Why I'm Proud

Happy first day of Pride everyone.

At least, I hope it's happy for y'all. I genuinely do. Unfortunately, it just can't be for me this year. That would be setting an unfairly high expectation for myself. 

My Pride this year will be one steeped in grief, and not just because our far right authoritarian government continues its seemingly unimpeded assault on me and people like me. No, the primary wellspring of my grief this year is the sudden and devastating loss of my beautiful mother, Marilyn.

My mom was the best possible mom I could have ever hoped for. She was my biggest fan, and the only person in the world constitutionally incapable of judging me. While some of my peers inherited from their parents a self-critical streak born of parental disapproval or the withholding of affection, all my mom ever gave me was a genuinely unconditional love that instilled within me an unshakeable belief in my own talents and abilities. My sister Marlie and I often joke that, while it's practically cliche for adults to tell children they can be or do whatever they want when they grow up, our mom believed it so sincerely and affirmed it so constantly that we now carry a completely unearned sense of confidence into every new situation. As far as we're concerned, there is literally nothing we cannot do if we put our minds to it. There are only skills we've already mastered, those we will eventually master, and those unworthy of our time and attention. For some, this level of confidence may sabotage their pursuits or cultivate an heir of cockiness in them, but in our cases I believe it's done the opposite. Rather, this level of self esteem has seemed to help us persevere through challenges and accomplish things of profound meaning and purpose, without ever feeling the need to tear others down along the way. Who knows, maybe that's because haughtiness and arrogance aren't symptoms of true confidence at all, but rather of deep insecurity and fear of inadequacy.

In any case, Marilyn Magill raised kids who believe in themselves, and who know better than to doubt their worth. This has proven vital for me over the last few years, as certain developments in my personal life may have otherwise thrown me off my axis. Specifically, my coming out as bi while navigating life within conservative Evangelical Christianity put tremendous stress on my sense of self. Indeed, after spending half my life earning a place within the Church through chaste living, devoted service and the accumulation of two degrees in Christian theology, I was roundly disowned after coming out. I was even told that I was unfit to volunteer with my church's youth, which was hard not to take personally, given the fact that my entire adult life had been devoted to the spiritual formation and mentorship of young people. I had, in fact, worked on staff at that very same youth group prior to moving away for seminary. But after this rejection, I did stay at that church for an additional 6 months, at the behest of the pastor who had personally asked me to. And I don't think he meant any harm by that; rather, I genuinely believe he wanted to pastor me through what was bound to be a challenging time in my life. He was a good man, after all, who spent the rest of his life learning and growing, and he wasn't the one to make the final determination that I'd be barred from serving anyway (the denomination's church leadership structure defers such decisions to the "church council"). My respect for him is a large part of why I've avoided discussing my leaving the church in any great depth before now.

But staying in that space and worshipping on Sundays, without the ability to participate beyond that or bring what I had to offer for the edification of the community (what I believe church really is), weighed on me more and more each week. I had already made up my mind to leave around the end of the year (2018 into 2019), but when my pastor reached out offering me a spot to sing at the church's Christmas Eve service, I figured that was the best opportunity to deliver my swan song (so to speak). 

And it was a pleasant enough, if ultimately heartbreaking evening, as neither the candles nor the carols could not stave off my grief over leaving. A few days later I met with my pastor one more time to deliver the news, preferring to be forthcoming rather than slowly ghosting the church. He seemed genuinely disappointed, and I believe he was. Then, attempting to assure me that he had my back, he told me a family had left the church over my performance, but that he stood by his decision to invite me. I know he meant it as a comfort, but if anything, the story validated my decision. It reminded me how many of my closest friends, colleagues and neighbors within the church had grown colder toward me since I came out. At the end of the day, I would not be a source of constant scandal for an entire church community, and yet be expected to stay within it. I would not worship where I was not wanted.

Some days I think, maybe, he shouldn't have told me that story. But I am grateful for his sincere attempts to keep me in the fold as long as possible. We have since lost him, suddenly and tragically. Like my mom.

Speaking again of my mom, she is actually the other reason I've waited this long to tell a deeper version of my story. Like me, she loved that church (the handful of times I convinced her to join me), and it would've broken her heart perhaps more than mine to know why I left. My mom loved me so much that I couldn't subject her to what had happened to me.

I often worried how much pain her giant heart could tolerate, especially since at 64 she had already experienced much more than a lifetime's worth. But what her children endured always devastated her the most, because she loved us so much more than herself. Sometimes I wish she'd have set aside a little love for herself, too. Still, the love our mom showered over us ultimately made me the kind of person who could not remain in a church that scorned me forever. In fact, even more fundamentally, I believe her love for me was instrumental in my coming to love and appreciate my own identity in the first place. She loved me so much, and so well, that any notion I was unworthy of love, or undeserving of happiness, simply could not last.

I remember coming out to my mom. She was about the last person in my life I came out to, and not because I feared she might reject me. There was simply not one doubt in my mind over it. It was just the hardest to tell the people who'd known me the longest, because it was the biggest news to them. It's strange to tell anyone who's known you your entire life something new about yourself, let alone something so vulnerable. But obviously, when the day came, she nailed it. The first thing she said was that all she cares about is that I'm happy, and that my ability to love people regardless of their gender is beautiful. She did make one crack about still wanting grandkids, but knowing my mom, that was simply unavoidable. I do not hold it against her.

Through all the turbulence that proceeded my coming out, there were two things that grounded me as all the other pillars upon which I'd built my life and personality began to crumble: one, I knew, over and against the opinions of my disapproving fellow Christians, that God had made me as I am and did not withhold one drop of love from me over it and two, that my mother's love for me was the true guiding light in my life. 

Without that light now, I will surely struggle to find my way for a while. But I'll be ok, in time. Because that love isn't truly gone. I have faith she's still shining it toward me somehow, somewhere. Plus, after all, it's the same love that shaped me into the man I am today. 

I know that am beloved, both by my mother and my Father, and for that reason, I will not tolerate any shred of hatred in my life.

In addition to being my biggest fan, my mom was also my fiercest ally. After I came out to her, she went to Amazon immediately to buy a Pride flag for her porch. She made a point to learn about issues facing the LGBTQ+ community, and bragged about going to work trainings to support her LGBTQ+ clients better. She regularly posted public social media support for communities of which I am a part (LGBT people in general), AND for communities of which I am not a part (the trans community in particular), just because my coming out had so widened her lens of empathy and concern for people, which was already quite wide.

In fact, my mom's political priorities have always boiled down to simple love and concern for people. She voted in support of gay marriage in Oregon, even while I tried to talk her out of it (forgive my closeted, fundamentalist teenage self). She cared about immigrants, racial justice, and feeding and clothing the poor and unhoused. She was a Christian, in the truest and most meaningful sense of the term, and in spite of her growing discomfort with it over the last several years in which American Christianity has been hijacked by authoritarian politicians who only pretend to care about Jesus for cheap political points.

Indeed, my mother was as angry and scared as I am over our nation's descent into fascism. Perhaps more so. I know at least that she was afraid for me, and I am so angry at this country for making her fear for her child's safety, as so many mothers now fear for their children's safety. Mothers of trans kids in red states who will go without life-saving care. Immigrant mothers stripped away from their children and sent to prison camps in other countries. These things outraged my mom. As they should outrage us all.

This year, as we usher in the season of Pride, I will channel my mother's love for me. I will stay grounded in it and be guided by it, but I will also be motivated by it. I will be spurred on by her love for me and those like me, and for all people, to fight against the rising tide of injustice. I will honor her legacy not with silence, but with cries for justice and human dignity. Marilyn deserved to live in a better world that loved like she loved. But that is far from the world in which we find ourselves. We can and must do better.

If I am able to have Pride in myself and for my community, it is because of my mom's pride in me. She told me constantly and enthusiastically how proud she was of her children. And that pride translated into a desire for a world that treated us how we deserve to be treated. We do not live in that world, but in my mom's name and memory, I will not stop fighting until we do.

For what it's worth, I'm also very proud of my mom. I'm proud of her for being guided by love and concern for others my entire life. I'm proud of her for opening her heart to new ideas and new people, long past the time some of her peers had calcified in their beliefs. I'm proud that she even beat me to these revelations, an experience uncommon among my millennial peers who had to drag their parents toward understanding changing identities and cultures. Not my mom. Nope, she beat me to it. 

I'm also so proud of her for surviving a life of indignity and cruelty as long as she did. The world did not deserve her. But I was so lucky to be her kid. Proud to be her kid.