Arts & Entertainment
Change of heart
Texas PFLAG mom shares journey of accepting her lesbian daughter
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.”
Theater
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
Signature Theatre production runs through Jan. 25
‘Fiddler on the Roof’
Through Jan. 25
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave.
Arlington, Va.
Tickets start at $47
Sigtheatre.org
Out actor Ariel Neydavoud is deep into a three-month run playing revolutionary student Perchick in the beloved 1964 musical “Fiddler on the Roof” at Signature Theatre in Arlington. And like his previous gigs, it’s been a learning experience.
This time, he’s gleaning knowledge from celebrated gay actor Douglas Sills who’s starring as the show’s central character Tevya, a poor Jewish milkman in the fictional village of Anatevka in tsarist Russia circa 1905.
In addition to anti-Semitism and expulsion, Tevya is struggling with waning traditions in a changing world where his daughters dare suggest marrying for love. Daughter Hodel (Lily Burka) falls for Perchick, an outsider who comes to town brandishing new ideas.
And along with its compelling and humor filled storyline, “Fiddler” boasts iconic numbers like “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Tradition,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” and “Sunrise, Sunset.”
Neydavoud, born and raised as an only child in the West Los Angeles neighborhood lightheartedly referred to as Tehrangeles (due to the large Iranian-American population), has always been passionate about performing. “It’s like I came out of the womb tap dancing,” he says. Fortunately, his mother, an accomplished pianist and composer, served as built-in accompanist.
He began acting and singing at kid camps and a private Jewish middle school alongside classmate Ben Platt. In his teens, Neydavoud spent three glorious weeks at Stagedoor Manor, a well-known theater camp in Upstate New York, where he solidified his desire to pursue theater as a profession, and started to feel comfortable with being queer.
Following high school, he studied at AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy) and soon after morphed from theater student to professional actor.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Your entry into showbiz seems to have been a smooth one.
ARIEL NEYDAVOUD: I’m happy to hear it seems that way. I’d rarely describe anything about this profession as smooth; nonetheless, what I love about this work is that it gives opportunities to have so many new experiences: new shows, new parts, and new communities who come together in a moment’s notice purely for the sake of creating art.
BLADE: Tell us about Perchick.
NEYDAVOUD: He comes to Anatevka and challenges their ideals and way of life. That’s something I can relate to.
I’m Jewish on both sides, but I’m also queer, first generation American, [his mother and father are from Germany and Iran, respectively], and a person of color. I never feel like I belong to a single community. That’s what has emboldened my inner activist to speak up and challenge ideas that I don’t necessarily buy into.
BLADE: You sing beautifully. Perchick’s song is “Now I have Everything,” an Act II melody about finding love. Was it an instant fit for you?
NEYDAVOUD: Not instantly.I’m traditionally a first tenor. Perchick is baritone range, a little outside of my comfort zone. After being cast, I asked our director Joe Calarco if he would be comfortable raising the key, something they did with the recent Broadway revival. He was firm about not doing that.
As an artist I see challenges as opportunities to grow, so it’s been really good exploring my lower register.
BLADE: Audiences have commented on an intimacy surrounding this production.
TK: It’s performed in the round with a dining table at its center. It could be a sabbath or seder table, however you interpret it, but I find it a brilliant way to illustrate community and tradition.
It feels like the audience is invited to the table and join the residents of Anatevka. The show’s moments of joy like the betrothal song “To Life (L’Chaim)” are intensified, and conversely the pogrom scenes are made more difficult. It feels like we’re sharing space.
BLADE: Do your encompassing identities broaden casting possibilities for you?
NEYDAVOUD: Marketing yourself as ethnically ambiguous can be a helpful tool. After “Hamilton” and the pandemic there was more of a shift toward authenticity. I try to steer toward playing Middle Eastern, Southwest Asian, Jewish, and mixed-race characters without being too prescriptive.
BLADE: Tell us your dream roles?
NEYDAVOUD: I’d love to play the Emcee in Cabaret [often portrayed as a gender-fluid, queer-coded, or non-binary figure]. And I’d like to direct a production of “Godspell” with a fully Middle Eastern cast. I think portraying Jesus and disciples in Middle Eastern bodies as Bohemian idealists living under an oppressive regime could be especially impactful.
BLADE: Can today’s queer audiences relate to life on the shtetl?
NEYDAVOUD: As a piece, “Fiddler” is timeless. Beyond the magical score, it hits home with just about anyone who’s ever felt othered. There are relevant themes of displacement and persecution, and maintaining cultural identity in the wake of turbulence, all ideas that tend to resonate with queer people.
Books
This gay author sees dead people
‘Are You There Spirit? It’s Me, Travis’
By Travis Holp
c.2025, Spiegel and Grau
$28/240 pages
Your dad sent you a penny the other day, minted in his birth year.
They say pennies from heaven are a sign of some sort, and that makes sense: You’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. Some might scoff, but the idea that a lost loved one is trying to tell you he’s OK is comforting. So read the new book, “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis” by Travis Holp, and keep your eyes open.
Ever since he was a young boy growing up just outside Dayton, Ohio, Travis Holp wanted to be a writer. He also wanted to say that he was gay but his conservative parents believed his gayness was some sort of phase. That, and bullying made him hide who he was.
He also had to hide his nascent ability to communicate with people who had died, through an entity he calls “Spirit.” Eventually, though it left him with psychological scars and a drinking problem he’s since overcome, Holp was finally able to talk about his gayness and reveal his otherworldly ability.
Getting some people to believe that he speaks to the dead is still a tall order. Spirit helps naysayers, as well as Holp himself.
Spirit, he says, isn’t a person or an essence; Spirit is love. Spirit is a conduit of healing and energy, speaking through Holp in symbolic messages, feelings, and through synchronistic events. For example, Holp says coincidences are not coincidental; they’re ways for loved ones to convey messages of healing and energy.
To tap into your own healing Spirit, Holp says to trust yourself when you think you’ve received a healing message. Ignore your ego, but listen to your inner voice. Remember that Spirit won’t work on any fixed timeline, and its only purpose is to exist.
And keep in mind that “anything is possible because you are an unlimited being.”
You’re going to want very much to like “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis.” The cover photo of author Travis Holp will make you smile. Alas, what you’ll find in here is hard to read, not due to content but for lack of focus.
What’s inside this book is scattered and repetitious. Love, energy, healing, faith, and fear are words that are used often – so often, in fact, that many pages feel like they’ve been recycled, or like you’ve entered a time warp that moves you backward, page-wise. Yes, there are uplifting accounts of readings that Holp has done with clients here, and they’re exciting but there are too few of them. When you find them, you’ll love them. They may make you cry. They’re exactly what you need, if you grieve. Just not enough.
This isn’t a terrible book, but its audience might be narrow. It absolutely needs more stories, less sentiment; more tales, less transcendence and if that’s your aim, go elsewhere. But if your soul cries for comfort after loss, “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis” might still make sense.
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a&e features
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Ring in 2026 with drag, leather, Champagne, and more
With Christmas in the rear view mirror, we can turn our attention to ringing in a much-anticipated New Year with a slew of local LGBTQ parties. Here’s what’s on tap.
Pitchers
This spacious Adams Morgan bar is hosting the “Pitchers’ Perfect New Year’s Eve.” There will be a midnight Champagne toast, the ball drop on the big screens, and no cover, all night long. The bar doesn’t close until 4 a.m., and the kitchen will be open late (though not until close). All five floors will be open for the party, and party favors are promised.
Trade
D.C.’s hottest bar/club combo is leaning into the Shark motif with its NYE party, “Feeding Frenzy.” The party is a “glitterati-infused Naughty-cal New Year’s Even in the Shark Tank, where the boats are churning and the sharks are circling.” Trade also boasts no cover charge, with doors opening at 5 p.m. and the aforementioned Shark Tank opening at 9 p.m.. Four DJs will be spread across the two spaces; midnight hostess is played by Vagenesis and the two sea sirens sensuously calling are Anathema and Justin Williams.
Number Nine
While Trade will have two DJs as part of one party, Number Nine will host two separate parties, one on each floor. The first floor is classic Number Nine, a more casual-style event with the countdown on TVs and a Champagne midnight toast. There will be no cover and doors open at 5 p.m. Upstairs will be hosted by Capital Sapphics for its second annual NYE gathering. Tickets (about $50) include a midnight Champagne toast, curated drink menu, sapphic DJ set by Rijak, and tarot readings by Yooji.
Crush
Crush will kick off NYE with a free drag bingo at 8 p.m. for the early birds. Post-bingo, there will be a cover for the rest of the evening, featuring two DJs. The cover ($20 limited pre-sale that includes line skip until 11 p.m.; $25 at the door after 9 p.m.) includes one free N/A or Crush, a Champagne toast, and party favors (“the legal kind”). More details on Eventbrite.
Bunker
This subterranean lair is hosting a NYE party entitled “Frosted & Fur: Aspen After Dark New Year’s Eve Celebration.” Arriety from Rupaul Season 15 is set to host, with International DJ Alex Lo. Doors open at 9 p.m. and close at 3 p.m.; there is a midnight Champagne toast. Cover is $25, plus an optional $99 all-you-can-drink package.
District Eagle
This leather-focused bar is hosting “Bulge” for its NYE party. Each District Eagle floor will have its own music and vibe. Doors run from 7 p.m.-3 a.m. and cover is $15. There will be a Champagne toast at midnight, as well as drink specials during the event.
Kiki, Shakiki
Kiki and its new sister bar program Shakiki (in the old Shakers space) will have the same type of party on New Year’s Eve. Both bars open their doors at 5 p.m. and stay open until closing time. Both will offer a Champagne toast at midnight. At Kiki, DJ Vodkatrina will play; at Shakiki, it’ll be DJ Alex Love. Kiki keeps the party going on New Year’s Day, opening at 2 p.m., to celebrate Kiki’s fourth anniversary. There will be a drag show at 6 p.m. and an early 2000s dance party 4-8 p.m.
Spark
This bar and its new menu of alcoholic and twin N/A drinks will host a NYE party with music by DJ Emerald Fox. Given this menu, there will be a complimentary toast at midnight, guests can choose either sparkling wine with or without alcohol. No cover, but Spark is also offering optional wristbands at the door for $35 open bar 11 p.m.-1 a.m. (mid-shelf liquor & all NA drinks).
How to cope when a partner gives you the silent treatment
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
This gay author sees dead people
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
This gay author sees dead people
