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Change of heart

Texas PFLAG mom shares journey of accepting her lesbian daughter

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Shari Johnson (left) with her daughter Cholene and husband James in Grenada for Cholene’s white coat ceremony at the start of her medical school program in January 2011. (Photo courtesy Johnson/Changing Lives Press)

Shari Johnson hasn’t thought much about Mother’s Day.

“I really haven’t thought that far ahead,” the long-time Odessa, Texas, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and conservative Evangelical Christian says by phone from her home. “[My children] pretty much call me if they’re available but I try not to put a whole lot of that unrealized expectation into things. They have their own lives and their own spouses so it’s about them and that’s how it should be and it works for us.”

Johnson might not be thinking much about being a mom this weekend but it’s a topic she’s thought about intently in recent years. Her first book “Above All Things,” published through her daughter Cholene Espinoza’s Changing Lives Press, comes out May 21 and tells of Johnson’s nearly decade-long journey from the time Cholene came out to her by phone as a lesbian in July 2002, to Johnson’s status now as a PFLAG mom (she started a chapter of the gay-affirming group in Odessa) who has retained her faith in the process (order the book here).

The book tells extensively of Johnson’s (a former dental hygienist) rocky early life, her born-again experience in 1971 after two failed marriages, the black-and-white world view that developed out of years of going to Evangelical churches and the painful journey that came from not only accepting her daughter being gay, but the extensive ramifications it had on every aspect of her life.

Though her prayer had initially been that Cholene — an overachiever pilot with years of Air Force and commercial flying under her belt who’s now in medical school — would “be delivered” from homosexuality, Johnson now sees the experience as a catalyst for a radical adjustment to her faith and overall world view. She credits God with her change of heart and writes several times in the book of experiences where she feels the Lord was speaking to her.

“I kept praying that God would change my daughter but I’m the one who ended up being changed,” Johnson writes. “Prior to this time, I thought I had all the answers. Now I’m not even sure that I understand the questions. I viewed life as being either black or white, there was no gray. I avoided anyone who didn’t think as I did. I was a ‘my-mind-is-made-up-don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts’-type of person.”

But Johnson’s views began to evolve as she realized her daughter’s 2004 marriage to White House correspondent Ellen Ratner was bringing an unfairly different reaction than it would have had she been marrying a man, the hypocrisy she says Christians often exhibit when talking of the supposed sin of homosexuality compared to most other sins (of which Johnson says they often given themselves a “free pass”), and the realization that nobody (especially a Christian) would choose a gay orientation for themselves. These epiphanies had life-changing effects on her.

After years of study and thought, Johnson believes centuries of anti-gay preaching in Christian churches of most varieties comes down to mistakes in scriptural interpretation.

“If we believe that homosexuality is not a choice, then we have to either believe that God is cruel to have played this terrible trick on people and not the loving God we think he is (and that would be a God I could not serve),” she writes in the book. “Or there has to be a mistake in interpreting the scriptures. I chose to believe the latter.”

Though initially highly skeptical, Johnson feels the Lord brought her to a place where she was able to consider that she may have been wrong before.

“I always thought I had sought the will of God in my life before but I realize now what I had often been doing was going to him with my plan and then leaving before I got an answer,” she says. “If people are truly seeking, and all I’m asking people to do is consider that we could be wrong on the way some of these scriptures have been interpreted over the years, but when I finally got around to reading what some of these writers were saying — and I avoided even reading this stuff for the longest time — I realized I needed to start thinking for myself and not just keep blindly repeating what someone else had told me.”

Johnson credits the writings of Rev. Paula Jackson and her work “What Does the Bible Say About Being Gay? — Probably Not What You’ve Been Told,” with helping her expand her theological horizons. That Jackson didn’t write in a “histrionic, blasphemous, in-your-face” manner that “didn’t disregard my point of view,” resonated with Johnson.

“She just presented the facts and lets the reader come to his or her own conclusions,” Johnson writes. “The entire study boils down to this one question: What if we’re wrong?”

Espinoza, who eventually hopes to work as a doctor with Ratner in South Sudan, says it’s important for gay Christians to follow the example of Christ rather than get sidelined in what she and her mother now feel is misconstrued anti-gay theology.

“Christ did not have anything to say about homosexuality but he had a lot to say about love, honor and respect,” she wrote in an e-mail to the Blade. “If we are loving, honorable and respectful in our relationships, I think that reduces a lot of the guilt and self loathing in our heads. We need to separate those who condemn us from the message of love and reconciliation, the message that Christ has brought to us.”

Johnson has become a staunch advocate for LGBT acceptance within Christian churches in the Odessa area. It’s led to a thorny conundrum — she’s tried sharing her story, but often leaves Bible studies and church services feeling she’s been merely placated. She’s at a point now where she can’t stomach anti-gay teaching from the pulpit and has left several churches in frustration. She says gay-welcoming churches in her part of the state are pretty much non-existent.

Johnson has lots of interesting opinions on trends in the modern church, especially with the anti-gay teaching that abounds in the Bible Belt.

She concedes there is a time, whether it’s in the political or religious realm, where it’s OK to respectfully agree to disagree.

“This whole idea of, ‘You have to see things my way,’ that’s never worked in politics, religion or anything else,” she says. “It never worked and it never will. But God gave me a big wake-up call and I would love for other people to not have to go through what I went through. That’s really why I wrote the book.”

She says it’s possible that churches with anti-gay teaching that seem to be thriving — even those led by household-name preachers like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen — might not be as blest as it appears.

“You can’t always assume that God’s blessing a church just because of the numbers,” she says. “People go to church for all sorts of reasons. And when these men have been put on the spot on national television and asked about gay issues and the whole Christian community is sort of collectively holding its breath waiting to hear what they say, they give the accepted answer, but I doubt very seriously that’s what they’re preaching from the pulpit or what they really feel in their hearts.”

But could so many religious teachers have been so wrong for so many years on gay issues? Johnson says yes.

“It’s happened since creation,” she says. “Anytime man gets involved, he manages to screw things up … Anytime there’s been a religious movement that gets started, it’s basically that person’s idea of who God is and what sin is. We tend to think we have all this figured out but you know what the Bible says about our own righteousness — it’s like filthy rags to God.”

But how does someone — especially a gay teen struggling with suicidal thoughts growing up in an Evangelical household — know whom to listen to? Aren’t there well-meaning Christians who simply believe homosexuality isn’t part of God’s plan?

Johnson says that’s where her biggest concern lies — she wants LGBT teens and young adults to have a chance to consider the possibility that their being gay isn’t the sinful curse many churches make it out to be. It’s the main reason she started her PFLAG chapter.

“I don’t have an easy answer for this but we have to have a place for kids to go and hear a different message. They’re not exposed to it at home, they have no place to hear a positive message, they’re in trouble and it has nothing to do with who they really are.”

With so many voices out there claiming to be spokesmen for God or claiming to have heard from God directly, Johnson admits absolute truth is “not always easy to discern.” She says she knows it’s God speaking when she feels compelled to go out of her comfort zone for the greater good.

“I usually know that if it’s contrary to the way I think, it’s usually God,” she says with a self-deprecating tone she uses often in the book. “I tend to line up with the other guy more often in my own thinking. But I can tell if I’m doing something for selfish reasons or whatever, it’s not of God. He does not let up. If it’s something I feel I’m supposed to do … I’m usually thinking, ‘Don’t make me do this.’ You have to learn to set aside the voice of past teaching, past thinking. … For everyone it’s different, but I feel when it’s truly God speaking, it’s a different thing and you know it.”

 

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Photos

PHOTOS: Independence Day Weekend in Rehoboth

Wicked Green Pool Party, fireworks among festivities

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A fireworks show was held in Rehoboth Beach, Del. on Saturday, July 5. (Washington Blade photo by Daniel Truitt)

Vacationers and residents alike enjoyed Independence Day Weekend activities in Rehoboth Beach, Del. The Wicked Green Pool Party drew hundreds to the CAMP Rehoboth fundraiser on Saturday. That evening, revelers went to the rooftops to watch the fireworks display.

(Washington Blade photos by Daniel Truitt)

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Music & Concerts

Red, White, and Beyoncé: Queen Bey takes Cowboy Carter to D.C. for the Fourth of July

The legendary music icon performed on July 4 and 7 to a nearly sold-out Northwest Stadium.

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Beyoncé performs on July 7. (Washington Blade photo by Joe Reberkenny)

Just in time for Independence Day, Beyoncé lit up Landover’s Commanders Field (formerly FedEx Field) with fireworks and fiery patriotism, bringing her deeply moving and genre-defying “Cowboy Carter” tour to the Washington, D.C. area.

The tour, which takes the global icon across nine cities in support of her chart-topping and Grammy-winning country album Cowboy Carter,” landed in Prince George’s County, Maryland, over the Fourth of July weekend. From the moment Beyoncé stepped on stage, it was clear this was more than just a concert — it was a reclamation.

Drawing from classic Americana, sharp political commentary, and a reimagined vision of country music, the show served as a powerful reminder of how Black Americans — especially Black women — have long been overlooked in spaces they helped create. “Cowboy Carter” released in March 2024, is the second act in Beyoncé’s genre-traversing trilogy. With it, she became the first Black woman to win a Grammy for Best Country Album and also took home the coveted Album of the Year.

The record examines the Black American experience through the lens of country music, grappling with the tension between the mythology of the American Dream and the lived realities of those historically excluded from it. That theme comes alive in the show’s opening number, “American Requiem,” where Beyoncé sings:

“Said I wouldn’t saddle up, but
If that ain’t country, tell me, what is?
Plant my bare feet on solid ground for years
They don’t, don’t know how hard I had to fight for this
When I sing my song…”

Throughout the performance, Beyoncé incorporated arresting visuals: Black cowboys on horseback, vintage American iconography, and Fox News clips criticizing her genre shift — all woven together with voiceovers from country legends like Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. The result was a multimedia masterclass in storytelling and subversion.

The “Cowboy Carter” tour has been a social media sensation for weeks, with fans scrambling for tickets, curating elaborate “cowboy couture” outfits, and tailgating under the summer sun. At Commanders Field, thousands waited in long lines for exclusive merch and even longer ones to enter the stadium — a pilgrimage that, for many, felt more like attending church than a concert.

One group out in full force for the concert was Black queer men — some rocking “denim on denim on denim on denim,” while others opted for more polished Cowboy Couture looks. The celebration of Black identity within Americana was ever-present, making the concert feel like the world’s biggest gay country-western club.

A standout moment of the night was the appearance of Beyoncé’s 13-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy Carter. Commanding the stage with poise and power, she matched the intensity and choreography of her mother and the professional dancers — a remarkable feat for someone her age and a clear sign that the Carter legacy continues to shine.

It’s been nearly two decades since Beyoncé and Destiny’s Child parted ways, and since then, she’s more than lived up to her title as the voice of a generation. With Cowboy Carter,” she’s not just making music — she’s rewriting history and reclaiming the space Black artists have always deserved in the country canon.

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a&e features

From Prohibition to Pride: Queering the District podcast reveals local LGBTQ history

The new podcast explores the hidden history and enduring impact of queer spaces in Washington, D.C.

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From left, Ellie Stuckrath and Abby Stuckrath (Photo courtesy of Queering the District Podcast)

On June 25, as Pride month inched toward its end, three queer creators launched an ambitious project to honor the spaces that built D.C.’s LGBTQ community—and connect them to today’s queer life. The first episode of their podcast, Queering the District, hit streaming platforms that day, aiming to spotlight what host and co-creator Abby Stuckrath calls “third places”: bars, clubs, and gathering spots that have served as hubs for queer life across the city.

Each episode of the 10-part series delves into a different piece of D.C.’s queer past—from landmark clubs to untold personal stories—told through the voices of drag legends, activists, DJs, historians, and patrons who lived it. The show also threads together personal experiences from today’s community, bringing the listener on an auditory journey from Prohibition-era speakeasies to contemporary nights out at places like As You Are or Saints & Sinners.

Abby Stuckrath, alongside her sibling Ellie Stuckrath, and producer Mads Reagan, make up the podcast’s creative team. A recent journalism graduate of American University, Abby told the Blade that her passion for queer storytelling began during college—and that D.C. itself played a defining role in shaping her queer identity.

“I went to American University. I graduated last year and studied journalism. When I was in school, I always wanted to focus on queer stories – especially in D.C., because I’m from Denver, Colorado, I’ve never lived in a place like this before. D.C. has always just kind of been a place I call home when it comes to my queer identity.”

But breaking into the media to tell those stories wasn’t easy. Stuckrath quickly learned that editorial support—and funding—for queer-focused projects is limited. So she decided to do it her own way.

“I kind of found out that if you want to tell stories, you kind of have to do it on your own– especially when it comes to queer stories. There’s not a lot of people begging for us to talk about queer people and to pay you for it. So I was like, ‘Okay, let’s just do it on my own.’”

The idea for the podcast first took root in conversations with Ellie, Abby’s sibling and biggest supporter. Ellie had also moved to D.C. to find more space to explore and express their queer and gender identities. Together, the two began shaping a vision that would combine storytelling, sound design, and grassroots community input.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know what exactly I want to do yet, but I want it to be queer, and I want it to be about D.C., and it’s going to be called Queering the District, and we’re going to find out what that means.’ And Ellie is my biggest supporter, and my best friend. And they were like, ‘Hell yeah. Like, let’s do this.’ And so we decided to just do it together.”

The name stuck—and so did the mission. The team began researching queer D.C. history and found a city overflowing with stories that had rarely been documented, especially in mainstream archives.

“We started looking up the history of queer culture in D.C., and it kind of just clicked from there,” Stuckrath said. “I did not know anything about how rich our history is in the city until one Google search, and then I just kept learning more and more. I was kind of pissed because I studied gender studies in school in D.C. and didn’t learn shit about this.”

Season one focuses on the role of third places—non-work, non-home spaces where queer people could gather, exist fully, and build community.

“Third places have always been the epicenter of queer life… places outside of just your own personal home, because sometimes that isn’t a safe place. And of course, the work most commonly in the past and still today, isn’t a safe place for queer people to be full of themselves. So like, bars were the first place for queer people to really thrive and meet each other.”

To make the show participatory, Queering the District includes a twist: a voicemail line where anyone can call in and share a memory or question. The team calls the phone “Fifi”—a nod to the kind of retro guestbooks often used at weddings, but reimagined for queer nightlife and history.

“We wanted to find a way for people to share their stories with us anonymously… so even though we start in Prohibition, we wanted to connect it to now—like, those people who were singing jazz to each other in a white queer bar are connected to you singing karaoke on a Sunday night at your favorite gay bar. We’re all interconnected by this third place of queer bars in D.C.”

Those connections are emotional as well as historical. While building the series, one realization hit Stuckrath particularly hard: the immense loss of queer spaces in D.C., especially in neighborhoods that have since been heavily redeveloped.

“Every time I go to a Nats game, I think about, well, this just replaced five gay bars that used to be here. It used to be the home of Ziegfeld’s… Tracks, which was almost 2,000 square feet, with a volleyball court in the back, a fire pit, and iconic light show. I just didn’t know that we had that, and it made me sad for the queer elders that are in our city now who walk the streets and don’t see all those places they used to call home.”

That sense of loss—alongside the joy and resilience of queer community—is what the show aims to capture. As the podcast continues, Abby hopes it serves as both a celebration and an educational tool, especially for young LGBTQ people arriving in D.C. without realizing the queer foundations they’re walking on.

“D.C. is a unique city, and specifically young queer people who are hoping to move to the city—to know that you’ve got to know your history to be here. I hope this serves as an easier way for you to consume and learn about queer history, because queer history defines how we move in life.”

And for all the voices still left out, Abby is clear: this podcast is an open door, not a final word.

“This is a perfectly imperfect podcast. We should just be a starting point. We shouldn’t be the ending point.”

New episodes of Queering the District drop every Wednesday on all major platforms.

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