There is so much more I could say about this, but there is not enough room. Remember to check with reality rather than believing conspiracy theories promoted, supported, and funded by white nationalist hate groups.
Missouri is proposing 20% of the nation’s anti-trans legislation this session. Gender-affirming care for young folks is on the edge of being criminalized (so much love to trans friends in states where that has already happened).
Please keep up with the anti-trans legislation in your state and combat it. There are lives at stake.
Transphobes do not touch this post.
Image ID: a 10-image cartoon comic featuring Joey, a boy with short hair.
Image 1: Joey, upset, gesticulates towards an open laptop. Text reads: The reality of St. Louis trans kids. Last week, a former (non-medical) employee of Washington University’s Pediatric Transgender Center was featured in a viral article about how the clinic was “rushing” kids into medical care and “mutilating” us. Every single thing she said was a lie, but the media loves it. Footnote reads: I wouldn’t give any more attention to this, but it is immediately endangering the lives of trans people. Missouri has launched a state investigation and is actively attempting to criminalize gender-affirming care based on conspiracy theories.
Image 2: Joey points to a map of the United States where Missouri is singled out, and a map of Missouri where St. Louis is indicated with a star. The text reads: The Transgender Center, located in St. Louis, Missouri, has been the target of hateful attacks from the far-right state legislature for years. It is part of Washington University Hospital, a branch of a prestigious private university.
Image 3: A younger Joey injects his T shot in his leg while someone takes a photo. Text reads: I can tell you that everything in the article is false because I received care at the Transgender Center beginning at 16 years old. My medical transition has brought me nothing but joy. What a gift it is to be trans!
Image 4: A younger Joey sits on a couch and stims with a tangle fidget toy. Text reads: No one is “rushed”. I sat on many waitlists, had to have 6 months of specialized gender therapy and a diagnosis of gender dysphoria before even being referred to the Center, and I was denied as “not ready enough” by an endocrinologist the first time I finally got an appointment. Footnote reads: If you’re curious about what it looks like to be a trans kid, I did another piece on that! Check out tinyurl.com/transkidscomictumblr.
Image 5: A colorful map of the United States shows how many states have a Negative Gender Identity Policy Tally and how many states have criminalized gender affirming care. Joey holds a credit card. Text reads: St. Louis’ Pediatric Transgender Center is the only one in the region, meaning the waitlists are extremely long. Plus, no one in the only industrialized country without free healthcare is getting medical care for fun. Many American trans folks have to fundraise for our care.
Image 6: Joey, distressed, sits on a couch while talking on the phone. The person on the other end says: “That’s me!” Text reads: This former employee spoke about specific cases, and patients have been able to identify themselves. She shared our private medical info and called us horrifying.
Image 7: This is split into two panels. In the first, Joey holds up a box of condoms and a packet of birth control pills. Texts reads: She especially hated trans men such as myself, saying that trans ideology was destroying “girls”. She lamented about hormones making us “sterile”, which is a complete lie. We trans mascs have to actively prevent pregnancy. In panel two stands a doctor. Text reads: Every time I had an appointment at the Center, doctors reminded me: Remember: testosterone is not a contraceptive! Footnote reads: The wonderful Erin Reed wrote a breakdown debunking all the lies in the article. See tinyurl.com/erinreedmissouri.
Image 8: Joey, masked, sits at a circular table with his brother, an unmasked boy with fluffy short hair. Joey’s brother is showing him his phone. Text reads: Major newspapers continue to platform these complete lies because they bring in engagement and money. The Washington Post tracked down my little brother’s personal cell phone number to try to get in contact with our mom – the president of an organization supporting trans kids in Missouri. Freaky, right?
Image 9: Joey, looking disgusted, leans against a door frame while talking on a cell phone. Text reads: But no one wants to talk with me, the adult who medically transitioned at this clinic as a minor and has not “desisted” in six years. The Washington Post reporter, who didn’t know anything about trans people, talked with me for 20 minutes and used a sentence of mine in an article about “both sides of the debate”. She didn’t mention that this former employee is being legally represented by a recognized anti-LGBT hate group, nor that all of her claims are unsupported by reality or science.
Image 10: Joey looks angry and gesticulates. Beside the drawing are two photos of Joey, one of him happy in front of a trans flag, and the other of him drawing up testosterone to take his first T shot. Text reads: There is no debate. There are trans people, and there are people who want us dead. There is truth and there are conspiracy theories. Where is my viral article in a major paper?
Published Feb 16, 2023. End ID.
Heyo! This is the least amount of circulation one of these comics has gotten recently, and I’m trying to combat all of the virulently anti-trans media from almost all major publications in the US right now.
If you see this, please consider reblogging! It helps a lot!
I mean…….those plot points aren’t even THAT heretical fjsbsbdhdhxhxj.
This Catholic approves.
If you made a very terrible mistake and asked @joshversus and me to write your Passion Play, something very like this would occur.
Huh. So getting ejected from church groups for making too compelling arguments for various historically heretical interpretations of the Bible is a Jewish thing then? That explains which side of the family I get it from then.
(Also I have been ejected from every single damn church I’ve ever been inside of and every single time it has been for asking questions in good faith about confusions I genuinely wanted cleared up from church authorities who were literally asking for questions. I’m still salty about that.)
[Image transcript: A series of tweets from Aleksei!!! On Wheels (@ai_valentin). They read:
Strap in, folks, because this is a cautionary tale about letting teenagers too smart for their own good write theology without oversight.
So my grandparents on my mom’s side were Catholic, and at the time, I had a Catholic boyfriend. So I ended up doing lots of random stuff at the parish because, well, boyfriend. I ended up befriending all the artsy, queer Catholic kids who were afraid to come out. Shock.
The youth group leader decided that the Passion Week play they did every year needed a revamp. I had just done a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat with them and helped do staging and re-writes to make it work for the cast.
So this nice nun asked me.
As relevant backstory, my grandparents had enrolled me in CCD classes when I was in middle school, hoping that maybe I’d turn out Catholic somehow. I got kicked out for asking questions that were too complicated for the teachers.
Apparently, everyone in this parish had forgotten that I was the kid who wanted to debate the Arian heresy at age 12, as the nature of Christ’s divinity seemed a reasonable topic of inquiry to me.
Like I said, first mistake.
So here I am, 16 or so, and I’m told: write a series of monologues from the perspective of different characters present for the Passion of Jesus: Pilate, the Virgin Mary, John the beloved Disciple, Mary Magdalene, Longinus, Peter, the thieves at the crucifixion, and Judas.
Now, mind you, I was really into Jesus Christ Superstar at the time. And I was voraciously reading Gnostic Gospels, Biblical archaeology, all kinds of stuff. This is not going to produce a good Catholic script.
So I ask the nice nun if there’s any guidelines I should adhere to?
Read: how much freedom of interpretation do I have?
She tells me, “Just write something really engaging. Make them feel like people you can understand. You’re a good writer, I’m sure you’ll think of something.
Mistake number two.
Well, I was entirely chuffed. I was 16, I liked having my ego flattered. So I went to work.
I went to the library, I read all kinds of sources and gospels that didn’t make it into the canon. I read all kinds of texts. I read the Gospel of Thomas. I read Josephus.
And then I started writing.
Pilate was a monster who was all too happy to execute a Jewish rebel who represented a threat to Rome because Roman authority had to be absolute in order to repress the zealots to revolt against Caesar.
The Virgin Mary was co-suffering with her son, vicariously experiencing the pain of crucifixion only without the release of death. She was a living martyr, redeeming the world through suffering in it, not leaving it.
John was in love with Jesus. Full-out romantically in love with Jesus. Want to kiss his wounds and let the spirit transcend the flesh that had betrayed them all.
Mary Magdalene was a converted priestess of Ishtar who was the sacred vessel carrying the faith in Christ’s resurrection, unwilling to flee from the cross or the tomb, because she was an embodiment of the Divine Feminine, unafraid of death.
And then there was Judas.
I had to make the greatest traitor in Western literary canon, up there with Cassius and Brutus, into someone human. Relatable. Understandable.
That’s what the nice nun wanted.
Mistake number three.
I wrote Judas chosen by God to betray Christ as a part of the great work of salvation. That Judas, like Mary, had accepted God’s commission to participate in the mission of Jesus. Because without Judas’s betrayal, Christ would not be crucified.
Judas created salvation with a kiss.
I took a little bit from Jesus Christ Superstar – it ended with Judas unable to cope with what God had asked of him and thus killing himself, trusting that God would redeem him into Heaven for doing the terrible thing God had asked out of him.
And inadvertently, I wrote a Passion Play that culminated with the death of Judas making salvation possible through sacred betrayal.
Whoops?
I’d read something like this somewhere in my research and it had stuck with me.
What I’d read was a 3rd century heresy that saw Judas as a sacred agent of God, destined to make Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross possible.
And nobody noticed.
Well, the nice nun was DELIGHTED. It was the most engaging Passion Play she’d ever read! It was so original!
We went right into rehearsal. Nobody mentioned the changes to the parish priest.
The guy playing Judas was amazing. He was holy madness and despair onstage. We orchestrated it so well, used lighting and music to make it dramatic – we put John 19:41 from JCS behind his monologue.
You know. The music behind Jesus’ crucifixion.
There were three performances. One on the Saturday before Holy Week, one on Good Friday, and one on Holy Saturday. They were PACKED.
People were raving about it. Nobody had ever seen such a good Passion Play!
People from other churches showed up. Another church asked me to write a Passion Play for them, just a little less Catholic, please?
Nobody mentioned the Gnostic heresy of Judas being the ultimate saviour by offering up Christ to the cross.
I wrote another one! I was getting good at this!
Mary Magdelene was the first Evangelist! She understood Judas’ mission and stood watch at his suicide and at the cross alike!
Another church wanted that version! People wanted to have Passion Plays outside of Easter Week!
I was spreading Gnostic heresies across the entire county and nobody seemed to notice.
Whoops?
Well, it got a little too popular.
The nice nun got a letter from the archbishop asking why she was allowing the youth group to perform heresy for the entire parish and did she know another parish wanted to do it?
My grandparents and the parish priest called me into his office and asked me to explain how I’d written this play.
In other words: did I know I was spreading heresy?
“I just wanted to make it make sense why someone would betray someone they live and think is God. If God has to die to save humanity, and that death had to be the crucifixion, then why wasn’t making that happen a holy act?
Sister said to make it understandable!”
This was when I was told, very firmly, that my Passion Play needed to be re-written for next year.
They had someone from the archdiocese send me a list of heresies I’d written and had to correct.
Whoops?
I said that I stood by my work and that other churches liked it. And I had sources!
That was when I was told, very firmly, not to come back to youth group.
When the Passion Play was staged next year at the parish, it FLOPPED.
Everyone was calling the pastor wanting to know what happened to the Good Version From Last Year?
A bunch of people went to the Methodist church that staged my Protestant version.
The priest had to send out a letter telling people not to go to any of my Passion Plays because they were heresy and would endanger their immortal souls.
That was when my grandparents stopped hoping I’d become a Catholic.
Honestly, I think they were relieved when I formally converted to Judaism. I couldn’t infect any more parishes with artistically compelling Gnostic heresies.
So the moral of the story:
Don’t ask a mostly Jewish kid more fluent in Biblical studies than you at age 16 to write a compelling, relatable Passion Play.
You will end up with Gnostics in your parish and Catholic authorities really don’t like that, surprisingly.]
Shared before, but this version has descriptions.
When in doubt, make with the heresy.
As someone raised Catholic who also had a tendency to know a bit too much about the stuff we were supposed to be learning in CCD and Confirmation Class…MMMMM, that’s some good heresy.
And yes, I agree that Judas really only makes sense if you accept that it was his Holy Mission to “betray” Jesus. The thirty pieces of silver was not a whole lot of money, especially given that Judas was the group treasurer and could’ve just scarpered with the donation box if he was motivated by greed.
