How GOOD OMENS Gave Me Hope As A Trans College Student

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CJ Connor is simply a cozy enigma and romance writer whose main extremity successful beingness is to marque their canine proud. They are a Pitch Wars alumnus and an Author Mentor Match R9 mentor. Their debut enigma caller BOARD TO DEATH is forthcoming from Kensington Books. Twitter: @cjconnorwrites | cjconnorwrites.com

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Lately, I’ve been reasoning astir the mode the books we work signifier america and, adjacent successful fantastical settings, springiness america windows into possibilities for knowing and moving done our ain challenges. I deliberation that’s 1 of the astir meaningful things a communicative tin do, particularly for those who consciousness they’ve been enactment successful unbearable circumstances. As chaplain Vanessa Zoltan writes successful her memoir Praying with Jane Eyre: Reflections connected Reading arsenic a Sacred Practice, “A willingness to past is astir believing successful the anticipation of a amended future. Survival is astir hope.”

Good Omens, the apocalyptic satire caller by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, is 1 of those books for me. It came into my beingness erstwhile I was astatine a crossroads that I didn’t cognize however to pass. I was a assemblage pupil who had precocious travel retired arsenic a transgender man, trying to reconcile my spiritual upbringing and hunt for spiritual meaning with my queerness. I couldn’t get escaped of either; they were inherent parts of me. Yet bringing them unneurotic seemed impossible.

I attended BYU, a Mormon assemblage successful Northern Utah successful the years straight pursuing 2 queer humanities milestones, 1 fantastic and 1 terrible. Gay matrimony was legalized crossed the United States successful 2015. And respective months aft this ruling, the Latter-Day Saint religion would denote its baptism prohibition for children of LGBTQ parents (later reversed successful 2019, successful portion due to the fact that of subordinate backlash).

At this time, the queer pupil radical USGA was not allowed to clasp meetings connected campus. The fewer LGBTQ books disposable astatine the assemblage room were accessible lone connected clasp from the restricted conception — among different books with specified disturbing histories oregon subjects that it sent a connection to cheery students that they were unwelcome there.

I surely felt that way, suspicious that the lone crushed I was allowed determination astatine each was due to the fact that they hadn’t ironed retired policies to expel transgender students conscionable yet, a hunch since proven correct.

The religion I’d grown up with taught maine to admit the divine worthy successful each person, including that everyone deserved to beryllium treated with compassion. I believed that successful the deepest portion of my heart, and I inactive do. But the mode BYU medication treated its queer students was thing else. Our motives for attending the university, our faith, our morality, and our worthy arsenic quality beings were perpetually questioned.

Often it felt arsenic if I were walking a tightrope nether menace of expulsion that galore radical suspected oregon adjacent hoped I would autumn from. I conscionable felt truthful alone. I prayed a batch and I started to be enactment groups for transgender radical raised successful the church. But portion some brought maine comfort, they didn’t ever supply wide answers astir however I was to determination guardant successful the abbreviated term. I disquieted that I would marque the incorrect decision.

It was 2017 erstwhile I recovered Good Omens astatine the room — not successful the restricted section, contempt its ribbing astatine the much bureaucratic broadside of religion and its description of the quality Aziraphale arsenic appearing to beryllium “gayer than a treeful of monkeys connected nitrous oxide.”

Aziraphale is an absorbing quality — he’s an angel little funny successful bringing astir the apocalypse than caring for his antiquarian bookshop. In immoderate precise tiny way, I could subordinate to the interior struggle helium seemed to face. He had a precise circumstantial relation that he’d been trained his full beingness to fill, things helium was told helium was expected to privation without fixed a crushed why. It felt much similar bureaucratic dogma than God’s plan. And so, it didn’t ringing existent to him.

Ultimately helium finds companionship successful Crowley, different quality who is likewise an outcast and doesn’t recognize wherefore it’s his work to capable a relation that doesn’t marque consciousness to him from a cosmopolitan perspective. Hearing that the apocalypse is nigh, the 2 squad up to subvert it and, contempt some of their semi-incompetence arsenic acold arsenic their circumstantial hands successful the crippled goes, they succeed. Whatever God’s ineffable program is, it’s yet beyond some of their understandings, but it seems to align with their instincts: that determination is worth successful treating the satellite we unrecorded successful and others with compassion present alternatively of throwing everyone and everything nether the autobus with the hand-waving conception that “the satellite volition end, anyways.”

What does immoderate of this person to resonate with immoderate queer assemblage pupil trying to find their spot successful the world? For start, it made maine consciousness arsenic if I didn’t person to person each the answers present astir what I wanted my aboriginal to look like. Nobody has each of the answers. It was adjacent imaginable that I could spell my full beingness without uncovering the answers to the circumstantial questions I had.

It struck maine past that portion Aziraphale didn’t afloat recognize what his intent was successful the expansive strategy of things, helium seemed to consciousness person to knowing erstwhile helium was with those helium cared about. That year, I met different transgender students grappling with akin conflicts arsenic me. Not lone did I consciousness little alone, but I felt person to immoderate greater knowing of what matters successful beingness the much I connected with them. Life is confusing and difficult, but the closest I’ve ever gotten to an knowing of “the infinite,” truthful to speak, is erstwhile spending clip with those I emotion and doing what I tin to assistance them with their ain journeys.

A batch has happened successful my beingness since I archetypal work Good Omens six years ago. Against the odds, I finished my degree. I met idiosyncratic who loves maine for who I am, which I ne'er thought I would find, and got married. I constitute stories of my ain present that I anticipation volition bring comfortableness and escapism to radical who request it. Things aft assemblage person been confusing successful their ain ways, but I’m much contented with uncertainty than I was then. I effort to instrumentality each time arsenic it comes and, erstwhile challenges arise, bash what I judge is the close happening and larn from my mistakes. That’s each immoderate of america tin do.

Reading Good Omens didn’t resoluteness each of the conflicts I was feeling arsenic a student. That’s not truly the intent of it; arsenic I said earlier, it’s satire. Its main intent is to poke amusive and entertain, if anything. But it helped maine consciousness little unsocial successful the cognition that beauteous overmuch nary 1 understands beingness successful its entirety.

Earth is an absurd place. But by trying to dainty others kindly and recognizing that is much important than trying to lick unanswerable questions, possibly I’ll recognize astatine slightest a small much someday.

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