Season 2, Episode 15: Elena Goldak on A Critical Disability Reading of Queer Conversion Violence

On this episode, Amy and Miriam speak with Elena Goldak on her article: They Shall Surely Be Put to Death: A Critical Disability Reading of Queer Conversion Violence.  

Elena writes,
"This essay is an inquiry into the relationship between queer conversion violence (QCV) and forms of suicidal violence. I am particularly interested in the ways that queer people come to participate in projects of debility which target queer people. I term this violence community suicide. Drawing from Jasbir Puar’s notion of debility, I critique the Christian fundamentalist “ex-gay” movement depicted in the Netflix documentary Pray Away to articulate the concept of community suicide. Following this, I use Alexandre Baril’s theory of suicidism to understand the ways that Christian fundamentalist discourses on queerness and suicide are related — a relation which creates conditions for community suicide. I argue that contemporary Christian QCV relies on a specific religious queerphobia that likens queer life to suicidal death, and by design, further reproduces suicide as part of a project in debility."

Read the full article here: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cjtmhd/article/view/39545

Watch with captions on YouTube: https://youtu.be/u_DVXSmsU94 

As well, here are some queer-affirming Christian spaces/communities
Affirm United (affiliated with The United Church of Canada) https://affirmunited.ause.ca
Student Christian Movement Canada https://scmcanada.org
The Presbyterian Church of Canada https://presbyterian.ca/justice/social-action/gender-sexuality-inclusion/
The Anglican Church of Canada https://www.anglican.ca/faith/focus/hs/

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Transcript

Well, welcome to the Mad and Crip Theology Podcast, we're so happy to be here, it's another Friday morning when we're recording, our social experiment continues about recording in the mornings and we've been finding it's good, and for me, I find I have a little bit more brain power in the morning, uh, which we definitely need, um, for what we're doing here, and so today, uh, we want to welcome our guest, Elena, and she is a contributor to the-- uh, our last issue of the journal, and she wrote a paper on queer conversion violence, so Elena, would you like to introduce yourself? 

Absolutely. My name is Elena, my pronouns are she her, um, shall I give a visual description as well? 

Yeah, that'd be great. 

I am a white femme presenting person, I'm where-- I have the long brown hair I am wearing a sweater that my mom made for me it is let's see purple yellow green blue and pink, um, and I am sitting in front of a very boring gray, uh, background that is my college apartment room, um, and I have glasses, um, I-- more about me, I'm a fourth year undergrad student at U of T and I'm studying critical studies and equity and solidarity, um, I first became interested in disability studies, uh, in second year when I took intro to disability studies, and it sort of changed the trajectory of my academic life, um, since then I've been very lucky to be able to work with the decolonial disability studies Collective at Carleton University as a research assistant and, um, and that Collective is directed by Dr Twin Wen and we work on projects studying disabled activism and leadership in the global south, it's really super cool, I'm super lucky to be a part of it, um, and I'll just also give a quick note on my positionality, I identify as white, able-bodied, um, cisgendered, and a queer woman, I also would say that I'm ex-christian, I grew up, uh, in the Protestant church and no longer am part of it, um, and I would also say that I resonate with experiences of suicidal ideation, um, and I share all of this information on positionality just to be transparent about, uh, my privileges in this discussion, uh, I am not somebody who has been subject to the type of queer conversion violence, um, or what is often referred to as conversion therapy or ex-gay Ministry, I have not been subject to that sort of violence in my life, um, so just want to be super transparent about how I'm coming into this conversation. Thank you both for having me! 

That is so helpful, Elena. I-- I want to hear some more about your program, but perhaps can chat afterwards, um, well, we really appreciated your paper, and for those who haven't seen the documentary, Pray Away, that you wrote about, engaged with, or for those who don't want to see it, can you give us a brief descriptions of it? 

Yeah, um, so Pray Away is a documentary that tells the story of Exodus International, which was a really prominent ex-gay Ministry that operated in North America from 1976 to 2013. Um, and the documentary gives first person accounts of-- from its prominent leaders who left Exodus before it was dissolved, and those people now at the time of the documentary identified now as openly queer, um, we get a pretty wide variety of viewpoints from the people in the documentary, so for example, Julie was a-- a person who was a young teenager when they were brought into queer conversion violence Ministry, um, she came out to her mother who was quite panicked, um, upon Julie's coming out, and brought her to a church or organization called Living Hope Ministries led by a pastor named Ricky Schillette, and just as a side note, I-- I looked him up yesterday, and he is still doing this sort of work, um, at Living Hope Ministries, I-- I looked a little bit into their podcast, and they have a whole um topic section titled lgd-- lgbtq+, and the podcast episode titles are things like, "Should Christians celebrate pride month?", and "Is it loving to accept someone's lgbtq+ identity?" um, so yes, Exodus has been dissolved, um, but that does not mean in any way that this sort of violence and this sort of ministry, uh, does not still exist, and if there's not still a demand for it, clearly, um, so Julie had this story of, kind of, coming into this-- coming under this violence like, as a young person who was largely like manipulated and-- I would say abused by, um, a lot of adults in her life, um, another person-- which-- which is a very, um, widespread and-- and common, um, experience that a lot of people share, um, another person named Yvette Cantu, um, has a really interesting story that she did not grow up in the church, and wasn't part of it as a young person, she came to the church, um, as an adult I think she said when she was like 27 or 28, um, she had been out as a queer person, she had identified as a lesbian, um, and then during the AIDS epidemic, had gone through such horrendous loss and-- I think she said that she had lost something like 17 of her close friends to AIDS, um, and amid this grief, sort of, reasonably found herself attracted to the type of belonging and, she says, structure, and rules, that the church gave her, um, and she found that she was very articulate, uh, speaking about these issues, which they-- they referred to as the homosexual agenda, and, um, she was then recruited by-- later recruited by political lobby groups, and-- right-wing political lobby groups, um, and found that she really excelled in-- in that area as a policy analyst, um, and another person, just as an example, Michael Bussey who was the founder of Exodus, was someone who, sort of from an earlier Generation, um-- like grew up also in the church and genuinely believed these these rhetorics that, um, queerness was an illness-- like a mental illness, um, and he describes that in church, he felt like there's these support groups for people who have been divorced, or for people who suffer from drug addiction or other types of what we might call afflictions in the church, um, and he kind of thought why is there not a group for people like me, people who have gay feelings, and when he he started a group in his church there was actually a lot of, um-- was really welcomed, that a lot of people felt like, "hey, yeah, me too, I don't want to be alone in this," and, um, that's how he started what later became like this huge like, um, Nationwide or even further, it was also operated in Canada, um, Ministry that became Exodus, um, so there's like a variety of ways that people came into this violence, um, what I found to be the most interesting and striking about the documentary is that it's common to see documentaries where people, um, they sort of serve as like a-- a redemption narrative or like reckoning narrative for people who have engaged in some sort of oppressive system or relation, or in some sort of oppressive violence, and are now reckoning with that, recognizing it and wanting to publicly, um-- publicly recognize their wrong-- wrongdoing and, um, um, educate the general public on-- on those systems of oppression, um, and this documentary is sort of like that, because these people, um, realize-- were engaged in this violence, and have now recognized that it was really, really, harmful, and want to, like, educate the general, like, Netflix audience about the harms of queer conversion violence, but it's not just that they were harming other people, they really were also harming their own bodies at the same time, it's not just that they're trying to, like, reckon with this external queer community that they-- that they had a harmful relationship with, it's it's also that they're trying to heal their own bodies from the violence that they inflicted on themselves. Um, and also, in addition to that, navigate, now, this queer community that they now identify with, openly, and it's not that they didn't identify with the queer Community before, um, when they were part of Exodus, they internally really did, but only openly identified with this community after having left this, um, perpetual system of violence, so, to me, that's like-- it's so complex, and it's so interesting, and it's why, um, I-- I kind of thought like so much of the result of this violence that people, um, uh, have impulses towards self-harming behaviors, and suicidal ideation, and so it's really interesting that also it seems like from a structural point of view, it takes kind of a suicidal, um, shape that this violence is-- I-- I wrote like, suicidal in a wider, communal, sense, um, because these people were engaging in violence that targeted a community that they were always a part of, but then only later came to identify with, so that's why it's so interesting and complicated, um, I'll just say, um, to your point about people who may not want to watch it, I will just give a super like clear warning that if you are like on the fence or unsure about whether you'd like to watch it because of the subject matter, probably-- probably just don't watch it, um, it's-- it's highly upsetting, um, I-- I am very proud of this paper, and I-- it was a topic that I did want to write about for-- and that I had been thinking about for a while, and I'm glad that I did write about it, but I at multiple points, over and over since like-- during the last year since writing, and editing, and like having this paper published, and then preparing for this, um, podcast, like, multiple times, like I don't know if this is a good idea, that I have to keep watching this documentary to like, you know, study what I'm talking about, um, so yeah, just if you're on the fence about whether or not to watch it, I would just say don't. Um, so, yeah. 

Yeah, Miriam and I were chatting about that the other day when we were preparing questions for you for today, and we were like, oh man, we just, we-- I don't-- I don't think we can watch it, um, I think, um, that because both of us are PhD students, right, so our work-- my work is actually on self-harm, uh, and Miriam's work is on, um, inclusion of people with disabilities in the church, and so, like, we spend so much of our time reading these stories that make us cry, and like, I don't know, I feel like absorbing so much of other people's pain, um, while we are trying to do this work, and make things better, um, so yeah, I think, uh, what I've learned over the past years is that it's really important to like, have-- to know, like, when can I watch something like this, and when can I not, um, we may have other times where we have more space to to watch something like that, but, um, yeah. We're-- we're so grateful that you watched it for us, and that you're able to talk about it. 

Yeah, I took one for the team.

Yeah, so thank you. Um, we were wondering if you could read your author's note, uh, from your paper for our listeners, please? 

Yeah, absolutely. 

I extend profound gratitude to David Anderson, whose support and encouragement enabled me to bring this writing into existence.  

Just as an aside, quickly before I continue, David Anderson was the professor who taught me, uh, sexuality and disability, the course that this paper was originally written for, he was the first person to read this paper, and was also the first person to see the beginnings of my ideas for this paper, so, whatever I wrote there is absolutely and genuinely true, that I would not have been able to write it without his support and encouragement. 

I cried a lot while researching and writing this paper, watching Pray Away four times in two weeks, reading first-hand accounts of conversion violence, and handling the words, suicide, death, and Hell, countless times while working, was emotionally taxing. As a queer ex-christian, I find Christian queerphobia particularly difficult to write about, the work that we do in studying forms of violence is mentally and emotionally overwhelming. My hope Is that in reading this paper, and in further studying queer conversion violence and/or debility, readers are able to safely feel that overwhelm. The emotional heaviness of studying death is valuable to the study itself. I wrote this paper because I'm acutely interested in the intersection of queer studies and disability studies, and because the psychological trauma of-- of Christian queerphobia is very personal to me. By sharing it, I hope--  I wonder if I can prompt people to think about queer life, suicidal violence, and Christian spaces, in a new way. I want my writing to encourage and support queer people by making queer conversion violence a visible object of study in an anti-oppressive context. I want to always continue learning about how to create violence-free futures, and I hope that by sharing this paper someone can join in learning alongside me.

Thank you so much, that, uh, that's a beautiful wording, so touching. 

Thank you. 

In your paper, you use the book of Jasbir Puar, and we wondered if you could talk about how you use her work among debility, and how do you connect this with queer conversion violence?  

Yes, absolutely, I love that, uh, you both included a question about Jasbir Puar, because I'm a really big fan of Jasbir Puar, like huge fan, um, so yeah, debility-- yeah, um, debility is first and foremost, a challenge to liberal rights-based frameworks for handling disability politics. So, when I'm referring to a disability rights framework, I'm talking about a politic that asserts that disabled people are a minority group in society whose marginalization can be remedied or addressed by policy that includes-- that ensures their inclusion as, um, citizens of, uh, liberal society. So what we're talking about is things like, policy that ensures-- that works against employment discrimination, policy that ensures that, um, architecture is accessible, so, the type of laws that require that we have curb cuts, um, and curb cuts are those like sloping pieces of cement that allow somebody on a wheelchair, or a mobility device with wheels to be able to get on and off the curb. Um, laws that require that we have those types of things, um, are generally what we're thinking of when I'm talking about, um, policy that addresses the rights of disabled people. Um, the disability rights movement, generally refers to the activist movement of disabled people in the United States, starting around the 60s and 70s, um, that-- whose-- whose leaders that were mainly featured, or visible, were straight white men who were wheelchair users, and a lot of their, um, activist, um, movement, and a lot of what they fought for, was accessibility policies, particularly surrounding architecture, so things exactly like curb cuts and accessible washrooms, um, also, the disability rights movement and the rights-based framework is largely responsible for, um-- yeah, largely responsible for the passage of the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States passed in 1990, which was a first comprehensive policy legislation that handled the rights of disabled people in the United States. And handled exactly like the things that I'm talking about, employment discrimination, access to housing, etc. Um, now, the reason that this type of politic is not enough for all disabled bodies, is that disability does not exist in isolation from violent power dynamics that may cause or create disability. So, for example, someone might become disabled through war violence, or police brutality violence, which are dynamics which are also racially informed. So, to address-- um, to handle that person's disability, or to locate that person's disability politically as, um, a status-- as a minority status that can be addressed through policy, would be to erase the racial, uh, and racist dynamics of violence that actually created that person's disability. So, in disability studies, and in disability justice more generally, we have this constant tension where we want to create and maintain a society that is accessible to all bodies, and where all bodies are deemed valuable, point blank, um, and that no disabled person has to be confronted with socially created barriers, such as employment discrimination, um, like, a lack of curb cuts for example, or like inaccessible washrooms, um, but at the same time we want to build and maintain a world where no one has to become disabled through hegemonic violence, and further, we want to do that without without asserting that disability is inherently bad, or inherently negative, and without, uh, um, relegating disability to something inherently negative. Um, so, Jasbir Puar comes in on this second point, um, because she is particularly interested in the ways that people become disabled through hegemonic systems of power, um, and in her book, The Right to Maim, she writes particularly about the constant and sustained debilitation of Palestinian bodies in the Israeli settler occupation of Palestine. Um, and she argues that, um, this debilitation-- that the the Israeli State works to debilitate, not kill, Palestinian bodies in order to: one, um, maintain, uh, settler colonial occupation, but two, to maintain, uh, and construct, um, a form of Israeli precarity, really, and, um, like threat from, uh, Palestinian life, um, super interesting, super cool, um, but basically, she makes this distinction, this really important distinction between what she calls disablement and debilitation. When she's talking about disablement, she's talking about the event of becoming disabled, where there might we might think of like a before and after, um, of becoming disabled, such as like maybe through um an incidence of police brutality. Um, versus debilitation, she's describing as the slow wearing down of populations, and she's talking about that like constant sustained, um, subjugation of bodies in a state of, um, disability, and it's really, um, a form of biopolitical subjugation, um, I'll just quote her, quickly, here, because she's everything. Um, she writes: "Disability addresses injury and bodily exclusion that are endemic rather than epidemic or exceptional, and reflects a need for rethinking overarching structures of working, schooling, and living, rather than relying on rights frames to provide accommodationist solutions." So, like the point here that's like really, really, useful, is that debility points us more directly to structures of violence, um, ongoing institutional forms of violence. So, that's kind of why it's my starting point for my analysis on queer conversion violence, because queer convergence violence is one: a project in disabling bodies and minds, we know that, and two: it's a result in a feature of a broader system, or cycle of violence and power, and what I'm talking about is the heteropatriarchal structure of many Christian spaces, and for sure, these Christian fundamentalists spaces that we're talking about in Pray Away, um, and so, debility points us not so much to-- not just to the individual disability experienced by these people who after having gone-- been subject to queer conversion violence, um, experience serious, um, harm in the form of self-harming impulses, and suicidal ideation, and-- and a host of other, um, mental, um, uh, disabilities, and also, um, uh, physical disabilities as well, um, but we're talking about the overarching structure that makes-- uh, that that organizes that violence, and also, um, the productivity of that structure of violence. Um, part of what Jasbir Puar argues is that, um, disability-- sorry, debility, is-- always has this like, productive value to it, um, and I would argue that the same is true of queer conversion violence in these Christian fundamentalist spaces, is that, um, you know, convincing people that that their queerness is something like an illness, or something evil, and that is something to be highly ashamed of, and that it's something that one needs to change about themselves, or-- or escape from, it's actually not just about queerness, it's about keeping this heteropatriarchal organization in place in the church which has other productive, um, features, it's about-- it's highly tied to like, reproductive justice, it's tied to misogyny, and-- and, um, uh, reducing or minimizing women's sexual autonomy, um, it's about keeping particular like patriarchal structures in place, it's really not just about being gay, like, convincing people that being gay is like satanic, is not-- it's not just about keeping people straight, it's also about keeping people like, submissive to their husbands, and, um, and keeping people, um, letting, uh, allowing men to control women's bodies, in both, um, in terms of like sexual autonomy, and also reproductive autonomy. Um, so this type of violence is productive as well.

Yeah, we totally, totally, agree with the idea of it being productive, and, um, we just had one of our colleagues on the podcast, uh, who was talking about purity culture, um, and that, um-- Sorry, that was my Alexa who just went off, um, so, we talk about the ways that purity culture like, um, harms as well, so that's another kind of link to what you're saying there, so thank you so much, um, we're really interested in, uh, the concept of testimonial smothering that you talk about in the paper, and, um, like our listeners will know, because I've talked about it a million times that, um, I grew up in a-- in a-- in a sort of more fundamentalist Christian kind of environment that had a lot of the kind of things going on that you're talking about today, um, and one thing that was so important for us growing up, was having a testimony. So what is your testimony that you're going to have so you can share with other people so they can come to know Jesus. Um, and, so I was like my ears like totally perked up when I heard about you you're writing on testimonial smothering, because I was like, oh, I wonder if like, I have experienced some of this, but I didn't really know, like, this concept existed or whatever, um, so, can you tell us what testimonial smothering is, and how does it show up in Pray Away and in other contexts? 

Yeah, absolutely, and, um, to your point about testimony, that's also an experience that I share as well, like the testimony is like, the ultimate! 

Yes. 

Yeah, so, um, testimonial smothering that Miranda Fricker and Catherine Jenkins wrote about in relation to trans experiences, and they were drawing from Christy Dodson, just to give proper credit where credit is due, um, testimonial smothering basically refers to the external encouragement that someone who's giving a testimony might receive to edit or adjust their testimony, or even like partially conceal their testimony, um, in order to create a particular narrative that will be palatable, um, or appealing to a particular audience. So, when Fricker and Jensen-- uh, Jenkins were writing about this, uh, about, uh, trans people, basically they were writing that, um, the types of, um, visibility and stories that we hear about trans people that are most, um, most commonly given visibility in any form of media, are typically autobiographies of trans people describing their linear gender transition that ends in a state of normative gender presentation or embodiment, and which includes, um, detailed descriptions of genital surgery, um, and it's typical that when-- they-- they study that it's typical that when trans people, uh, want to write about their existence is that they're-- they're encouraged and pushed, or maybe only accepted to, uh, to write this particular narrative, we generally don't want to hear about like, trans history, or collective trans organizing, um, trans activism, we'd rather hear about someone's autobiography that includes like, really gritty details about their genitals, um, and so this is how they came up with testimonial smothering, um, how I came to this concept, was through Alexander Barrel's concept of suicidism, um, which is a concept that was very Central to my essay, um, Barrel defines suicidism-- uh, theorizes suicidism, as the political oppression of suicidal bodies and minds in neurotypical ableist society, and so he's arguing that, um, uh, suicidal bodies and minds are typically met with, um, violence, and high levels of surveillance in in our ableist society, um, and a key element of suicide is depression, uh, he argued, is that, um, is testimonial smothering, in that, um, suicidal rhetoric tends to, um-- sorry, suicidal-- suicide prevention rhetoric tends to stick to this like overcoming narrative that we're like pretty, um, familiar with in disability studies, right? This idea that, um, disability can can and should be overcome, um, so basically Barrel argued that we generally only want to hear the perspectives of suicidal people when they have quote unquote recovered from their suicidal ideation, and can-- and can claim an identity as like ex-suicidal, and have, um, and being recovered from suicidal ideation, um, so the effect of that, is that it's presumed that cure from suicidal ideation is both possible and desired, um, and it positions suicidal subjects in this hierarchy where the the only perspective that we care about or that's deemed valid is the X-- one of the X suicidal subject, um, and so, someone giving, like a testimony of their experiences of suicide, or suicidal ideation, um, might generally, in like mainstream media, be encouraged to smother their testimony, and-- and, edit and adjust it in a way that, um, that pushes like an overcoming narrative that I was suicidal, but then it got better, and-- and it can get better for you as well, um, and, um, Barrel basically argues that this is a way that we undermine the autonomy and the voice of the suicidal body/mind, um, and that we need to be especially careful and and critical of this, because it often, um, is used to-- for like exploitative aims, and to actually just, um, promote capitalist neoliberal social formations, um, this is something that Jasbir Puar also writes about, um, she wrote an essay about, um, Dan Savage's It Gets Better video, Dan Savage is a popular gay journalist who, um, created a video called-- titled It Gets Better in response to, um, a widely covered, um, quote-unquote gay youth suicide, um, and it's-- Puar, like, criticizes the narrative, because, um, she writes that it's a call to capitalist mobility, and an affirmation that entering into neoliberal adulthood and assuming something like a homo normative life, is the ticket to freedom from suicidal ideation. And that, um, that not only-- it not only pushes this idea that that, um, cure from suicidal ideation is possible, and desired, but that that cure happens through capitalist accumulation, and like, like, homo normative trajectories of aging, um, and that their-- this narrative is exploitative in that way, so, to get to back to Pray Away, um, the testimonial smothering that they really talked about was, um, obviously this-- there's this like parallel between the ex-suicidal subject and the ex-gay subject, like, obviously, um, and that testimonial smothering comes up in the context of Christians giving testimonies about how God saved them, or-- or brought them out of sexual or gendered deviance, um, and generally these organizations pushed people to-- to deliver these specific types of narratives, um, and they were often very exploitative, um, Julie, who was the young teenager who was brought into Exodus, um, describes that she was like really pressured and pushed by her leader, Rippy Chalet, um, who was like-- a grown adult, by the way, while she was like a young woman, um, he really pushed her to disclose publicly that she had been sexually assaulted by a man in college, um, and this was in order to help solidify this Christian fundamentalist idea that someone becomes gay because of some abuse or harm that is done to them, and she describes it she had told Ricky about this, um, sexual assault in confidence, and was not eager to-- didn't want to share it actually, at all, and that he said no, this is the missing link to your testimony, this is the thing that will really convict people, and it will really bring more people to Exodus, and that you really should, um, share this in your testimony, and she really didn't want to, and they actually show, um, a clip in the documentary of her testimony where she discloses about her sexual assault, and she just seems so-- like you can tell how uncomfortable she is, it's really hard to watch, um, so this is another instance where testimonial smothering comes up, um, so it's a-- an intersection that I noticed between-- or an overlapping that I noticed between the queer conversion violence portrayed in Pray Away and um, Alexander Burrow's essay on suicidism.

Thank you. You've given us so much background and it's all very helpful. It made me think of-- of disability narratives of super crip,  you know, that inspiration porn narrative, where our bodies, uh, try to conform to what society expects of-- "expects" of us. So all kinds of connections to violence and oppression there, so, thank you.

And finally, we thought we'd return a question you had asked back to you, which may be unfair, but here we go. You-- you invite the readers to consider how much churches become spaces of community healing for people of non-normative sexuality standards and embodiments, and we thought you might have some ideas to-- to share.

Yeah, um, so the short answer to this question, uh, is actually no, I have no idea, um, I wrote this question as one of my-- I will admit that all three of the discussion questions that I wrote, um, for anybody who read through them, or who reads through them, um, they're all questions that I personally don't have a quick answer to, um, and that I am genuinely wondering about, um, and that I-- like if I was in a classroom I would be um interested to to hear other people's ideas, um, for me, I-- I have never personally been able to answer this question of how churches and Christian spaces, at the very least, um, could be sites of community healing, um, because personally, for me, I've never been able to-- I've never come up with any way to reckon with the hetero patriarchal violence of, um, Christian spaces, the ones that I've been a part of, at the very least, um, while still preserving the parts of my experiences of Christianity that were at one point very meaningful, um, however, I know that a lot of queer people occupy Christian spaces, um, whether those spaces are inclusive or not, um, and there are a lot of, uh, queer leaders in queer inclusive Christian spaces, and, um, who-- who embody those leadership roles in ways that encourage sexual freedom, and bodily autonomy, and queer validation, and I very, very, seriously commend and celebrate those people, um, I think my starting point, for thinking through this question, is that I-- I don't think that community healing can happen without a serious and honest refiguring of power in the church, um, or in plural Christian spaces, I do want to avoid like, referring to the church as like a unified singular entity, um, but, I just think like, healing can happen as soon as we can collectively and explicitly dismantle patriarchy in Christian spaces, um, and when we can seriously and explicitly recognize and reject, um, colonial power relations in Christian spaces, and and racial violence, um, what I'm talking about here is things like, racially informed colonial projects and evangelism, um, exploitative, uh, voluntourism missions in the global south, and, um, even like religiously justified support for imperialist war, um, and racist war, um, I think that, like, Christian spaces can, um, can, um, engage in community healing when the histories and ongoing forms of violence that have operated and continue to operate in the name of Christianity are recognized and-- and like honestly rejected, um, and then those spaces will be ready for healing, and I know that a lot of, um, I don't-- I-- I really don't want to erase that a lot of people already do this, and already engage in this, there are a lot of queer people that already resist, um, um, heteropatriarchy in the church and, um, and so I don't want to minimize that or erase that at all, um, I think another point is that there's no such thing as political neutrality in church space. I think, um, a lot of-- at least in my experiences, it's it's pretty common to hear that like-- that Christianity-- there's no politics to Christianity, and that like there's no politics to the church, and that like-- there's-- like-- Jesus is apolitical, or something, like, um, and I do want to just, like, assert that there's-- there's no such thing as political neutrality anywhere, so, that, uh, like it's not like church space somehow magically exempt from that, um, if the position of the church is not anti-oppressive explicitly, it is violent. Um, and I think maybe a lot of people don't-- don't want to recognize that, I think that part of the problem is that, um, a lot of these violences, heteropatriarchy, colonial ideas of otherness, and-- and racial inferiority, in terms of like, um, um, global north and south, um, a lot of this violence is part of what people feel is Christianity, and what is appealing to people about-- about their Church spaces, um, a lot of people feel like it wouldn't be Christianity if it weren't heteropatriarchal, I think, um, or it wouldn't be like church space if there weren't particular rules about-- if there weren't particular, like, sexual regulations, um, and so, um, I don't really know where that leaves us, I, uh, I-- I know that lots of queer people, and-- and allies as well, already do resist and reimagine what what Christian spaces can and should be, um, I-- I wish I could say that I was more-- I wish I could be more optimistic about it, um, but for me personally, I've-- I have not, um, waited around for Christian spaces in my life to to come to terms with and reject this violence, and I-- I won't wait, um, any-- I-- I won't wait, um, I've been able to find spaces and sites of community healing outside of Christian spaces, and so, that's been excellent for me, um, uh, however-- so I really don't have like an answer to this, um, the only other thing that I'll say is that, uh, solidarity is crucial. Solidarity, solidarity, solidarity, um, there's no-- there's no benefit to holding a politics of like, screw the church and everyone in it, um, because either way, queer people exist in Christian spaces, whether they are hetero patriarchal and oppressive or not, they're there. Um, and they will continue to be there, um, and like I've said multiple times already, queer people-- there are queer people who do resist this violence, but then there are also people who don't have the same level of access to that resistance, or who have hindered access to that same resistance. So, solidarity is, um, is essential in this moment. 

Yeah, Thank you so much Elena. I just wanted to, um, suggest to our listeners to if you need a safe place to talk, if you, um want-- are seeking a Christian community that is safe, there's Affirm United, there's MCC, there's SCM for students, so just, um, just for listeners who are looking for safe Christian spaces. 

Yeah, we hope to-- I'll just pipe up, too, and say we hope that some of this work that we're doing with the journal, and also the podcast will become a part of the some of the healing that needs to happen, and-- and some of the healing that-- my own healing, um, and, um, yeah, hopefully we're-- we're trying to be a part of the good, um, and I'm doing some-- some of the bad stuff that's happened, so, um, is there anything else that you'd like to cover today that we maybe didn't think about when we were sending you the questions, like any last thoughts that you want to share with our listeners? 

I mean, not really, do you have any-- any other thoughts? 

Uh, I just want to-- I mean, um, I just want to thank you so much for being willing to kind of, like, put one toe back into maybe some of the theological conversations that are going on, um, for me, it I-- mean I loved your paper, you know that, and I-- um, Miriam and I are aligned with what you-- like your vision, and the things that you talk about, and-- and, um, as two queer women who, uh, run the podcast and also, uh, are doing our best to run the journal, um, we just want to thank you for, um, watching the documentary four times and also, um, putting so much time in, um, so much of your like energy into writing this paper so that others can read, um, and hear about these different voices that are coming into the conversation and, um, we just really appreciate all your work, and we're very grateful.

Oh, thank you so much, I wish I could reciprocate the same thing in such an articulate way, um, but I am once again, like so grateful to you both for including me in the journal, and letting me, um, offer this like, pretty-- pretty direct critique of, um, a certain forms of Christianity in this space, and for your readership audience, um, it means a lot to me, and I'm-- I'm very happy to be able to share this work, and, uh, yeah I-- I-- It's-- it's nice to know that hopefully then, people can learn about this topic that I'm writing ab-- about, without having to watch that horrible documentary, so, yeah.

Yeah, thank you, and we look forward to your future book and contributions to our journal. 

Thank you