She said, “You Changed my Life…”

The other day, I was at a coffee shop, working on some marketing for an upcoming drag show when a lovely woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Are you Kevin Garcia?"

And I said yes, of course, and asked what's up. She sat down and said, "You literally changed my life. I found your videos when I was 17 and you said that God loved me... oh what was it, not in spite of but because of who I am. And that has stuck with me ever since. And I came out and... I just can't thank you enough."

I smiled, of course, laughed a good bit, and said I was grateful that my work helped, grateful that she said something and introduced herself. We hugged, and I turned back to my laptop, and rather than feeling a little bit of elation, what I felt was a weird shame.

I felt ashamed because I feel like I've given up on something that a lot of people still need.

I saw a TikTok of a guy making a cute, trendy video, and it was an ex-gay dude using the song "Man I Need" by Olivia Dean. And someone's gonna watch him and think they have to do the same. Another person's gonna watch it and feel ashamed they can't get free like that.

On Insta, I still see some of my friends clapping back against the Christian nationalism and supremacy that is currently influencing a lot of our culture and causing a ton of pain. It excites me, and I sometimes wanna join in, but to what end? I find that trying to clap back at Christians behaving badly ends with me more stressed and angry.

But I don't want to engage in that way. I don't want to be so fucking angry all the time like I was. I don't wanna go down the same path of showing folks they can be gay/queer/trans and Christian because that's a debate.

A debate implies that there are ethical positions on both sides, when I do not feel that theologies and practices that kill are viable or ethical. Why should I struggle to convince anyone to accept or love me when they cannot even accept or love themselves?

So what do I want to do? What message do I want to send?

I want people to hear this one amazing idea and let it settle over them:

There is Great Love for you Here.

…

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