Hello, and welcome to the Nonprofits the weekly recorded show that addresses current events and news items from an atheist and a secular humanist perspective. Guess What Summer is here and Fay Albernos is out on Miami Beach for Pride. She is self proclaimed very loud and fast talking and the lesbian host of the Fay What Show. While out on Miami Beach, she talks about the struggles of the LGBTQ community in the current political landscape, especially in Florida.
What is striking to me, though, is the contrast between her loud and call colorful outfit and the topics that she discusses, like the funding of HIV and AIDS research and threats to trans kids. It's a strange combination. However, she seems to be genuinely interested in everyone's well being and honestly, we need more good natured people in the world.
This story is from GBTQ Nation by Greg Owen on May nineteenth, twenty twenty five, so with that, though within the article it does say that she was out as part of her congregation, and I am immediately questioned, we see active, active persecution of trans people as well as we did in the past and still ongoing, but less so of gays and lesbians is least, is just not as in much of the spotlight from churches and religious establishments. How can an LGBT person be part of anything religious
a church? Isn't this counterproductive?
Like?
Is that? Does that even make sense, Cynthia? Why would they do that?
Well? I think that one of the things that we have to see in the article. It highlights this intersection between faith and the lgbtqia plus identity and how they use that identity through activism, especially through Abernus's you know, involvement such and with Unity on the Bay, the non denominational church that she embraces, it supports LGBTQ people, even though at large that's not a traditional position that religious
institutions take. So even with her participation in the Miami Beach Pride, it actually underlines the importance of visibility and boldness and claiming her spiritual and also her social place, even though I have no idea what spiritual means. But hey, if you like it, I love it overlist. I'm just
saying that. I mean, like you know, I'm just saying but also like reading her story, it's really like a reminder that you know, faith and the LGBTQ identity are not necessarily mutual excuse exclusive, despite this long standing narrative
that has sought to separate or oppose them. And I think that with her involvement with the Unity on the Bay reveals a hopeful path forward that you can still be a church organization and still support a marginalized community, even though that is not necessary the traditional stance that the church actually takes. Now, if you ask me personally, does that make sense? Yes, you did. You did ask me personally, know Cynthia, that is my name. Thank you
for reminding me. I personally don't necessarily necessarily see how the two can meet because so for so long we've seen the church being actively opposed to the lgbt Q y A plus community. And I know that I personally say like, I don't understand like how one can be queer and also be a Christian. But I've met several people who happen to be part of that community that also have some type of religious or spiritual identity within that.
You know, they believe in a god, they go to a church, they they practice, you know, some type of ritual. When it comes to you know, their their belief systems in within the church, and for some reason they feel that it affirms them. So I think that even though like personally, I may not necessarily see how that's reasonable because you do have scripture that supports the marginalization of especially gay people. But at the but on the other end, I am pro what makes you feel good?
Do so sure? Because I apparently did not realize that I am in a relatively unique perspective within the atheist community, that I was never religious. Most people have deconverted to some degree, and that was never the case for me. So therefore I find it in many ways alien and baffling to really even try to have some of these discussions or ideas. So then that makes me say something like, hey, Eli, you brought this up in your notes, so I'm just going to use it. It's a great AMMO. We're all
sis head people. Can we even have a conversation about this because we're not part of the LGBT community. I'm an atheist who did not deconvert. I am a little alien within my own community. Are we even allowed to talk about this?
And that's actually for a moment, there was a brief moment where I thought it would just be you and I Rob blah blah on the show, and so I was like, yeah, respect.
So at first I was like, oh, yes, I know people love hearing straight cis white dudes talk about the experience of anybody other than them or even like.
This conversation not just about you know, straight guys.
We joke all the time too that when you and I work together, you have when when you're you know, you have me discussed experiences that I haven't had and can't have.
But to your point, Rob, to answer your question because it's fun, and.
That's and I want to clarify too that like I'm I'm grateful for that opportunity because I have to learn when when you know when, that's when I'm presented with that, and it just it's it's one more instance of being presented with it.
So I'm grateful for it.
And to that point, I think that, I mean, everybody is entitled to an opinion on everything. I guess I mean to a certain extent, like I can think whatever I think about any given thing. Like if I'm wrong, anybody has the right to tell me, like, no, you're wrong, and you sound like an asshole with how wrong you are, how confidently you are.
So it's just sort of the way that it is.
I think, do I need to be a part of a group to articulate an opinion on it? I would argue that no, But I personally strive to make sure that what I am saying is based on what I am hearing and learning from people who are living that experience and what they are telling me that that experience is like, because I know it's not my place to speak for anybody else, you know, I can only say this is what I'm being told, and that's why I care.
I think to use an extreme example because extremes are useful in just trying to create some form of argumentation so we can understand whether something may be valid in the outset if we take it to an extreme position. I think I agree. Ultimately, everyone can have an opinion. That doesn't mean it's informed, but you can have an
opinion and maybe even speak intelligibly on this situation. In this case, if you're not part of the group, like for example, I'm not part of the KKK, and I could probably talk about how that's a bad thing right there, they suck. I don't like them, and I don't need to be a part of them to go. You know, I think the structure is a little bad. Yeah, I agree, Yeah, of course. I mean I was going to go for Nazi, but at least I'm white, so that was the problem
with that. Yeah, but you were talking about but we're talking about the marginalization of LGT people LGBTQ, And what I find from fay Wat especially or fay Fay Aubernas is her outfits. And I know this is going to sound really silly, but I genuinely find a really simolic, interesting contradiction and distinction about how loud she dresses compared to the severity of the things that she's talking about.
So when we go to Pride events, I've only been to one, and even then, like kind of it is my understanding that Pride events are like really big parties. They're in large part of celebration. So how is it possible for a very large party to be an active defiance Because I see in your notes, Cynthia that used to talking about just meeting at all is an active defiance. I don't get it.
Help me out.
Yeah, you know, Pride events are not just a party. I mean like I have been fortunate to participate in a couple especially within my work in the past. I specifically was a case manager that worked with you know,
LGBTQI plus people. So when we had the opportunity to participate in Pride in my city, I was absolutely saying, yes, I will walk all those miles and get my feet hurting because I because I consider myself an ally even though I may you know, identifies as a as a assist head person heterosexual, but I do I find myself you know, allied with the lgbt q I plus community because there is an intersection with race and also gender
identification there and also marginalization. So I get it right, And I think that most of the the opportunity that we see within a Pride event is visibility, which and visibility is an act of defiance because what we're seeing right now is an overt active policies coming from the top down to marginalize specifically that group.
Yeah they're not discreet, No they're not, they're not.
They are overt with it, right, and they are really trying to sweep under the rug that you know, gay people exist, trans people exist, you know, intersects people exist right, and and you even have people within our community that we have looked up to for years to be like our thought leaders on atheism and reason and free thought, starting to devolve themselves in within that conversation to marginalize even further and even weaponizing their so called knowledge against
trans people. We've covered this before, and so since people are saying, oh, well, you're a evolution biologist, so do you should know what you're talking about? So yes, I'm going to take your word instead of like people who are actually living this life, right, So I think that it's important. It's kind of like how we, you know, in African American community celebrate Juneteenth. A lot of people
don't know what Juneteenth is. Juneteenth is when the Union Army went to Galveston, Texas to let the last of the slaves knows who they were free because of the Civil War, and ever since then, before it became a national hou day that within the African community, African American community, June Teams were celebrated is June nineteenth. We consider that our independence day. But you know, there has been like efforts to shut it down, not necessarily really acknowledge it,
et cetera. Et cetera. And we even also see like an overt attack on even talking about slavery, even in an academic sense. Yeah, and I would say that this is also what's happening with the LGBTQ people. You have you know, senators and representatives who I actively speak against
you know, same sex marriage. And you also have you know, bills coming out of different states and even on the like the federal level to you know, not acknowledge that trans people exist and even trying to keep away proper medical care for transforming people.
Yeah, you're bringing up like really good examples of marginalization of many different types of people, and it just kind of seems like trans people are the target nowadays. I don't want to like call it the fad, but it's definitely the thing that.
They are, you know. And I mean and I don't think that. And and so if we give a chance to have like events like Pride to say that hey, this is who I am, this is who I was born, I was born this way, shout out to Lady Gaga, in order for us to you know, really say that this is a this is a thing, then you know, I think that that's going to be the defiance against the ones who want to erase their identity.
So then short question, very eli, I think we might be using the word marginalized differently in the way that we're talking internally, and I just want to first ask, is it what is marginalization? Does that require an act of aggression against that group or is it simply you are the mind.
Yeah, it's simply And I think you're right.
I think a lot well not quite what you said, but related to what you said, I think there's just a misunderstanding about what it like, what marginalization is. It's when you think about like the paper that you would write on when you were in high school, the whole body everything that you would write was in between those two lines, and on the outside of those lines the margins, the things that you only use for the three hole punch to put it in your binder. That's the concept
of marginalized groups. Is that the group that perceives themselves as a majority, typically at least in the United statesis white men, Christian primarily, but I mean, I guess not all anymore. But see themselves as the body of the paper, the body of the homework, and then the margins outside of those two lines, that's what's left for everybody else to exist in. And it's intended to be separate from us.
Well that's okay, So ask my question it's intended? Does does marginalization exist simply because there are groups that are smaller than others? Or does it require malice?
If it's possible, can I answer it?
Yeah? Please?
I think that what we have to understand specifically when it comes to like marginalization is that it comes. It comes more because you It's not necessarily because you're the minority. It's because the people that are in power decide that they're going to create policies to keep you existing in a certain area and you cannot exist outside of.
That, and it comes.
And I know that we can see that specifically when it comes to the laws of the land, that is, you know, created specifically for a specific group on how we are going to govern you. You know, I mean, perfect example, I can think of as Jim Crow during those one hundred years in the South, you had Jim Crow laws that govern how black people are supposed to move, where they're supposed to live, what bathrooms they can use, what sinks they can use, what lunch counters that they
can eat at et cetera, et cetera. Right, and now we're seeing the same thing with trans people saying, oh, well, I know that you identify as a woman, but you know, within this particular state, you can't use the woman's bathroom even though you identify as such. You can't get you know, your home roown treatment when you're a certain age, you can't get this covered under your insurance because the government
said so. And that's specifically what we are we are experiencing when it comes to like the the laws that are created in order for the people to be governed in this area. Now, now, if you now to your point about malice, you know.
I well, the way that you're talking about it, the way that makes me started thinking is that malice has not required just power because it is how it is affecting people. It doesn't necessarily need be malicious, but something has to be enacted.
Well, I think that one of the things that we have to acknowledge is that whether if malice is intended or not, the people empower when they put these particular rules upon a group, maliciousness still happens, you know, we yeah, you know, saying like back in the day during during before the United States became the United States, and you had these flew of laws coming down for the Virginia
Burgess government, Burgess government in that area. You know, they decided because the Bacon's rebellion and you had Africans that actually sided with you know, white indentureds that you know, we're going to create a system where we're going to separate the two of these people in order for them not to hook up again, in order to overthrow the people who happened to be elite. Now, their thing was,
we just want to protect ourselves and our interests. But what they ended up doing was creating an entire labor force that was like based on chattel slavery that actually ended up bleeding into the United States and even in the United States Constitution. And even though they were saying, no, we're just protecting our interests because we don't want to, you know, have anything come against like you know, our you know, capitalistic desires.
It's nothing against you personally, it's just the effect of what we've done. Therefore, like like Malison I would say, requires intent, but in this case, malicious or not, the damage is done. So but you're talking about how people are governed and maintained, how power structures are set over them. And this is UH and fay Fay Alberanovs is in UH Pride at Miami. So, Eli, do you think there's anything special about pride specifically in Florida.
I think kind of kind of to what Cynthia was saying earlier about calling it sort of an active defiance. And I think I sort of understood at least a version of what you know you meant right away by that, Cynthia.
Is that with the recent.
And across the country, there's recent you know, increased recent I guess hate we could call it towards LGBTQ people. I feel like in the past like decade or so, maybe there's been some some improvement to the public image or the public acceptance of at least gay and lesbian people,
if not trans people. And and somebody who has lived that experience might correct me, and I hope that they do if I'm wrong, But recently in the past i'd say year and a half to two years that it's just yeah, it's just sort of swung back in the other direction, and it's I think perhaps it was said in this article but it's it's safe for trans people, especially trans kids, and the.
Main place run by DeSantis exactly.
Yeah, and I wanted to avoid using anyone's name, but like it. Yeah, especially in Florida. UH.
With with the UH, I guess sort of.
The leanings of of the people that are empower there and their views and how they view gay and trans people and groups that are already marginalized. It's the I think the fact that fey Watt is, you know, making a public statement saying like, hey, you know, remember that we are not alone. I'm sure it can feel very isolating when everything you're hearing in the news is just anti you rhetoric, Like everything is about how like you need to be cured or you're bad or broken or whatever.
It is so for someone.
To like have a loud reminder even like hey, you're not alone, you're not bad, you're not broken. Let's unite, you belong here, we want you here. I think that's I mean, you know, good on her, I think for that's an.
Incredible message from her because she is so open and welcoming. Even just a little bit that I have seen from her as well,