Kaya Oakes

Kaya Oakes’ fifth book, The Defiant Middle: How Women Claim Life’s In Betweens to Remake the World, was published in December 2021. She teaches nonfiction writing at UC Berkeley.

Articles

Religion Dispatches

They're Not Coming Back: The Religiously Unaffiliated and the Post-Religious Era

A new survey crushes whatever hope was left about luring Nones back into the fold.

Kaya Oakes

September 26, 2016

Article

Religion Dispatches

Gimme Shelter: Queer Space Is Sanctuary

Queer spaces are sanctuaries. Sanctuaries are spaces of safety and freedom. When violence enters a sanctuary, that is a violation of sacred space. In the 1980s, as nearly a million Central Americans…

Kaya Oakes

June 13, 2016

Article

Religion Dispatches

Female Deacons: Pope Francis Walks It Back, Women Clergy Weigh In

The recent flurry of headlines over the possibility of women deacons in the Catholic church may be good for news, but it’s also good for a question: what does women’s ordination really mean today, at…

Kaya Oakes

May 17, 2016

Article