Los Alamos church hosts Pride Month workshop on sex and gender identity

The Unitarian Church of Los Alamos is opening its Second Sunday Forum to a public workshop on sex and gender identity, a Pride Month program meant to give residents a calmer, more informed way to talk about a subject that can quickly turn heated. The forum is set for 12:15 p.m. Sunday, June 14, at 1738 North Sage Street, placing it right alongside a week of local Pride observances and adding a civic discussion to the county’s June calendar.

The program, titled Beyond the Binary: A Workshop on Sex and Gender Identity, fits the church’s stated mission to educate the public about issues affecting the community and create opportunities for exploration. Organizers describe the session as an engaging discussion of sex, gender identity, gender expression and human diversity across history, culture, science and faith traditions. The workshop is also designed to challenge common misconceptions, give attendees practical language and concepts, and make room for honest questions without judgment.

The speaker, Michael Angelo D’Arrigo, brings together faith-based and public-health perspectives that mirror the broad scope of the forum. The Human Rights Alliance of Santa Fe identifies him as a bishop in the Convergent Catholic Communion, a hospice chaplain, a current PhD candidate and an outspoken intersex activist. Its bio says he uses he/they pronouns, identifies as non-binary, moved to Santa Fe from Atlanta about a year ago and had previously worked as a queer activist in New York. D’Arrigo is also known as the Rock-and-Roll Reverend and has long made music professionally and with friends.

The timing of the workshop comes as Los Alamos County is marking June 7 through 13 as LGBTQ+ Pride Week and urging residents to respect and honor the community, build inclusiveness and acceptance, and take part in the Los Alamos Pride Festival at Central Park Square. The county set that festival for Friday, June 12, from 3 to 7 p.m., and the Los Alamos Pride Collective says the annual event has been held since 2018 and is family-friendly. The county proclamation also ties Pride observances to public health, noting higher risks of bullying and suicide attempts among LGBTQ+ youth and citing research that visible support from parents, friends and community can improve well-being. In that context, the church’s forum offers more than a lecture. It gives Los Alamos another public setting to practice the kind of informed, respectful conversation the county says it wants more of.