This speech, written for the UUA’s 2025 Trans Day of Visibility event, is shared here ahead of time as an offering—an invitation to reflect, imagine, and build communities where all of us belong.
With our habits, our rituals, our blueprints.
With who we imagine into our lives—and who we forget to.
My name is Nat M. Esparza (he/they). I serve as a Southern Regional Administrator for the Unitarian Universalist Association, and I’m currently earning my Master of Arts in Religious Studies, on the path to becoming an interfaith chaplain. As a Wellstar Fellow, I’m conducting research on what it means to age and die as a trans person— work that is equal parts academic and deeply personal. I also serve as an interim board member for the LGBTQ+ Institute at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, where I help uplift and advocate for the sacred lives in our community.
From that brief bio, you can probably guess: I think a lot about systems, stories, and how we care for each other.
In short, I am a huge nerd.
One of the ways I explore those ideas is through story-rich games like Dungeons & Dragons.
Even if you’ve never played it, here’s what you need to know: at its heart, D&D is about building a world—together. A place where every person at the table matters. Where the story can’t move forward unless everyone has a role. Where imagination isn’t just encouraged—it’s how you survive.
In that way, it reminds me of our Unitarian Universalist principles—the way we commit to the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the call to justice and equity, and the invitation to build beloved community not just in theory, but in practice.
I believe imagination is a spiritual discipline—especially for those of us who’ve had to imagine ourselves into existence.
And that’s what I want to talk about today:
What happens when our communities are acts of creation—but the blueprint was never made with people like us in mind?
Who do we design for, even unconsciously?
Who do we forget?
And what does it cost to be the one always imagining your way in?
I didn’t grow up knowing what a trans man was. Not really.
The only trans stories I saw were cruel parodies. Trans women were mocked or erased. Femininity was treated like a joke. And masculinity? I was taught it could only be dominant, violent, or cold.
So I tried to be safe. Palatable. I thought if I disappeared just right, it might feel like peace.
And I’ll be honest: I was scared of trans people. Not because I hated them, but because I didn’t understand. Because no one had ever told me someone like me could be sacred. Could belong. Could be real.
It wasn’t until after my divorce—mid-twenties, heartbroken and cracked open—that I heard a whisper I could finally receive: You are a trans man. Not because I rejected the divine feminine, but because I was ready to love the divine masculine— in others, and in myself.
That was the beginning of my becoming.
But even now, most spaces weren’t built with someone like me in mind.
I’m trans. I’m autistic. I live with POTS, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and PTSD. I move through the world in a body and mind that don’t always cooperate, and systems that rarely accommodate.
Disability, for me, isn’t just physical—it’s cultural. It’s architectural. It’s spiritual.
It’s being told: You can belong here, but only if you don’t need too much.
I’ve been labeled intense. Inflexible. Over-communicative.
I’ve asked for access and been met with confusion or silence.
I’ve tried to mask my needs just to stay in the room.
And every time I’ve done that, I’ve had to let go of a little meaning.
Because that’s the cost of forgetting people in our blueprints.
We lose stories. We lose presence. We lose trust.
We make people prove they belong instead of building spaces where they just do.
Too often, we treat access as something reactive—something we implement after someone speaks up.
But that’s not care.
That’s crisis management.
Care is design.
And design is spiritual.
Every choice we make about how we gather, speak, move, and listen is a theological statement about who we expect to show up—and who we expect to carry the burden of fitting in.
Unitarian Universalism gave me a doorway back into sacred story—not by asking me to be someone I wasn’t, but by letting me bring all of who I am into the room.
After years of being told my story was sinful, fragmented, or didn’t belong, UU didn’t hand me a script. It gave me space to hold the questions. It gave me the language to name myself as sacred.
I grew up watching religion divide people like me from the holy.
But here, in this tradition, I found something different. A story that could hold transness. That could hold disability. That could hold the full complexity of being human—and still call it divine.
But it also asked me, sometimes, to disappear a little.
And I know I’m not alone.
In our congregations, exclusion doesn’t always shout.
It whispers:
“You’re so strong.”
“We’re still learning the right language.”
“I don’t see you as trans—I just see you as you.”
These words are meant to comfort.
But they often ask us to shrink.
To make our needs and identities smaller so no one else has to stretch.
And then we end up giving from empty cups.
We call it strength. We call it inclusion.
But it’s not resilience. It’s depletion.
It’s martyrdom masquerading as belonging.
Stop giving from an empty cup and calling it care.
That’s why I believe in community care.
Not as charity. Not as pity.
But as shared responsibility.
As sacred design.
Advocacy only works when we radically care for each other—and when we radically care for ourselves.
And right now, we are so tired.
The world is burning.
We are grieving.
And many of us—especially the most marginalized—are scared we won’t survive it.
But this is not the first time people have imagined their way out of erasure.
We come from people who made ways out of no way.
Who left marks in the margins when the center had no room.
Who turned survival into song, ritual, story, and uprising.
We have done this before.
And we can do it again.
So what does that look like?
What does it mean to build communities that imagine us in from the start?
Here’s what I’ve learned:
Build for difference.
Not after it’s requested—but from the start.
Access isn’t about accommodating a single diagnosis. It’s about designing space that doesn’t assume sameness.
Show up even when it’s clumsy.
Don’t wait to be perfect. Just don’t disappear.
Support local queer and disabled businesses—mechanics, cleaners, massage therapists, designers. Your money preaches too.
Create networks of care.
Rideshares. Emergency funds. Buddy systems. Flexible roles.
Let your community’s care be structured, not ad hoc.
Share your tools.
If you use an app, a checklist, a captioning service—let someone else benefit too. We’re not meant to hoard care.
Resource and trust disabled and trans leaders.
Don’t just invite us to the table—fund the damn table. Let us lead. Let us rest.
Keep learning.
Access is not a checkbox. It’s a question you return to again and again:
Who isn’t here? And why?
Because our communities are acts of creation.
Every system, every gathering, every “welcome” is a blueprint for what we believe is sacred.
So I’ll ask you again:
If our communities are acts of creation—who are we imagining into them?
And who are we leaving out?
If that question makes you uncomfortable—good. Discomfort is where change begins.
Whatever you do next, let it be real.
Let it be rooted in love.
Let it be imperfect, human, and ongoing.
Because that’s what true community care looks like.
That’s what liberation demands.
We’ve been visible. Now it’s time to be heard, to be trusted, and to shape what comes next.
In the end, we all want the same thing—
To feel less alone.
To be seen.
To know that our stories, our lives, and our futures truly matter.