Whiplash with Maxwell Kuzma

Leah Raidt joins me for a deeply personal conversation about Catholicism, embodiment, gender, spirituality, and the search for aliveness within religious practice. Leah serves to uplift and advance LGBTQ+ artists and narratives toward collective liberation through meditation, facilitation, filmmaking, poetry, performance, producing, and presence. Together, we explore what happens when spirituality moves beyond performance and certainty and becomes something rooted in mystery, discernment, and relationship.

Throughout the episode, we reflect on growing up in Catholic culture, the pressure to suppress intuition in favor of rigid expectations, and the tension between inherited religion and lived experience. Leah shares how Catholicism became a kind of friction that sharpened their discernment, while I speak about navigating faith as a transgender Catholic trying to reconcile what I was taught spiritually with what I knew in my body. This conversation explores paradox, embodiment, and the possibility of a spirituality that reconnects people to themselves rather than teaching them to disappear.

Links to find out more about Leah Raidt: https://linktr.ee/lraidt

In this episode of Whiplash, Max speaks with Sister Luisa Derouen about her more than 26 years accompanying transgender Catholics through questions of faith, conscience, identity, and belonging. Long before transgender issues became part of mainstream Catholic discourse, Luisa was quietly offering spiritual support to trans people wrestling with isolation, shame, fear, and the feeling that they had to choose between authenticity and God. Their conversation explores accompaniment, mercy, Vatican II spirituality, and what it means to affirm the dignity of transgender people within the life of the Church.

Listeners are also encouraged to read the powerful Outreach profile “No Body Now But Yours” as well as “Trans ally, Catholic nun: Sister Luisa Derouen’s 26-Year mission of quiet resistance” by Leah Raidt from Queer Kentucky, both of which offer a deeper look into Luisa’s decades of ministry and advocacy. While much work remains to be done for transgender Catholics, Luisa’s presence has meant that countless people did not have to navigate that struggle alone. This episode reflects on the spiritual importance of being seen, accompanied, and reminded that there is nothing inherently incompatible between being transgender and being loved by God.

https://outreach.faith/2024/08/no-body-now-but-yours/https://queerkentucky.com/trans-ally-catholic-nun-sister-luisa-derouens-26-year-mission-of-quiet-resistance/

This week on Whiplash, Max sits down with J.E. Reich—a Jewish, queer, and nonbinary journalist, editor, and writer—for a conversation that stretches beyond a single tradition and into deeper questions of gender, theology, and lived experience. Together, they explore what it means to encounter another religious framework not as a threat, but as an invitation: to rethink assumptions, to expand imagination, and to take seriously the histories of communities who have been engaging questions of gender and embodiment for far longer than many contemporary Christian spaces.

The episode also reflects on J.E.’s powerful writing about the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the enduring strength of Jewish communal life in the face of violence, alongside a broader discussion of how Jewish texts—from the Talmud to later rabbinic interpretation—approach gender with nuance and complexity. From the recognition of multiple gender categories to interpretive traditions that center intention and authenticity, this conversation offers a compelling look at what becomes possible when we learn across traditions.

Resources mentioned:

J.E. Reich, “Inside the Tree of Life Congregation, the Prayer for the Dead Brings Hope” (Vanity Fair) - https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/10/inside-the-tree-of-life-congregation-the-prayer-for-the-dead-brings-hope

Myles H. Aronowitz, “The Seven Genders in the Talmud” - https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-eight-genders-in-the-talmud/

Joy Ladin, “What Does the Torah Really Say about Cross-Dressing?” - https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/what-does-the-torah-really-say-about-cross-dressing/

Emma and I start this episode by catching up and talking through Pope Leo’s recent comments on sexual morality—what was said, what it reflects, and how it continues to shape the way LGBTQ people are understood in the life of the Church. Rather than just reacting, we sit with what these conversations do: how they draw boundaries, reinforce certain narratives, and leave others out.

From there, Emma brings in her work on archiving LGBTQ histories, offering a perspective that widens the frame. Through three historical figures, we explore what it means to see ourselves as part of a much longer story—one that challenges the idea that LGBTQ people are new, marginal, or outside the tradition. It’s a conversation about memory, erasure, and how history can change the way we understand the present.

At nearly 70 years old, Christine Zuba’s story offers a powerful and rarely heard witness. She transitioned just 11 years ago after decades of lived experience, becoming an active voice in transgender Catholic advocacy. A lifelong Catholic, she serves as a Eucharistic Minister at Saints Peter & Paul Church in Turnersville, New Jersey, helps lead her parish’s LGBTQ+ ministry Together In Prayer, and participates in similar ministries across the region. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Fortunate Families, supporting LGBTQ+ Catholics and their loved ones.

Together, Max and Christine reflect on what it means to come into one’s truth later in life, the spiritual and emotional journey of transition, and the unexpected joy that can unfold on the other side. They also compare notes on their experiences meeting Pope Francis. This conversation highlights the importance of trans elders in communities of faith—stories that offer not only resilience, but a vision of what is possible.

Longtime listeners of Whiplash and readers of my work will likely recognize much of what I share in this episode. I’ve written and spoken about pieces of my story over the years, across essays, podcasts, and conversations. But I wanted to create a single episode that brings those threads together in one place, especially for those who may be newer to my work or hearing my story for the first time.

Today’s episode is exactly that: a more consolidated, reflective look at my journey of transgender experience. I move through some of the most common questions I receive and challenge all of us to think more deeply about the body, faith, and what it means to come into alignment with yourself in a world that doesn’t always give you the language to do so.

Bishop Barron is in the news again, and as usual, it’s complicated. In this episode of Whiplash, I respond to his recent Word on Fire video "The Suffocating Warmth of Marxist Collectivism," examining the claims he makes about collective responsibility, freedom, and economic ideology. I dig into how Catholic social teaching intersects with contemporary economic realities, from industrial-era labor struggles to today’s precarious employment and widening wealth gaps. Along the way, we explore how liberation—far from being threatening—is actually about expanding human dignity and creating conditions where more people can thrive.

This episode also takes a broader look at Barron’s public rhetoric, including his appearances in partisan media and commentary on Western civilization. I reflect on the tension between theology and politics, the role of liturgical language in framing social authority, and the ways moral imagination can help us see beyond ideological extremes. Ultimately, this episode asks: what does true liberation look like when it centers human flourishing instead of rigid ideologies?

Masculinity is often shaped less by attraction to women than by the recognition men seek from other men. Using the public reaction to Timothée Chalamet and the online discourse around “twink death” as a starting point, this episode explores the concept of homosociality and the powerful role status plays in shaping male identity. Drawing on sociology, pop culture, and media analysis, we examine how masculinity is often performed through signals meant to earn legitimacy within male peer groups, influencing everything from aesthetics to career choices to public personas.

The episode also challenges common myths about testosterone, highlighting research suggesting that testosterone does not simply produce aggression but can also reinforce bonding, cooperation, and relational commitment depending on the surrounding cultural incentives. Through the lens of transgender experience and reflections on gender essentialism in Catholic culture, this conversation asks what healthier masculinity could look like if status were more strongly associated with care, integrity, emotional maturity, and responsibility rather than dominance or performance.

Resources & References

• Zhang, Jenny – Timothée Chalamet’s twink death

• Weber, Max – theories of class, status, and power

• Ridgeway, Cecilia – Status: Why Is It Everywhere? Why Does It Matter?

• Imara, Mariam – Homosociality – Or: How I found a name for the thing I want to smash and it’s not „the patriarchy“

• The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences – The Significance of Status: What It Is and How It Shapes Inequality

• Barnard College – Break This Down: The Social Myth of Testosterone

• Jordan-Young, Rebecca & Karkazis, Katrina – Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography

• Petric, Kalcounis-Rueppell, & Marler (2022) – testosterone and pair bonding study in monogamous mice

• McBee, Thomas Page – Man Alive and Amateur

• Kearns, Shannon – No One Taught Me to Be a Man

• Green, Jamison – Becoming a Visible Man

• Commentary by Derek Guy on masculinity aesthetics in media

• Ezra Klein in conversation with Anand Giridharadas, who discusses the status issues at play with the Epstein Files

Across the United States, a growing wave of laws is targeting transgender people—restricting access to medical care, limiting legal recognition, and threatening basic rights in everyday life. At the same time, some Catholic leaders are increasingly portraying transgender identities and legal recognition of trans people as threats to religious liberty. When a principle meant to safeguard conscience is used to justify policies that harm vulnerable communities, it raises urgent moral and theological questions about what religious freedom is actually meant to protect.

This episode examines the U.S. bishops’ 2026 Annual Report on Religious Liberty and the broader political and legal landscape surrounding it. Looking at recent court decisions, federal and state policies, and the Church’s own language about “gender ideology,” I explore how religious liberty is being reframed in ways that directly impact transgender people. I also ask a deeper question for Catholics today: whether this use of religious freedom reflects the spirit of Catholic teaching—or distorts it in ways that undermine human dignity.

Additional reading: https://maxwellkuzma.substack.com/p/two-errors-catholics-make-about-gender

What happens when Catholic theology begins not with abstract debates about transgender people, but with the lived experience of transgender embodiment itself? In this conversation, Max Kuzma sits down with his friend Maddie Marlett to explore what it means to encounter Christ through transition, embodiment, and the lifelong process of becoming. Rather than treating trans lives as distant questions to be analyzed, this discussion centers the spiritual and theological insights that emerge from actually living as a trans Catholic.

Maddie shares her journey growing up Catholic, how her understanding of God evolved through transition, and the role that supportive community—especially through DignityUSA—played in sustaining her faith. Together, Max and Maddie reflect on themes at the heart of Christian theology—incarnation, sacramentality, death and rebirth—and consider how transgender lives might illuminate, rather than threaten, the church’s understanding of the body and the mystery of God’s presence within it.