Ben Them, day 25 of the 40 days of Lent. If we were doing Advent this would be Christmas, and we’d be done by now! Factoring in the reality of Sunday, Day 1 of Lent was actually 28 days ago, on Ash Wednesday. We’ve been going for a full February’s length, four weeks, the length of a moon, a menstrual cycle, or the usual gap between Doctor Who Magazines. It’s been running since 1979, you know.

But it’s not Christmas! Or, probably not. No stockings, but let’s pause and take stock. We’re 28 audio segments in, but I never really gave the thing a proper introduction. Not this year, anyway. What actually is this daily audio telepress, and why?

Let me sketch the seeds. It started last year, when I finally mentioned to my parents that I was taking estrogen. This had been extremely obvious to them and to everyone for a long time, but I’d really held off the conversation. I was out as trans/non-binary, but it was the first time I was open about taking my body in directions.

Suddenly I had no major secrets, or none that mattered. The seal was broken on my personal taboo. Lent came, and I decided to launch an audio thing that isn’t a podcast and isn’t a blog, which could talk about the two significant factors of my life that I think about a lot but rarely talk about - and that I know quite a lot about but feel I’ve suppressed for a mix of reasons, first, Christianity, my Christian faith, prayer life, and the contents of the Bible - which I hold to actually be interesting, as well as true — and my non-binary gender, and place in the brightly-saturated middle of the trans spectrum - assuming the spectrum resembles the flag.

It might not seem an obvious combination of topics, non-binarism and Christianity, but that was the real reason I was keen to make it. I once made a double-concept album where every track was both about cheese and about Doctor Who, so I knew you could run two things together and find something worth finding in the overlap. Besides, it was a relief to me to gradually discover ways in which my self - my non-binary identity that came as part of my fleshly birth - was not actually in conflict with my faith - any more than someone’s shortness or masculinity or Frenchness would necessarily clash with their being kind or human. I’ll lay that out again: there are a lot in Christianity, and I suspect in most organised religions who take umbrage with the idea of anyone daring to be born trans — and I do understand it to be as innate as that — and largely as a result of that, a lot of trans people who automatically count Christianity an opponent, a persecutor and a monster, and shun any kind of church because they expect to be met with heightened disgust. But since I have a foot in both camps — indeed, I have my whole body in both categories, I wanted to stand in the middle and do something approachable.

I wanted to make something in the middle, which was trans at times and Christian at times, and optimally plenty of both simultaneously, both to make a shared, crossover place for discussion - I do try to look at things from a few sides, to the extent that I can — and because I really find both things very interesting topics. So there it is. 40 days of gender and faith, and Sundays.

And I called it ‘Ben-Them’ quite reluctantly. It’s like ‘Ben-Hur: a Tale of the Christ’, which is a New Testament fan-fiction novel/movie, but which really sounds like a name and pronoun. I didn’t especially want to name this podcast thing after myself, which seemed vulgar, but finding a slightly gender- or identity- or anything-sounding Bible verse which isn’t already a podcast title is nigh impossible! Besides, a lot of this has turned out to be very personal.

That’s what this all is. At some points I worry I neglect the trans angle. At others, I worry my Bible readings are all surface, or out of context. Ben-Them isn’t the thing I dreamed it to be, but it’s close, and I hope it’s helpful, or edifying, or draws you nearer to some of these subjects. The 25th day of Lent is not Christmas, except maybe in our hearts. So enjoy your innards, and any cardiovascular festivities.