Ep. 56: Being Transgender in a Binary World w/ Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza

Episode Summary

"In the Beginning, God created male and female." Evangelicals have used this one verse as a weapon in their war on transgender individuals. But a closer look offers a far more inclusive interpretation. It is true that God made both male and female. God also made light and dark, the land and sea, skies and earth, and guess what? God also made EVERYTHING in between like rivers, lakes, valleys, hills, and mountains.

The diversity of life that lies in these in-between spaces is what makes the world rich, beautiful, and complex. Otherwise, the world would be a pretty boring place if it was neatly divided into dualistic choices. The same is true for gender and sexuality. As Father Richard Rohr reminds us, "It seems that everything we put in a neat and tidy package must eventually be allowed to come undone, including our understanding of our bodies, gender, and attraction." 

Even if you do not identify as transgender, all of us have these shards of identity in us, whether it’s our sexuality, our gender, our faith, our age, our cultural identity, our personal trauma histories—all of those things that are part of who we are combine to create our whole identity. The more complex the identity, the more beautiful our lived experience. 

In this deeply personal episode, we talk with Dr. Roberto Henderson-Espinoza about what it means to live on the borderlands of gender, sexuality, and race and how that place on the periphery of culture has given them a unique lens through which to see themselves and the world.  Being transgender isn't a problem to overcome, but an opportunity to embrace and we come to realize it too is an original part of God's very good Creation. 

Bio

Dr. Roberto is passionate about the politics of radical difference and the ways that our collective differences might shed light on how we become a better body together. Dr. Roberto Che Espinoza has been described in a myriad of ways: a scholar-activist, scholar-leader, thought-leader, teacher, public theologian, ethicist, poet of moral reason, and word artist. Among these ways of describing Dr. Roberto, they are also a visionary thinker who has spent two decades working in the borderlands of church, academy, & movements seeking to not only disrupt but dismantle supremacy culture and help steward the logic of liberation as a non binary Trans Queer Latinx. He enfleshes a deep hope of collaborating in these borderland spaces where their work seeks to contribute to the ongoing work of collective liberation. Dr. Roberto is the Founder of the Activist Theology Project, a Nashville based collaborative project that is dedicated to social healing. He is also on faculty at Duke Divinity School teaching at the intersections of queer theory & theology/ethics. Dr. Roberto was named 1 of 10 Faith Leaders to watch by the Center for American Progress in 2018. He has been featured in fashion magazines and appeared on many different podcasts, including Pete Holmes’ You Made it Weird. As a scholar-activist, he is committed to translating theory to action, so that our work in the borderlands reflect the deep spiritual work of transforming self to transforming the world. As the Founder of the Activist Theology Project, Dr. Roberto is committed to the work of social healing through the politicizing of public theology initiatives, and writes & creates both academic & other valuable resources, including digital resources. He is a non-binary Transman; Latinx; and, adult on the Autism spectrum who calls Nashville, TN home. They are the author of Activist Theology and Body Becoming: A Path to Our Liberation. Dr. Roberto's next book-length project focuses on Belonging & Freedom.

Quotables

“I wake up every morning and there is something new for me to discover, and yet, I feel like I”ve spent a lifetime ignoring my body.”

“Here in the United States, gender and sexuality has been so politicized in negative ways.”

“In the past six months, I’ve been targeted three times, this most recent time by Matt Walsh and company.”

“I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church, and I saw up close the vitriol and hate of ‘difference.’”

“Gender is a category that was created during the Enlightenment, and if you look at pre-modern history, you can see a variation of gender and a fluidity of gender.”

“Biology exists in a social world.”

“There is a thread of anti-intellectualism throughout the Right.”

“If we are going to be faithful in the small things, we have to begin to listen to stories of people.”

“We know that something other than male and female exists, and we can point to it in real time.”

“Figuring out how to move in the world as a mixed race person…how do I live my story faithfully?”

“As a transman, as a non-binary man, is part of my work to actually plant seeds for a different kind of masculinity.”

“How do we build bridges together to create pathways for ethical futures, because it’s not just me who needs freedom, you also need freedom.”

“The center, those in dominant spaces, they also need freedom>.”

“We need to recognize that their are people who believe that this country should be distinctly Christian. There is a move, globally, to create theocracies.”

“How do we unhinge religion from politics, and can we do that?”

“The thing is that is so frustrating, is that the Right is so organized.”

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Show notes: http://www.sophiasociety.org/podcast/being-transgender-in-a-binary-world

http://www.sophiasociety.org/podcast/being-transgender-in-a-binary-world

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This episode was produced by The Sophia Society.  Music is by Faith in Foxholes.