21. A Trans Christian's Quest for Authenticity
The Queer ChristianApril 18, 2024x
21
00:27:1825.27 MB

21. A Trans Christian's Quest for Authenticity

Aiden Yang's transformation as he liberates the good troublemaker within, explores the Beatitudes, and finds inspiration from rapper Bad Bunny.

Aiden Yang, a Trans-Christian Asian American, describes the many challenges to living true to your authentic self: Challenges from your church; challenges from your family; and challenges from a capitalist society.

Aiden takes you on a transformative journey to embrace your shadow self and live authentically. Aiden shares insights from his personal experience and draws parallels with the Beatitudes, challenging societal norms and finding inspiration from rapper Bad Bunny's countercultural journey.

Aiden’s website: https://aidensyang.com

About Aiden:

Aiden’s book, “The Spineless Porcupine: Why Our Differences Are Superpowers”

Aiden’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/love_n_cr8ivity/

Aiden’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sayme/

This sermon was originally delivered at Bethel Community Church in San Leandro, CA and has been edited for this podcast.

https://bethelcommunitysl.org


Podcast produced by: ⁠⁠Elton Sherwin⁠⁠

Audio edited and enhanced with: ⁠⁠Descript Studio Sound ⁠⁠ 

#Bible

#Christian

#Affirming



[00:00:00] When I decided to come out as queer at 38 years old, my parents and most of my Christian friends rejected me.

[00:00:09] I grew up in the evangelical church. I feared queer and trans people. Like, I would just avoid them completely. I had a very adverse reaction to them.

[00:00:19] I was taught that the only thing that would keep me safe was not trusting myself and my own desires.

[00:00:26] Instead, I was... I needed to always be led by somebody, whether a pastor or my future husband, and that this is the Christian value and virtue of submission.

[00:00:37] I was going on mission trips, speaking at churches worldwide, going through 10 years of conversion therapy.

[00:00:44] I tried my darndest to be a straight, proper, quiet, obedient, serious, celibate Asian woman trying to marry a good Christian man and submit to him.

[00:01:07] Aiden Yang is a speaker, stand-up comedian, drummer and author.

[00:01:15] Aiden's journey of self-discovery as an Asian American trans man led him to write his book The Spindless Porcupine,

[00:01:23] an all-ages fable about a porcupine born without any spines and how they discovered that their differences are in fact their superpowers.

[00:01:30] Aiden is on a mission to create safe spaces and build bridges of understanding between seemingly opposing groups by sharing his personal journey as someone who's lived as both male and female presenting, Christian and queer, and Asian and American.

[00:01:46] Those audio clips were from Aiden Yang's website and a sermon that he delivered to Bethel Community Church in San Leandro, California.

[00:01:57] I first heard about Aiden Yang when my daughter said,

[00:02:03] Dad, there's a sermon that you have to listen to.

[00:02:07] My daughter attends Bethel Community, which describes itself as justice-oriented, open and affirming.

[00:02:17] Aiden weaves together observations on economic justice, the beatitudes, bad bunny, the rapper, Carl Jung's view of the shadow self in his personal journey as a queer, trans, Christian, Asian American.

[00:02:39] He closes with his story and advice on how to make God-honoring decisions for those who may have grown up in churches where they were told that celibacy is the only God-honoring choice for queer and unmarried Christians.

[00:03:00] If parts of his sermon make you uncomfortable, I encourage you to persevere and listen to the end.

[00:03:09] Introducing Aiden is Michael Kimmew Banks, who co-pastors Bethel Community with his wife, Aiden Kimmew Banks.

[00:03:20] Friends, it is a joy and delight to introduce Aiden Yang.

[00:03:25] Aiden is someone that actually Pastor Arina has known for a long time.

[00:03:31] Aiden is an author, Aiden is a musician, Aiden is a comedian, and Aiden is someone who has kind of told his story in various ways in a lot of different environments,

[00:03:44] in church environments, but also in sort of kind of corporate environments as well.

[00:03:50] What it means to navigate as a trans queer Asian American man.

[00:03:55] And we are excited that you are here.

[00:03:58] Thanks for the wonderful introduction, Michael.

[00:04:01] And yeah, fun fact, I met Arina in her first year at Cal, so in 2001.

[00:04:08] So I've known her for quite a long time.

[00:04:11] Well, it's great to be with y'all.

[00:04:12] I want to thank you for inviting me. I'm honored. This community is wonderful.

[00:04:18] I'm really, really honored to be here. So thanks for the invite.

[00:04:21] So I'm going to give a talk called Embracing Your Shadow, Liberating the Good Troublemaker Within.

[00:04:28] And if you think about it, your shadow is always with you.

[00:04:33] If you're walking in the light.

[00:04:35] So having a shadow is a good thing if you think about it.

[00:04:38] That means your life is enlightened.

[00:04:40] And when your life is enlightened, you could just look right next to you and you will see your constant companion, your shadow.

[00:04:47] And there's a question about like, are we light or are we shadow?

[00:04:52] And if we're honest with ourselves, we all have light and dark in us.

[00:04:57] We are both light and dark, not either or light and dark.

[00:05:01] And but unfortunately, sadly, darkness has been used as a metaphor, often equated with negativity and sin, which has led to many white supremacist beliefs.

[00:05:14] But when we look at shadow and the shadow self, it was a term coined by Carl Jung, who's a psychiatrist.

[00:05:24] And he coined the term shadow self and he said, it is not the negative or sinful part of us.

[00:05:31] It's actually the part of us that desires or the part of us with desires or behaviors deemed socially unacceptable or inappropriate.

[00:05:44] It's a very good thing you have a shadow self.

[00:05:46] Why? Because if you followed society's rules, norms and standards to a T, you would be a very unhealthy person because society is profoundly sick.

[00:06:01] As Gidu Krishnamurti put it, it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

[00:06:11] We live in a society that glorifies greedy, selfish, narcissistic male sociopaths who do whatever it takes to make the most amount of money and gain the most power.

[00:06:26] So these are society's heroes, the ones who lie, cheat, steal and betray to get money and power.

[00:06:32] And I recently saw this meme on Instagram about glorifying these profoundly sick people.

[00:06:38] It says, if a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to figure out what the heck was wrong with it.

[00:06:48] But when humans do it, we put them on the cover of Forbes.

[00:06:53] But when we look at the Beatitudes, what we see a vast difference, right?

[00:06:58] Those who are mourning, merciful, meek, poor in spirit but pure in heart.

[00:07:03] All the qualities that Jesus glorified in the Beatitudes are seen as weak, dumb and worthless.

[00:07:11] Society shuns and ignores people who are living the Beatitudes, the terms that Jesus calls blessed.

[00:07:18] So I'm going to go through the list.

[00:07:20] Being poor in spirit.

[00:07:22] Morning.

[00:07:24] Being meek.

[00:07:26] Hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

[00:07:29] Being merciful.

[00:07:31] Being pure in heart.

[00:07:33] Being peacemakers.

[00:07:36] And being persecuted for righteousness sake.

[00:07:39] Are any of these glorified?

[00:07:41] So when we look at this, you can see how vastly different society is from the society that Jesus wanted for society to be.

[00:07:52] So embracing your shadow self is not embracing sin.

[00:07:56] I want to make that clear, but actually living in alignment with the counter cultural anti-empirical ways of Jesus.

[00:08:04] I refer to my shadow self as the good troublemaker.

[00:08:09] It's me before society told me who I should and shouldn't be.

[00:08:14] I don't mean to be a troublemaker, but my shadow holds healthy and good desires that a profoundly sick society tells me not to have.

[00:08:23] God made me healthy and good.

[00:08:25] And if I follow my true passions, like being a creative relational and spiritual man, they'll be deemed wrong by profoundly sick society.

[00:08:34] And when we are children, we are most in alignment with our shadows.

[00:08:38] I like to distinguish between our shadows, the parts of our true self that transgress the status quo and social expectations in a God given way versus our sinful self.

[00:08:51] A strain from who God created us to be.

[00:08:54] So the shadow self is who we were before we learn to adhere to sick social norms rather than fulfill our true desires.

[00:09:03] At a young age, we are trained to repress the expression of specific behaviors that are not socially acceptable or appropriate, moving them into the dark unconscious.

[00:09:16] For instance, there's no real value in resting or being artistic, emotional, spiritual or relational.

[00:09:22] We're taught to be ashamed of them, deny them, punish them and wish that part of us didn't exist because they don't serve a capitalistic society.

[00:09:31] The tender, pure, wild, creative and hard on our sleeves part of ourselves that a profoundly sick society has taught us to despise, repress and avoid.

[00:09:41] And yet it's still there, popping up when we're desperate because we're conscious of the emptiness of following all the rules that society promised would give us fulfillment.

[00:09:52] I've noticed something. You either adore, despise or fear those who are living dreams of your true self.

[00:10:00] So what I've seen is in my life, like I've always been an artist and I was an artist when I was a kid.

[00:10:10] But I like suppressed it because my family of engineers and scientists, they really, really like look down on the fact that I was an artist.

[00:10:21] Like I was a poet. I was a musician, you know, writer and they just didn't value it.

[00:10:27] So I had like kind of repressed that part of myself.

[00:10:32] And then I remember after graduating from college, I met an artist and we became really good friends.

[00:10:39] And I was totally like fanboying. Like I was standing him.

[00:10:43] I was like, oh my gosh, he's like the coolest guy ever.

[00:10:46] And I realized I was like adoring him because he was living out my true self, like those attributes.

[00:10:56] So I found myself adoring him.

[00:10:59] And then interestingly enough, another reaction to people who are living our true desires are that we despise them or hate them.

[00:11:09] Glennon Doyle. How many of you know who Glennon Doyle is?

[00:11:12] Yes, Michael. I see you there.

[00:11:15] Yeah, she's an award winning or actually best selling author and actually the best selling author of the Christian like genre in the last 10 years.

[00:11:26] And she shared in her podcast that she used to hate writers.

[00:11:32] Every time a writer would talk about like their writing, she would turn it off.

[00:11:36] She just could not and whenever she found out somebody was a writer, she would just avoid them.

[00:11:42] And it's because there's something in us that like because we were taught to despise those parts of ourselves, we hate other people who are living that reality.

[00:11:51] And the third reaction I noticed about those who are living the dreams of our true selves is that we fear them.

[00:11:58] In my 20s, because I grew up in the evangelical church, I feared queer and trans people.

[00:12:06] Like I would just avoid them completely. I had a very adverse reaction to them.

[00:12:11] And now I realize it's because they reminded me of my imprisoned shadow self and gave my shadow self hope for freedom.

[00:12:20] So I'm going to share my journey of discovering my shadow self.

[00:12:25] It came after spending almost 15 years abiding by all the rules that the profoundly sick society I was raised in told me to follow in order to be happy.

[00:12:36] Those rules were of the evangelical church.

[00:12:39] Granted, before I became Christian at 15, I was a troublemaker at 15.

[00:12:46] I was a leader of an Asian gang with the gang name rebels.

[00:12:50] I was a very rambunctious class clown who loved joking around and being the center of attention.

[00:12:58] And I was bucking against the system as society that had no place for me as a queer Asian trans man.

[00:13:06] But once I became Christian, I was told to put away that part of myself because it was my wicked carnal sinful self.

[00:13:13] I was born again so I had to abandon all my old ways. That's what I was taught. So I did.

[00:13:18] I tried my darndest to be a straight, proper, quiet, obedient, serious, celibate Asian woman trying to marry a good Christian man and submit to him.

[00:13:28] Because I was born female. I was assigned female at birth.

[00:13:32] And I did this with all my might. I was going on mission trips, speaking at churches worldwide, going through 10 years of conversion therapy.

[00:13:41] And I was taught that the only thing that would keep me safe was not trusting myself and my own desires.

[00:13:47] Instead, I was, I needed to always be led by somebody, whether a pastor or my future husband.

[00:13:54] And that this is the Christian value and virtue of submission.

[00:13:58] But my shadow self never gave up me. During those 15 years, I kept having dreams of being a man going on adventures, being free spirited and in a relationship with a beautiful woman.

[00:14:10] And whenever I would be vulnerable and share that with other Christians, they say, oh, that's a dream from the devil.

[00:14:16] And I prayed every day though that God would teach me how to love and be loved well, to teach me the way of life and love, grace and truth.

[00:14:25] Which ultimately led me to embrace my shadow self, the part I was most ashamed of, the part of me that I wish didn't exist.

[00:14:36] What I wanted when I was two years old, when I first began to talk and said, I'm a boy, even though I was assigned female at birth.

[00:14:45] That was one of my first words at two years old.

[00:14:48] And God, thank God would not relent in loving the real me, my shadow self and helping me love him as well.

[00:14:57] So the reintroduction to my shadows itself happened in 2021.

[00:15:02] I was sitting on an outdoor patio at a Berkeley Thai restaurant with my best friend Charlotte during the pandemic.

[00:15:09] And I know Charlotte through Oak Life Church.

[00:15:12] And we were eating Pah Thai when she looked into my eyes and said, I feel like there's a teenage boy locked in a jail deep inside of you.

[00:15:23] And he's shaking, he's terrified.

[00:15:26] And he's very brave, cute and goofy like the Chris Pratt character in Guardians of the Galaxy Star Lord.

[00:15:32] And I wish I could tell him he's okay and you would let him out of where he's locked away.

[00:15:38] Charlotte is prophetic if you have enough things.

[00:15:41] And I began crying as soon as she said that because I thought I had locked him away so well and threw away the key that he was no longer a part of my life.

[00:15:51] But when she said it, I knew she was talking about the real me, the me before I tried to crucify him because Christians told me he was my sinful wicked self.

[00:16:01] But I could at that moment, I could see him inside of me locked in the dungeon in the darkest corners of my life begging to be free.

[00:16:10] And I knew he was the reason I was so depressed and lonely for about 15 years.

[00:16:15] Pretty much when I became a Christian, I started struggling with depression.

[00:16:19] It was the me that I had betrayed in the name of being a good person in a profoundly sick society that rewards conformity silence and submission.

[00:16:28] And it hates those who threaten the system that keeps us all locked in dungeons inside of our souls and easily controlled.

[00:16:36] Do you know who the opposite of the shadow self is?

[00:16:40] The opposite of the shadow self is the ego.

[00:16:45] It's the version of you that you created to please society.

[00:16:50] It's the opposite of the anima is how Carl Jung put it.

[00:16:54] Your anima is your true nature.

[00:16:57] And there are beautiful things in your shadow like repressed artistic talents like I shared and desires for spontaneity and adventure.

[00:17:05] The ego is the false persona you wear as a mask to survive and thrive in this profoundly sick society.

[00:17:12] The shadow is the real you that is socially unacceptable and inappropriate that you hide to fit into this profoundly sick society.

[00:17:20] It's the inside of you that is not what you're designing.

[00:17:24] And only when you integrate with your shadow self can you find wholeness and acceptance.

[00:17:29] When you are inside matches, you're outside reflecting the real you.

[00:17:34] That's when you find wholeness and acceptance.

[00:17:37] Since learning and embracing my shadow self starting in 2021 after, you know, that conversation was Charlotte embracing those hidden suppressed aspects of myself that I rejected and void it.

[00:17:47] I've unlocked the best parts of who I am.

[00:17:51] I feel so much more alive and you know, my depression has very much decreased since I started embracing the real me.

[00:18:00] And I'm finally at peace with myself.

[00:18:02] I just feel like I can just be myself and not try to be somebody I'm not.

[00:18:06] And I fulfilled my little boys dream of being a man by going forward with gender confirming treatment doing stand up and enjoying the attention.

[00:18:14] And you know, I just want to say a note like society shuns people who want to be the center of attention.

[00:18:21] But actually it can be a good thing if you have something very beneficial or beneficial for others to witness.

[00:18:27] And I also now treat myself to good ice cream fun bike rides and travel adventures because I'm listening to my shadow self my little kid.

[00:18:36] And I'm living out the Beatitudes by comforting those who mourn especially in the LGBTQ plus community who feel condemned to hell for being who they are.

[00:18:46] And I'm also living out Matthew five four from the Beatitudes blessing those who mourn and as main and put it earlier in the prayer, leaving the word.

[00:18:56] I'm also a peacemaker as someone who's lived as both male and female presenting Christian and queer Asian and American.

[00:19:05] I'm bridging those seemingly opposing groups and I'm now creating safe spaces and bridges of understanding.

[00:19:13] And in doing so, I'm challenging the foundation of a profoundly sick society by living out the Beatitudes.

[00:19:20] So an excellent place to start is learning that your shadow, your behaviors and urges that have been repressed into the unconscious is not all wrong.

[00:19:31] You don't need to hide them.

[00:19:33] Instead, bring it into the light of your consciousness and find a healthy expressive outlet for your shadow self.

[00:19:41] For me, it's public speaking, having a passion relationship with my girlfriend and speaking up for trans rights.

[00:19:48] Find ways to pursue your passions that are constructive, not destructive.

[00:19:54] Embrace rather than imprison your shadow.

[00:19:57] Initially when I let my teen self out of prison, he did he did go buck wild.

[00:20:02] I'll be honest, you know, I mean, wouldn't you if you were a teenage boy locked in jail for 15 years?

[00:20:08] But as I accepted and nurtured his wildness, we achieved a balance, a yin and yang.

[00:20:14] Now that he's more integrated into my life, I understand myself and my true desires better and I've mellowed out.

[00:20:22] So don't be surprised when you go on this journey that you might, you know, veer to another extreme, but you will like, you know, as you embrace and accept yourself more and more, it'll come more into balance.

[00:20:34] So my rule in discerning my shadow self's desires is if it benefits others and myself, then I should consider it.

[00:20:42] If it harms myself or others, I need to question it. But ultimately befriend your shadow with tenderness and gratitude.

[00:20:50] I'm going to end with quotes from a brilliant artist who's challenged the rules and norms of a profoundly sick society by embracing his shadow self.

[00:20:59] Bad Bunny.

[00:21:01] If you don't know who Bad Bunny is, he's a popular Puerto Rican rapper, singer, songwriter and occasional professional wrestler, which is very cool.

[00:21:09] And his music is powerful, positive and empowering, challenging social ills and injustices.

[00:21:18] And growing up he attended church weekly with his devout, Catholic mother, sang in the church choir and bag groceries to get by.

[00:21:26] After becoming famous, he used his fame to start the Good Bunny Foundation, which distributes toys to impoverished children in Puerto Rico,

[00:21:35] raise funds for a boy who needed heart transplant surgery and protest against government corruption.

[00:21:43] He's extending mercy and hungering for righteousness in his country in the counter-cultural ways Jesus stated them the attitudes.

[00:21:51] His sexuality is fluid.

[00:21:54] He's a queer icon for his outspoken support for gay and trans lentines and his embrace of drag culture.

[00:22:00] He is a troublemaker who's embraced his shadow self and sexuality despite fierce opposition and persecution from a misogynistic homophobic and toxic masculine culture.

[00:22:14] He said, I don't want to be fake and just being me.

[00:22:18] And I have the power to break stereotypes and whatever useless rules that society puts on us.

[00:22:23] And he also said for years, decades the system has taught us to stay quiet.

[00:22:29] They made us believe that those who take to the streets to speak up are crazy criminals troublemakers by embracing his bad buddy.

[00:22:39] He became the good bunny and he's followed his true passions like being artistic queer and generous man who fights for social justice in a profoundly sick society that tell us this is not how mentioned.

[00:22:53] As you embrace your shadow self, don't be surprised if you find yourself bucking up against the profoundly sick norms and rules of an exploitative system that profits from you being a carbon copy of the quiet, obedient, predictable person that's easily influenced by media and marketing because you have no sense of self.

[00:23:14] Society doesn't want you to have a sense of self.

[00:23:16] They want to easily manipulate and control you.

[00:23:18] So as you tune in your into your true desires, you will begin to liberate yourself and help destroy the broken system, keep us bound within our own hearts.

[00:23:30] So this week I'd like to challenge you to do try three things.

[00:23:35] One, take a moment to listen to what your shadow is communicating to you.

[00:23:41] Two, spend time reflecting on desires you had as a kid that you might have repressed.

[00:23:46] Maybe it's painting, dancing, poetry or riding a bike or you know protesting.

[00:23:53] And three, do one thing that is outside of society's norms which is loving towards yourself and others.

[00:24:03] Wow! When I heard Aiden say...

[00:24:07] So my rule in discerning my shadow's self desires is that if it benefits others and myself then I should consider it.

[00:24:16] If it harms myself or others, I need to question it.

[00:24:19] When I heard Aiden say this, I was reminded of the remarks from President Carter which I played in episode 13,

[00:24:29] When Is Sex Between Two Unmarried People? God Honoring.

[00:24:33] I think Jesus would encourage any kind of love if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else.

[00:24:42] Aiden's remarks echo those of President Carter's, looking at how acting on your desires would affect others

[00:24:53] and choosing not to act on desires that would harm others.

[00:24:58] There is so much about this sermon that I'd liked and could comment on.

[00:25:06] But as we close, let me replay the end of Aiden's sermon when he encouraged us to occasionally be good troublemakers.

[00:25:17] I'd like to challenge you to do try three things.

[00:25:22] One, take a moment to listen to what your shadow is communicating to you.

[00:25:28] Two, spend time reflecting on desires you had as a kid that you might have repressed.

[00:25:34] Maybe it's painting, dancing, poetry or riding a bike or protesting.

[00:25:40] And three, do one thing that is outside of society's norms which is loving towards yourself and others.

[00:25:47] Do things that are both loving towards yourself and loving towards others.

[00:25:56] This is a two-part test, loving towards yourself and loving toward others.

[00:26:06] If you are somewhere in the rainbow, remember that God created you exactly as you are.

[00:26:14] Queer for a reason, because God wanted someone with exactly your talents.

[00:26:22] Queerness is not an accident. It's not a mistake. It's not a sin.

[00:26:28] It is one of God's most amazing creations and it should be celebrated.

[00:26:35] Remember, the Bible tells us that God knit you together in your mother's womb exactly as you are.

[00:26:44] If you know young LGBTQ Christians, please share this podcast with them.

[00:26:56] Until next time, you stay safe. This is Elton Sherwin.