance Literature, and of course, Kurt's Christian faith (the one who looks like a demon and yet is grateful to God for who he is) helped inspire me--as did Narnia--and I became a Christian a few years later. <3