EP 16 How to create safe spiritual spaces for LGBTQIA+ folks with Dr Lulu

Dr Lulu is a paediatrician and coach who works with LGBTQIA+ families, as well as an activist. I asked her to come on the show to discuss how we can create more inclusive spiritual spaces. Although she retired as a physician a little over two years ago, she is now coming back into medicine with a new angle: offering gender care for transgender individuals. She is passionate about rectifying the myths and misinformation around what gender care really is.  But Dr Lulu is also a member of the LGBTQIA+ herself. She describes herself as Bi-Plus although she prefers the term Queer. And she is a mum of three, one of which is transgender, which is actually how we met.  I wanted to have her on the show because I am well aware that some religious people and some spiritual people are not as inclusive as they could be towards the LGBTQIA+ community.  Dr Lulu was born and raised in a Catholic household. Her family is so religious that one of her uncles is a priest. She enjoys having a relationship with something bigger than her. She went to mass for the first fifty years of her life. And when she was in medical school, she even went to mass daily because it was available. She told her dad she was attracted to girls when she was sixteen and he made her believe that it was just a phase. Her father did not say it with any malice, but her aunt, who was much more engrained into Nigerian culture, made her feel that if she indulged into these inclinations, she would go to hell. Her auntie was very close to her. She had helped raise her and she believed her because she knew she loved her so much. So she started to turn down the volume on her attraction until it was nearly down to zero. She got married and had three kids. The pressure to conform was enormous.  Dr Lulu wants people to understand that when you have very strong beliefs, especially about what is right and wrong from a religious perspective, then it can put undue pressure on other people to conform, especially if they are children. It's not really fair. Religion, by nature, is not inclusive, but it's not God. It's the religion. And these are two very different things. If there is a God, God is inclusive and God's pronouns are they/them. It is us humans who love to put conditions on everything. It's an important distinction.  Religion is based on a binary model that is divisive, but to a certain extent, spiritual circles have also espoused this binary model especially when they insist on having separate circles for men and women. No one should have a say for what is right or wrong in terms of gender identity. It's an individual expression that should be respected. In addition to that, just because someone reads a passage from the bible from 2,000 years ago, doesn't make it right. Especially since it has been rewritten many times to suit the people who preached from it. The LGBTQIA+ community is giving us the gift of diversity. It is constantly expanding and offering new ways to express and see oneself. Dr Lulu first thought she was a Lesbian, then Bisexual. Now Bi-Plus and rather than see it with contempt, people who are not part of the LGBTQIA+ community should see it as "a garden that has flowers you did not even know existed".  This goes against the current of religion and spirituality which has tried over the years and even decades, to dictate who people should be, how they should fit in, or else, they go to hell. Dr Lulu mentioned a famous Black Pastor  who was openly homophobic, but when he died, it was revealed that he was gay and died of AIDS. Instead of blaming that pastor, we need to look at the institution and the pressure that is put on people to be other than who they are. This causes internalised homophobia. And this can be traced into colonialism, which is a subject that Dr Lulu broached on her own podcast, Moms 4 Trans Kids. podfollow.com/1708676679 But things are changing. Dr Lulu and I discussed several clergy members in the US who are openly either gay or trans. It looks like the Church of England, in the UK, has also appointed their first openly non binary vicar.