Why I Kind of Hate Pride Month

Hi! Did you know I’m a big ol’ gay? If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you’ll know I’ve got a wife and a girlfriend who I love very much (yay for polyamory!). I also identify as nonbinary, as in I like they/them, but I’m still cool with she/her. Basically, I’m queer as all heck.

That being said, Pride Month is kind of a bittersweet time for me.

It’s not that I hate being pandered to by huge corporations. Like, please pander to me; I like the attention. In fact, it’s actually kind of dope that we live in a society where it’s more profitable to be progressive than regressive, even if it’s ultimately all for show. Like, I love Target and I love what they’re doing for Pride, but if they pulled their Pride collection from stores in more conservative areas, it’s clear they’re a fairweather ally. If violence broke out at a Pride parade, Target’s not going to take a bullet for me or my friends, which does suck, but it’s probably too much to ask of even the most queer-friendly corporations. Business is business, after all, and corporations aren’t your friends.

You see, Pride Month is the time of year when I get constant reminders of how much the world still hates me.

Sure, people are loud and proud about their identities and who they love during the month of June, but it’s also the time of year when the assholes feel the need to shout even louder about how much they “don’t approve of our lifestyles” (at best) or want us to die (at worst). Here are some examples from some of my so-called “friends” on Facebook:

These are some of the more tame ones. I’d post some of the darker ones I’ve seen, but I don’t feel like dwelling on this shit even more than I already have to. I’m talking straight-up genocidal statements and “41 percent” quips. These people want my friends to die. These people want my family to die. These people want me to die. And it’s fucking exhausting. There’s a reason I bought a gun and started working out. It’s dangerous to be queer in this climate.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want the homophobes and transphobes to die, because I’m not like them. I believe in taking the higher ground. Rather, I wish they’d get to know actual queer folks, not just the caricatures and straw men presented by right-wing media. Because to be honest, we’re mostly pretty cool! Like, all we want is to be ourselves with the people we love. We’re not “coming for your kids.” We just want to make sure that, should your kids end up gay or trans, you don’t throw them out on the street like a wad of garbage.

We don’t need special treatment. Honestly, I’d trade Pride Month and all of its trappings to just be treated like a human being. In the end, we don’t give a shit about your rainbow cakes and witty t-shirts. We just want to live.

Dear Cadence, Part Two: The Furnace Man Can’t Hurt You

I promise this will make sense. But first, we need some exposition.

I was born in the middle of a snowstorm on March 5th, 1993. Two other very important people were born on March 5th as well — John Frusciante, the greatest guitarist ever, and your grandmother, my mom. I was indeed a birthday present. In the immortal words of Kanye West, who may or may not still be a Nazi sympathizer by the time you read this (hopefully not), my presence is a present, kiss my ass.

This was planned, kind of. You see, I had the cord wrapped around my neck in utero. I was a suicidal fetus. Instead of letting me abort myself, the doctors decided to cut me out. My mom planned the surgery for her birthday, since my original due date was about a week afterwards anyways. There are a lot of other unusual circumstances behind my birth and how exactly I came to exist, which I will get into later on. (Don’t worry, I’m not gonna explain the birds and the bees in the context of your grandmother, uh… making me.)

Our family moved frequently when I was very young, or as your grandmother would say, we were a bunch of gypsies, which is a word that American baby boomers could get away with saying but is actually pretty offensive to actual Romani people. To be clear, we are not actually Romani, or anything exciting for that matter. I’m literally 95 percent British, which means you are approximately half-British. But most of our immediate ancestors came from Kentucky.

Your great-grandparents all moved up to Michigan to take part in the industrial boom that was happening in the 1950s, as did many other Kentuckians, settling in the working class southern suburbs of Detroit. This region, called the Downriver area, is not to be confused with the affluent WASP-y northern suburbs where your other mom came from. No, Downriver was hillbilly heaven. Trailer parks as far as the eye can see, confederate flags, NASCAR merch, the works. And our family, we settled as far into the country as you could get and still be considered a suburb of Detroit.

Your grandfather was a steelworker, and your grandmother was a homemaker, much like her mother before her, and her mother before that. The women in our family traditionally had very little contact with the outside world. This was less because of the misogynistic worldview that was prevalent in their formative years and more because of their crippling anxiety. As in, your grandmother was too scared to drive most of the time, and your great-grandmother didn’t drive at all after crashing her car into a bank or something during her first attempt behind the wheel.

Me, I was fearless. Or so I liked to think.

The reality was I was scared of absolutely everything. One of my earliest memories was at my grandma’s house for Christmas Eve, a tradition that persisted until her death. I still remember my brother and cousin pulling all kinds of shenanigans, like hiding jewelry inside a box inside a bigger box inside an even bigger box (and so on), then giving it to my grandma as a good-natured prank. I remember my uncle Arnie bringing weird smelly cheese and shrimp cocktails every year. The men in my family would have a few beers and play poker — that was the only time my dad ever drank around me, in fact. And then there was Furnace Man.

Furnace Man lived in my grandma’s furnace. He wore a plaid shirt and had no head, and every time the furnace made a sound, I imagined him kicking around in there, lying in wait, ready to like, eat me or something. Sometimes I would get close to the furnace, as if to test my theory that he was lurking, then got scared and ran away, terrified.

Obviously, Furnace Man was not real. In fact, my “vision” of him came from my dad going into the utility room to try on a flannel he received one Christmas Eve and getting his head stuck in the head-hole. I was too little to know what was going on, so my brain pieced together “headless man from the utility room,” and decided he came from the creepy blue-gray furnace that always creaked and croaked menacingly when I walked past it.

Looking back, this was when my OCD first manifested, and it took on a lot of forms throughout my life. As I got a little older, I was scared of my precious irreplaceable adult teeth falling out, so I’d wiggle them a little every day to make sure they weren’t loose. In kindergarten, we had a fire drill, and that sparked a fear that our house would catch on fire and I’d lose all of my stuff. A watched pot doesn’t boil, or something like that, so I thought if I never left the house, nothing would catch on fire.

Keep in mind this was how my brain worked in kindergarten.

It evolved into even scarier things as I got into my teenage years, like a fear of death or of hurting people I love. I was even afraid to have you for years because I was scared I’d lose my sanity somehow and hurt you. I wish I could say some inspirational “oh, I just prayed and God miraculously cured me” spiel, but the truth is, my saving grace was getting the help I needed from psychiatrists and therapists. Although, to give credit where credit is due, perhaps God put those people in my life to save me from myself and my crippling anxiety. There’s a lot of things I don’t know about this universe and how it works, and while that’s another source of anxiety for me at times, in a way, it’s almost reassuring that I’ll never have all the answers.

I don’t know why He chose to pass along the generational curse of anxiety and mental illness to me, but I’d like to think it was to better prepare me for taking care of whatever mental health needs arise for you. I pray you never have to deal with the severe mental health issues that have plagued our family for so many years, but if you do, just know that I’m on your side. I’ve been to hell and back again — I could get there with my eyes closed. But now I know the way back home, and if I ever find you there, I’m ready to fight alongside you.

No matter how real he seems, the Furnace Man can’t hurt you.

Pansexual Awareness Day: All Your Burning Questions, Answered

Ask the average person what bisexuality is, and the answer is pretty straightforward — attraction to both genders. This is assuming the average person only knows/cares about the two mainstream genders, although anyone in the queer community knows bisexuals are attracted to people outside the male-female binary.

So if bisexuals are attracted to all genders, what on earth is a pansexual? After all, if the common assumption is that bisexuals are attracted to both, then pansexuals are attracted to all, including nonbinary people. But, like I mentioned above, the definition of bisexual has expanded to include nonbinary people as well. Pansexual is just another word for bisexual, then, right??

(Have I lost you yet?)

Today is Pansexual Awareness Day, and I’m sure if you’re reading this, you’re likely aware of me, a pansexual. Although I sometimes describe myself as bi (usually when I’m talking to older folks or want to associate myself with bisexual icon Freddie Mercury), I view my sexual/romantic orientation as mostly in-line with pansexuality. Bisexuality and pansexuality can be considered interchangeable, but there are some important distinctions you should know about. Here are some common questions I get asked. Let’s get the obvious out of the way.

Are you attracted to skillets?

I am not attracted to skillets, although I am attracted to Jen Ledger, the drummer of Skillet.

So you’re attracted to guys, girls, and enbies?

Well, kind of! You see, I’m not attracted to a certain gender or sex, per se. From what I understand, bisexuals are usually into peen and vageen. For pan people like me, the plumbing is irrelevant. If I like you, I like you!

You really don’t care about a person’s junk?

Not really. Genitals don’t really turn me on. I think there are more important things to consider when starting a relationship with someone.

Like?

How good they are at guitar? Kidding! (Mostly.) I do have preferences, looks-wise. But I consider sexual/romantic compatibility to be separate from gender.

You’re attracted to everyone?!

Absolutely not! It’s a common misconception that bisexuals and pansexuals are into everything with a heartbeat. Like everyone else, I have preferences and certain people I’m more “into” than others. Don’t assume I’ll sleep with or date just anyone. I’m actually pretty picky!

What is panromantic?

Panromantic people are romantically attracted to all genders. A lot of times, it goes hand-in-hand with pansexuality, but they’re technically different things.

Are pan and poly the same thing?

Not at all. While you can be both (and there is quite a bit of overlap), poly people have more than one partner or are open to the idea of having more than one partner. You don’t have to be pan to be poly, and you don’t have to be poly to be pan. Lots of pan folks are content with monogamy, and that’s okay too!

When did you know you were pan?

I think I’ve always known, to an extent. I liked guys (a lot), but I also realize I had a lot of “girl crushes” as an adolescent as well. I just didn’t recognize what they were until I learned what “gay” meant, and of course growing up in a conservative evangelical church, I squashed that part of me pretty quickly. I “experimented” in college because I thought that’s just what girls do with their female friends, and I realized I wasn’t very particular about what gender or genitalia my partner had, as long as they were pretty and nice (and musically talented). I finally came to terms with it when I noticed I’d rather be hanging out with my best friend than my own husband, and I came out when my old church announced a conversion therapy program for teenage girls. I knew deep inside I was one of those girls once, and I wanted to stand in solidarity with them. So I came out publicly as pan and haven’t looked back.

Well, this has been enlightening.

Thank you, unnamed theoretical person asking me these questions! And of course, if you have any other questions, feel free to drop them in the comments. Happy Pansexual Awareness Day!

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The Art Arc (And What That Means For the Blog)

I know, I know. I announce changes like, every month in this blog, and nothing ever sticks. It’s the ADHD, I swear. My commitment issues have commitment issues. But I have a good feeling this one’s gonna last.

There is now an art section on my blog!

I took up painting recently as a way to deal with stress, and realized pretty quickly that I’m not too bad for a beginner. I wanted a place to share my creations with the world without bogging down my social media with endless posts of paintings, so I created a separate space for art here!

What does that mean for the blog? Not a whole lot, except I might post the occasional WIP or finished creation in lieu of a normal post. But rest assured, I’ll still be writing like crazy, especially now that my classes are finished (freaking finally). I already have some awesome fiction and nonfiction stuff lined up to share, and as always, I’ll be posting my thoughts and musings on current events and my weird life.

I’ll leave you with my first ever oil painting, “Sunflower,” inspired by my cat (who else?!).

He’s a good model, but don’t tell him I said that.

As always, if you enjoyed this post, feel free to support the blog by donating on CashApp ($TheJessaJoyce) or Venmo (@jessjsalisbury). Any amount is greatly appreciated!

Dear Cadence, Part One

This is the first in a series of posts I’ll hopefully turn into a book someday. It’s a story that’s particularly close to my heart, because it’s my story. I wanted to write down all my experiences and advice for my theoretical future daughter, so that she can read it someday when she’s not theoretical. I don’t know how regularly I’ll post from this series, mostly because I want to put my heart and soul into it to make sure it’s JUST RIGHT, but I wanted to share my progress on this project for you all to read and enjoy as well. If any part of my story resonates with you, feel free to leave a comment. I hope you love this project as much as I do.

Dear Cadence,

If you’re reading this, I’m dead.

Kidding! Well, maybe not. It depends on if I die before you get this little book of wisdom. When will I give it to you? Who knows! Maybe when you go to college. Maybe when the red peony blooms, if you know what I mean. Maybe I’ll read it to you on my deathbed. Maybe I’ll even publish it as a memoir-type thing, and we’ll both be famous someday, me as an author, and you as the recipient of my 30-ish years of knowledge.

As of writing this, you are not alive yet. You’re just a lil egg floating around in my ovary, probably. That, or you’re adopted. I’ll probably break that news to you before I give you this book, though. Or—more disappointingly, I die before I can birth/adopt you, in which case, I give full permission to my surviving family to publish whatever is written here. Seriously, it’s okay! The saddest stories are the ones that get irretrievably forgotten, and the least I can do is immortalize my crazy life in writing.

I’m not a celebrity or anyone of note, at least not yet. By the time you read this, I could be the frontwoman of a celebrated, beloved rock band, or an esteemed professor of music therapy, or a Folgers jar of ashes on your mantle (and I swear to God you better put me in a more respectable urn than that or I will haunt you). But I’m your mom (or maybe dad—your other mom and I didn’t want you to get us confused). I don’t even know you yet, but as my firstborn/possibly only daughter, you mean the absolute world to me. This little collection of anecdotes is more than just a bunch of autobiographical stories I want to preserve and share with you and the generations to come. It’s a book of hard-earned advice I’ve gained from three decades on this giant rock we call home.

So, with that in mind, here’s the life story of yours truly, the greatest woman to ever walk this planet (well, at least until you arrive!).

Here’s to the Future

I’m usually good at coming up with things to write about myself, but every now and then, I like answering the little prompts on here. Just for funsies, ya know? And this one felt fitting, considering the fact that at the time of writing, I recently turned 30 and have literally just finished coursework for my music therapy degree that took more than a decade to complete.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I want to start this off with a song — “I Want It All” by one of my all-time favorite bands, Queen.

This song has been my mantra throughout the past few years, ever since I decided I was done sucking at life. Like, I was stuck in a marriage I rushed into for the wrong reasons, I had a burgeoning drinking problem, my mental health was in the toilet (as if it had ever been anywhere else), my music career was DOA, and I couldn’t even finish my damn degree, having dropped out of the program twice. I thank God for my brother. As complicated as our relationship is at times (for reasons that would take a whole other blog post), he’s the one who intervened when I was thisclose to driving my car into the fucking river.

I have a band that I really should talk about more on here called Wake Up Jamie, and one of our songs is called “I Hate My 20s.” It’s exactly what it says on the tin — a song about how much it sucks to be in your twenties. I didn’t write it, and I don’t sing it (my bandmate Hailey does), but I relate to as if I wrote it myself. Sometimes I feel like I wasted my youth being a crap sack of a person, but I think everyone feels that way to an extent. As much as we idolize being young, it’s kind of a struggle to figure things out, and most people take a minute to get it together.

That being said, I’m excited for these next ten years. I feel like I’m finally confident in who I am as a person and have some sort of direction in life. I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I’m a hell of a lot closer than I was ten years ago, when I was still wide-eyed and optimistic about everything. I’m still optimistic, just in a different way. I’ve seen how low life can get, and yet there’s always been a way out of it. There will always been rain, but it doesn’t last. The sun will rise in the morning.

I realize I still haven’t answered the actual question, but in ten years, I imagine myself finally living the dreams of my youth, with a life full of love and music. I want to have a family of sorts, with children of my own. I can already imagine a little curly-haired Cadence Amirah singing along to the songs written by me and my friends, her own mixtape of music from people who love her. My wife will stay home with the kids while I go to work at some prestigious university, performing research that shapes the world of music therapy. In addition, I’d like to have a private practice and recording studio where clients can work through their struggles while recording an album. I want to work with clients of all diagnoses and walks of life, but of course, there’s a special place in my heart for neurodivergent folks like myself. Maybe I’ll have an autistic client who gets to write music about his special interest in a world that wants him to shut up about it. Or maybe I’ll have an ADHD client who can revel in producing a song, the first thing she’s ever accomplished on her own after a lifetime of hopping from project to project without finishing anything. It will be rigorous work, but so rewarding. Aside from music therapy, I want to write songs and either perform them myself or send them off to Nashville or LA to be recorded by people more famous than me. I want to pen that one hit song that secures my legacy as a songwriter and a livelihood for my family.

I don’t know where I’ll live. I’d like to stay in the Midwest so I can remain close to my girlfriend, who I have every intention of building a life with as well, but the details are up in the air. Saugatuck is the goal, as a gay little vacation town in western Michigan, where we can have our idealistic lake house filled to the brim with oddities of every sort, from vintage Pokémon merchandise to colorful crystals of every size to a dinosaur skeleton. I’d commute to Western Michigan University every other day or so in order to teach or perform research, and have a humble studio in Saugatuck where I’ll spend most of my days. At night, I’ll go home and watch the moon on the water from my back porch and enjoy the life I’ve built for myself, sipping some Red Bull margaritas or nonalcoholic wine and playing guitar for my wife and kids.

I’m getting goosebumps writing this all out, and the crazy thing is, this can actually happen. I think back to when I just turned 20, how different my life looked from now. I imagined a day when I’d have my own little apartment and a significant other and a cat to share it with. I dreamed of having a band I considered family, just like the ones I saw on Behind the Music as a kid. I remember when I’d never set foot on a stage bigger than the corner of a coffeeshop, and we just played Arts Beats and Eats last summer! I’m exactly where I hoped I’d be ten years ago, and while not everything is perfect, I’m content with the way things are going. I think 20-year-old me would be pleased.

And ten years from now, I hope I feel the exact same way.

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Grace Culture: Why Cancel Culture Needs to Go

Everyone sucks. It’s a pretty well-established fact of life. I suck. You suck. Your mom sucks. Hilary Clinton sucks. Donald Trump sucks. The Queen of England sucked. Name your favourite or least favourite person alive, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that they definitely suck. The very first thing we learn to do upon exiting the womb is suck (in a literal sense, but also in a figurative sense). It’s in our human nature.

There’s an entire tirade in the Bible about this, actually. It’s particularly referring to the Jewish and Greek folks who would have engaged with this writing at the time, but you could swap in any ol’ demographic and get the same idea. Black or white, cis or trans, Christian or atheist, and anyone and everyone else. We. All. Suck.

“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
Romans 3:11-12

Recently, I’ve learned a lot of my favourite creators suck, too. And I’m not talking incredibly famous people, but people who are just like me, people who create and share things. These people are musicians and bloggers and writers who just so happened to reach the right amount of people to “make it,” whatever that even looks like. But the point is, I could be any one of them.

It’s exciting. It’s humbling. It’s scary.

One of my favourite YouTubers is apparently a nightmare to work with. Another took a picture with all her friends — who just so happened to be skinny, white-passing, and attractive by our narrow Euro-centric beauty conventions — and spun the post as body positivity. One of my favourite podcasts of all time got derailed because…I’m still not entirely sure. Stevie Nicks’ landmark song has a title that’s quite literally a racial slur. And I could list every infraction ever committed by my favourite guitarists, from John Mayer’s general fuckery to how Richie Sambora drove drunk with his daughter in the car. Even my beloved Chili Peppers aren’t innocent, sexually assaulting a fan in the early 90s and citing a porn star who was literally underage at the time she was active in the industry as a muse.

I’ve always wanted to be famous, ever since I was little and ran onstage at some show because I was mad the actresses were getting attention instead of me. I used to daydream at great length about becoming a rock star, crafting entire scenarios in my head about what my life and career would be like. I imagined the inevitable biopic that would be made about me, my internal dialogue becoming a narration of the story of my life from the perspective of someone who thought I was cool enough to make a movie about.

But at the same time, I don’t know if I can handle being famous. And that’s simply because I suck. Certainly not as much as some of the creators I mentioned above, but I still suck. I’ve said and done things I regret a lot, and I’m just lucky that I wasn’t in the spotlight at the time. Because I honestly don’t know if I could handle the criticism, even if it was justified. Especially if it was justified. I hate the feeling of being wrong, almost as much as I hate the idea of ever hurting anyone.

As a creator of any type, there’s so much pressure to be perfect, not just looks-wise but as a person as well. We need to be a role model. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think creators should strive to be positive influences for their fans, and I think creators should be held accountable when they inevitably fuck up. Some of those things might be unforgivable. Should the allegations against Michael Jackson be true, for example, we definitely need to stop holding him up as an idol. Should we stop listening to his music? I think that’s an even more complicated issue that I’ll probably address in a future post. But for relatively benign “maybe I didn’t realise this was racist at the time but now I know better” kinds of problematic behaviour, I think we need more space for grace. Because God knows I’ll need it.

I want so badly to make waves as a musician or writer, but sometimes I find myself paralysed by the pressure to be above reproach in all things. What if something I posted ten years ago on Facebook resurfaces and shows me as a total asshole now? You have to put yourself out there to get any ounce of fame, but in the process, you open yourself up to so much scrutiny. And sometimes I wonder if I could handle that. I cry if someone looks at me funny (I describe myself as “the stereotypical Pisces” for good reason). I think I could handle the press or some anonymous Twitter denizen calling me ugly or untalented. But if someone attacked my character, something I take more seriously than my looks or even my art, I’d probably lose it.

I hate the term “cancel culture” because of its association with the anti-“woke” (read: anti-any media that’s not cishet white male) rhetoric, but I think it’s time we cancel cancel culture to an extent. Rather, we need a grace culture, one where people are free to fuck up and be able to redeem themselves. We need to have open conversations with each other about why we suck and how we can suck less in a way that’s not defensive or vilifying. We need to be open to learning from one another.

Exactly Where I’m Meant to Be

It doesn’t feel real.

But it is.

I’m so much closer to being a music therapist, more so than ever before, and it’s hitting me all at once.

My coursework is finished, save for a few loose ends, and just yesterday I had my graduation ceremony.

I don’t know what it was. Maybe it’s my hormones. Maybe it’s because I’m a big whiny Pisces. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the look of pride on my dad’s face as I walked down the aisle. But I cried. I never just cry, not on happy occasions. Like, I didn’t even cry on either of my wedding days. Something about this just felt so overwhelmingly right, though. Like I was finally where I was supposed to be this entire time, like my whole life led up to that moment.

And yet, I’m still mourning something. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it’s the finality of it all. This is the end of a chapter that took well over a third of my life. Maybe I’m sad I spent the whole of my youth studying when I could have been traveling or starting a family or running away to Nashville to play in some band that might actually become famous. Maybe I’m sad I’ll never know what the other paths would have looked like. I’m not a Sim. I don’t get another play-through. I devoted my life to learning the art of music therapy, and that’s the road I’m on.

It is disheartening to think I might never be a rock star or a mom or a free-spirited hippie living in a converted van. But then I think back to the look on my dad’s face yesterday, the majestic piano leitmotif my professor composed in my honor, and how it felt singing my favorite song lyrics of all time as part of my graduation speech — “Show love with no remorse.”

Music therapy is academia. It’s science. It’s art. But perhaps most importantly, it’s love. It’s love of all of those things, but above all else, it’s love of humanity. It’s taking a divine gift that was given to us — the gift of music — and using it as a tool to help and heal. Maybe I’ll never get to hold a child of my own. Maybe I’ll never get to revel in the spotlight of the biggest stadium. Maybe I will someday. But I know that I haven’t wasted my youth as a music therapy student, because this is what I was put on this planet to do. I was created to use my gift to leave the world a better place than the way I found it. It’s my God-given calling.

And for the first time, I’m exactly where I need to be.

Pride & Joy: How God Lead Me INTO Being Queer

Another post I originally shared as a FB status but figured it warranted its own post on here, especially since I haven’t posted on the blog in a minute. It’s been a crazy few weeks of coursework but my classes are over after this upcoming week, so expect more ramblings on here soon!

I see people posting their “I was gay but THEN I FOUND JESUS” testimonies all the time, but never any “I found Jesus but THEN I WAS GAY” testimonies. So allow me to share mine.

I used to attend an evangelical megachurch, first in my teens and again when I reached my lowest low after graduation. I was so broken and jaded I needed somewhere I could call home, and the church of my youth seemed right. I started going back, got deeply involved in the music ministry, and even married a man with an intention of starting a family, because that’s what you were “supposed” to do. But I wasn’t truly happy. I had to drink wine just to make household chores bearable. I had such a bad mental breakdown I had to go to a psychiatric emergency facility. I isolated myself from the people I loved and tried so hard to break my own bones to fit into a box that didn’t feel right to me. Even my own mom saw that I was miserable.

The breaking point came when my church announced a conversion therapy class for teenage girls — while I was standing on the stage about to lead worship. I should have walked off that stage, and I still kick myself for not doing it in the moment. But it planted a seed — something wasn’t right. I started to realize I was one of those girls! I’d been attracted to people of every gender, but I had to crush the parts of me that weren’t straight because I wanted so desperately to fit in and be “normal” by these people’s standards.

I was tired. And so I came out.

I’m so glad I chose to live my truth as a pansexual woman. I ended up leaving the marriage I rushed into for the sake of “staying pure” and married my best friend, who I realized I was in love with the entire time. I have a family of fellow queerdos who are truer friends to me than anyone at that church I left. My blood family even sees how happy I am now and is happy for me! And I didn’t have to leave behind my faith in Christ to embrace my true self — I found an affirming church that accepted me and my gay and trans siblings for who they are.

Being queer and following Christ aren’t mutually exclusive things. My faith is stronger for having been tested. God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, and He truly blessed me with so much. I love who He made me to be, and I’m glad I can finally live in the light.

Feel free to share if my story reaches you in some way. I want the world to know it’s okay not to fit into the mold of American evangelical Christianity. God doesn’t love you any less. You are exactly who He created you to be ❤️

Think of the Children! (An Easter Manifesto)

I originally posted this on my Facebook and Instagram pages (@thejessajoyce, if you’re curious), but I wanted to share this brief little write-up here as well. It’s so important to get this message out there since more often than not, the theoretical future of society and the fight to better it is co-opted by straight, cis, white, non-disabled people in an effort to tear down people who are not like them. I want to present a counter-argument. If all lives truly matter, as many on the political right say, and we must “think of the children,” my future children should be considered as well. There is room for everyone at the table of life, and we need to remember that this Easter.

Reading this book (Feminist Queer Crip by Alison Kafer) at the suggestion of one of my favorite professors for my capstone project on autism, and it feels especially poignant in the days of #blacklivesmatter and #SaveTheChildren and #autismawarenessmonth and the recent fight against drag and transgender rights. The first chapter talks a lot about the Child — the personification of the future of society — who is often politicized and weaponized. Think of the children, people say. The image of the Child is more often than not a white cishet non-disabled child born to white cishet non-disabled parents. This Child absolutely matters. But I’m not interested in fighting for him, not because I don’t care about him, but because he already has enough people fighting for his right to exist in peace. Instead, I want to fight for my children.

In a few short years, I’ll likely have a child of my own. That child will likely have a disability of some sort, or rather, a difference that makes it harder to exist in a world that isn’t built for her. Considering my family history, she’ll likely be autistic or ADHD. Depending on our donor, she will likely be at least part black, and she’ll have queer parents who will support her should she eventually come to terms with her own queerness. And guess what? Her life will matter too. She should have a right to exist in peace alongside the theoretical Child described above. I want her to have a future too.

That’s why it’s so important to keep fighting for equality. I feel like it’s important to note that it’s Easter Sunday as I post this. I am a Christian through and through, despite the fact that I don’t “fit” the American Evangelical mold, and I firmly believe that Christ died for EVERYONE. Not just white Americans or straight people or cisgender people or able-bodied and able-minded people. We are all wonderfully made and we all should have a right to inhabit this beautiful planet. This post is a call to prayer and more importantly, a call to action. We need to be a light to this sometimes dark and scary world. We need to keep fighting the good fight.