Now that AAR is over…
Last spring I rushed to the finish line to submit a proposal for the American Academy of Religion’s Death, Dying an Beyond Unit. I would have no idea that we were a month away from a pandemic shift. My work would be pushed into the online space, which for queers is a familiar one, if not braver. I spent the summer planning and hosting a conversation on queer death for over 45 attendees of all ages. It was a somber and beautiful conversation about the honest experiences of queer people’s bodies, minds, and spirits when we die in life and in death. We all created living directives together to take back, at least, the autonomy of our bodies. I definitely cried post that zoom call. Forty-five bodies had plans for their end-of-life care in the midst of a pandemic - that was justice. I think of them all a lot. I wonder if they are all still alive or if they’re decision to be brave enough to talk death that day gave them the gift of “dying well.”
In August I co-founded Bible Queery with my colleague Erin Green and we began to host a cohort of 32 queer folks from all over the world. Tonight, that cohort ends by us writing our own beatitudes. This too, feels poetic and justice-filled. Through this cohort, I met individuals who illuminated my work in real time. And, through careful conversation, I asked a participant to consider offering her narrative to the living-death doula paper.
In November, Dev (who is openly named in my paper) and I sat together intentionally to walk through the living-death doula model. Since then, Dev has started therapy and has started her own group conversations with local queer community about the model. And has shared, “this is liberating more than just myself.”
I am a non-binary queer person who’s life has been riddled with “no” and “not good enough.” Words I know so many of us queer humans and the marginalized at this table of “no” have experienced. As a queer person at this intersection of faith and personhood, I have severed parts of myself to exist inside a binary construct which took years to say “no” back to.
Yesterday I presented the living-death doula model which argues for more embodied care of queer people - a model that can be accessible to any intersection of disembodiment.
Queer people deserve better care than the cognitive offering of the biblical case for inclusion when our cognitive has been riddled with lies for years. We deserve to be seen, heard, and valued. This work is for our visibility and life-living. This research is against the binary complicit nature of the Church & human disembodiment that plaques more than just queer people, but the systems of which we live in: classism, gender, sex, capitalism, patriarchy, etc.
The living-death doula is a model for care that encompasses our lived experiences and offers room for our queer nature to break the culture or binary & disembodiment. It is a model that I wish I had when I was at the beginning of my own work. It is a model that I wish could have been alive sooner for the countless queer, trans and non-binary lives no longer here.
Yesterday I stood with Lucy Bregman, who was called the Death, Dying and Beyond Godmother of AAR, and presented my work. Michael Hebb, who is the creator of Death Over Dinner, spoke on the audacity of dying well and how that state of hope isn’t plausible without a shift in the culture of which binds us. I agree. Perhaps the audacity is in daring to hope and work toward a beloved community who does get to die well - all of us.
It was important for my presence to be at AAR yesterday. Queer people deserve to tell their stories. And I used that moment to tell many stories and asked for more representation within this unit itself. I also broadcasted my entire presentation on Instagram because public theology matters. You can view the presentation there at (@queerinfaith).
If you’re interested in reading the presentation on its interactive page, visit here.
We’re still here.