“Queer... not as being about who you're having sex with (that can be a dimension of it), but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent it and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
—bell hooks, 2014
I accidentally came out in a homily I delivered at Summer Seminary, a Unitarian Universalist program for youth considering becoming religious professionals. I had recently been leaning into my identity as a queer woman of color, and I said as much. I forgot, however, that I hadn’t mentioned this fact to my parents yet, who were watching the livestream at First Unitarian in Chicago from their couch in Corvallis, Oregon. When my dad picked me up from the airport a week later, he brought it up almost immediately. “So I wanted to ask… what does queer mean to you?”
I’ve flirted with a lot of different labels throughout the years, from ally to bisexual to lesbian, but none of them have ever felt quite right. Each has a special place in my heart for the communities I’ve been in solidarity with and the identities that I’ve claimed, but I keep returning to the word queer.
I’ve had conversations with LGBT elders about the word queer. Not everyone uses it; some have too many memories of it being used as a weapon against them to have it sit right with their soul. My middle school counselor hated the word because for him, “queer” meant strange and odd.
That’s still the first definition that comes up when you Google it. But for me, a mixed-race person of color, a gender expansive relationship anarchist, and of course, a Unitarian Universalist, queer is the perfect word not just to describe my sexuality but every part of me and what I embody.
As I’ve studied queer theology in seminary, I’ve actually become more and more convinced that Unitarian Universalism itself is a queer faith, defined not by a creed passed down through generations but by the real-world commitments we make to each other in the present.
Unitarian Universalism “queers” the idea of theology itself, not requiring the theos (God) to do the logos (talk). Our “God-talk” includes the atheists, agnostics, polytheists, and all those who endeavor to engage in the search for truth and meaning.
My queerness and my Unitarian Universalism are inextricably linked, informing each other at every bend in the road. I wouldn’t be who I am without either of them.
Prayer
Spirit of Life, queerly beloved, God of the strange and the odd and the imperfect and the beautiful, help us find the words that embody who we truly are.