Together, we unpacked our relationships with the Black church and the specific ways femininity is performed, protected, and policed inside religious spaces, especially for Black womxn and Black gay men. We explored the pressure to embody a particular kind of “acceptable” femininity in order to receive love, safety, validation, or even visibility within our communities.

We also talked about what it means to stand firmly in your identity today while having been raised Baptist and taught a completely different understanding of self, gender, and holiness. What does it take to unlearn? What does it cost to believe yourself when you were taught not to?

The conversation then moves into the relationship between cis and trans women and how so much of the public discourse surrounding that relationship is often deeply male-centered instead of rooted in care, community, protection, and liberation. We discussed the possibilities that exist beyond conflict and the ways Black women and Black trans women can move toward one another instead of being socially conditioned into division.

Then… it gets even juicier. We dive into celebrity culture, Kanye West, parasocial relationships, and the ways we sometimes become more emotionally invested in celebrities than the actual people in our communities who need accountability, support, and collective care. We discuss how distraction culture impacts Black liberation and our ability to move toward each other with honesty and responsibility.

This conversation is vulnerable, funny, uncomfortable, reflective, and deeply necessary.

About the Guest:

Hope Giselle is a nationally recognized organizer, author, activist, and inclusion advocate dedicated to trans advocacy, racial justice, and workplace inclusion. She is the first openly trans woman to earn a Master’s in Fine Arts from Alabama State University and has worked with organizations including NASA, the Human Rights Campaign, and TransTech Social. Hope is also the founder of the AllowMe Movement and the bestselling author of Becoming Hope and Until I Met Black Men. Through activism, storytelling, public speaking, and cultural commentary, she continues to push conversations around Blackness, transness, inclusion, and liberation forward.

Find Hope:
@theofficialhopegiselle
www.hopegiselle.com

This episode is about living in the in-between.

The space where you no longer fit the boxes you were given
religious, gendered, cultural, or spiritual
but you haven’t rushed to replace them with something new.

It’s about learning to be whole
without needing a single label to explain who you are.

Many of us were taught that identity had to be fixed.
That belief had to be certain.
That spirituality had to look one way.

But what happens when your life becomes more complex than the systems that raised you?

What happens when your body, your spirit, and your creativity begin telling a story that doesn’t fit the old script?

This conversation holds space for that becoming.

We talk about spirituality as something lived
not just believed.

We talk about gender as sacred expression.
We talk about art as ritual.
And we talk about the courage it takes to exist in the fullness of who you are, even when others don’t understand it.

Because sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do
is refuse to shrink yourself
to make other people comfortable.

In this episode, I’m joined by Kamil Oshundara, an Olúrẹ́ṣà in the Ifá spiritual tradition, a gender-nonconforming trans artist, writer, filmmaker, and painter whose work lives at the intersection of spirituality, imagination, and truth. Through horror surrealism, storytelling, and visual art, they explore transformation, ancestry, and the power of self-definition.

Together, we explore what it means to live beyond labels,
to honor your journey,
and to practice spirituality in ways that feel honest, embodied, and free.

Thank you for being part of this community
a space where complexity is welcome
and becoming is the most sacred.

love,

penelope

Not just leaving a religion.
Not just changing what you believe.
But slowly untangling the ways we were taught to see ourselves, God, and the world.

Because many of us left Christianity, but the programming didn’t leave us.
The habits stayed. The fear stayed. The pressure to be certain stayed. The instinct to perform stayed.

And sometimes, the hardest part of unchurching is naming the shame that shows up when we realize we were wrong. Wrong about God. Wrong about people. Wrong about ourselves. Not because we were intentionally harmful but because we were faithful to what we were taught.

There is grief in that realization. There is humility in that realization. And there is also freedom. Freedom to admit:

I am still learning.
I am still becoming.
I am allowed to change.

Freedom to reconstruct.

This conversation holds space for that truth that unchurching is not a one-time decision. It is a practice. A returning. A willingness to see differently, even when it costs us certainty.

Because spirituality is not just what we believe.
It is what we practice.
It is how we show up after we know better.

About our guest!

In this episode, I’m joined by Kareem Manuel, hailing from Chicago, a spiritual leader in our community and an artist who uses creativity as a form of devotion. Through music, expression, and the vision behind his brand WE, Kareem models what it looks like to live your belief system, not just talk about it.

Together, we explore what it means to keep becoming.
To lead without a pulpit.
And to practice what we believe in real time.

Thank you for being part of this community conversation. A community committed to honesty, growth, and spiritual ownership.

love,
Penelope

In this episode, I sit with Mxter Xero (The Bishop of Bliss) to talk about the spells many of us were raised under theology and how they disconnected sensuality, sexuality, and sacredness from our bodies.

What happens when rebellion is actually remembrance?
When pleasure is not a sin but a language of the spirit?
When play, joy, and sensation become portals back to ourselves?

Raised in the church, preaching as a youth, and later stepping away to reclaim their body, desire, and spiritual authority, Xero now bridges church language with embodied liberation, inviting us to heal shame, burnout, and survival patterns through presence, pleasure, and truth.

This conversation is an invitation to ask:
✨ When was the last time you played?
✨ How do you experience sensuality without apology?
✨ What would it mean to take ownership of your body, fully?

Liberation is sacred work.
Pleasure is not a sin.
And the spirit still speaks through the body.

🎧 Listen now
🌀 Weekly stew + playlist + sensory meditation available this month!
💌 For those unlearning, remembering, and coming home to themselves

More About Our Guest:

Mxter Xero (aka The Bishop of Bliss) is a Safe, Sexy, Sacred embodiment guide, Radical Change Strategist, subconscious explorer, and sacred disrupter whose work lives at the intersection of liberation, pleasure, spirituality, and personal power. Raised  Full Gospel Baptist as the child of a lifelong church steward, Xero began preaching as a youth before stepping away during their process of individuation and spiritual re-definition. What some would call rebellion or “backsliding” became a journey of exploration and harm reduction. Now at 36, their work bridges the language of the church with the lived reality of healing, embodiment, and liberation beyond traditional religious frameworks.

Through hypnosis, specialized psychedelic facilitation, erotic and sacred ritual, and community spaces like the S³ Sanctuary, Xero supports leaders and creatives in transforming burnout, shame, and survival patterns into embodied peace, pleasure, and purpose.

Their message is simple: liberation is sacred work, pleasure is not a sin, and the spirit still speaks through the body.

✨
Drop a 🔥 if you're questioning what faith really means to you.For years, I believed church was the only way to connect with God and that everything outside it was wrong. But what happens when your own journey pushes you to question everything?

After deconstructing my beliefs, I realized faith isn’t about following rules, it’s about owning your spiritual truth. Questioning isn't a sin; it’s a part of growth.

The power to redefine your spirituality lies within you, not in doctrines or institutions. Trust your lived experience; it’s your most authentic guide.

So, I ask: what are you holding onto that no longer serves your soul? And what would it take to give yourself permission to let it go?Let’s talk in the comments. 💬

#SpiritualOwnership #DeconstructingFaith #OwnYourJourney #FaithReimagined