Trandescendant

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...

You love your family. But love alone does not protect a relationship from the patterns that tear families apart. Research shows that four specific toxic patterns can predict whether a relationship will survive or fall apart, and most people never see them coming. The good news is that once you can name them you can stop them. Joe and Rya walk through each of these four patterns and share practical ways to interrupt the cycle before...

What does it actually take to hold a family together across a divide most people would call too wide? After over three years of conversations with parents, children, pastors, priests, scientists, scholars, and LGBTQ+ people from across the spectrum, Joe and Rya keep coming back to the same simple thing that saved their own relationship in its hardest moment. Whether you're a parent whose child just came out, an LGBTQ+ person trying...

What if the voice telling you you're not good enough isn't even yours? Professional figure skater, Stef Vachon came out at 18 and thought the hard part was over. But years of bullying had already buried themselves so deep that freedom didn't feel like freedom. He walked away from his greatest passion and spent decades lost in anxiety, carrying shame that was never his to carry. Joe and Rya sit down with the host of the Together Mov...

You probably imagine the worst when you think about LGBTQ+ life in a small town. Rya lives in a Midwestern town of 1,300 people where she knows her neighbors knows their dog by name. Most people there just don't care that she's trans. They've got their own lives. But the real trade-offs are loneliness, few local resources, and feeling like the only queer person for miles. Joe and Rya share practical ways allies can make a real diff...

"Being gay is unnatural." If you've ever had someone throw that line at you in a conversation about LGBTQ+ people, you know how hard it is to respond in the moment. Do you have the facts to tell them why they are wrong? Dr. Pete Gasper, a veterinary scientist with over 20 years in biomedical research, reviewed the most current research and came back with an answer that leaves no room for doubt. Whether you're defending a loved one ...

In 1863, San Francisco made it a crime to wear clothing "not belonging to your sex," with a fine of up to $500. That and other laws gave police the power to arrest drag queens and anyone who didn't look "right." And while the specific statutes have mostly been struck down, the same logic lives on in bathroom bills and restrictions on legal gender recognition. After 163 years, why does the state still thinks it gets to decide what g...