Destined to Be Trans, Muslim, and Indonesian

I Leaned Into My Faith and My Queer Identity—And Gained My Family’s Acceptance in the Process

“This is my son’s taqdir,” said my father—my destiny. “If I kicked him out for being who he is, then I reject what Allah has destined for him, for my family.”

My father’s supportive words came eight years ago, when I started gender-affirming hormone therapy after being diagnosed with gender dysphoria, confirming what I had known for a long time: that deeply I have always been a man.

It is a complicated and mixed reality to be queer in Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population. But despite some conservative …

| Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Keeping the Kids’ Faith

Studies Suggest Religion Provides a Ballast Against Depression and Other Adolescent Mental Health Struggles

The school year is under way and the kids, we are told, are not all right.

America’s families are suffering through what a recent front-page story in the New York Times …

Where I Go: Praying to the Pickleball Gods | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: Praying to the Pickleball Gods

Making the Pilgrimage to Bainbridge Island Connects Fans to the Sport’s Origins and to One Another

Pickleball—an addictive mashup of tennis, badminton, and ping pong—is seemingly everywhere these days, and played by seemingly everyone.

There are now a whopping 4.8 million players in the U.S. (a number …

The 2023 Zócalo Poetry Prize Celebrates Poems of Place | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The 2023 Zócalo Poetry Prize Celebrates Poems of Place

No-Fee Contest Submissions Accepted November 2022–January 2023

Since 2012, the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize has recognized the U.S. writer of a poem that best evokes a connection to place. Zócalo is currently accepting submissions. The deadline …

The Sects That Rejected 19th-Century Sex

Why Three Religious Groups Traded Monogamy for Celibacy, Polygamy, and Complex Marriage

Disconsolate after his beloved’s marriage to another man in 1837, a young seminarian named John Humphrey Noyes declared in a bitter, anti-love poem to his ex:

I will not give you …

God Save the Capitol

How a Cold War Spiritual Arms Race Led to the Jan. 6 Plot to Overthrow the Government

“I am here by special divine appearance, a living soul,” Pauline Bauer stated in federal court this summer while standing trial for crimes including violent entry. “I do not stand …