Beyond Transformation

Mandi Alvarado
Apr 5
7 min read

Beyond Beautiful: Disability, Liberation, Love

Season 2, Episode 13 - Beyond Transformation

🧭 Episode Summary

In the season 2 finale, Mandi reflects on transformation through a disability justice lens. Released on Easter Sunday 2026, this episode explores renewal, faith, and identity as a Queer, Disabled Christian, including how the image of Jesus rising with visible wounds reshapes her understanding of disability, wholeness, and theology.

Mandi shares her ongoing journey of unlearning internalized ableism, letting go of people-pleasing and masking, and choosing alignment over external validation. This episode invites listeners to consider how transformation begins within - and how we can reimagine both ourselves and the world around us.

💬 Key Themes

Transformation
Faith
Disability Theology

🚨Partnership

Intersectional Access has a new partnership with Buoy, a company that creates hydration drops designed to support people living with chronic illnesses and conditions where maintaining hydration is especially important. Before agreeing to collaborate, I reached out to my community to hear about their experiences, and many people shared that Buoy has been helpful for managing symptoms and staying hydrated. One thing that stood out to me is their Chronic Illness Support Program, which offers people living with chronic illness 35% off their orders for life. If you use my referral link, you’ll receive 60% off your first subscription. Everyone else will receive 20% off their orders. I do earn a small commission from purchases made through the link, and that support helps sustain the podcast and the work I do to amplify disability-centered conversations. Use this Referral Link.

📜 Full Transcript

Mandi: Welcome to Beyond Disability Liberation Love.

I'm Mandi, your Queer Christian Disabled host.

I have to take a moment to share my excitement about Beyond Beautiful's partnership with Buoy Hydration Drops. Buoy makes flavorless hydration drops you can add to any drink. This this can help your body absorb water better. For a lot of people living with chronic illness, staying hydrated is really important, but is also really challenging.

If you would like to try Bouy, I have a discount link that I'll put in the show notes and using that link also helps support the podcast and the accessibility work behind it.

Now we can get into our intro.

This is our final episode of Season two, and I'm excited that it's being released on this Easter Sunday. Let's start there, because Easter for me has always been about resurrection, renewal, and hope. And as I've grown, especially as a Queer Disabled Christian, my relationship with this day has also transformed.

There have been times when I didn't feel like I fully fit into the spaces that were meant to celebrate this holiday, times where parts of who I am felt questioned or misunderstood or even unwelcome. And yet my faith has remained. Not because it's been simple, but because it's been transformational.

When I think about the story of Jesus, I don't just think about resurrection as this polished, triumphant moment. I think about the process, the pain, the surrender, the uncertainty, the in between, the transformation that had to happen before anything could be reborn. And that feels really aligned with where I am right now. Because I'm in a transformation era of my own. Disability justice has given me a framework to understand that transformation in a deeper way. Not just as something external, but something internal.

So while last week I spent time reflecting on the conversations, the themes, and the incredible guests who shared their stories this season, today feels different. Today feels like a turning point. This episode is about transformation.

When I think about this season and honestly this stage of my life, I keep coming back to what disability justice has taught me. Not just about systems, not just about access, but about reimagining. Reimagining the spaces we exist in, reimagining the systems we navigate. Reimagining a world where we don't have to shrink, mask, or fight just to belong. A world where we already fit in.

But here's the truth I've been sitting with we cannot always control what exists outside of us. We can advocate, we can challenge, and we can disrupt, but we cannot force transformation in people, in systems, or in spaces that are not ready.

So where does that leave us? It Brings us back to ourselves. Transformation starts within. And that's not the easier path. Because for me, that has meant confronting internalized ableism. It has meant unlearning the ways I've been conditioned to people please. To overextend, to shrink myself, to be more palatable and to mask parts of who I am, to fit into spaces that were never designed for me.

Let me be clear. This is not a before and after story. This is ongoing. There are still moments when I catch myself defaulting to old patterns, Moments where I question myself, Moments where I wonder if it would just be easier to go back to what's familiar. But I'm learning, slowly, intentionally, to choose differently. I'm learning to choose alignment over approval, to choose rest over performance, to choose authenticity over assimilation.

Disability justice has given me language for this. It has reminded me that I am not the problem. My body is not the problem. My needs are not the problem. The problem has always been systems that were not built with me and people like me in mind.

And while we continue to fight to change those systems, we also deserve to experience liberation and freedom. Now, even if that freedom starts small, maybe that freedom looks like setting a boundary, saying no, turning away from something, or simply giving yourself permission to be exactly who you are.

So I'm naming this season of my life a transformation era.Not because I have everything figured out, but because I am actively choosing to let go of what no longer serves me and move into something more aligned, even when I can't fully grasp what that is yet.

And that brings me to season three, because this theme of transformation? Well, I'm not done with it yet .In fact, we're just getting started. In season three, we will dive deeper into what it means to transform, not just individually, but collectively. We'll be talking about reimagining systems, challenging norms, holding space for complexity, and continuing to center disability justice in all of it. You can expect a mix of solo reflection episodes and interviews.

And speaking of interviews, I am so excited about some of the folks I've been connecting with. I'm talking about experts, advocates, people with lived experience who are truly rooted in disability justice. And there may even be some conversations where perspectives don't fully align. But that is part of the work too, because true liberation isn't about agreement. It's about being in conversation. It's about growth. It's about holding space for nuance and complexity.

And as I think about what it means to hold space for nuance and complexity, I realize that this isn't just something I'm practicing in conversations. It's something I'm practicing in my faith too. Because faith, like disability justice, isn't meant to be one dimensional. It's not meant to be rigid or limiting. It invites questions. It makes space for tension. It asks us to sit in the both.

And when I think about Easter, about resurrection, I've been reflecting on something that has deeply shifted my understanding of both disability and theology. Because when Jesus rose, he didn't come back erased. He didn't come back fixed. He didn't come back without the marks of what he had been through. He rose with the holes still in his hands. And for me, that changes everything. Because it tells me that wholeness is not the absence of scars. It tells me that there is nothing about our bodies, our minds, our experiences, or our histories that disqualifies us from being whole,from being sacred, and from being powerful.

It tells me that even in resurrection, disability exists, and not as something to be pitied, not as something to be erased, but as something that is held, honored and carried forward. So when I say I'm in a transformation era, I'm not talking about becoming someone completely different. I'm talking about becoming more fully myself, more honest, more aligned, more rooted in truth, scars, boundaries, growth and all. And maybe that's what transformation really is. Not perfection, not erasure, but integration. And that's the energy I'm carrying with me into what's next.

If this podcast has resonated with you, you can power the podcast by purchasing Digital Guide Access Is Sexy, a mini script guide for naming access needs in dating. It's just $8 and is designed to support folks in navigating access, communication and relationships. Every purchase directly supports this podcast and allows me to keep creating.

Also, on April 19, I'll be partnering with Sexy Disabled folks to host our rescheduled virtual screening of the film Life After, followed by a community discussion. This is going to be such a powerful space to come together, reflect, and engage in conversation. You'll find all the details for my Access Guide and the film screening in the show notes.

And if you're looking for community, I'd love for you to join the Beyond Beautiful Collective on Facebook. It's a space where we can continue these conversations, share reflections, and support one another.

And finally, season three of Beyond Beautiful will officially launch on May 3rd at 5pm Eastern. But don't worry, I won't be disappearing. In the meantime, I'll be staying connected through events, conversations, and new ways of engaging that I'm really excited to share with you soon.

Thank you for listening, for learning, for growing alongside me this season and for being part of this journey. This isn't the end. It's just a transformation.

And remember, disability, liberation, love are always beyond beautiful.

💌 Stay Connected

You’re invited to join the Beyond Beautiful Collective on Facebook or follow along on Instagram at Intersectional_Access. This podcast is built in community, and your voice belongs here.