“I loved the Church, and I loved the gospel. I was the kind of Mormon who politely dismissed myself from classrooms when teachers showed R-rated movies. At my first and only high school rager, I texted my mother to pick me up because I felt out of place amidst the drinking and smoking. That was me, Straight-Edge Dera, except apparently I wasn’t so straight.”

La Virgen de Guadalupe has always been dear in my heart and always will be, but the way I view her has changed throughout the years, through various lenses with different interpretations, including now as a queer woman.