So I Came Out

I have mentioned previously that I might and then on National Coming Out Day...I did! I came over via Facebook and the response was overwhelmingly positive. My conservative friends were dead silent of course, well except for one. All she did was like my coming out note, but as she is a staunch Republican I will take that as a personal victory.


I thought I would show you all what I said. Eventually I even allow for more transparency on this site. Like an actual picture of me! Maybe. We'll see. ;-)


Here is what I wrote:

"What is bravery? I have been told I was brave before, that I was one of the bravest individuals people have ever met. But I’m not, not really. All I’ve done is put one foot in front of the other in a desperate attempt to move forward and not get stuck. I have stumbled through life like everyone else. It is no big secret that I have not followed my five year plan or even my back up five year plan. Perhaps it is a secret though that I am happier than I have ever been in my entire life. All because I stopped listening to what others wanted for me, expected of me.

Now that I’ve written that nice intro paragraph (and professors said I didn’t write transitions!) let’s get into it. If you, like me, are a Facebook stalker then you have keep tabs on the people you went to school with. You want to know who’s married, who’s in grad school, who’s working where, and who’s having babies. So perhaps if you have stumbled on my profile in the past couple of years, you have noticed a visual change in your old schoolmate.

I have never been really girly, but you certainly can tell a difference between the pictures of me on Homecoming Court (I know! I’m still shocked about it!) and pictures of late. I cut my long hair short, really short, and I have started wearing slightly different apparel. I look well…perhaps a bit gay. Of course that is easily explained, in that I am a lot of gay. It’s probably not a huge shock for the people who knew me better than I knew myself, but maybe for some of you it is a shock.

I’m sure some of you are going, “Ha! I knew it!” Well I guess I would say congratulations. You win? Also I’d ask for how long have you’ve known? Because I didn’t know for the longest time and if someone might have told me I might have figured it out sooner. As it is I didn’t even entertain the thought that I was something other than straight until my senior year of college. Even still I was in such a state of denial that it was easy to rationalize various feelings. As many of you know I am a logic driven person, so it wasn’t too hard to explain away the confusing feelings.

Being gay wasn’t anything I wanted for myself. What I wanted was to go to medical school, marry my best friend, and have his silly little babies. I rather desperately wanted to feel more for my best friend than I did, but time and time again I infuriatingly didn’t. I loved him. I did, but I wasn’t in love with him. There came a point where I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I didn’t want it, but I wasn’t going to be given a choice in the matter it seemed.

After breaking things off with my best friend, now ex-best friend due my seemingly callous treatment of his feelings, I was alone with my thoughts. And let me tell you there were a lot of them. I considered what it would mean, to be gay. To be hated by people who don’t even know me. To be a second class citizen. To live in the constant fear of offending or provoking others, just for attempting to live as the person God made me.

The one thing I never worried about was whether or not God would still love me. It’s one of the reasons why even though I considered going away to ex-gay camp, I never went through with it. God is love, not hate. People can condemn me to hell all they want, but ultimately the decision isn’t theirs. I have always tried to live my life in a Christian manner. I try to be kind and help others. Does it make me less of a Christian if I’m gay?

Besides I may have been gay before I was a Christian, but I was Christian before I had even an inkling that I could be gay. Since God is important to me and since I can’t figure out a way to stop being gay, I have had to learn a way to reconcile the two. It actually has been a lot easier than I thought it would be, but then again I have a progressive thinking church here in Louisville to thank for that.

I have accepted being gay, but I’m still not fully comfortable with it. I will say I am much more comfortable in my skin now that I have changed certain visual aspects, namely my hair and wardrobe. However I was content to stay silent and live in those questioning looks, “Is she or isn’t she?” I saw openly gay folks all around me, but I didn’t think I had a right to be open. I have made a life of hiding and living in the background. It was alright. It is all I know.

But the pretending to be something I’m not got more and more draining. I became an actress who really couldn’t stand the role she played. So I came out little by little to friends. I should have been comforted by their acceptance, but often I became worried. Would they tell others? What would they say? What would happen? I was worried, because I was ashamed of who I am.

It wasn’t until someone very dear to me came out to me in secret, that I was forced to think about others. I didn’t want him to be ashamed of who he is. It is not his problem; it is the world’s. I didn’t want him to hate himself for something he couldn’t even help. Of course then if I thought this way about him, then I had to apply it to myself.

Now don’t expect any big changes from me. I’m still the same quiet, self-effacing, modest and wonderfully witty girl I’ve always been. I’m not going to strut down the sidewalk in a rainbow pin-stripe suit, because that’s just not who I am. I imagine I’ll simply do the same things I always do: hang out with friends, go to church, and save lives whether it is as an EMT or a doctor I guess we’ll see.

Because while I am gay I am so much more than that. As the poet Walt Whitman once wrote, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” I don’t want friends to look at me and go, “oh that’s the gay one”. Or “Whatever happened to her?” followed by “Oh she’s gay now.” I mean really? I understand gossip will happen. It’s inevitable. So gossip, but don’t forget I’m still the intelligent woman who helped you out when you were struggling, the stubborn girl who doesn’t give up, the woman who is always there to listen, heck I’ll even take the girl who sometimes lets her temper gets the best of her.

I don’t want to hide anymore. I want to be who I am and not apologize for it. I know I may lose friends, but I’ve come to a place where I don’t need to spend time on fair-weather friends. I may cause potential opportunities to be stripped from my hands, but it’s better than living a lie. I’ve seen firsthand the pain that living the lie causes. I don’t want that for myself. I want to be honest and open. I want to be brave. I have often wished I was as brave as you think I am. Maybe today I finally am."

QBP: "Bravery is believing in yourself, and that thing nobody can teach you."  -El Cordobes 

pic source

Why I Struggle with the Idea of Heaven

     In Christianity there is a certain tenet across most sects that is prevalent: the idea of heaven and hell.  I suppose it makes me a bad or at least unusual Christian, but I don't think I can believe in Heaven or even an afterlife.  Being blessed and cursed with a highly logically mind had led me to this conclusion. 

     My faith only goes as far as believing in God and the basic principles of Christianity.  Hell is not one of those.  Not believing in Hell is easy for me, because I believe that a God of Love of would not subject his people to torment that way.  I also think that every person has some amount of good in them; it may be just a speck, but it's there.  And for a God of Love to send these folk to Hell is cruel.  I mean think of the mentally ill who commit violent crimes not because of their free will, but because of their illness.  Where do they end up?  They can't end up in Hell, not for just being who God made them to be!  So I logiciked that it makes more sense that there isn't a Hell.  Hell is easy to discount.  But Heaven?

     I want to believe there is a Heaven or some sort of afterlife, but right now I can't/don't/won't.  My view of the soul is more of a person's conscience and personality than something that is going to float up into the sky to rest at God's side after I die.  However though I struggle with the idea of Heaven, I don't struggle with my belief in God.  Call it what you will: a universal force, coincidence, God, Allah, Yaweh, Vishnu, Jehovah, or Eloheim.  I believe in some form God exists in the world and in all of us.  I will always doubt God's existence, but my belief in Him will never be uprooted from my mind. 

     Anyways that being said, Religion is a man construct.  Humankind loves stories.  I am more led to believe that that is what Heaven is, a fairy tale told to adults so that they move away from their animalistic impulses and become good men of character.  Because positive reinforcement works.  I also believe Heaven exists because death and the unknown that follow are terrifying prospects.  Better to believe life goes on, albeit in a different manner, one where you get rewarded for making through the tough shit that is life.

     Heaven is a crutch.  There are a whole lot of Christians who have stopped living to live, and instead live to die.  That is insanity in my head.  Then there are those Christians who have moved away from Jesus teachings and towards hate, denouncing others.  They have created a system of have and have nots, but in this system it's Heaven they have and Hell for the rest of us.  Well if there is a Heaven, I'm afraid they are in for a rude awakening when Jesus walks up to them with the Bible, and says, "Did you not read this thing!?!" 

     Okay, I discussed my thoughts on Heaven, and my thoughts are a bit cynical.  I can't leave you guys here.  So I'll tell what I do believe in, History.  History is easy to believe in, just pick up any textbook to read the stories of long since dead men and women.  They may has passed, but they live on in our books, and through the actions they have had on people in their lifetime, for good or bad.  I mean your grandparents raised your parents a certain way and that was reflected on how they raised you.  History is there; it's palpable in a way Heaven is not.

     Since I believe in History, I feel like I have to be the best person I can be.  Because how I act and what I do in my life has an effect on others, who in turn influence others and on and on, in varying degrees of importance.  This is also easy to believe because others have affected me positively and negatively and that affects how I interact with others.  I am a Christian, but really I feel more like a Jesus Follower.  I use Jesus's teachings as a template for the person I would aspire to be.  And I use Church as a support group for these views. 

     My name may never get into the History books, and I may never end up with my name on the cover of a book, but it doesn't matter.  If a single action has changed someone's life in one small way I will live on forever in the collective conscious of this world.  I may change my mind on Heaven some day, but for now, this is my life and afterlife.

QBP: "If nothing we do in this world matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do."  -Joss Whedon

God and the Gay

     Christianity as a realm of popularity in the gay community would be about as popular as Tea Bagger Sarah Palin.  I am unabashedly Christian, as I am completely comfortable being gay.  In the past year I have experience more prejudice for being a Christian than for being gay.  From people I consider friends no less.  But I can’t say anything against my friends, because I’m the one who has changed, not them.         

     In college I would laugh along with the jokes that make fun of Christians and God.  Nowadays while I find a lot of jokes about those so-called “Christians” hilarious, I don’t think God or Christian should be used as a punchline.  My friends in the same breath will support my choices and in the next make a tactless joke about Jesus.

     I have always been at odds with people.  Whether it’s because I’m Christian as a lesbian, or I’m a female who likes being seen as masculine.  Or even because I’m a science person, who loves writing creatively.  I abhor persecution in all avenues.  Humor is great, but we cannot stereotype Christians and then complain about being stereotyped ourselves.  Intolerance goes both ways.

      What I write may not be popular, but I will continue to write about God.  Because everyone needs a voice even if they might be gay…even if they might be a Christian.

My type of Christian

     When you tell someone you’re a Christian, depending on who it is, they think very many things.  They might think you’re a stand up individual who lives their life trying to love others and Jesus, but perhaps they won’t.  Instead they might flash to the evening news and the misspelled protest signs at an anti-gay marriage rally.  For many gay men and women, “Christian” can be equated with hate.   It is painfully ironic considering Christ’s message of love.  “Christian” is almost a curse word in the gay community.  Many believe they can’t be both gay and Christian, and in many churches they’d be right.  Churches aren’t always particularly accepting of those who are different. 

     Many who have been hurt by the church previously either give up God altogether or they choose to give up Christianity and instead go the spiritual route.  I have absolutely nothing against exploring different religions or exploring your spirituality, but many give up Christianity because they see only the one hateful image.  I’m writing to say there is hope.  There are churches who follow the original teachings of Christ and welcome and accept and love everyone.  They teach that God is love and that we need to focus on Christ and not on cherry picking outdated verses from the Bible or warping intent from Christ’s words.

     I am very extremely lucky I found a church which loves me for being just who I am, in the South no less!  For a basic list of churches which are accepting of gay men and women go to:   

http://www.welcomingchurches.com/beta/pages/home  

  I wish you all well on your searches!  

QBP: "It's hard for me to feel welcome in either the gay or Christian community.  Because both are at odds with each other.  And when you are a composite of both it makes it very hard to find a community that's accepting of both."  -Thomas Camp Out