Theodora is an online peer educator with YouthResource.

I knew I was destined for holy things when at age three, I knocked over the candle on Easter Sunday. My defense has always been that I wanted to touch the flowers on the other side of the candle.  In that vein, my life speaks of those in-between places, those almost-there-i-want-that moments.  Growing up in Laramie, Wyoming and Duluth, Minnesota, I now reside in Washington where I attend school at The Evergreen State College and is a tutor in the campus writing center.  My emphasis at Evergreen are religious studies and creative writing.  I am also thinking very hard about religious life.

But that's the boring part, not the queer part.  I came out as a lesbian when I was fourteen and proceeded to try and tell my entire town in ways that were both safe and unsafe.  I've never really known for sure what I am in terms of sexual orientation, so I've stopped labeling myself, but I totally respect and understand both the need for people to have labels and the lack of rights that queer people have.  So in that sense, I'm queer, "but I do like St. Teresa of Avila."  I've also struggled with gender identity and believe that although I am not born in the wrong body, I am male, not female.  However, for personal reasons, I guess I'm not male enough to give up my womanhood, so I don't deny my vagina.  But I don't make a big statement about messing with the binary, honestly – it was just easier to deal with the rest of my life than how I should fashion my body, how the world perceives my body.  I'll deal with that some day, when I'm older.  So in that sense, I'm trans, "but I do like Rabi'a Al-Adawiyya."  And at the end of the day, I'm my parent's child, so have always wanted to balance responsibilities to family with all of my beautiful self.