Our guest speaker this week is Aidan Charles (they/them), a masculine-of-center presenting female in the age of “Trans.” Aidan is also a birthright UU, born into the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva, Illinois, under the ministry of Dr. Lindsay Bates. Born a midwestern Queer, Aidan spent a
childhood beneath the grey skies and traditionalist milieu of southwest Ohio before moving to Flagstaff, and more recently to the Cottonwood/Sedona area. Aidan is an avid feminist who is enthusiastic about understanding intersectional oppression, particularly through the lens of UU justice. Most specifically, Aidan is interested in understanding Queer identity within the context of this colonized landscape (both physical and ideological) on which they live and worship.

This talk will unpack the intersection of both Queer and UU identities, exploring what it means to be a Queer UU as well as what it means to “Queer” UU. This service will center on their own story in discovering both spiritual and cultural identity, and how this journey has encouraged them to change, and reinforce their own UU convictions, to find love and resistance and love in resistance. Their intention is to illustrate the powerful force that UU identity is (both within and beyond the Queer experience) and the beautifully unique potential of doing (and of undoing) that it contains within.