Sam Nordquist’s horrific murder shows increasing hatred against trans community. We must fight it | Opinion

Every single day for the last several weeks, I have heard from trans persons, or their families, or someone that loves them, that they are scared for their own safety and the safety of those they love. My heart breaks every single day for trans persons — including my own friends and colleagues who have put on a brave face but who, I know, have hearts that are breaking and stomachs that are turning.

Sam Nordquist looked for affection much like we all do. He looked to Precious Arzuaga for that affection. He traveled to meet her. The living hell that he endured at the hands of Precious and her accomplices, replete with torture that was beyond horrific and, ultimately, what I suspect was a welcomed death because of the horrors he endured, should shock us all into action or, at the very least, to introspection.

Our country has never fully understood trans people, but we were on the way to respecting and defending them despite not understanding their reality. Or, so I thought. In the last month our national “leaders” have used reprehensible rhetoric and actions to try and erase trans people — which would be cruel enough — but they have also emboldened hatred toward them in a way have never seen in all my years of ministry, giving tacit permission for persecution that I fear will only get worse.

Where are our Catholic leaders in defending the lives and dignity of our trans siblings? Sure, my parish is vocal, and our bishop is unafraid to stand with and speak out for the LGBTQ+ community, but where are all the other bishops and pastors and Catholic church communities that say they are pro-life and believe that every person is made in God’s image? Their silence is toxic, and their silence also gives tacit permission to further marginalize the 1% that is the target of hate and unimaginable cruelty in thought, word, and deed. That is the tragic reality.

I’ll never understand what it is like to be a trans person. I hold sacred their stories and believe their reality as they disclose it to me. I have no right to discount anything my trans siblings tell me about themselves or their lived reality. Instead, I have an obligation to hold their stories — and each of them, too — as sacred. Each of them, reveals the face of God to me in a way that is as mysterious as the One who created them and me.

The reports about Sam Nordquist should reveal the bloodied and tortured face of God to us. Do we believe Sam was created in the image and likeness of God?

While I’m staying clear of politics, I cannot stay clear of condemning the “leadership” that provokes and paves the way for hate and worse. I cannot stay clear of condemning every word and action, every inaction or lack of words, that perpetuates the belief that trans people — or anyone — can be treated as though their lives are worth less than other lives.

This is as close to a rant that I have ever posted. However, when the lives of people I care about and love are in the bullseye, I — and hopefully, you, too — must speak out and do whatever we can to stop attitudes and actions that are beyond evil and cry to heaven for vengeance.

I can hear my mother saying to me now, as she would when she was here, “JR, be careful—they’ll come after you.” I’d say, “Mom, I don’t care. If something happens to me, I will have left this world doing what I believed in.” She’d then say something like, “I’m proud of you. I love you.” I am my mother’s son, after all; I learned from the best.

One time, I faced a credible death threat and had to have undercover protection at an event I was doing. Even on that day I did not fear for myself like I fear for the trans community these days. I truly believe there is a daily credible threat that they face. We’ve got to do something.

Each of us. All of us.

Stan “JR” Zerkowski is the Executive Director of Fortunate Families, and a Pastoral Associate, Historic Saint Paul Catholic Church in Lexington.