I perform as a means to promote positive body image, freedom of expression and to blur the lines between gender and what people think is right and wrong. Society has clung to outdated forms of religion and morality. We have the right to believe in what we want and we have the space to practice our faith and to be free in what we're practicing but we also cannot use our own personal moralities and our own religious beliefs to attack and demonize other people, other communities that's not what religion is therefore. I believe too many people have suffered at the hands of religious zealots that religion was created out of an act of suffering and to continue imposing that suffering on other people is not ok. So I carry the cross. I carry a cross because I do not believe that we can use religion as a means of oppression. I believe in Christ I believe in God and it's also recognizing our own divinity and knowing that everything, it's all you. When someone punches me in the face and then uses God to justify that act of violence, I'm not okay with that. I identify as trans queer as I grow I haven't quite decided if I want to take hormones and if I want to alter my body to present myself in a way that is more like a woman. I don't feel as if I need to have tits or a vagina in order to be a woman. I don't have to choose between being a man or being a woman because I can be both. I can display all aspects of my humanity through my body. My body is an instrument to express Who I am it's not a crutch. There's no difference between man and woman except the ideas that are imposed on them because of their bodies.

Religious Intolerance

The church is responsible for the most vile, cruelest acts of violence and injustice throughout history. The harm the church has caused generational trauma that has spanned millennia. No one is exempt from accountability! I demand reparations in the form of taxation for the harm the church has caused! The audacity of the Pope to come out and say sorry without any affirmative actions!!! I demand reparations in the form of taxation! I demand accountability! The days of evil men hiding behind stained glass as they get away with murder, rape and violence are over. The religious institution has gotten away with undeniable acts of pure evil and they use God as a shield to avoid taking responsibility! How can anyone blindly put their faith in an institution that is actively molesting children! How can anyone put their faith in an institution that is notorious for genocide and the persecution of women! The Church is responsible for the murders of indigenous children! The church must be held responsible for the sins it has committed against the people of the world! Every great act of evil that has occurred on Earth has been carried out by men and God is the justification for such evil. There is no apology that can undo what has been done and even though the past cannot be changed REPARATIONS must be had! The church must pay its share! If this institution is to continue to exist it must do so with a full acknowledgment of the violence it has perpetuated over the span of 2000 years! Tax the Churches!

What I find so interesting about people who preach in the street is the fact that they never seem to say anything that Jesus actually spoke about. They never speak about the beatitudes (in fact I doubt they even know what they are), they never recite “Love Thy Neighbor” or “those without sin cast the first stone”, I never hear any reference to any parables Jesus spoke. Everything they speak is rooted in fear and I’m pretty sure Jesus said, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” When a person is so full of fear and hatred..then fear and hatred is all they can ever express. People who have love in their hearts, express that love. Be sure you know the difference.

I think its really important to point out that here are the very same preachers, preaching the same fearful rhetoric to a generation of young people that have undoubtedly suffered to some extent because of the very rhetoric being vomited from the mouths of these men. For centuries, we’ve grown up learning to hate ourselves for who we are because some “preacher” came along and told us that who we are is inherently wrong. They’ve convinced us to be guilty for having life and to feel ashamed of the bodies we experience that life in. Generations have been raised with this gross perspective of our own humanity and it’s been passed down like a plague. Fundamentally, I think some people have been so conditioned in this way of thinking, that it’s all they know. Their ignorance, however, becomes violent prejudice and bigotry that people like us have to navigate. So it’s no longer acceptable to remain silent and turn the other cheek as people sow seeds of fear and disdain for other people. It goes without saying that these kind of minds will never change, they are rooted in their ignorance and they believe in it. Arguing with them is a waste of energy but just as they can stand firm in their own beliefs…we can stand just as firm in who we are. Expressing ourselves with a colorful flamboyancy so that the seeds they sow never make it to fertile ground, but wither away at the feet of the mouths who spoke it.