Category Archives: Lindsey’s Reflections

Reflections on Discerning a Sexual Ethic

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A reflection by Lindsey

Lately, I’ve been receiving a lot of reminders that I’m getting older. I teach students who were born after 2000. I have passed my 10 year high school class reunion. Graduates of colleges next May will comprise the Class of 2015. I’m at the upper age limit for events geared towards young adults. If I’m getting my personal timeline right, I’ve been navigating my own journey of faith and sexuality for 17 years. I empathize with so many people just getting started on their own process and want to do what I can in order to help them along their ways. I have sat in a lot of uncomfortable “middle” seats between contrasting life ethics where I have been shoulder-to-shoulder with other people who think about these questions in different ways than I do. Along the road, I’ve developed a surprisingly profound respect for people who have a wide range of convictions.

It can be tricky to talk about how other people craft their personal sexual ethics. On one hand, convictions about sexual ethics are individual because of how deeply they inform a person’s manner of living his or her life. On the other hand, sexual ethics are necessarily communal because they draw us into relationships with one another. No one forms his or her sexual ethic in a vacuum. Equally, most consider it respectful to leave what happens in an adult’s bedroom a private matter. Many feel attacked when others express ethical convictions that run counter to their own ways of life. It doesn’t help when people with traditional sexual ethics absolutely reject the idea that progressive sexual ethics can have some kind of organizing logic. Similarly, meaningful conversation stalls when people with progressive sexual ethics deny that traditional sexual ethics have any potential to be life-giving. It seems to me that often, people on both sides rely on the exact same sources when trying to discern their convictions on sexual ethics.

When I first got started on my journey of reconciling faith and sexuality, I would have told you my convictions were rooted entirely in Scripture. Now, after 17 years of searching the Scriptures and trying to live in accordance with my ethical sensibilities, I see that things are a bit more complicated than “the Bible tells me so.”

If I were to ask my friends what Scriptures have the most substance in informing their sexual ethics, I would probably get a wide variety of answers. I’m sure I’ll shock some by saying that my sexual ethic has been shaped largely by Luke 10:

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’

I have been reflecting on this particular bit of Scripture since 2003. It’s a huge part of the reason why I was even open to the idea of being in a celibate partnership with someone else. I can’t help but see vulnerability, radical hospitality, a shared spiritual life, and commitment running through this passage. I love this Gospel account precisely because it helps me pattern my way of life towards serving the world.

I’ve come to believe that a sexual ethic serves as a pattern for one’s life. As I see it, my sexual ethic informs how I interact with everyone I meet. I look to see how other people around me live into their vocations. I rejoice to be invited to attend weddings; I cannot help but note how Christian traditions have varied wedding customs. I have investigated the marriage service in my own tradition in an effort to understand how the prayers that bless a marriage provide a foundation for visioning the Kingdom of God in this vocation. I love looking for examples of faithful Christians throughout history; I never know who is going to inspire me to follow as closely to Christ as I can possibly manage.

But really, my point is that everyone draws upon a wealth of sources to develop their sexual ethics. Nearly every LGBT Christian I’ve ever met has wrestled with the Bible verses that specifically address homosexuality. Many see problems with proof-texting the Bible and try to discern the wider narrative arcs that describe marriage, sexuality, gender, and God’s love for everyone created in God’s image and likeness. I know others like me who embed particular passages of Scripture into their consciousness and ask for God’s grace to live these passages out. Because sexual ethics must be lived and embodied, questioning how particular sexual ethics are bearing fruit in one’s life is important. Also, it’s impossible to create one’s sexual ethic without considering the experiences of other people one knows.

I don’t know many people outside my own Christian tradition who study the marriage services in their Christian traditions to shape their personal sexual ethics. I have found doing so immensely helpful, and I would encourage any Christian in any denomination to consider this approach. At the same time, I can appreciate the experiences of people who would say, “My Christian tradition resolutely encourages two individuals to craft a customized wedding service. In my tradition, it seems like marriage means whatever two people want it to mean.” In such cases, I think Christian traditions ought to consider how they guide people towards discerning vocation. Learning how my Christian tradition prays for people on their wedding day has been so formative in my own journey. Speaking selfishly for a moment, I’d love a chance to compare notes with other people who have undertaken this kind of study in the context of their own Christian traditions.

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Learning to Recognize Workplaces Hostile to LGBT People

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A reflection by Lindsey

This post has been on my mind for months. It’s been a hard one to write. After all, I didn’t feel quite safe enough to talk about my previous hostile workplaces until I felt reasonably secure in a more supportive work environment.

As we’ve shared before, I have the good(?) fortune of being easily identifiable as a member of the LGBT community because of my appearance. I have always had a hard time figuring out why people generally assume I’m a member of the queer community. My sense of style has remained largely consistent since I was five and has never been about making a “statement.” Until a few weeks ago, I had never displayed anything rainbow on my person, and even then it was only a small ribbon worn by many professional conference attendees to show support for diversity in engineering. But I have found that absolutely nothing I do ensures that I will be treated fairly on the job if a particular employer is hesitant about employing LGBT people. It’s hard to say definitively that my LGBT status was what separated me from any past job, but I have strong suspicions that I have worked for at least two workplaces that, for whatever reason, did not want to employ any queer person. As I’m gearing up to start a new job, I’ve reflected on patterns that emerge when a workplace is trying to get rid of an LGBT employee.

I think it’s important to begin with some simple, factual statements. Employers rarely come right out and tell you that they think you’re LGBT. The more blatant the discrimination is, the more likely it is that the harassed person might seek legal help.  If you have any skills documenting the exact forms of harassment, you might be able to win a wrongful termination settlement on the basis of another federally protected category. Overt discrimination and harassment around LGBT status frequently involves sex, gender, and marital status, and I have no doubt that companies curtail the most flagrant kinds of LGBT discrimination. What company wants to be the poster child for that lawsuit? Instead, companies that would rather not employ an LGBT person frequently try to nudge the individual out the door in subtler ways. To convince a person to leave or gather grounds to terminate the individual, some employers will do everything in their power to create a hostile workplace.

It’s no secret that workplaces have a limited arsenal of strategies they can use to try and nudge a person out of a job, and many of them are just barely on the right side of the law. These can be used against any person an employer is trying to move out the door, LGBT or not. But my experience suggests that the workplace climate can change in nearly imperceptible ways when an employer starts to suspect that an employee is LGBT and decides that hiring a queer person was a mistake. It’s especially important for LGBT employees to be aware of these changes. Here are 3 things I’ve learned to look out for along with some of my thoughts on how to let a workplace know that you’re prepared to play hardball if it tries to make your life a living hell:

1. Evaporating support structures. I’ve been fortunate to work at companies that value retention. When I arrived at these companies, I was matched with mentors who would check in with me occasionally to see how I was doing. Mentees could generally expect to have weekly conversations with their mentors. As I have reflected on my past experiences in difficult workplaces, I cannot think of any meaningful interactions with my mentors after people started to think about whether I may be LGBT.

Here’s what I wish I would have done differently: I wish I would have settled into a pattern on Day 1, Week 1 of contacting my mentor regularly. I would have looked to the employee handbook for guidance, but I would have communicated with my mentor in writing about expectations for our relationship. Email is a particularly good medium because one has a written record of the conversations. If I had suspected an employer was starting to feel out my LGBT status, I would have spent the next several weeks tracking my interactions with my mentor to see if anything about our relationship had changed. If even the slightest aspect had seemed fishy, I would have discussed my mentorship concerns with my supervisor and/or human resources in writing. Additionally, I would have duplicated the relevant correspondence. For all intents and purposes, your employer owns the correspondence and does not need to give you access to your work email after you’ve been terminated. One particularly hostile work environment suspended my access to my email account less than an hour after letting me go.

2. Shifting responsibilities. Job descriptions tend to be written vaguely and broadly. Virtually every contract I’ve signed has included the line, “and other duties that may be assigned.” It does not take long in a work environment to figure out which duties are most and least desirable. When I have found myself in increasingly hostile workplaces, I’ve noticed a vacuum with regard to explicit responsibilities with clear due dates for deliverables. Simultaneously, I have observed other people receiving desirable duties, but no interest from my supervisors in assigning some of those to me. Additionally, my work duties began to change, and began to mirror those of people with far less experience and skill. Also, I was assigned tasks with such low priority that supervisors lost all interest in giving me any feedback on my work. With other people working on the important and urgent projects, my work became nearly invisible.

Here’s what I wish I would have done differently: Virtually every company wants employees who take initiative and are self-starters. Long-term projects can be a great way to prove oneself, but supervisors frequently fail to provide timely feedback. When I noticed that I was being assigned nearly exclusively to long-term projects, I wish I’d had the foresight to be firmer in asking for feedback on smaller parts of those projects from my supervisors. Additionally, I wish I had documented the time I had spent waiting for promised feedback from my supervisors. Because employers value team players, I would have documented the feedback I gave to other employees who were working on various short-term projects instead of giving my feedback orally and trusting that my supervisor would hear that I had offered it at all.

3. Increasing supervisory distance. As mentioned in the previous point, doing a good job when starting at a new company requires getting a lot of feedback on one’s performance. It’s really hard to get quality feedback, or any at all, when supervisors keep their distance. One change that I noticed in increasingly hostile workplaces was that my supervisors tended to frame their distance as being motived by the employee’s interest. After all, if an employee reports struggling to get to personal or family obligations in the evening, wouldn’t a compassionate employer explore possibilities of flex time? Giving the employee access to flex time makes the employer look compassionate and understanding. However, if a supervisor starts to use said flex time to be conspicuously absent at hours when the employee is working, I’d encourage the employee to consider looking for a different job.

Here’s what I wish I would have done differently: Workplaces have their rhythms. Through my experiences in hostile workplaces, I’ve learned that few workplaces are interested in modifying those rhythms. I wish I would have taken time to discern each workplace’s natural rhythm. Similarly, I wish I had thought to figure out where and how important decisions got made. People need to collaborate in order to create a workplace that is truly hostile, even if one person seems to be in charge of coordinating all of the puzzle pieces. Some of the more creative arrangements for promoting hostility can lead to supervision-via-documentation rather than supervision-via-relationship. As soon as I realized I was in a situation of supervision-via-documentation, I wish I would have known to start looking for a new job. It’s much easier to find fault with a written report than it is to identify weaknesses in a person one regards as a friend.

As I prepare to start a new job, I have tried to do my homework as much as possible. Even in my two most hostile workplaces, I managed to land on my feet after the fallout because I knew just enough about my rights to signal that my employers had their toes on the proverbial lines. I’d be willing to make a small bet that showing one’s ability to keep a detailed record of workplace climate issues might be the best strategy in cultivating more positive work environments.

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On Being Different

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A reflection by Lindsey

This week, I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on my experiences growing up. As a kid, I was different. It was rare for me to find places where I perceived that I fit. No matter what the metric, there were ways I frequently experienced a strong sense of otherness. I constantly looked for opportunities where I was like the other people gathered, and by the time I hit fifth grade, I realized that these opportunities required that I travel outside of my typical geography.

You see, early on, I realized that I was smart. I was that nerdy kid, incredibly enthusiastic about seemingly random things. When I discovered science camps at my local university, I was in my element. Finally there was a place where it was okay to be that geek.

Consistently being different is hard, especially when we live in a world that values conformity. I think nearly every adult can identify acute places in his or his childhood where, no matter what, feelings of difference were a constant companion. Feeling different can be excruciating. I remember some of the questions that used to run through my head when I was younger: Why must I salivate over logic problems instead of waiting with baited breath for this week’s basketball games? Why would I rather bury my nose in a book than chat it up with the “cool” kids? Why is it that I can’t wait to get home to do my science experiment instead of play video games? And yes, I would have used the word “salivate” to describe my relationship with mathematics.

Regularly, I use concepts of otherness when discussing my personal comfort with using LGBTQ alphabet soup to describe myself. To me, LGBTQ simply indicates that I experience the world differently than cisgender, heterosexual people. To make sense of cisgender, heterosexual people, I try listening to them describing their experiences. However, the more I learn about said experiences, the more convinced I am that mine are different. I’ve accepted that there is an overwhelming majority of straight, cisgender people around me. But, just as science camps afforded me a place to relax and be myself, spend time around LGBTQ Christians gives me yet another space to experience a deep sense of belonging.

With some frequency, I find myself wishing that more conservative Christians could appreciate my desire for room to relax and just be me. When I was a kid, I learned that virtually every school had smart kids. The way to get a bunch of smart kids together was to create opportunities that acknowledged how our smartness could be used to create community. Similarly, I believe that it’s absolutely true that virtually every church has LGBTQ Christians. It’s worth creating space for LGBTQ Christians to gather, to have an opportunity to feel less different and more at home.

I remember the huge sense of relief when I walked into my first Gay Christian Network conference in 2008. All of a sudden, I was with 200 other people who were like me! However, I almost couldn’t work up the nerve to go. I had heard so many conservative Christians completely bashing any and all LGBT organizations. If these organizations claimed to be Christian, then they were certainly distorting the truth of the Gospel and merely parroting what itching ears wanted to hear. I didn’t feel like I had any space whatsoever to affirm an event like the GCN conference as a good thing. I have since attended five GCN conferences because GCN is one of the few LGBT Christian organizations that has any space to walk alongside me as I journey alongside Christ. To be sure, it’s only one space, but it is certainly a space where I feel an absolute sense of being at home.

In many ways, I felt that same sense of home when I first went to science camp. As I have grown older, I have heard many arguments about why schools should stop providing programs to gifted students. While I’m confident places like science camp will continue to exist, I hope every student has somewhere at school where he or she feels a sense of being accepted. Why are we so quick to tell people who find themselves in a minority demographic that nothing can be done in their backyards to help them feel more at home?

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Affirming Kids in a Gendered World

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A reflection by Lindsey 

The story of Ryland Whittington has been traveling around the world at viral speed. Ryland’s family created a YouTube video to tell a bit more about Ryland’s story. The video highlights two events in Ryland’s life where the family really had to come together: 1) Ryland was diagnosed as deaf, received a cochlear implant, and learned to talk a bit later than most children, and 2) Ryland took to saying “I’m a boy!” almost immediately. The family sought advice from various folks in preparation for permitting Ryland to live as a boy. The video ends with Ryland making a public remark at the 6th Annual Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast saying, “I’m a transgender kid. I am six. I’m a cool kid. I am the happiest I have ever been in my whole life. Thank you to my parents.”

From where I sit in the world, it’s not incredibly surprising to see Ryland’s story making waves. Facebook has unveiled myriad gender options. Laverne Cox appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Students at Christian and public schools have been suspended until they wore clothes and accessories associated with more traditional cisgender presentations. I’ve heard plenty of people lamenting the degree of “gender confusion” present in the world while others gleefully shout, “Down with the gender binary!” However, I’m more of the opinion that adults frequently forget that children are people who have intrinsic senses of the mystery of gender.

I’ve been absolutely blessed beyond measure by getting to know many kids from birth. My current Christian tradition has greatly facilitated these introductions by welcoming people of all ages to the same service in order to affirm the oneness of the Body of Christ. As I’ve known more and more infants and toddlers, I catch myself thinking frequently, “Wow, what a marvelous little person!” These kids strike me as being full of a personalities uniquely their own. Some parents have told me that they think of their children first and foremost as “children of God who had been entrusted to [their] care.” That idea has really stuck with me. Oftentimes, I think the world gets caught up as viewing children as emerging adults rather than people.

If we posit that children at all life stages are people, then it makes sense that our call when getting to know children is getting to know them first and foremost as people. I’m at that age where lots of my friends are having children, and I find myself particularly in awe of parents who wait a few days after their child is born before settling on the child’s name. I regard naming a child as a sacred duty. If I’ve remembered my own naming story right, my parents had picked out two names for me before I was born and decided to go with Lindsey, a choice much farther down their list, when they met me. (And of course, if I’m remembering my own naming story wrong, I know my mom will correct me on the details.) I’m proud of my name, and I’m grateful for the time my parents took to discern my name. Many parents have shared with me their angst in naming children. I can appreciate that; a name is a big deal. Names are reflective of so many things. Taking time to discern the personality in a child, even before giving a name, can go a long way in helping affirm a child in a gendered world.

Kids have natural ways of expressing themselves. Freedom to explore different hobbies and personal sense of style can go a long way in helping kids become comfortable in their own skin. Will the world come screeching to a halt if a 4-year-old wants a buzz cut, a 10-year-old wants to learn how to solder electronics, a 7-year-old wants long flowing locks, a 6-year-old wears a suit and tie, a 3-year-old brings a doll everywhere, a 12-year-old begs to take babysitting classes, or an 8-year-old wears a dress? We communicate something about the intrinsic value of any of these things when we assert “No, sorry son, but that’s a girl thing.” or “Well, you know you have to because all boys should.”

I’m personally grateful for all of the ways that my family has allowed me to be Lindsey. I rarely experienced any sort of consequences for how my sense of self developed. I could experience great comfort in my own skin, knowing that my family totally supported me shrugging my shoulders and saying “So?” when others confronted me in an effort to use gender to police my activities. However, I am all too aware of how different people have been pigeonholed by the gender police. It seems that the wake of various feminist movements, women have greater latitude in gender expression than men do. It’s not terribly uncommon for gender non-conforming women to carry on without consequence up to a certain point. Nonetheless, the more a person brushes against various social expectations of gender, the more that person risks all forms of violence. Transwomen of color are frequent targets of violence as evidenced by the recent case in Atlanta were two transwomen were assaulted and stripped of their clothing on a public bus.

I think it’s a gross oversimplification to describe gender as a set of social interactions. Gender, in my best estimation, goes deeper. If pressed, I’d say something like the mystery of gender allows our souls to dance. When we love children, we want to see them come alive as their souls dance. Our bodies are the vessels that present our souls to the world. All of our embodied capabilities exist to showcase the dance of the soul. And in this world, all of us encounter difficulty as we try to present our soul to the world while seeing the beauty in another’s soul. My own opinion is that aggressively policing gender is one way to squash the soul of another.

I wonder what life would look like if we tried to peer more deeply into a person’s soul in order to see the image and likeness of God imprinted therein. What would happen if we accepted all children as, first and foremost, children of God? How would we journey alongside children if we wanted to see their souls dance?

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Reading Romans 1 Differently

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A reflection by Lindsey

Much of my personal sense of spirituality has been shaped by various evangelical movements within Christian traditions. When people ask me to describe my spirituality, I’ll frequently say something like “evangelical with a small ‘e.'” I understand the Gospel of Christ to be fundamentally good news, even the absolute best news to be delivered to this planet. I have a special love for the Gospel of Luke, the book written to present the story of Christ clearly to a Gentile audience. I am grateful for everyone I have met who has helped me learn how to read the Scriptures, to learn from them, and to apply them to my life.

There are certain Scriptures I’ve heard so often that they pop into my head completely unannounced. When I’m waiting for clarity in a decision, I’ll hear, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” As I take a moment to ponder the Resurrection, my heart leaps into a chorus of “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered.” After I have presented a request to Christ in prayer, my brain reminds me, “His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.'” When I ponder the usefulness of reading the Scriptures, I find myself hearing, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”

As much as there are certain Scriptures that organically spring to mind, there are also certain verses that often get thrown at me. Virtually every LGBT person who is or has been a Christian can talk about run-ins with 6 specific passages. Romans 1 ranks high on the list. What LGBT Christian has not sat down to lunch with a concerned Christian friend who pulls out his or her Bible to “share” these verses:

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

One of the things that always struck me about these lunchtime “heart to hearts” was how rarely the person sharing the verses thought they applied at all to him or her. After all, these verses have made the short list of what you should say when your friend indicates that he or she might be gay. I think it’s time to read Romans 1 differently. Specifically, what would happen if people began reading the Bible with the intention of seeing how the Scriptures spoke into their own lives as readers rather than focusing on how they might apply to others?

Throughout history, Scriptures have been abused by assertions that a certain verse applies exclusively to condemn a particular group of people. It’s a bit different when you start to consider yourself one of the out-group. I remember being in high school and performing in a passion play at my church. Turning to face the person playing the role of Jesus and shouting “Crucify Him!” caused me to read Matthew 27:25 a bit differently. Matthew 27:25 reads, “All the people answered, ‘His blood is on us and on our children!'” This verse historically has been used as a justification that the Jewish people bear a blood-guilt for killing Jesus. I cannot imagine the number of Christians who have used this particular verse in an attempt to justify anti-Semitic behavior.

However, it’s possible to read Matthew 27:25 differently. It’s possible for us as Christians to reflect on how we need Christ’s blood to cover us because we are people who have fallen short of the glory of God. Perhaps we will see how the crowd included those who, not even a week before, had greeted Jesus as a triumphant king. What would happen if we started to search our own hearts for ways that we all too easily reverse our attitudes towards God? My high school youth group showed me that I too could stand in the crowd shouting “Crucify Him!” More than a decade later, I can still play that memory back in full color.

The crowd gathered at the trial was the same crowd as the throng of people greeting Christ with palms shouting Hosanna. This discussion of Matthew 27:25 is relevant to how we might learn to read Romans 1 differently. After all, Romans 1 includes a significant discussion of how people have turned their backs on God: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”

I think all of us would benefit from reflecting on Romans 1:24, which says, “ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.” The lusts of our hearts are many. We thirst for power, prestige, favor, and glory. In these pursuits, we often find ourselves dishonoring our bodies in countless ways. We punish our bodies through fad dieting and the latest exercise trends. We use our bodies to enact violence on other people or on creation. We run on the ever-present hamster wheel of materialism and deny our bodies adequate rest, nourishment, and refreshment. And that’s to say nothing about our diverse battles with concerns about sexual purity. Who among us has a perfect record of always honoring the body?

When we truly embrace that all Scripture is useful for teaching, we can see that we need to consider ourselves first among students. None of us can claim to be the head of the class. It can be hard to look at a particular passage and discern, “How does this text speak to my life? How can I possibly share how the Holy Spirit is inspiring me along my journey with Christ?” It’s all too easy to read the Scriptures and envision ourselves as the various protagonists: we can emulate Christ as he says, “Go and sin no more,” we can be the publican who prays humbly in the temple, and we can be prodigal son who has done the right thing in returning to the house of the father. It’s much harder for us to ask the Holy Spirit to show us how we might embody the people who are clearly on the wrong side of God’s judgement. How are we the Pharisees who have tied up heavy loads? How are we Judas who has betrayed Christ? And how are we like those who have exchanged the truth of God for a lie?

When we start asking those kinds of questions, we might just start reading Romans 1 a bit differently.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.