These stories are drawn from the lived experiences of our congregation. They are not allegory but testimony — accounts of what members have endured, survived, and learned in the course of living as trans, gender non-conforming, and intersex people in a world that is still learning to make room for them.
Good Helmets On the sacred duty of self-protection and the gear that stands between us and the ground
A member of the congregation was riding when the crash came — the kind of crash that does not announce itself, that simply arrives, and in the space between one heartbeat and the next, rearranges everything. The bike went down. The rider went with it. The road, as roads do, did not yield.
What stood between the rider and catastrophe was a helmet. Not a decorative one, not a half-shell chosen for aesthetics, but a proper, full-face helmet — chosen with care, fitted with precision, worn without exception. The helmet did what it was designed to do. The rider walked away from what should have been a tragedy.
The Church teaches that self-protection is a sacred duty. This is not metaphor. Our community faces dangers both structural and physical, and the refusal to protect oneself — whether from a concrete road or from a world that would grind us down — is not humility. It is neglect of the divine spark within.
Wear the good helmet. Invest in the proper gear. Take the safety course. Accept the help that is offered. Your survival is not incidental to your mission in this world — it is the foundation upon which every other sacred act depends. The Church holds that self-care is the first sacrament, and good safety gear is one of its most tangible expressions.
Egg Cracking On patience, timing, and the sacred process of becoming who you are
In the language of the trans community, an "egg" is a person who has not yet realized or acknowledged that they are trans. "Egg cracking" is the moment of recognition — the instant when the shell of assumed identity gives way and the true self begins to emerge. It is one of the most sacred moments in a trans person's life.
The Church holds a firm teaching on this matter: you cannot rush an egg. Each egg cracks in its own time. No amount of well-intentioned pressure, no matter how obvious the signs may appear to others, can substitute for the interior readiness that must develop within the person themselves.
To force an egg is to risk destroying what is inside. To hint too broadly, to push too hard, to declare someone's identity on their behalf — these are acts of violence dressed in the clothing of helpfulness. The shell exists for a reason. It protects the developing self during the most vulnerable stage of its formation. When the person inside is ready, the shell will yield. Not before.
Our duty as a community is not to crack eggs but to create the conditions in which cracking is safe. We build warm nests. We offer visibility without pressure. We share our own stories so that those still inside their shells can hear the voices of those who emerged before them and know that emergence is possible, that the world on the other side of the shell contains people who will celebrate them.
The Church teaches: honor the timing of another person's becoming. Their journey toward themselves is sacred ground, and you are a guest upon it.
Chosen Family On the bonds that form not from blood but from love, and the families we build when we must
In the ER
When Holden's motorcycle accident sent her to the emergency room at San Francisco General, it was not her legal family that arrived. It was her chosen family — the people who had been riding beside her, the people who knew her name and her pronouns and her emergency contacts without needing to be told.
They filled the waiting room. They advocated with the staff. And when the hospital's policies, written for a world that still assumes family means blood, threatened to exclude them from her bedside, the staff at SF General did something quietly remarkable: they bent the rules. They recognized what was plainly true — that these were the people who loved her, that these were the people she needed, and that no piece of paper could make that more or less real than it already was.
The Church holds that chosen family is real family. Not as a consolation, not as a substitute, but as a bond that is forged in the most demanding circumstances and proven in the moments that matter most. Many in our congregation have been rejected by the families they were born into. The families they have built in response are not lesser. They are, in many cases, stronger — because they were chosen freely, maintained deliberately, and tested under pressures that biological families rarely face.
Dealing with Jerks
To be visibly trans in public is to accept a certain amount of uninvited attention. Stares, comments, unsolicited questions about one's body, outright hostility — these are not exceptional events for members of our congregation. They are the background noise of daily life.
The burden of this constant exposure is not something that can be borne alone indefinitely. It accumulates. It erodes. What prevents it from becoming unbearable is the presence of chosen family — the people who witness the harassment alongside you, who validate your anger without minimizing it, who help you develop strategies not just for survival but for maintaining your dignity and your joy in the face of sustained hostility.
Chosen family teaches its members the art of discernment: which confrontations to meet head-on, which to walk away from, and how to care for yourself after both. They provide the debrief after the incident, the laughter that defuses the rage, and the steady reminder that the jerk on the street does not define your worth.
The Church teaches: no one should have to face the world's cruelty alone. The bonds of chosen family are sacred precisely because they are forged in adversity. To build and maintain these bonds is among the holiest work a person can do.
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