Arizona, New Mexico, Texas! Fall Tour 2015

It has been a dream of mine for a few years now to tour the Southwest of the USA presenting my plays and lively lectures at universities, churches, synagogues, community centers, and theaters. I have performed in Texas before (Rice and Trinity Universities) and in Phoenix for TransForm Arizona and various churches. And I presented at a Sufi Worship Center in Albuquerque on my first cross-country train trip back in 2013. Now I am excited to announce that we are beginning to plan a tour of the Southwest this fall.

I find it challenging to describe what I do. Comedy. Theater. Scholarship. Storytelling. Performance activism? It is hard to explain what I do on stage through characters and in sharing parts of myself as I take on LGBTQ issues, faith, and climate change. Thanks to WITF public radio, I can share this short feature on my work. It may give you a sense of what I do.

So I could use your help. Jane Brazell, my tour manager is waiting to hear from you! I am looking for venues (and contact to venues) to present my original one-person shows. These include my newest play, Does This Apocalypse Make Me Look Fat? A Comedy about Broken Bodies, Large and Small. It is one person play about body image, resilience, and hope in the darkest times. I also continue to offer presentations about LGBTQ issues and the Bible: Jesus Had Two Daddies–A Ridiculously Serious Look at Scripture, Transgressing Gender in the Bible, and Waking Up from a Biblically-Induced Coma.

Now although I am not an environmentalist in any traditional way, I am concerned about climate change. To me it is a moral issue, a faith issue, a queer issue that intersects many aspects of our lives and is very much about human rights. I have new presentations that take these issues on:

A Queer Response to Climate Change–What Would Walt Whitman Do?
Climate Change–What’s Faith Got to Do, Got to Do with It?
Save the Coffee Bean! An Hysterical Response to Climate Change

Need a sample?

Pat Parker, Black lesbian poet and activist well worth knowing

Autostraddle has a Megapost with over 100 Black LGBTQ women–some well known and others little known. The list is rich with beautiful photos. I am slowly working through the list sitting with one a day, doing Google searches to learn more, watch video to read and hear their words. Over the next few weeks I will share some with you. I start with a poet and activist, Pat Parker (1944-1989) Do check out the video below to hear her voice and powerful words as she speaks of “Perversion”

Everytime we put on the proper
clothes to go to a family
wedding and left our lovers
at home —
It was an act of perversion.

Pat Parker

Parker’s activism included involvement with the Black Panther Movement, contributing to the Women’s Press Collective and serving as medical coordinator for the Oakland Feminist Women’s Health Center. Cheryl Clarke has said of Pat that she articulates “a black lesbian-feminist perspective of love between women and the circumstances that prevent our intimacy and liberation.” She toured with Varied Voices of Black Women, published multiple volumes of poetry, and, in 1980, founded the Black Woman’s Revolutionary Council.

From Pat Parker Wikipedia page: Pat Parker and Audre Lorde first met in 1969 and continued to exchange letters and visits until Parker’s death in 1989. Their collaboration inspired many, including lesbian-feminist blues/R&B singer Nedra Johnson, whose song “Where Will You Be?” has become somewhat of a feminist anthem in the USA.
From Qualia Folk page on Pat Parker:

Parker wrote poems that have been described as having “punch lines,” verses that deliver immediate emotional content. Sometimes the punch line is amusing, as the final verse in “A Small Contradiction,” a poem dealing with a theoretical critique of monogamy:

Me, i am
totally opposed to
monogamous relationships
unless
i’m
in love

Where Will You Be? read by Pat Parker recorded at the Third World Conference sponsored Kick-Off Rally for the 14th October 1979 (first) National March On Washington for LGBTQ Rights. From Queer Radio. See text of poem over at J Spot.

But Lord, when did you say you were bisexual…

I spent nearly 20 years deep in the bowels of the anti-gay, ex-gay movement, where they gave me weapons to my gayness and gender differences. A whole lot of bullying in Jesus’ name.

Then I came to my senses and came out gay. Ta-Daaa!

One immediate observation I noted in both the anti-gay religious world and the rainbow-clad gay community was that they both routinely invalidated bisexuals. The ex-gays didn’t believe there were bisexuals. In their eyes you were just a gay sinner gone astray needing to be lured back to the sacred safety of the heterosexual tribe lest you get crushed like a bug in this life and the next. And the gays? Well, they didn’t believe there were bisexuals either, just gays afraid to come out all the way. And they are both wrong.

Robyn Ochs

The amazing bisexual activist, Robyn Ochs, writes:

DEFINITION OF BISEXUALITY: I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.

The Queerest Issue on the Planet

He’s a gay Jewish man from Long Island married to a Caribbean-American trans man. If you have not yet Marvin Bloom, here is your chance. Although he is quick to point that that he was too young a the time to get involved, Marvin reflects on lessons learned from the HIV/AIDS Crisis of the 1980’s and makes a stunning connection to conflict and crisis today.

Also, we are getting a little tired of polar bears getting all the action, and reveal some of their disruptive antics. Finally, we get good news from the future about Marisol Jimenez, an activist who over the next 50 years is going to do some amazing stuff.

Check out this week’s 12 minute radio comedy.

What Do I Look Like? Gender Rule Breaking, Identity, and Appearance

A fellow queer Quaker, John Calvi, has provided much comfort through the years to folks who have experienced trauma. His gentleness, humor, grace, and deep insights have benefited me directly. I often think of an afternoon I spent with John in Vermont when he wore a big floppy hat and slung a large bag over his shoulder as he sashayed into a busy restaurant where he was greeted and adored by the staff. Then over our meal we spoke as colleagues talking about life on the road, the importance of self-care, and discernment for next steps.

The other day he wrote a piece that he shared with other Queer Quakers from the FLGBTQC (Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Concerns.) His reflection on how his own body and gender are perceived by others struck a cord for lots of folks, both trans* and non-trans*. John agreed to allow me to republish it to share with you.

What Do I Look Like?

by John Calvi

A while ago I was sitting in a waiting room when a small boy about 4 or 5 came in. He looked at me briefly, came over to me, and asked – Are you a boy or a girl?

Having people wonder at my gender or mistaking me for a female has happened many times in my life. I’ve never found it offensive – except once when my ass was pinched by some drunk in a straight bar. I usually find it humorous and have made a habit of waiting for the individual to observe me better and assign me correctly in their own thought process. Sometimes they apologize as if they had thought something less of me.

When this child asked the question, I stifled a laugh and just smiled. After a few moments gazing at me he said – You’re a boy, very pleased with himself to sort out such a mystery.

This brings two thoughts to mind. On the one hand we live in a tight binary culture that clings to walls and boundaries like castaways that fear drowning in seas of multiple choices. And society teaches us to seek and become one or the other in ourselves and others.

I also think it is true that walking down the street and seeing someone down the way and looking to see if they are male or female is a response that happens in a very old part of the brain assessing how much danger is at hand. Males are and have been more dangerous forever.

But the other thing that comes to mind are all the good people who are squeezed and suffer because they didn’t follow rules. In my household growing up working class Italian
immigrant, I was not allowed to learn cooking or to cook myself. This was because women had too little power and were not going to share it or lose it to a man. Now that is a tight and nasty little knot of rules.

So many people bump into or run head long into so much more intense rule breaking. From clothes to who we love to how we name our lives, there is no end of trouble to get into.

And so I am thinking this night and holding close the many I’ve known who’ve been wounded by the rules and the rule keepers. Whether it was leaving the church or wearing make-up or other deeper changes in identity, many received refugee status and were set adrift – family-less, community-less, and abused for mere ideas.

Blessings on all of us who built new homes and found places to be. And blessings on all those who never made it to shore, still feel adrift, and have not found a replacement embrace. Our loving is made more important each day by the inhospitality of the world- too true, too true.

John Calvi

Queer Synchroblog: Coming out for Climate in weird religious ways

Every four years I take part in Fr. Shay Kearns’s Queer Theology Synchroblog. Today is the day again and there are some amazing blog posts out there (scrool to the bottom.) This year’s theme is Coming/Going, which opens up many blogging opportunities. Those of you who follow me know that my head and heart have been gripped by the reality of climate change, and I have been seeking for creative ways to convey a message that is serious, hopeful and even humorous.

Stripping the climate talk of fear and guilt is an act of queerness. Tying that queer climate talk with old time religious, well, that may be just the ticket for a queer quirky Quaker like me. For this year’s Queer Theology Synchroblog the transcript and the audio of episode four of the Climate Stew show staring church lady Elizabeth Jeremiah. I reached back to my repressive gay reparative therapy days and use some of the very same oppressive Pentecostal Holiness teachings that kept me bound to deliverance ministries and other extreme religious sports. I then apply these to greenhouse gas pollution.

The entire transcript is below and you can also Listen here or on iTunes, and Stitcher.

Links

Scientists trace extreme heat in Australia to Climate Change.
How Coal is Formed
Generational Curses and Naughty Gay DNA?

Music Credits

Over and Over from Five Song Demo by Mark Chadwick
The Association News Theme by Jake Hallman
Muhammad Ali from Curses from Past Times by ProleteR
Dream On on Lush Life by Poldoore

Episode Four Transcript

Intro

Welcome to Episode Four of the Climate Stew Podcast. Last time we brought you sounds and voices from the Peoples Climate March, and I adopted some sort of chill Roman Mars 99% Invisible podcast speaking voice. But I’m back with my normal voice and we are ready to serve you a delicious melange in three segments. Special guest Elizabeth Jeremiah, who has an offbeat view of the natural and the supernatural worlds, is our main feature today followed by Timothy Meadows with an update from the future looking at the past to help us see how we might address global warming in the present.

But first the news

News

In our one climate change news story today we learn that scientists have at last connected an extreme weather event directly to global warming. Our correspondent, Tony Buffusio in the Bronx reads directly from the New York Times:

“Thank you Peterson, I have the article right here, and I quote: ’The savage heat waves that struck Australia last year were almost certainly a direct consequence of greenhouse gases released by human activity, researchers said Monday. It is perhaps the most definitive statement climate scientists have made tying a specific weather event to global warming.

Five groups of researchers, (ok, not just five researchers but five groups from all over the world) using distinct methods, analyzed the heat that baked Australia for much of 2013 and continued into 2014, briefly shutting down the Australian Open tennis tournament in January when the temperature climbed to 111 degrees Fahrenheit. (And that’s in January our coldest month of the year which of course is backwards for those people over there)

A tennis fan tried to cool off at the Australian Open in January. Temperatures reaching 111 paused the tournament. Narendra Shrestha/European Pressphoto Agency

All five research groups came to the conclusion that last year’s heat waves could not have been as severe without the long-term climatic warming caused by human emissions.’ Which sounds like they’re saying farts, but I know it’s bigger than that. Yeah, so there you have it. Back to you Peterson in the studio.”

Uh, Thank you Tony.

Climate scientists up to now have been unable to prove that recent severe weather incidents were caused by climate change, but in this case no climate model that looks at only natural factors could possibly account for the extreme heat in Australia; carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the most likely factors. Further proof that things are heating up and we need to act up for climate and maybe reschedule the Australian Open.

Main Section: Elizabeth Jeremiah And Generational Curses

This is Elizabeth Jeremiah from the Elizabeth Jeremiah Global Worldwide Ministries in Jesus. I requested to appear on this radio podcast internet transmission to share a concern I have for you—one that potentially affects generations to come. What I’m talking about of course are generational curses. In my church we warn people that their actions today have consequences for our children and our children’s children’s children. (can we please turn off that music?)

Oh I hear you saying, “But Elizabeth Jeremiah, I don’t have any children.” To which I reply, “Well, then, I will pray for you.”

No, our actions for good or bad have repercussions like ripples on the ocean that reach far beyond us. Exodus chapter 36 verse 7 states that the iniquity of the fathers will fall upon the sons, and upon the son’s son, unto the third and to the fourth generations. Oh, and this applies to mothers and daughters too; God is not a respecter of persons.

Now normally the generational curse example I like to give is homosexuality. And before you jump down my throat, let me just say I am the most tolerant person I know when it comes to the homosexual. In fact, my best friend’s cousin gets her hair done by a homosexual and we are faithful to pray for that man and his partner, Pablo, who isn’t even American, but apparently has all his papers in order.

No I discern that many of you in the listening audience are secular humanists, so I will give you an example of a generational curse that makes sense for you: Carbon Dioxide. Thank the Lord that he created this wonderful chemical compound that is filled with energy and with the wonder working power of the sun, no not the Son of God but the sun in the sky that God created.

Carbon Dioxide, which we breath out by the way, is held high up in the heavenly firmament, which you call the atmosphere, and moves about and warms the planet, otherwise our earthly home would just be a dead frozen rock, like the hearts of some people I have known.

150 years ago our ancestors, bless their hearts, hoping to better themselves began to burn coal in factories. Now a one foot pile of coal condenses the energy of 10 feet of decomposed trees and plants—so a lot of bang for the buck. Our people burnt the coal and then the petroleum which is even more energized.

God had created the perfect system that recycles, mmmm, I know y’all like that word, a system that recycles carbon dioxide through trees and the oceans giving us clean air. But the system got overburdened and just couldn’t keep up. And this is NOT God’s fault!

I hate it when people asked, “If God is so good, why is there still evil in the world?” Well it is because people are evil, selfish, wasteful, vengeful creatures. We’ve behaved like those awful tenants in the vineyard Jesus preached about, who were given land to care for but instead squandered God’s riches like a whore-hungry, drug-addled prodigal son or husband.

Our ancestors, Father forgive them for they knew not what they did, did not know that a single molecule of carbon dioxide which is smaller than an angel on a pinhead, remains in the heavenly firmament stockpiling one on top of each other for a hundred years ultimately disrupting the seasons and bringing disasters and woe upon all our heads, especially for those poor people in Africa.

But here is the Good News—we have the power to break a generational curse and turn it into a blessing. How? Repentance, just repent of your evil polluting ways. Oh, and I am NOT talking about sitting around self-indulgently calculating your personal carbon footprint and feeling all good about yourselves. No we need national repentance, we need to turn from our sinful fossil fuel lifestyles and go in whole a new direction. Instead of a curse, we shall give unto our offspring a blessing of clean air and a stable planet.

The Lord God Almighty gives his firm promise to us in 2 Chronicles chapter 7: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Hmmm, that’s God’s good stuff, now.

Oh, and on a side note, if you want to know how I talk about generational curses in the churches where I teach, just substitute carbon dioxide with homosexuality.

This has been Elizabeth Jeremiah from the Elizabeth Jeremiah Global Worldwide Ministries in Jesus. May God richly bless you and keep you and your whole household too.

That Day in Climate History

I am Timothy Meadows, It is Saturday October 6, 2164 and time for “That Day in Climate History.” The massive heat waves of 2017 and 2018 caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people—mostly elderly, infants, and those with respiratory ailments, in Southern Europe, Northern Africa, North America, and Australia. While governments struggled to keep up with disaster relief, in the spring of 2019 a group of clergy met to develop strategies to protect the most vulnerable in their communities.

First conceived in Albuquerque, New Mexico by a Muslim Imam, a Jewish Rabbi, a Christian minister, and a Pagan High Priestess, the Summer Sanctuary Project opened the doors to places of worship and provided places of refuge when people could not afford to run expensive air conditioning units. In retrofitted mosques, synagogues, churches, and temples, community members stayed cool and safe for up to two weeks at a time during the extremely hot summer of 2019. The pilot project proved so successful that it was quickly adopted by other places of worships along with gender queer community centers, local schools, and town halls.

By 2020 the Climate Sanctuary Movement expanded to create safe spaces during times of all types of extreme weather with the unexpected positive outcome of deepening community ties leading to greater cooperation and peace. It is estimated that by 2022 the Climate Sanctuary Movement saved over 2 million lives. On this day in 2164 we remember that day in Climate History.

Advert:

Climate History is brought to you by Ikea offering stylish and affordable carbon capture artificial house plants.

Closing:

You have made it to the end of episode four of Climate Stew Podcast. Thank you for listening. Please feel very free to share this podcast with your friends through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Email—you get the point. As a new podcast we need your help to let people know that there are fun ways of talking about the serious issue of global warming. Soon I will tour the North America with stops in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Portland, Vancouver, BC and more. Check out www.petersontoscano.com for more information. You can see a complete transcript of today’s program, along with show notes and music credits over at www.climatestew.com Special thanks to Jane Brazell, Glen Retief, oh, and Joe G who with just a tank top and super short cutoff jeans completely altered the climate at the Iowa State Fair.

2014 Queer Synchroblog Contributors

* Fr. Shay Kearns Coming Into My Own

* Schrodinger’s Triceratops Coming/Going

* Mackenzian Coming Back To Prayer

* Wally Coming Out

* Andrew/Amanda A Journey of Coming and Going

* Rev. Liz Edman Coming and Going in the Wilderness

* The Fugitive Minister You’re Right

* A Queer Calling In Which We Decide To Go To Church

* Wall Of Illusion Coming, Going, Staying

* Holy Ghost Heretic Coming/Going

* Jonas Weaver Listening to the Old Bray of My Heart

* Mark Dixon Welcome Home

* Peterson Toscano Coming Out for Climate in Weird Religious Ways

* P Synchroblog Entry

* Jamie S Hill Dancing With My Shadow

* Seamus D Coming and Going

* Maggie Starr Synchroblog Entry

* Crumbs at the Feast Good To Come, Better to Go

* Sarah Moon And Though I Find Here No Permanent Dwelling…

* Delfin Bautista The Struggle of Rebirth: A Catholic Coming Out

* Brian Gerald Murphy Be Gentle

Not my First Rodeo–um March

For the early part of my adult life I was a Christian fundamentalist believing in evil spirits, generational curses, and the desperate need to reach out to a lost and dying world. As a fresh-faced 19 year old in Glory Tabernacle, the little storefront Pentecostal Holiness church I attended on West 106th Street in NYC, I frequented prayer meetings, where with my brothers and sisters, I faced the four directions screaming against demonic warlords. One day our Pastor Willy announced that in order to take authority over “principalities and powers of darkness” he felt called to organize the first ever NYC March for Jesus. Think of it as Christian Pride Parade in church drag.

Unable to get support from other pastors who had their own fiefdoms to protect, our tiny congregation marched alone. Picture it: Central Park West shutdown from 72nd Street to 59th on a Saturday morning as 30 born-again Christians in their Sunday best marched with banners proclaiming Jesus’ triumphant reign over New York City. The police set up barriers in vain because no spectators lined up to see us, just the occasional dog walker or parent with child who stopped momentarily as we waved at them and pleaded the blood of Jesus.

That was in 1987. Fast forward to 2014 and the 350,000+ people jamming Central Park West for the People’s Climate March. I saw pagans addressing the four directions beseeching their blessings. I heard people from many nations crying out against the powers and authorities who make money as they pollute the atmosphere, and I felt the urgency to save a sick planet overburdened with endangered earth dwellers.

A Queer for the Climate dressed as Earth Element

At their core the two messages from these two different periods are similar. Repentance and Salvation. Renewal and Revival. Renunciation of Past Evils and the Promise of a Better Future.

On Sunday I stood on West 83rd Street, two blocks from my former apartment. Assembled with the Queers for the Climate we promoted a “gay agenda” unlike anything Pastor Willy ever preached against. Cleaner air, justice for those most affected by environmental damage, and a commitment to consider the intersections of gender, race, class, and nationality. Marching the same route nearly 30 years later, I remembered my former days and felt grateful for personal growth and a growing movement.

Recently I began working on a new podcast (check out the short, fun, audio confection: Climate Stew Podcast) In 1995 I left NYC to train in the UK as a radio presenter and producer for a new position running a station in Zambia. In a little studio in West Bromwich, England, I learned how to record and edit radio programs. Then I moved to Zambia and became an on-air presenter and programme manager. Years later I find these skills still in place, albeit a little rusty (need to work on levels!)

In the old days at church we talked about God doing a new thing and the need for new wine in new wineskins and the creation of a new heaven and earth. These days those concepts are still real to me, but in a completely different way.

Turning the Climate March into a Pride Parade

While I could have marched with the Quakers or the Citizens Climate Lobby, in the end I opted to march with the Queers for the Climate. Good choice! I also recorded lots of audios and mini interviews for the Climate Stew Podcast. Stay tuned!

preparing the puppets and queers to march (see glen retief?)

Ready to March on W 83rd Street

herding queer cats & mermaids

Fierce, just fierce

Her sign got a lot of attention.

Justin Vivian Bond on the far right (she marched the whole way with us)

Video posted by Earl Dax reveals we know how to chant and look fabulous on 42nd Street

A homage to Robin Williams by a sociology professor who marched beside me.

Love the buggy eyelashes

These two got up early to prepare (or never went to bed the night before)

Wind & Fire ready to march

We’re here; we’re queer, and OMG those pumps will kill you!

This one even has the global warming pout going on.

Even Frida showed up

I was there. See peeking in the bottom of the frame.

Marching in Midtown

And a drag queen shall lead them on.

Out for Sustainability Summit in Seattle September 13

Starting in 2008 a group of LGBTQ folks in the Seattle area began to meet in hopes of making the planet fabulous. Later this month they will hold a summit with an impressive list of speakers. Shame I am on the wrong coast! If you are in the Pacific Northwest, check them out!

OUT for Sustainability invites you to the first LGBTQ-focused summit on the intersection of environment, society and identities. Fab Planet is a half-day conference containing a series of panels, workshops and networking ending with a celebration reception to mark a day of exciting conversation and future action. Our intention is to spark connection among LGBTQ sustainability leaders and give visibility and language to the intersections of our diverse values.

Fab Planet Summit

September 13, 2014

SATURDAY FROM 1-7PM

220 & Change, Pioneer Square in Seattle, WA

220 SECOND AVENUE SOUTH SEATTLE, WA 98104

Loren Othon, one of many great speakers at Fab Planet Summit

Telling Stories about Our Bodies

123 4 5

Tag: queer

Arizona, New Mexico, Texas! Fall Tour 2015

Pat Parker, Black lesbian poet and activist well worth knowing

Everytime we put on the proper
clothes to go to a family
wedding and left our lovers
at home —
It was an act of perversion.

But Lord, when did you say you were bisexual…

The Queerest Issue on the Planet