This episode's guest is Stuart Getty (they/them). Stuart is a writer and brand strategist with 15 years of experience leading teams and storytelling. With a love for strategic communication and branding, Stuart is also a filmmaker who leads with an emphasis on authentic storytelling and emotional connection. Their best work is centered in the heart, but also in the laugh. Stuart loves play, and believes freedom and imagination are the best fuels for the most innovative design and ideation. Stuart is also driven by the concept of access, and crafting work that everyone in the room can understand. Belonging, inclusion, and equity are at the heart of their design and leadership philosophy.

Stuart is also the author of the book How to They/Them: A Visual Guide to Nonbinary Pronouns and the World of Gender Fluidity, with illustrations by Brooke Thyng. After reading their book and noticing that Stuart seems theologically engaged, I wanted to ask Stuart about how their spiritual journey as a witch connects to their gender story as a gender fluid person. I also wanted to know how we might think about Stuart’s work as theologically uplifting, even though it’s not what we’d call theology in a traditional sense.

Throughout this episode, I have interwoven Stuart’s story with the work of lesbian theologian Carter Heyward. An Episcopal priest, professor, theologian, activist, and writer, Heyward was an early leader of feminist liberation theology and the theology of sexuality. As a young feminist, Heyward supported racial and gender justice initiatives like the Equal Rights Amendment and women’s ordination in the Episocopal Church. She went on to get her PhD in Systematic Theology from Union Theological Seminary and is the author of eleven books.

As the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network writes about Heyward, “She transformed consciousness, proclaimed the possibilities for women to be priests, for lesbians to be theological, and made way for new approaches to connecting the divine to the erotic, justice, and activism.” Heyward is one of the first theologians to move away from an apologetics framework to articulate a lesbian feminist theology of liberation.

Now, Heyward became an activist for gay and lesbian justice in the 1970s when mainstream terminology for the movement was not as inclusive as it is today, but I think her work absolutely applies to the experiences of queer and gender nonconforming folx like Stuart. And while Heyward writes from an explicitly Christian perspective, it’s possible to extend her work to folks of all spiritual/religious identities. This episode is an exploration of some of the possibilities of how Heyward’s work magnifies Stuart’s story.

Guest's Links:

Website

How to They/Them: A Visual Guide to Nonbinary Pronouns and the World of Gender Fluidity by Stuart Getty, illustrations by Brooke Thyng

Resources Mentioned:

Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power and the Love of God by Carter Heyward

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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.

Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski