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First UU’s Youth Group
April 6, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
ATTRACTION – The high school youth group will challenge us to consider the theme of attraction beyond the binary. Rejecting heteronormative expectations for relationships, whether you’re queer or not, is part of growing up UU.
Chalice Lighting
We light this chalice to celebrate Unitarian Universalism. We are the church of open minds, we are the church of helping hands, we are the church of loving hearts, we are the church of listening ears, and together we work for friendship and peace.
Call to Worship
A BLESSING FOR QUEER YOUTH OF FAITH
Cathy Rion StarrBless you, for who you are, right now, right here.
Bless you in your queerness, your gender fabulousness, your questioning, wondering, exploring, declaring. Bless you in the words you create and evolve and claim for yourself. May you relish your divinity as you dismantle binaries and create beautiful worlds of infinite possibilities. May those of us who are not queer respect you, learn from you, and show up for you as you need.
Bless you in your youth, your brilliance, your ideas, your curiosity, your incredible leadership right now (let alone what is to come). May you be fortified in the face of adultism and may you inhabit the fullness of your being. May those of us who are not youth respect you, learn from you, and show up for you as you need.
Bless you in your faith, your precious connection with the sacred, tradition, community, belief and action that guides your life and holds you through the storms and celebrations of life. May your faith sustain you when your faith tradition honors you and when it harms you. May those who hold faiths that judge you come to know how very sacred and perfect you are. May those of us from all sorts of faith traditions respect you, learn from you, and show up for you as you need.
May all of us – queer and straight, trans and cis, young – younger – old and elder, faithful and faith-allergic – bless you as your full, beautiful, queer, young, sacred self.
Bless you as YOU. Know that you are enough right now, right here; and you are ever evolving, growing, deepening as your imperfectly perfect self. May we bless all queer youth of faith, all queer youth, all queer and trans and questioning people, all youth on our collective journey towards liberation. May you be blessed with the glitter of joy, dances of liberation, bricks of safety, and the nourishment of radical love.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Reading
HUMANS’ CORE FUNCTION IS LOVE
from Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
By Adrienne Maree BrownWhen we are engaged in acts of love, we humans are at our best and most resilient. The love in romance that makes us want to be better people, the love of children that makes us change our whole lives to meet their needs, the love of family that makes us drop everything to take care of them, the love of community that makes us work tirelessly with broken hearts.
Perhaps humans’ core function is love. Love leads us to observe in a much deeper way than any other emotion ….
If love were the central practice of a new generation of organizers and spiritual leaders, it would have a massive impact … If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression. We would suddenly be seeing everything we do, everyone we meet, not through the tactical eyes of war, but through eyes of love.
We would see that there’s no such thing as a blank canvas, an empty land or a new idea – but everywhere there is complex, ancient, fertile ground full of potential ….
We would understand that the strength of our movement is in the strength of our relationships, which could only be measured by their depth. Scaling up would mean going deeper, being more vulnerable and more empathetic ….
Homily
NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.
Hi, my name is Phoenix. I’m 16 years old. The last time I was up here, we talked to you about mental health. Thankfully, today I will be talking about a lighter subject. Our youth group is very diverse. We have gays and bisexuals and our resident straight boy. So we wanted to talk about our experiences with romantic attraction. This is mine.
In sixth grade, my friend introduced me to the concept of pansexuality — attraction to all genders. I wasn’t sheltered from queerness. My mother had been open about her bisexuality my entire life and my best friend has lesbian moms. Despite this, my small brain had a hard time understanding that not everything was binary when it came to me.
I had a simple understanding of myself. I was smart, creative, kind, and a leader. As I got older, it got harder to keep this binary view of myself. I had one crush as a child and it was on a boy so I assumed I was straight. Then I was taught about the concept of pansexuality. I could like men and women at the same time and I didn’t have to pick one or the other. I realized that maybe not everything had to be yes, no, or all-of-the-above. Maybe I was more complex than that.
Seventh grade was quarantine. School was online. I never left the house and I spent most of my time isolated. So my relationship with that friend wasn’t my priority. All I wanted was to live and learn. But on the first day of 8th grade, the same friend who introduced me to the concept of queer people asked, “What’s your sexuality?” And again, I had an epiphany. I hadn’t had a crush on a boy since 4th grade. So maybe I didn’t like them. I answered, “Lesbian.” I had been struggling for months to explain my lack of attraction to men, but they gave me the last push I needed to understand that I just didn’t like men.
Even though it took me two years to realize I was gay after learning I could be, that was easy compared to realizing I’m aromantic and asexual, no or limited sexual and romantic attraction. I realized I was gay because of my attraction to fictional people. Princess Shuri from Black Panther was my lesbian awakening. But after I hadn’t had a crush on a real person for years, I researched and learned about a lack of sexual or romantic attraction to people.
In order to restate a probably overused metaphor; I never crave cake, but I would eat it if it was offered. I have dated people, but I didn’t have a crush on them. I hope to get married. I want to be close to someone, but I don’t get romantic feelings that often. I see relationships as a friendship plus, closer and more intimate, but not that much different.
I was able to understand that I wasn’t wrong for not getting crushes. I just didn’t work that way, and that was fine. It may not have been the norm, but it was still natural to not be attracted to people, get to all by making babies. Some of us have to go fight the lions for food.
Being a person with so many obscure labels, I’ve had to get good at explaining the definitions and how they interact. If I don’t get attracted to people, how am I gay? I understand where these questions come from, but it would be nice if more people could understand that I have thought about this. Sexuality is a human concept, so it works how I say it. It works so because I say so.
These words are just tools to describe my experience to other people easily. They change the exact definition for everyone. Why does it work like that? Like math, it just does. Some people may not understand being queer, so they are scared of queer people. If that’s you, I applaud you for making it this far. I understand it’s hard when you don’t understand something.
Not everyone experiences things as I do. People assume straight as the default for a reason. But just because something is different from the norm doesn’t mean they’re wrong for it. Gayness has been documented in over 1,500 animal species like lions, penguins, sheep, elephant, and our close cousin, the chimpanzee. Humans aren’t unique for that.
Over the years, my understanding of my sexuality changed from straight — to pan — to gay. I don’t get crushes, but I do like romantic relationships. Even after that, you may not understand why I’m gay or how I’m attracted to people, and I’m not asking you to. All I want is for people to accept who I am and move-on with their lives.
Thank you for listening. I hope my story has helped you understand yourself or someone else better.
Extinguishing the Chalice
We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.
Benediction
The blessing of truth be upon us, the power of love directs us and sustains us, and may the peace of this community preserve our going out and our going out and our coming in, from this time forth, until we meet again.
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