My relationship to Christianity at the start was not too different from how I was doing gender. Went to church out of obligation. After all, I was a child in a family of church-going Christians, in a small mostly white town. There was shaming in not attending, not speaking correctly or performing faith right. That sort of church. I remember knowing my queerness, and knowing not to share at around ten.
With this, I enjoyed my relationship with God from a young age. I remember loving Sunday school. Christingle. Sweets.
When I was small, my primary school uniform included a boys jumper, shorts and little started dreadlocks. I liked summer dresses too. It was allowed. Encouraged. I was a tomboy. I came to secondary school. Started the learn how to conform. What became my girl drag – a shape I learned to take to play girl properly. I am a girl, that is what the world requires of me.
All about shrinking the difference, between me and my peers. Let my hair grow out. Start painting my face excessively with makeup. Skirts not shorts. In school, I learnt I was a black girl. And it was horrible. Puberty horrified me. My differences grew larger. I started to lose connection with myself entirely.
Of course I was depressed.
People knew of me, as one of three black girls in my year. I had friends. They didn't know me at all. Tumblr found me. Seeking out community everywhere, but home. The girl drag became sharper and clearer. I spent time straddling the faith spaces and my daily spaces. I was operating at a level of paranoia. Online me was the closest to me as I could access. Found out all the things I wasn't told about identities I didn't know existed.
I experienced the kind of grief that challenges faith extensively. Police violence became a continuing feature of my home life. This more than anything made me drawn to the idea of nonviolence.
I went to a young people's church summer camp twice. Distinctively remember a pastor sharing that being gay was okay as long as you didn't act on it. Things were happening. I started to feel pushed and challenged that I left the church entirely.
By the time I was at University, I was so effectively in my girl drag autopilot, I forgot I even dreamt of other things.
I studied. I drank. I dated. It was fine.
There was another incident of trauma. This started an interrogation of myself.
What was me? What did people see? What did I see? What did I want?
Wear the occasional dress. Like baby me. Stopped wearing makeup entirely. Traded the horrible pretty shoes for trainers. Cut my hair. I came out as a lesbian first. It made sense. It went well with friends. It was and continues to be problematic with my family. I came out as non-binary to my friends.
Has some chats with close people of faith. Started to become curious about what I loved about faith before. Talking with God. Reading. Questioning and challenging behaviour.
I remember going on Reddit. Slowly learning. Working in SEN schools at the time. It had become important to me to start challenging my practice in schools through a nonviolent lens. My experience in schools felt like they were contributing to that cycle.
I went to a Woodbrooke Quaker meeting. It made an impression.
I wrote in my journal:
'I fidgeted and shifted. But there was points where I became very aware of stillness. My hands locked together, fingers intertwined in prayer. The noise in my room became less.'
'Try to find a spiritual wholeness which encompasses suffering'.
This woke me up to thinking about organising and action. Leaving survival mode, I begun to have space to hold more in my world.
July was my first Quaker meeting in person. All of what I felt online Quaker communities was amplified. I loved it. Felt like I had things to learn.
That excited me.
This year, a friend of mine went on hike for weeks in Ireland. It was magical.
Reminded me of connection and miracles. Beauty in the natural and in the gross. The strangers we'd meet would call me either lady or lad. I liked it. I started to really like being a lad. My idea of my future shifted.
I felt joy.