Editor’s Note: Outreach is pleased to present a series of conversations about LGBTQ Catholic life, hosted by Greg Krajewski, a gay Catholic video producer and director who lives in Chicago. You can listen to the conversation between Greg and Maxwell Kuzma, a transgender Catholic writer in Ohio, in the video player below and read a synopsis below.
Introducing my family to my now husband did not go well. The very faith that connected us suddenly became a chasm that still feels uncrossable. Estrangement is strange. Relationships naturally change and shift as the parties involved grow, but estrangement feels somehow more poignant. Something went wrong that wasn’t supposed to go wrong. In my case, both sides—my family and I—feel the other’s actions caused the estrangement.
So what does it mean to lose something that is still there? How should we view the estrangement that too often comes with being LGBTQ and Catholic? And where is the hope?
Even though we are both estranged from our families, we are blessed by our chosen families.
Maxwell Kuzma is a transgender man who writes at the intersection of queerness and faith. In addition to the estrangement he experienced with his family during his transition, he also lost much of the support systems and friendships he formed in his time working in Catholic media. Even though we are both estranged from our families, we are blessed by our chosen families, who have embraced us as members of both the Catholic faith and LGBTQ community.
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