Since 2004, when my autobiography ‘A Life of Unlearning’ was released, I have been privileged to be the first contact point for 1,000’s of LGBT people from faith and religious backgrounds; especially those experiencing faith/sexuality conflict within strongly biblically based contexts. It’s a like my inbox has become a microscope into a hidden world as many isolated and alienated people have found someone they relate to; often for the first time. Common themes have emerged from the many emails I’ve received, listening to individual stories and from the stories posted on the Freedom2b forum. Telling Our Stories.
LGBT people of faith and religion are an emerging group whose specific needs have not always been identified or catered for. As this group begins to connect with the LGBT community and services, community workers and service providers need awareness training to work more effectively with the target group. Funding is required to set up programs that will meet their needs.
BACKGROUND OBSERVATIONS:
LGBT people from faith and religious backgrounds experience the usual issues of resolution, coming out, finding their place in the community and learning what it means to be gay or lesbian in a predominately straight world. They often however, experience these things with greater intensity and have additional issues to deal with.
- Even after coming out, internalised homophobia from years of negative conditioning and self-hatred can continue to have an impact.
- Most have invested years attempting to conform to heterosexuality through personal secret attempts, opposite sex relationships and formal (‘ex-gay’) programs which has left them damaged and traumatised.
- Having a belief system that says your eternal destiny hinges in your acceptance/rejection of your same- sex-orientation or gender identity, creates a cognitive dissonance that is difficult to resolve without information and connection with others who have walked the same journey.
- For most people from faith backgrounds, accepting that you are gay or lesbian means you have to leave the church and your entire social network is lost. It was a strong network, often like family and your life was filled with church activities and service. Finding a new life of meaning, your place in the LGBT community (with a very different set of values) and like minded-people is often difficult.
PERSONAL CONCLUSIONS:
1. Potential and real suicidality. The larger proportion of the emails mentions either thoughts of, or attempts to suicide.6. Discrimination. LGBT people of faith can often experience discrimination not only from their religious community but also at times from within their own LGBT community.
I relate to most of what you say here…a few times I have thought it would be easier to kill myself and have tried hard to do this, ending up in hospital more than once…there has to be a better way 🙁
Hi minnie…..yes I believe there is a better way. through the work of freedom 2 b[e]…..we are seeing a lot of people find resolution….and accelerates the process even. there is something about engaging with people who understand the journey…..and possibly further along the path. Do you have good support around you.
for minnie……………please choose life…..the world is changing albeit slowly at times. your voice is needed even if gently and quietly living your life. i am straight and trying to understand the differences that causse division and to understand christ the bible and 'the rules' the answers must be found in LOVE and acceptance…at least that is my prayer.
Thanks for the comments…and yes AVB I am in the process of getting a good support network around me including f2b …thanks.
great news minnie…..we need no longer be alone
Minnie's new pseudonym…
Thank you Anthony for your thoughtful comments. I am in the process of re-evaluating all that I've learned and accepted. Your words have helped in this process. It's a strange place to be when all that you have believed to be 'good' or 'bad' suddenly jumps off that drafting board where you had it all aligned.It's alarming but I think perhaps it is also very good for us. It seems to me that how we conceptualise God has a lot to do with how we imagine and will construct/co-create our world. Thus it is desperately important to ask ourselves what kind of a God we think we worship. I am nudging closer to 60 but as a teenager became aware by listening to others' prayers that the God to whom some people prayed was radically different from the one to whom I prayed. Yet technically we shared the same version of the same faith.I do not say my version is right and theirs was wrong. I recently hear the question 'does the God you worship imperil your humanity?' If we have the temerity to stand with the kid who noticed the emperor's lack of clothing we could be admitting that the God we have imagined in the past, has indeed done so. The 'God' often served has harmed, crushed, destroyed and maimed many lives – yet is this God? See what I mean about those good/bad lines?
thanks for your thoughtful comments anonymous. yes I think we all live a life of unlearning….hence the title of my autobiography. So many of our assumptions/beliefs can be challenged not only in the light of rational thinking but also in the ever unfolding evolution of knowledge. As children of the 50's we know this world we live in now is more enlightened about many things……sexual orientation being one of them. Some still live in darkness in this area though blinded by a religious or social culture which TELLS THEM what the truth is.