Dani Dempsey holds a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of California, Riverside. Dani specializes in queer and transgender studies in religion, with an emphasis on North America and institutional Christianities. Dani’s dissertation, Interrogating Pope Francis: On Gender Theory and Ideological Colonization contextualizes Pope Francis amongst his predecessors and the institutional adoption of colonial ideologies and use of identity politics within national arenas. This genealogy unearths the intended direction the Catholic Church is taking in relation to people of nondominant sexes, genders, and sexualities.