When Love Becomes Resistance: A Campfire Conversation with Kharma Amos

Kharma Amos is a Unitarian Universalist minister in Brunswick, Maine. She came out in 1990s Tulsa, Oklahoma. That detail tells you something about the kind of courage she carries.

This Campfire Conversation was one of the richest of the series. Kharma brought a concept that has been reshaping how I think: queering as a verb. Not about sexuality specifically, but about deconstructing any normative framework that keeps people in boxes. Queering rigid masculine norms. Queering assumptions about who belongs and who doesn’t. Queering the idea that there’s one right way to be human.

She talked about the fear of freedom. The idea that when you start deconstructing the structures that held your identity together, it feels less like liberation and more like free fall. She used the image of a Jenga tower. You pull out one belief and the whole thing wobbles. That wobble is terrifying. And it’s necessary.

Kharma named perfectionism as a feature of white supremacy culture. Not the dramatic kind. The quiet kind that says you have to get it right or you’re not enough. That pattern keeps people frozen. Afraid to act because they might act imperfectly.

She also reframed love in a way that has stayed with me. Love isn’t just warmth and connection. Sometimes love is resistance. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is turn toward conflict instead of away from it. Stay in the room. Name the thing. Refuse to pretend.

This conversation deepened my understanding of what interdependence actually requires. It requires proximity, truth-telling, and a willingness to be uncomfortable.

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Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org