Queering Delight, Queering Care

Every day I walk into the hospital as a chaplain resident, I show up as a visibly queer person in ministry. Whether the patients, families, and staff are aware or not, it’s important for me to show up authentically as myself. I have complicated feelings about how corporations celebrate Pride Month, because I believe queer celebration must always be rooted in resistance. One way of resisting oppression is by focusing on how queer people are a delight and joy. Our existence does not always have to be centered on the very real pain that we’ve experienced. We can center delight in being our true selves as an act of care, spiritually and otherwise.

I am inspired in this season of Pride by Ross Gay, an American poet and essayist. In Gay’s A Book of Delights, he writes an essay or a poem each day for a year about something that brings him delight. So, a la Ross Gay, the following are delights I’ve found and seen over the years in the queer community:

A Latinx trans woman working at my local McDonalds, who shows up to work each day with her nails done, her hair and make-up on point, and a smile on her face, brings me delight. She finally gets to be who she has always been, and every time I see her, she is glowing.

The lesbian couple who lives down the street from us, walking from their end of the street to ours, just so they can “smell the magnolia blooms” from our next-door neighbors’ yard, is a delight. 

Witnessing several of my trans masculine and non-binary friends get their gender affirming top surgeries, and seeing the pictures of their unabashed joy and the scars that mark that transition for them- there are no words for that delight. It is the same delight that I felt when I had my first gender affirming surgery and felt a wholeness in my body that I didn’t know was possible.

To the queer, trans, and non-binary people I work with at UNC Hospital—they know who they are—to see them in the hallways, to talk with them, and have a moment of “knowing” and seeing each other, beholding each other’s true selves, is a delight.

To my wife, who loves me every day in all the ways that matter, for our love and marriage of five years, and the life we have made together, there is so much delight.

To my asexual and aromantic siblings, who love and receive love in different ways than other members in our community do, we may not always see you, but I see you; you are a delight.

To my intersex siblings, who are ostracized by the medical community in much the same ways as trans people are, if not more sometimes, I see you. Your bodies are not an accident, your inability to be categorized as one thing or another is not a bad thing. You are beloved, and you are a delight.

To everyone reading this today remember this: You are a delight just by being you. Don’t let anyone tell you any differently.