Lisa Salazar's Posts

  Public debates rarely end with one person convincing the other that they are wrong. Minds seldom change that way. Yet conversations like these can still matter deeply, often for reasons that are not obvious at first. They are rarely only between two people. They unfold in front of an audience. Nearly fifteen years ago I found myself in a lengthy public exchange with Dr. Michael Brown, a well-known evangelical author and speaker. The discussion took place online in the comment section of a Facebook page connected with his ministry. What began as a direct conversation between two individuals gradually became something larger.

  Beyond the Calendar: Living the Way of Jesus Every Day As the seasons of the Christian calendar unfold, many believers enter times of reflection marked by familiar rhythms. Advent invites people into anticipation and hope. Lent calls for reflection, repentance, and simplicity. Holy Week leads worshippers through the remembrance of the Last Supper, the crucifixion, and the celebration of resurrection on Easter morning. For many Christians, these seasons provide meaningful opportunities to pause, remember, and reconnect with the story of Jesus. Of course, modern culture has added its own layer to these sacred seasons. Store shelves fill with chocolate eggs, pastel bunnies, decorations, and cheerful marketing campaigns. What began as invitations to reflection and renewal now often arrive wrapped in foil and cellophane. It is a curious transformation. For countless people, however, the rituals themselves still carry deep meaning. The liturgical calendar offers a rhythm that gen...

Heather Cox Richardson recently said something that cuts straight through the noise. She noted that when Republicans lose ground on the issues that normally carry them, the economy, immigration, national security, they reach for something else. And right now, she said, they are “running hard against transgender Americans again.”  Her words are worth repeating: “This is a tool.” When the political ground begins to crumble under them, they reach for culture wars. When their policies are unpopular, they need someone to blame. And when they cannot explain their decisions, they distract. Trans people are the distraction. Richardson quoted Texas legislator James Talarico, who said the media keeps asking him to demonize his “brothers and sisters” instead of talking about housing, healthcare, or real public policy. That observation should trouble anyone paying attention. Because it reveals the mechanism. The issue is not with transgender people themselves. The issue is that transgende...

Seen through glass, we mistake perception for knowing. I recently read a conference paper by  Ross Neir  titled  “Procreative Nationalism as an LGBTQ+ Hermeneutical Strategy.”  If you want to read the full text, you can find it here:  Procreative Nationalism  

Based on a 2014 survey, this essay revisits what trans lives reveal about inner life and spiritual endurance at a time of renewed religious hostility. Image of light streaming in, finally. In the fall of 2014, I set out to ask a deceptively simple question: What does spirituality actually look like in the lives of transgender people? At the time, public conversations about transgender lives were only beginning to edge into mainstream awareness. The language we now use so easily, especially the word  non-binary , had not yet entered common circulation. Most people in my community described themselves as trans men, trans women, gender-queer, or gender-fluid, using the language that was available to them then. If this same survey were conducted today, many of those same participants might well describe themselves differently. The map of language has changed. The terrain of human experience beneath it has not. I was not trying to make a theological argument or defend any religious inst...

On how a quiet truth can unsettle those who haven’t yet faced their own. Photo: The glowing screen of my laptop displaying the Facebook post that inspired this essay. A reminder that existence is not an argument. It is lived. **** The post was about the Williams Institute’s recently updated data showing that approximately 2.8 million Americans identify as transgender. The post was gentle in its simplicity. It did not petition, persuade, or defend. It only acknowledged that trans people are here, and have always been here, woven into the ordinary life of the nation.

“No one should lose their child so that someone else can feel more comfortable in their fear.” What might be coming down the tracks as we look toward the dawning of a new day?

Why I No Longer Pray: This reflection isn’t a rejection of awe, gratitude, or the Sacred. It’s an honest exploration of why I’ve stepped away from petitionary prayer and toward reflection, responsibility, and embodied care. I offer it in a spirit of curiosity rather than certainty, and with respect for those whose prayers still sustain them.

  I am generally a calming presence, or so I’m told. I know how to steady a room, how to sit with grief, how to speak softly so others can breathe again. On the surface, I am unshaken. But beneath the surface, the mantle is active, and the lava is hot. Some days, the headlines I read cause tremors in me. The Supreme Court.  The GOP.   The Conservatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The endless cycle of “protecting children” that somehow always means coming after people like me. The slogans engineered to ignite panic. The campaigns that treat our existence as if it were a cautionary tale. I see it. I feel it. I hold it. But I do not explode. Not yet. I have lived in Canada since 1973, and I was almost twenty-four. But I was already sixty-three when the DSM was revised in 2013, and being trans was finally removed from the category of mental disorders. Forty years earlier, in 1973, the year I arrived in Canada, Sexual Orientation had been removed. It took four ...

  ...And My Life Under Three Flags — My father’s story begins long before mine, obviously, but in many ways, it was already writing the script for who I would become, not just as his child, but as a trans woman who would one day have to find her own voice against the quiet pressures of conformity. His choices, his silences, and his small acts of defiance shaped more than our family’s path across borders; they became part of the map I would one day follow to claim my own existence.