My guest this week is Troy Moore-Heart. Troy grew up in an Evangelical family in Texas and described his childhood self as a “true-believing born-again Christian” who was baptized by his father at 6 in his grandmother’s church. Troy experienced religious trauma, the natural childhood fears given the purported reality of a spiritual realm all around him. Later in life, when he acknowledged his sexuality he “fervently believed [he] was going to hell.” When he eventually came out to his family he needed to put up healthy boundaries.

It’s hard to be in relationships with people who think you’re going to Hell.

Troy started to call himself an agnostic and not an atheist for fear of losing his relationship with his family. After marrying as an adult, he came to terms with his religious trauma and anti-queer shame. He discovered secular humanism as “an ideological and moral home.”

We don’t need to believe in any supernatural deity or god
or interventionist all powerful being
to believe that we must be kind and moral.

Today, troy calls himself a progressive humanist, and he is focused on transformative justice. He is becoming a humanist celebrant. He supports projects like the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Y’all Means All and the Trevor Project. Troy also supports the thriving secular therapy community that is growing around trauma-informed therapy, including the Religious Trauma Institute and the Reclamation Collective.

My personal motto is:
Do no harm but take no shit
and work for peace and justice.
For me that is humanism.

Troy requests that you consider signing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Y’all Means All” pledge. “It’s become a galvanizing slogan to promote LGBTQ inclusion and advocacy in rural Southern communities.”

Links

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/troy.moore.heart/

Y’all Means All
http://www.yallmeansall.com

The Trevor Project
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/

Religious Trauma Institute
https://www.religioustraumainstitute.com/

Reclamation Collective
https://www.reclamationcollective.com/

American Humanist Association
https://americanhumanist.org/

Interact

Deconversion How To
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Interview with Brian Peck
https://gracefulatheist.com/2019/11/14/brian-peck-room-to-thrive/

Interview with Sasha Sagan
https://gracefulatheist.com/2020/02/06/sasha-sagan-for-small-creatures-such-as-we/

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Attribution

“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats