The Holiness and Heartbreak of a Nonbinary Pastor

I was a Disney Channel child actor from a staunchly Atheist family. Now I’m a genderqueer minister in America’s heartland.

Illustrations by Jared Freschman

The first time I came out, it was to my parents. It didn’t go very well. I was 20 years old, and we were in a small Häagen-Dazs shop in Madrid, where they had come to visit me during a semester abroad.

“Mom, Dad,” I squeaked. “I’m … Christian.”

It would have been much easier to tell them I was queer. We were a liberal family. My dad had a lesbian cousin. We had plenty of gay friends. But Christian? No. My oma (grandmother) came to this country in 1939 as a refugee from Nazi Germany. Over scoops of ice cream, my staunchly atheist Jewish father and my ex-Catholic mother smiled awkwardly, trying to wrap their heads around this alien lifestyle.

“Oh, Ryan,” Mom choked out. “Why do you have to call yourself a Christian?”

“Because I am one.”

“Well, yeah, but why do you have to use that word? Can’t you just … do your own thing? What did you used to call it — being a Ryanist? Or what about Buddhism? You really liked Buddhism.”

“I still like Buddhism. I’m not rejecting…