Trandescendant

What does it actually feel like to be so afraid of coming out as LGBTQ+ that dying starts to look like the reasonable option? Rya lived it. These are her real journal entries from 2014, read aloud for the first time, written during the two years she spent bargaining with God over whether she could survive being herself. If you love a gay or transgender person who is still in the closet, you will hear what they cannot tell you. If y...

It is possible to get everything wrong in a perfectly calm voice. Is it true that transgender people had the culture on their side until they pushed too far? Father and daughter, Joe and Rya answer the points one at a time, showing why claims that sound objective can be misleading. You are not wrong to have questions. But this is what it sounds like when the evidence presented gets fact-checked.

The video we respond to is Ken LaCort...

Most people know the name Stonewall. Almost nobody knows what happened three years earlier in a San Francisco cafeteria. In 1966 the word transgender did not exist yet. Joe and Rya follow the trail from a church basement to the local diner where queens finally stood up to the bullies. History nearly lost this story, and that is exactly why it is worth reclaiming.

On the thumbnail: Nearly every photograph of Compton's Cafeteria is un...

Most parents call the school after something has already gone wrong. By then you are negotiating from behind. The teacher who could have been your ally has already built their own explanation for your kid, and nobody handed them the real one. There is another version of this. You go first, before anyone is upset, and you hand the school the things only you know. Joe and Rya walk through what to say and who to say it to, starting lo...

Content note: This episode includes a personal account of suicidal thoughts and a suicide attempt. If you are struggling, you can reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 in the US, any time.

What do you do when the life you built is wrong? Jess Betts-Nelson chased the marriage, the four kids, the business and the white picket fence for nine years. But you can't marry your way out of who you are. If you ar...

When someone you love disagrees with you about LGBTQ issues, faith, or politics, there is a better way through than fighting. It starts with knowing the difference between a person seeking understanding and a person seeking victory. Learn to tell the two apart and stop wasting your heart on conversations that were never going to move. Most of us were never taught how to do this. There is another way, and it just might save a relati...

Have you ever loved someone you could not talk yourself out of, no matter how much simpler life would have been if you could? King David knew that feeling. Joe and Rya look at the famous Bible story with fresh eyes, asking whether David was actually bisexual. LGBTQ+ readers may meet an ancestor right in the pages of the Bible. You will never read this story the same way again.

Thumbnail Image by Otto Semler based on the engravings b...

Maybe you have a question you stopped asking out loud, because the last time you tried you got corrected on your wording or treated like the enemy. So here is something rare. Someone willing to take your hardest objection and build it stronger than you could, then give it an honest answer instead of a script. Rya spent years as a conservative evangelical pastor who held the skeptic's case and preached it from the pulpit. She has no...

What if the most important thing you do for your child has nothing to do with whether you understand them yet? Loving someone well doesn't have to mean you agree with everything they do. You only have to be good at the first part. Joe and Rya show how small, everyday choices pull a child closer or push them farther away. The one thing you cannot afford to lose is the relationship itself. Your child does not need a perfect parent. T...

Kris Ripper changed the gender marker on her license because Kansas law required it. Then a rainy night traffic stop over her headlights turned into a ten minute interrogation and the threat of jail time, all for doing exactly what the state told her to. Joe and Rya trace how a law sold as making IDs accurate for police did the exact opposite the first time it met the real world, and ask the question underneath it: what are these l...

What does it feel like to walk into a place where you finally get to stop explaining yourself? For a lot of people, that place is Pride. This time the microphone belongs to the community itself, real voices recorded right there at the festival. A woman who came out the day she met her wife. A mom who accepted her kid without a second's hesitation. A drag performer in seven layers of tights and a whole lot of heart. Some were standi...

Stonewall was a riot, not a parade. Fifty-seven years later, that fact still shapes every argument about what Pride should be. The people inside the LGBTQ+ community disagree more than you might think. A gay man who fought for marriage equality says the work is done. A trans woman says the backlash proves visibility still matters. A queer author says corporate Pride sold the movement out. All three trace their position back to the ...

Some relationships feel harder than they should be. The conversations that used to flow now feel careful. The distance keeps quietly growing. Most advice tells you to talk it out, set boundaries, communicate better, pick the right words. But what if the most important thing you could do has nothing to do with conversation skills at all? One single practice has been studied in depth, and it might be the single most underused tool fo...

Reed Erickson used his fortune to quietly build the foundation of transgender healthcare in America. The first gender clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital existed because of his funding. So do many of the medical pathways trans people still rely on today. He was eccentric, generous, problematic, and absolutely essential. Joe and Rya kick off Pride Month by getting to know an ancestor of the transgender community. Sometimes family is a ...

At some time in your life, you've probably tried to convince someone that LGBTQ+ people deserve respect and equality. You presented facts, you raised your voice, and you walked away more frustrated than when you started. It's so easy to assume the worst about people who disagree. What if there was a better way? If you've ever wanted to reach someone on the other side of the LGBTQ+ conversation but didn't know how, this one's for yo...

You probably know the words "Where you go, I will go." Maybe you've heard them at a wedding. What most people don't realize is that this famous wedding vow was spoken in the Bible between two women, and the book it comes from is queer in ways most readers miss. Joe and Rya walk through the story of Ruth and Naomi and find one of the most quietly affirming stories in scripture for anyone who has ever built family from love rather th...