Article / Archive
Seeing my teenage daughter, Ruby, stand up in her church and claim her space as a proud trans woman was one of the most joyous days of my life. Our congregation, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Cypress, held a renaming liturgy for Ruby in June 2021. After months in lockdown, we had recently received our COVID vaccines, and parishioners felt safer to share physical space with one another. Reflecting that feeling of jubilation, our church draped a Pride flag around its cross for the first time in its history, as a public demonstration of support for families like mine.
I saw my daughter, once a shy child who hid behind my legs, blossom that day. In the Episcopal faith, a renaming liturgy is essentially a big coming out party: It allows a trans person to receive a new baptism certificate reflecting their name and gender, thereby correcting the record of who they are and giving the congregation an opportunity to pledge their support. The event is celebrated with a short ceremony including scripture readings and prayers. Ruby, then 17 years old, told her coming out story: sharing the newfound confidence she had gained since she began transitioning and the burdens she no longer carried. Church had always been my daughter’s happy place, ever since she was a small child, but now that happiness wasn’t just confined to those walls. She was so comfortable in her skin, pausing her speech to crack jokes and make acerbic asides. A newfound bliss radiated from her eyes.
Given what a support our church has been throughout Ruby’s life, it’s absolutely infuriating to see Republicans in my own state twist our faith to argue that my child does not deserve rights. Christian lawmakers in Texas, members of my own religion, claim that trans people are sinful, bad, and broken, but that is anything but the truth. Trans people are a gift to the world. They show us how creative God can be, and they are the embodiment of a fundamental journey that every Christian must make. Each of us should ask: “Who has the Creator made me to be? What is the most true thing about me?” Trans people demonstrate for all of us how to be our most authentic selves in order to live the life for which we are destined, and Texas lawmakers would know that if they ever bothered to listen.
I have been meeting with Texas lawmakers for years as an advocate for my daughter’s rights as well as the rights of other young people across the state. Our state Legislature meets every other year, and the last time lawmakers were in session, more than 100 bills were introduced that threatened Ruby’s right to be the vibrant young woman that she is. We are very fearful of what 2025 may bring—especially with a new conservative presidential administration. In 2023, Governor Greg Abbott signed a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth under the age of 18, and conservatives are likely to push that law even further. The current platform of the Texas Republican Party calls for blocking gender-affirming care all the way through the age of 26, threatening to prosecute parents and doctors who support these life-saving treatments for “child abuse.”
When I meet with lawmakers to try to convince them not to support policies that take away my daughter’s medical care, I introduce myself as a Christian parent, and I ask them to pray with me. My hope is to show that lawmakers who weaponize my own faith against my family don’t speak for me, and they don’t speak for affirming Christians all across the state. There are so many religious people like me in Texas who support LGBTQ+ people, but our perspectives aren’t often considered when Republicans preach about “family values.” When GOP lawmakers in my own state cite the creation of humankind as male and female as proof that God couldn’t have intended for my daughter’s existence, it erases the people of faith who believe that God doesn’t create in binaries. In my faith, God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And there is not a single human characteristic—tall to short, light-skinned to dark—that is binary. God’s universe is vast and endless.
Christianity was never meant to be a tool for oppression and division, yet the message of God has long been distorted by politics: Despite the apparent prohibition of same-sex relationships in Leviticus, the word “homosexuality” didn’t appear in the Bible until 1946, when—according to a recent documentary 1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture—it was introduced in error. Previously, this Biblical prohibition was thought to apply to exploitative relationships, not loving consensual ones, the documentary argues.
Further, while conservative Christians insist God’s design requires strict adherence to gender roles, Jesus never condemned nor tried to heal gender-nonconforming people such as eunuchs.
The God that I know represents love, and that’s what God has meant to my family. Before she officially came out as trans to the congregation, Ruby struggled with suicidal ideation, and having the care and support of her church helped her pull through. Without the divine compass of her faith, my daughter might not be with us today.
Ruby and I recently shared our story in American Teenager, a new book from LGBTQ+ journalist Nico Lang highlighting loving, supportive families of trans youth all across the country. Many of the stories captured in American Teenager are, like ours, stories of faith. Clint, a Muslim high school student, says that he doesn’t think about himself as trans because he believes that Allah is so much more vast and complex than our human concerns about gender. As he argues, the Quran explicitly avoids gendering its divinities: Allah literally translates to “the one,” the unification of male and female. Meanwhile, the prophet Muhammad is represented in artistic works not as a man with a physical body but an ethereal cloud, floating above our mundane problems. Fortunately, Clint hasn’t encountered the same oppression from his lawmakers as my daughter has because he lives in Illinois, a state where his political leaders have allowed him to be whatever kind of kid he wants to be.
My family chose to participate in American Teenager after years of fighting the Texas Legislature because we felt as if we had no choice but to be as loud as possible. Republican leaders in Texas have already begun filing new bills for yet another year of attacks, including stripping away the right of Texans, like Ruby, to have an accurate driver’s license or birth certificate. Having legal documentation that misgenders her could be a grave threat to her safety, but Texas has shown, time and again, that it does not care about that. Shortly after Ruby declared her womanhood to the members of her church, she testified against anti-trans legislation at the Capitol. The reception there was not so welcoming. Instead of listening to what she had to say, the Republicans in the room checked their phones or looked down at the floor, avoiding eye contact. They already had their minds made up about what they believe God thinks of her.
As painful as it is that the most hateful among us are often my fellow Christians, their ignorance only makes me more resolute to fight for trans kids like my daughter. I will never stop speaking the truth, and the plain truth is that God’s love is so much bigger than anything we can imagine. It is a transformative gift intended for all of us, and it should be shared with everyone.
Seeing my teenage daughter, Ruby, stand up in her church and claim her space as a proud trans woman was one of the most joyous days of my life. Our congregation, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Cypress, held a renaming liturgy for Ruby in June 2021. After months in lockdown, we had recently received our COVID vaccines, and parishioners felt safer to share physical space with one another. Reflecting that feeling of jubilation, our church draped a Pride flag around its cross for the first time in its history, as a public demonstration of support for families like mine.
I saw my daughter, once a shy child who hid behind my legs, blossom that day. In the Episcopal faith, a renaming liturgy is essentially a big coming out party: It allows a trans person to receive a new baptism certificate reflecting their name and gender, thereby correcting the record of who they are and giving the congregation an opportunity to pledge their support. The event is celebrated with a short ceremony including scripture readings and prayers. Ruby, then 17 years old, told her coming out story: sharing the newfound confidence she had gained since she began transitioning and the burdens she no longer carried. Church had always been my daughter’s happy place, ever since she was a small child, but now that happiness wasn’t just confined to those walls. She was so comfortable in her skin, pausing her speech to crack jokes and make acerbic asides. A newfound bliss radiated from her eyes.
Given what a support our church has been throughout Ruby’s life, it’s absolutely infuriating to see Republicans in my own state twist our faith to argue that my child does not deserve rights. Christian lawmakers in Texas, members of my own religion, claim that trans people are sinful, bad, and broken, but that is anything but the truth. Trans people are a gift to the world. They show us how creative God can be, and they are the embodiment of a fundamental journey that every Christian must make. Each of us should ask: “Who has the Creator made me to be? What is the most true thing about me?” Trans people demonstrate for all of us how to be our most authentic selves in order to live the life for which we are destined, and Texas lawmakers would know that if they ever bothered to listen.
I have been meeting with Texas lawmakers for years as an advocate for my daughter’s rights as well as the rights of other young people across the state. Our state Legislature meets every other year, and the last time lawmakers were in session, more than 100 bills were introduced that threatened Ruby’s right to be the vibrant young woman that she is. We are very fearful of what 2025 may bring—especially with a new conservative presidential administration. In 2023, Governor Greg Abbott signed a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth under the age of 18, and conservatives are likely to push that law even further. The current platform of the Texas Republican Party calls for blocking gender-affirming care all the way through the age of 26, threatening to prosecute parents and doctors who support these life-saving treatments for “child abuse.”
When I meet with lawmakers to try to convince them not to support policies that take away my daughter’s medical care, I introduce myself as a Christian parent, and I ask them to pray with me. My hope is to show that lawmakers who weaponize my own faith against my family don’t speak for me, and they don’t speak for affirming Christians all across the state. There are so many religious people like me in Texas who support LGBTQ+ people, but our perspectives aren’t often considered when Republicans preach about “family values.” When GOP lawmakers in my own state cite the creation of humankind as male and female as proof that God couldn’t have intended for my daughter’s existence, it erases the people of faith who believe that God doesn’t create in binaries. In my faith, God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And there is not a single human characteristic—tall to short, light-skinned to dark—that is binary. God’s universe is vast and endless.
Christianity was never meant to be a tool for oppression and division, yet the message of God has long been distorted by politics: Despite the apparent prohibition of same-sex relationships in Leviticus, the word “homosexuality” didn’t appear in the Bible until 1946, when—according to a recent documentary 1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture—it was introduced in error. Previously, this Biblical prohibition was thought to apply to exploitative relationships, not loving consensual ones, the documentary argues.
Further, while conservative Christians insist God’s design requires strict adherence to gender roles, Jesus never condemned nor tried to heal gender-nonconforming people such as eunuchs.
The God that I know represents love, and that’s what God has meant to my family. Before she officially came out as trans to the congregation, Ruby struggled with suicidal ideation, and having the care and support of her church helped her pull through. Without the divine compass of her faith, my daughter might not be with us today.
Ruby and I recently shared our story in American Teenager, a new book from LGBTQ+ journalist Nico Lang highlighting loving, supportive families of trans youth all across the country. Many of the stories captured in American Teenager are, like ours, stories of faith. Clint, a Muslim high school student, says that he doesn’t think about himself as trans because he believes that Allah is so much more vast and complex than our human concerns about gender. As he argues, the Quran explicitly avoids gendering its divinities: Allah literally translates to “the one,” the unification of male and female. Meanwhile, the prophet Muhammad is represented in artistic works not as a man with a physical body but an ethereal cloud, floating above our mundane problems. Fortunately, Clint hasn’t encountered the same oppression from his lawmakers as my daughter has because he lives in Illinois, a state where his political leaders have allowed him to be whatever kind of kid he wants to be.
My family chose to participate in American Teenager after years of fighting the Texas Legislature because we felt as if we had no choice but to be as loud as possible. Republican leaders in Texas have already begun filing new bills for yet another year of attacks, including stripping away the right of Texans, like Ruby, to have an accurate driver’s license or birth certificate. Having legal documentation that misgenders her could be a grave threat to her safety, but Texas has shown, time and again, that it does not care about that. Shortly after Ruby declared her womanhood to the members of her church, she testified against anti-trans legislation at the Capitol. The reception there was not so welcoming. Instead of listening to what she had to say, the Republicans in the room checked their phones or looked down at the floor, avoiding eye contact. They already had their minds made up about what they believe God thinks of her.
As painful as it is that the most hateful among us are often my fellow Christians, their ignorance only makes me more resolute to fight for trans kids like my daughter. I will never stop speaking the truth, and the plain truth is that God’s love is so much bigger than anything we can imagine. It is a transformative gift intended for all of us, and it should be shared with everyone.
