For Trans Day of Visibility, A Telling of “The Parable of the White Sneakers”

Today’s post is from guest contributor Maxwell Kuzma. Maxwell is a transgender man living on a farm in Ohio who writes about the intersection of queerness and faith. You can follow him on Twitter @maxwellkuzma.

Waking up in the hospital after my gender-affirming top surgery, I was nauseous from the anesthesia. I looked around the recovery center and saw a pair of white Nike sneakers sitting by another bed, and I remembered seeing the owner of those sneakers walking in earlier, around the same time as me. We were having the same surgery, and now I could see that we had both made it through: not just through the surgery itself but the emotional gauntlet required to get that point. Now that the medical procedure was over, I was left with an almost bigger task: taking stock of the interior journey.

There were no terfs* or transphobes, negative comments, or people questioning my decision here. Now, there was only soft music playing in the background and the warmth of the heated blanket cocooning my tired body.

I cried when I woke up from surgery. The experience was intense, emotionally heavy, and deeply significant to me. It’s very vulnerable to dress in the simple white gown with nothing underneath and to lie under the soft white lights while a friendly stranger in scrubs and a mask expertly presses an IV needle into your vein and you feel the rush of cold saline through the clear tube. The doctor smiles at you while they push your bed into the operating room and before you know it the anesthesia whisks you away. No more time to feel anxious, to wonder what’s happening next, to wonder if the doctor is running on time or late. No more waiting. I have waited over two decades and now it is time to rest.

In one sense, the surgery was a physical weight lifted. This part isn’t metaphorical: the doctor removed flesh that had physically weighed down my chest for 30 years. A chest that I had spent years in anguish over. A chest that I dressed in fabric every morning, hoping that the performance of modesty would protect me from the despair of the task. In the morning, after work, passing from the shower to my room, I would always be covered. I was told to find joy in the gender assignment given by the authority of a fallen world, told it was binding. Before surgery I could co-exist with my body. I could tolerate it. But tolerance is not the same as love.

People make value judgments about top surgery using words like “mutilation.” “Deformed.” But my gender was never a performance that needed their applause or permission. My gender was never something that other people controlled: it was always God given. A big part of my journey was learning to tune out the voices of often well-meaning Christians and instead tune in through discernment to God’s will. When I did that, I found an endless font of love, and knew that God is LGBTQ affirming.

All I ask from people is to be kind. It is not kindness when people rip apart my decisions as if they were a satanic conspiracy plot against the church. It is not kindness when people make it a point to use the wrong name or pronouns for me as though cruel schoolyard name-calling tactics are in any way heroic. I am asking to be treated with dignity and respect, for the person I am and the decisions I’ve made.

Despite the media circus show portraying transgender people as clowns, spectacles, and freaks, we are still just ordinary people trying to live a normal life just like anyone else. An individual’s inability to empathize or even listen to our lived experience reflects very poorly on them.

Jesus would not be on the side of those who belittle and demean transgender people and their experiences. He definitely wouldn’t be chill with lofty, ivory tower style prejudice either. He gives examples over and over again throughout the gospels of seeking out the people that are socially maligned: just like trans people are today. He’s not the guy standing on the table pointing and hurling verbal insults. He’s not the guy purposefully using the wrong name and pronouns for someone. He’s not fire and brimstone or the final judgment. He is life: in all its messy, profound glory.

I still remember waking up from surgery and seeing those white Nike sneakers, a memory inextricably linked to my moment of physical transformation. They belonged to a person who was a total stranger. While I knew my journey, I did not know this person’s journey. Still, I was able to feel love for them and their uniqueness despite only knowing them by a pair of ordinary white sneakers. Another human being, in all their glory and unique experience, lying across from me and sharing in one of the most intimate and life-giving experiences of my life. I don’t even know their name. I can’t recall their face. But I know them. I know what they carried into that hospital and the weight they left behind. I know them like I know the commandment: “love your neighbor, as yourself.” Without judgment, without prejudice, I love them.

—Maxwell Kuzma, March 31, 2023