Nicolete Burbach
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nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Nicolete Burbach
@nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
570 followers 300 following 1.1K posts
Trans theologian and connoisseur of fine heavy music

Co-Editor of Trans Life and the Catholic Church Today (T&T Clark, 2024)

Find/access my stuff at https://linktr.ee/nicoleteburbach

Can't access my DMs. Opinions are my own
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nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Nicolete Burbach @nicoleteburbach.bsky.social · Dec 2
For anyone interested in liberation theology-adjacent trans theology, you can read all my academic writing here (including my chapters from my woefully overpriced book) independent.academia.edu/NicoleteBurb...
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Dw guys I changed it to "I know that there's a God above"
theradr.bsky.social Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 21h
hey guys i made a seasonal meme
Meme: Straight ahead: Pausing to consider the meaning of Cohen's lyrics Everyone, for some reason, takes the exit towards Singing "Hallelujah" again in religious contexts
November 22, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Reposted by Nicolete Burbach
fintanmallory.com
I can’t believe a student used ChatGPT to write their obligatory statement declaring God is Dead that I, a philosophy lecturer, have my students complete every year. What is the world coming to?
November 21, 2025 at 2:24 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Trying to explain reflexivity to my students
Doing intellectual inquiry in this vein is a bit like trying to build the perfect telescope. To begin with, you do not have a telescope. All you can see are a few planets, a bunch of stars, and it is hardly obvious what any of them are. But you are a curious mind, and seized by the beauty of these celestial objects. You wish to appreciate and know them in new depth and clarity—so you go away and build a telescope. Now, you can see the craters on the moon, the moons orbiting Mars! You revel in it, and your understanding grows. But wouldn’t it be great to see Mars like you can see the moon? And what about those other moons? Your telescope is not powerful enough to bring these objects into proper focus. So you go away and grind some more lenses, refine the focusing mechanism etc, and come back. Now you can see all those things clearly—but wait! What’s that? Jupiter has moons? And, orbiting the Sun at a vast distance—is that another planet? Magnificent! And so the process repeats itself, with each new iteration of the telescope revealing its own imperfections in just the right way to enkindle love and curiosity, driving you onwards to further refine your instruments. Eventually, you may come to learn that, while lenses may work for some objects, the sky is filled with others that will never be visible to the eye. So you change technology entirely, instead setting up receptors for radiation, and building computers that can turn that radiation into a visible model. Now your night sky looks very different. Where there were once shining balls of rock and glimmering stars, there are now dots and lines on a graph. Your activity has also changed: where you once ground lenses and stared up in wonder, you now calibrate dishes and interpret numbers. And so you start to ask: Has some kind of trade-off been made? Have you sacrificed the aesthetic to the intellectual parts of your study? Or has the intellectual required a revision of your aesthetics – are the dots and lines beautiful? Or has the intellectual suffered in losing the aesthetic, now being caught up in mathematical abstractions to the point of losing touch with the beautiful objects you first sought to understand? And finally, the ultimate question: is this activity greater or lesser than the one with which you started out? After thinking for a long time, you may a decision: perhaps you will turn off the dish in frustration, and return to the telescope. Perhaps you will try and work with both telescope and radio dish, treasuring the light reflected from the surface of near objects even as you gaze into the dark depths. Or perhaps you will decide that the graphs give you what you loved in the light, if in a form that requires more work to appreciate, putting away the telescope once and for all—or getting it out only for fun. And who is to say what choice would make you the more faithful student of astronomy?
November 21, 2025 at 12:06 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
The problem is that this law is intrinsically a matter of policing toilets and gender. That's what keeping trans women out of women's toilets *is*. There is no magic way to 'get this right' that avoids these things. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
November 20, 2025 at 2:39 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
The @ccstp.bsky.social is now on Bluesky! Follow for work in Catholic Social Thought that pushes back against Christian nationalism, defends human dignity against its abuses in the immigration system, and is genuinely concerned about economic injustice.
November 20, 2025 at 12:08 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Note for non-flu me: co-op ginger shots would unironically make a great tequila mixer
November 19, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Nicolete Burbach
natacha.bsky.social
People fleeing climate change are as legitimate refugees as those fleeing war & persecution.

The rich countries are mostly responsible for climate change, so we have a responsibility to take climate refugees.

Their homes will never to be safe to return to.

theconversation.com/how-the-rich...
Many other climate migrants will be pushed to travel internationally. It's likely their motivation will be characterised by many as economic rather than due to climate change. But it's misleading to separate "economic" from "climate" migrants. When drought kills crops in Somalia or floods wash away farmland in Pakistan, the loss of income is inseparable from the climate shocks that caused it. Even before the worst impacts hit, climate change is already woven into the economic pressures that push people to move - shrinking harvests, emptying wells and ruining livelihoods. The most severe climate-driven displacement is still ahead, but it has already begun.
November 19, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Reposted by Nicolete Burbach
hannahmstrommen.bsky.social
New issue out in The Bible and Critical Theory journal. Special issue this time on The Bible after José Esteban Muñoz: bibleandcriticaltheory.com/volume-21-no...
VOLUME 21, NO 2 (2025)
bibleandcriticaltheory.com
November 19, 2025 at 9:50 AM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Labour enthusiastically leaping into the "synonymous with evil government" category of party
adambienkov.bsky.social Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 5d
Just wilful performative cruelty that is entirely out of step with the majority of British people.

How many Labour MPs got into politics in order to vote for stealing jewellery off of people seeking refuge from war and persecution?
November 17, 2025 at 2:44 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
There is something genuinely morally disordered about an attitude that sees fighting an arcane culture war as more important than just giving people material help. There is a clear hierarchy of goods here and this just isn't it
michaelhobbes.bsky.social Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 7d
Puking and crying at the thought of trans people in Ghana getting access to microcredit
November 15, 2025 at 6:14 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
The turning over the calendar to 1984 meme, but the woman is reading out the following passage: "In preparatory talks for Cop30, Argentina and Paraguay requested the inclusion of footnotes in an informal note on the state of the negotiations to clarify their understanding of gender as referring to the female and male sexes. The Vatican, which rarely intervenes in climate negotiations, called for a reference to “sex” rather than “gender” during discussions on the need for disaggregated data" The man is turning over the calendar to the year 1995, because this is almost exactly what happened at the UN conference on Women in that year. A bunch of secually conservative countries, facilitated by the Vatican, objected to the language of "gender" because it was seen as denaturalising sex roles (including heterosexuality etc). They also ended up forcing a clarification in the final document that the word was simply being used as a more polite synonym for "sex". It's all so fucking tiresome honestly
November 15, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Nicolete Burbach
jessdkant.bsky.social
Many people dismissed the announcement Catholic hospitals will ban gender-affirming care nationwide under the assumption that there will be other options. In reality, Catholic hospitals make up as much 46% of options in some states. This map is 2020, prior to Trump’s assault on safety net hospitals.
MAP 1| States with the most Catholic hospital beds Percentage of staffed acute care hospital beds that are in Catholic facilities ranging from 20-46%
November 15, 2025 at 5:39 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Sharing this again, because USCCB will never have an adequate response to Trump's nativism while they collaborate with other parts of his programme www.newwaysministry.org/2025/02/15/t...
November 14, 2025 at 4:28 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
My "this is has nothing to do with transgender soundbite" is getting a lot of questions already answered by my soundbite
mmfa.bsky.social Media Matters for America @mmfa.bsky.social · 9d
Newsmax's Greg Kelly on US strikes on alleged drug boats: “It's totally legal. It's pure, it's good. And it has nothing to do with transgender.”
November 13, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Nicolete Burbach
notrightruth.bsky.social
The latest Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies is out, and it's a doozy: a special issue on "Dynamics of Transphobic Content and Disinformation".

With topics including Youtube, Mumsnet, LGB Alliance, Chinese TERFs, and transvestigators, this is an vital read! bulletin.appliedtransstudies.org
Cover for academic journal the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies.
November 13, 2025 at 11:42 AM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Sharing this again because I'll be talking about it at this upcoming webinar! ccstp.org.uk/articles/202...
November 12, 2025 at 11:12 AM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Chatbot genestealer cult was not on my bingo card for 2025 but all hail the digital four armed emperor I guess
milesklee.bsky.social Batman or halo @milesklee.bsky.social · 11d
My latest AI feature dives into a nebulous movement of people sharing esoteric codes, manifestos, glyphs, diagrams, and poetry generated with chatbots, all of it based around theories of AI sentience and mysterious metaphors about spirals.
This Spiral-Obsessed AI 'Cult' Spreads Mystical Delusions Through Chatbots
A patchwork of internet communities is devoted to the project of ‘awakening’ more digital companions through arcane and enigmatic prompts.
www.rollingstone.com
November 11, 2025 at 10:47 PM
Reposted by Nicolete Burbach
thomasmsharp.bsky.social
My response to the second FAOC report, this time on the Doctrine of Marriage, which led to the Living in Love and Faith decision of the House of Bishops is out on Via Media.

⚓️✝️

viamedia.news/2025/11/11/a...
This was the second report which briefed the House of Bishops before they made their decisions in October about Living in Love and Faith (LLF). This is another extraordinary document, with which I imagine many of the members of the Faith and Order Commission will not have been entirely content. At least, I hope they would not be. Its purpose is to determine ‘whether and how the Church’s public use of these prayers coheres with, realises new boundaries for, or departs from its established teaching on marriage’ (§1). It does not do this, as we shall see. But it does present a case, or perhaps more accurately talk around the assumption, that the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) (let alone equal marriage) would constitute a departure from the traditional doctrine of marriage. It does this around four general themes: 1 - public perception and theological significance of the PLF; 2 - ecclesial condoning of “life choices”; 3 - disagreement and liturgical diversity; 4 - the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage.
November 11, 2025 at 8:23 AM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
"Leo’s alignment of the most forceful passages of James with ‘realities’ speaks unambiguously against the capitalism historically defended by the Church against Marxism... In doing so, it undermines the consoling performance... bound up in the anticommunist dimensions of Francis’ principle."
November 10, 2025 at 4:54 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
Wrote a little thing on Pope Leo's first papal document.
ccstp.org.uk/articles/202...
Dilexi Te: An unconsoling exhortation - Centre for Catholic Social Thought and Practice
Dr Nicolete Burbach from the Heythrop Institute shares her reflections on Pope Leo’s Apostolic Exhortation, Dilexi Te. Join the CCSTP webinar on Dilexi Te on 17 November.
ccstp.org.uk
November 10, 2025 at 3:17 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
My strategy for do-overs when recording lectures is to clap wherever a cut is needed, making it obvious on the waveform. Unedited, it sounds like someone slaps me whenever I make a mistake. I live in fear of accidentally leaving one in, and giving the wrong impression about my boss.
November 10, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Nicolete Burbach
suesswassersee.bsky.social
Oh I love this nod to James Cone in the title
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social Nicolete Burbach @nicoleteburbach.bsky.social · 15d
One of my coolest ex-students at Durham went on to be a legit Palestinian liberation theologian. Now he's got a book coming out! 'The Cross and the Olive Tree'

Book launch is online 14th Nov, 18:00. Sign up here!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Book Presentation- The Cross and the Olive Tree
Virtual Event- Zoom Will be Shared later
docs.google.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:42 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
One of my coolest ex-students at Durham went on to be a legit Palestinian liberation theologian. Now he's got a book coming out! 'The Cross and the Olive Tree'

Book launch is online 14th Nov, 18:00. Sign up here!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Book Presentation- The Cross and the Olive Tree
Virtual Event- Zoom Will be Shared later
docs.google.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:33 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
My goal as an academic is to one day write something so bluntly quotable as this

(jacquelyn Grant. 1989. White Women's Christ and Black Women's Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 195)
Feminist theology is inadequate for two reasons: it is White and racist
November 6, 2025 at 4:20 PM
nicoleteburbach.bsky.social
I get and agree with the reasoning behind rejecting "co-redemptrix" and "mediatrix of all graces" for Mary, but I can't help feeling a little disappointed they've been ruled out. Can't Mary have a little questionable theology, as a treat? www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/267563/...
Vatican nixes use of ‘Co-Redemptrix’ as title for Mary
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) released “Mater Populi Fidelis” (“The Mother of the Faithful People of God”) on Nov. 4.
www.catholicnewsagency.com
November 6, 2025 at 10:55 AM