Nov 16-30 Archives

Trans Saints? Early cross-dressing monks and martyrs share similar lives

by Kittredge Cherry | | Featured, March 16-31, Nov 16-30, Saints

Early Christian cross-dressing monks are being reclaimed as possible transgender or LGBTQ saints. More than 20 saints share a similar story: They escaped their lives as women and lived as men, joining monasteries or becoming religious hermits. Often they were...

Transgender Day of Remembrance: Spiritual resources

by Kittredge Cherry | | Calendar, Nov 16-30

Transgender Day of Remembrance (Nov. 20) commemorates those who were killed due to anti-transgender prejudice. Spiritual and religious resources that affirm transgender people are presented here. The annual event serves the dual purpose of honoring the dead and...

Club Q martyrs: Five killed in shooting at LGBTQ bar in Colorado Springs

by Kittredge Cherry | | News, Nov 16-30, Saints

Five people were killed in a mass shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Nov. 19-20, 2022. Police identified the dead as Daniel Davis Aston, 28; Kelly Loving, 40; Ashley Paugh, 35; Derrick Rump, 38; Raymond Green Vance, 22. At least...

Dance of the 41 Queers: Police raid Mexican drag ball in 1901

by Kittredge Cherry | | Nov 16-30, Saints

Police arrested 41 people at a Mexico City drag ball known as the Dance of the 41 Queers in a notorious police raid on Nov. 17-18, 1901. Now the Dance of the 41 is being reclaimed by the LGBTQ community, and same-sex marriage is legal in Mexico City. Cross-dressing...

Pauli Murray: Queer saint who stood for racial and gender equality

by Kittredge Cherry | | July 1-15, Nov 16-30, Saints

Human rights champion and queer saint Pauli Murray is a renowned civil rights pioneer, feminist, author, Episcopal priest and lawyer whose legal arguments were used in landmark Supreme Court decisions outlawing racism and sexism. Murray was arrested and jailed for...

Harvey Milk: LGBTQ rights pioneer stood for equality

by Kittredge Cherry | | May 15-31, Nov 16-30, Saints

Pioneering LGBTQ rights activist Harvey Milk is the first and most famous openly gay male elected official in California. His birthday (May 22) is a state holiday. He has been called a martyr for LGBTQ rights — and for all human rights. “If a bullet should...

Oscar Wilde: Gay martyr with complex faith journey recalled in art

by Kittredge Cherry | | Nov 16-30, Saints

Oscar Wilde is a 19th-century Anglo-Irish writer whose reputation as a gay literary martyr and LGBTQ role model often overshadows his spiritual journey as a follower of Christ and Anglican convert to Catholicism. He died on Nov. 30, 1900, after a deathbed conversion....

Blessed Bernardo de Hoyos: Mystical same-sex marriage with Jesus

by Kittredge Cherry | | Nov 16-30, Saints

Blessed Bernardo Francisco de Hoyos y de Seña is an 18th-century Spanish priest who wrote vividly of his mystical gay marriage to Jesus. This queer saint was beatified in 2010 and his feast day is Nov. 29. On Nov. 28, 2020, Q Spirit presented a new,...

Louie Crew Clay: LGBTQ church activist, founder of Integrity, Rutgers professor

by Kittredge Cherry | | Nov 16-30, Saints

Louie Crew Clay was a longtime LGBTQ church activist who founded of the Episcopal LGBTQ group Integrity in 1974. He died on Nov. 27, 2019 at age 82, peacefully at a hospital in Newark, New Jersey, with his husband by his side, a few days after suffering a stroke. As...

Richard Sibbes: Queer Puritan theologian for the LGBTQ community?

by Kittredge Cherry | | Nov 16-30, Saints

Richard Sibbes was a 17th-century English Puritan who never married, nurtured close male friendships, wore extravagantly lacy clothing and preached a rather queer theology. Puritans have a (somewhat undeserved) reputation for being distinctly puritanical, but Sibbes...