Many of us are familiar with The Brick Bible, retellings of Bible stories using Lego bricks. The author made a stunning announcement on facebook today.
I have chosen today, the Transgender Day of Visibility to officially introduce myself to the world as a transgender woman. Earlier this month my name was legally changed from Brendan Powell Smith to Elbe Spurling, and my gender legally recognized as female. Some of you may be wondering why I would choose to publicize this personal information, and the answer is this:
Transgender people face an uphill battle for equal treatment and protection of their rights. In our society today there are many unkind prejudices and dehumanizing biases against transgender people that go unchallenged. When we transgender individuals hide ourselves, it plays into the hands of those who dislike us and seek to spread fear of us. It leaves such people’s negative and hostile image of us as the only image of ourselves that the general population sees. The point of the Transgender Day of Visibility is to combat that image by presenting ourselves as we are.
So, hello. I’m Elbe Spurling, a blue-haired transgender, lesbian, atheist artist and author of LEGO-illustrated religion and history books. I’m also a nice person trying to do some good in the world while I’m around.
I am very fortunate. Compared to the vast majority of transgender people, my life circumstances are such that my transition has been relatively easy so far. My family and friends have been entirely supportive and loving. The amount of resistance and harassment I have received from others to date has been minimal. I realize that coming out may change all that. It still feels like the right thing to do.
41% of people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming have attempted suicide sometime in their lives. That’s nearly nine times the national average. Out of those who had been turned away by a doctor because they were transgender or gender-nonconforming, 60% had attempted suicide sometime in their lives. If my coming out can do anything to shift society’s baseline of tolerance toward greater compassion and love, if it can broaden people’s minds about what they think of when they think of transgender people, if it can offer a smidgen more hope to transgender people despairing that they can never lead a happy, successful life, then my coming out feels completely worth it and right.
There are close-minded people out there who have already made claims that because I am an atheist, I must therefore be morally evil, cruel, and/or in league with the Devil (don’t believe me? read the reviews of my books on Amazon). Coming out as also transgender probably isn’t going to win me any new friends among this set. I’m not sure anything I can do would change the minds of people whose thinking is so set in its ways. But for everyone else, I ask that you extend to me and other transgender people the same benefit of the doubt you’d offer any other group of people–that we are kind, decent human beings unless our individual actions show otherwise.
I will likely continue to publish books under the name Brendan Powell Smith since it has become something of a marketable brand. Moreover, (unlike some who transition) I feel a full sense of continuity with my past identity. But in just about all other cases in my life, I will be going by my newly updated legal name and gender, and I will not be keeping my identity a secret. http://brendanpowellsmith.com/ will now redirect to http://elbespurling.com/ Thank you for your attention in this matter and for your continued fandom and support of my creative projects./p>
You can read more about her at ElbeSpurling.com.
Oh, and what was stunning about that announcement? A whole lot of people in the facebook comments are shocked that Elbe is…an atheist! Here’s one example:
How does one who does not believe in God, write and edit books about God? I was just about to buy your brick testiment books but now that I know you don’t believe in God, I won’t . Your life choices are yours, just like mine are, we will all one day stand before the throne of God and give account to Him, for He will judge the hearts of mankind alone. Just dissapointed that bout the athiest part, since your job its basically about testifying and depicting God and Bible History in legos. Kinda contradictory and a conflict of interest don’t you think. Otherwise, your brilliant and materful in your craft, God Bless.
How very strange. How could you have not read the Brick Bible and seen that it was revealing the perversity and awfulness of the Bible?
I normally don’t read the comments, but it can be difficult not to at least take a peek. What has been interesting with the FB post is that people are more freaked out about her coming out as an atheist than about her coming out as trans.
But being a believer in the bible isn’t a conflict of interest?
I guess if it makes you accept their god, it doesn’t count as bias. After all, they know they’re right, and so they can’t be biased. The logic is inescapable.
Well, if you don’t see anything wrong with the original*…
*By which I mean any number of different but related works derived from various permutations of overlapping sets of source texts – I’m pretty sure most of us here know there is no such thing as “The Christian Bible”, nor is there a single, “original” authoritative collection of the various source texts. On a tangent, the same is true of Shakespeare’s plays, though the First Folio is often considered to be an informally-authoritative set.
My guess is that, folks see what they’re invested in. If you are a member of the Abrahamic religions, you come in with the conception that every part of the Bible must have some spiritual value, so you’re prone to rationalizing the ugly, boring or just plain weird passages. If you aren’t, you can go ‘this is effed up’.
Go Elbe! I found the Brick Testament site as a 13 year old(when it was still fairly new I think) and it was the first I had heard of the really messed up stuff in the Bible(my CoE primary school was rather selective with the stories they taught us during assembly). I got told off at my secondary school for showing the stories to other kids on the Library computers because even the Librarian didn’t realise they were real Bible stories at first. She thought I was on some kind of weird lego porn website, haha. I’ve been a huge fan ever since and, while I never really took Bible stories seriously, The Brick Testament certainly helped put things into perspective for young me. I wish her well x
On a similar note, an artist I’ve been following for around the same amount of time came out as transgender earlier this month. I was just super happy to read that she feels like she has a future(in her own words) now. http://mooncalfe.deviantart.com/journal/coming-out-518500236
Seriously though, go read her Glory reboot comic right now. It’s so flipping good and a massive testament to the artist that she could help make something so awesome from what was originally a Rob Liefeld creation. Behold:
http://www.thecomicarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Glory_.jpg
https://houseofflyingscalpels.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/glory-monstor.jpg
So Reza Aslan, Muslim Bible scholar, would blow this Christian’s mind, huh?
Also, they probably have never seen the many, many apologetics books written by Christians about how all other gods that they don’t believe in are fake or evil or demons. You know, the books they sell for personal profit?
You don’t get what an atheist is, do you…
Really? Oh shit, I guess only fairy tale believers should illustrate fairy tales, and people who think Star Wars is real are the only ones who should create Star Wars art. Otherwise, total conflict of interest.
JJ Abrams, do you believe in the Force? TESTIFY!
How does one who does not believe in God, write and edit books about God?
How does anyone go to seminary, learn how “the word” was assembled and edited, and then go out and preach it?
See, I don’t think it quite does that. There are many atheist-made books that center around the atrocities in the Bible. But the Brick Bible pretty much just presents the Bible as is. It doesn’t go out of its way to avoid the nasty bits. And that’s what makes it different than most Christian resources.
I haven’t read the Brick Bible, but it sounds like it’s the more “atrocity-free” version versus the Brick Testament.
From the About page:
Does this question only apply to the subject of God, or does it universally apply? If one thinks Gandalf is a fairytale sorcerer one must never write any stories about him, nor make a movie about him? So approaching one story as material to be translated into another medium, is disallowed, unless one believes the original is absolute Truth? I think Hollywood would have some issues with that.
oh, LOTR is explicitly fiction, so my analogy is invalid. But my question remains: one can only translate a work into another medium when one absolutely believes the original is absolutely truth?
~~~~
I noticed (of course) the common misspelling, “athiest“.
<snark> I’m ever more athier than Elbe. </snark>
I visited the site, watched the video of the studio and… and I’m appalled—how can she use an evil Canon rather than a righteous Nikon like a normal person?
Dare I hope that we’re beyond caring about a person changing their public gender?
Progress, for sure.
Here we go again!
As someone who uses a pic from the Brick Testament as my avatar, I’m honestly stunned and shocked that someone could think it’s a serious treatment of a religious text. It is, however, where I learned my favorite bible story: Jesus and the fig tree.
Also, I love the facebook comment: You can’t write about the bible without believing in it, but your brilliant and masterful.
Abel was I ere I saw Elbe? ^_^
March 31 is Transgender Day of Visibility? I didn’t know that.
Then I’ll stand up and be counted, I identify as both genders. I’ve been dressing and going public part time for over a month and love it. I haven’t been this happy since I came out as bisexual (now pan-) in the 1990s.
I certainly didn’t.
I can’t help but wonder if some people end up pretending to out themselves as trans on April Fool’s Day knowing this, and I worry about bigotry being involved in the humor.
The Brick Testament has been my favourite Bible version since I first encountered it. I recall when the print version first came out I was amused to see several reviews on Amazon in which people gave stern warnings about how unsuitable the book was for kids (because Elbe Spurling just illustrated the actual text, instead of the usual sanitization/elisions that one sees in most children’s bibles)
As for being “beyond caring about a person changing their public gender” I would agree that we should be beyond caring about what a person’s gender *is* (for just about any determination/decision that I can think of). On the other hand, I think it is still worthwhile recognizing the courage and acknowledging the personal accomplishment when someone comes out to proudly claim a gender that differs from their previously assigned gender.
Um, does this person think that all writers of fiction believe their characters exist?
Like this?
And therein lies the answer to your question Cat: They believe their Sky-Daddy and all that boogety boo in teh Babble is for realz and shit……………………..
You just won an Internet Saad!
Well done.
Ask Bob Kane.
@7, Marcus:
Precisely. Although, depending on the seminary, you might not actually get taught that stuff.
Good for her.
Huh. OK. Go girl.
I was guessing April 1 born again Christian; it’s nice to see it’s real and much more pleasant.
“As someone who uses a pic from the Brick Testament as my avatar, I’m honestly stunned and shocked that someone could think it’s a serious treatment of a religious text. It is, however, where I learned my favorite bible story: Jesus and the fig tree.”
The anime “Flying House” brazenly took the piss out of Christianity and nobody seemed to notice. The John the Baptist episodeis a scream.
As a long time fan of The Brick Testament, I’m having a hard time understanding how anyone could see the site (and probably the books) as anything other than extremely critical of The Bible.
How does one read the whole sick book and keeps believing in God?
And kudos to Elbe. She’s really exposing herself and her business.
In the facebook comments there is also religious people being very supportive of her.
This makes me feel good.
That’s bizarre. I mean, I love the Lego Bible stuff she makes, but the depictions are so full of “blood” (i. e.transparent, red Lego nubs), ridiculous creatures “full of eyes”, the cutting of little Lego foreskins, decapitations etc.; while I didn’t know she was an Atheist, it was clear to me that she was some sort of nonbeliever (or at least non-Christian). The stuff isn’t at all sanitized. Well, apart from being Lego. Also, congratulations on making this big personal step!
Okay, so, I have a different question: Researching The Brick Bible, it seems that a number of scenes of The Brick Testament were omitted for being too graphic/too biblical. I’d really like to support her work and also get this stuff in a more physical form than just the online version, so I’d like to ask: Do any of you know of an “uncut version” available for sale as a physical copy? I did not find anything of the sort as yet.
@saganite #29: not just Lego blood and foreskins, but also Lego semen: http://www.thebricktestament.com/genesis/er_and_onan/gn38_09.html
The Brick Testament is just as X-rated as any other unexpurgated version of the Bible *ought* to be. Amusing that it took Spurling’s brilliant depictions in Lego to make some Christians realize this.
I’ve known about Brick Testament for quite a while. Never heard of Brick Bible until today. Are they the same thing? Who was first? Is it like KJB vs. NIV?
As far as I understand it, the Brick Bible is simply a printed version, a physical copy of the online content. I saw it on Amazon with the old and new testaments sold as separate books or as a bundle. But from what I read, some of the racier content from the internet version is missing in these copies and I’d prefer to buy an uncut physical version, if at all available.
@theobromine
Yes, it’s kind of funny to read the Amazon comments for instance. People get outraged how brutal, bloody, barbaric and sexually suggestive many of the depictions are. Yet – knowing the Bible Testament myself quite well – the author always puts the relevant verses in there in the appropriate context. Sure, she sometimes adds her commentary or makes fun of it, but the actual depictions are simply… what’s in there. More Christians need to read the Bible.