#genderfucker

Woe to you, progressive church,

complacent and self-satisfied.

Shame on all you who espouse welcome,

As though the word was worth anything

at all

on its own.

You, who congratulate yourselves,

           Open-minded, open-doored,

                       And so unwilling to open yourself

                                   To destabilize your binary god.

God is calling you out

           But you won’t hear her

Because God is a black trans woman,

           And she has never set foot to your church.

Much less found herself in it.

And even if she did and she does,

           Would she be celebrated

Assuming she made it past that one greeter who is still fucking up her pronouns

           Eight years later

 I came to your worship and I met your Father God

           And he was not so different from the Father who disowned me

Even though his house was on a different block

He was still a white man

Whose KINGdom reigns

He still sat on his throne in every one of your songs

           And You in the pews

Brothers and Sisters in his son

still had no place for my genderqueer siblings

Who struggle to love God and themselves in spite of you

           And the way you misgender them

           An average of six times a day.

 And God does not have time for that,

God is with the widow and the orphan

And the homeless queer youth

God has called you to love

           Fearful at the social services office,

after being kicked out of the shelter last night

                       Because God does not have proper government ID

 God has abandoned you, oh Pride march allies,

And left you to chanting your platitude

That love is love is love

So you turn instead to the Other

For approval, for assurance,

           And you have come to expect their emotional labor

                       For the sake of your own understanding

OF the Other, not of yourself.

 We thought we were the perpetual wound in the body of Christ

           But it turns out you are.

Therefore we are commanded to leave you

And to take the rainbow with us

           God’s name will be sung in trans tenor and femme bass,

           While the genderfuckers vogue before the Lord

                       Without fear of appropriation.

Jesus told me she’s done with straight lines, spears, and crosses now.

She loves her new body, in its expansive queer reforming self

And she has plenty of room for us there.

“Gender F*cked” in @hufmagazine

•Photogapher: Melissa Isabel www.melissaisabelphotos.com/

•Stylists/Art Directors: Bryan Alexis & Miguel Carlos M.

•Makeup: Ashley Victoria

Full editorial: Gender F*cking Queen and they got the right one.” @hufmagazine

www.ashleyvictoriamua.com/

•Hair: Terrell Slappy

www.terrellslappy.com/

Full editorial: https://hufmagazine.com/gender-fcked-photography-by-melissa-isabell-quinones-for-huf-magazine/