An Interesting Take on Bisexuality

My fellow contributor, Alan Scott, brought this story by Chris OGuinn of AfterElton.com to my attention. The clips that have been compiled in the article (it’s 3 pages long) are from Make It or Break It on the ABC Family network.

Admittedly, I’ve never watched the show myself, but I have watched a handful of programs produced by ABC Family and I’m found them to be interesting enough that I’ve usually watched them in their entirety. One aspect that has stood out to me in the past is their protrayal of LGBT characters. They don’t use inflammatory material, tired Glee-style stereotypes, or the over-the-top hyperbole of The New Normal. What I’ve seen on ABC Family is primarily LGBT characters being portrayed as they exist in real society–dynamic, diverse, many-cultured, and going about their daily lives just like heterosexuals.

What stood out about this particular example was the description of Max’s (our character’s) sexuality. His true struggles are acknowledged. It’s not easy being in the middle. What is even more striking is Max’s straight friend’s reaction upon discovering that Max is bisexual. No hyper-hetero “I have to punch you/something to restore my manhood” no panicked fear and aggression. It’s very unusual to see this kind of portrayal. Personally, I want to think about it some more, but watch the videos, I’m curious what insight you readers have on the issue.

Patrick Henry College Herald Tackles Homosexuality

The Patrick Henry College Herald, a student-run publication, recently published this article on out friends and family members of current students [PDF], which also features the story of a current student who describes her former relationship with a woman.

It’s worth a read, not because I agree with what is said, but because it’s one of the first times that PHC students have openly wrestled with this issue as a student body. While the article was upsetting for me to read for reasons that I will explain in just a bit, it is also a relief to have the LGBTQ community acknowledged, and in a way that does not simply make the queer community into a faceless, vaguely threatening entity. And while I disagree strongly with the tone of the article, I commend writer Elizabeth Stinnette for taking on this project and pushing the PHC student body out of the comfortable silence that they have maintained on this issue.

Nevertheless, I wanted to highlight two of the major misconceptions in this article.

1. Being straight is part of the Christian gospel message

PHC students tend to discuss homosexuality in relation to marriage amendments and as signs of a decaying culture. However, gays and lesbians cannot be painted with a single rainbow-colored brush. A sizeable minority of students has [sic] experienced the complexity of the situation—their relatives and friends are publicly or privately homosexual. Additionally, a few students have struggled with same-sex attraction themselves. While all of these students acknowledge that homosexuality is a sin, they realize that they need to extend grace to their relatives and show them the light of the Gospel.

I just have two questions: how does one paint with a rainbow-colored brush? And where can I find one?

On a more serious note, it would be a good idea for PHC students to move beyond only acknowledging the LGBTQ community when talking about marriage amendments or the supposedly decaying culture. The first is dehumanizing, the second is demonizing.

But I still take issue with the more “loving” approach that is outlined. When a relative is gay or lesbian (the article doesn’t really acknowledge the bisexual or trans* communities), the suggested solution is extending grace and showing them the light of the gospel.

As a Christian who also happens to be a member of the queer community, I am all for grace and the light of the gospel. I want to extend it to others, and I want others to extend it to me. But when did sexual orientation become an integral part of the gospel?

I guess I must have missed that verse in Romans 10 where it says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, and promise to be straight forever and ever, you will be saved.” I must have been sleeping in Sunday School when we studied John 3:16, where it says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, and turns away from their homosexual desires, should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Now I know that some Christians don’t see sexual orientation as an integral part of the gospel. To them, homosexuality is a sin just like a bunch of other sins, and they believe that the gospel promises that God’s love has the cleansing power to get rid of all sins.

But other Christians take that idea and run with it, and preach the damaging message that you can’t be gay and a Christian, or that if you are gay, you have to be celibate if you want to go to heaven.

There is no room in this paradigm for the out, proud gay Christian who is in or looking for a gay relationship. In this mentality, you can be out if you’re celibate, or you can be out as a “former gay.”

2. Being gay or lesbian is synonymous with having emotional and/or psychological issues

And now we get to the part of the article that really broke my heart. A student with the pseudonym “Marie” tells the story of her longterm lesbian relationship with a girl named “Donna.”

Marie and Donna both grew close after dealing with incredible tragedy and hardship in their personal lives, including Donna’s abusive mother, the deaths of several of Marie’s close family members, and the death of Donna’s cousin “Trent”, who was “the only person who loved Donna.”

Marie’s parents forced her to attend PHC; neither they nor anyone at school knew about her lesbian relationship at the time. Meanwhile, Marie dreamed of getting a job at a law office so she could take Donna out of her abusive situation.

“Things were bad between me and Donna,” Marie said. “I felt like I had abandoned her.”

Marie didn’t realize how separated they had become until a high school quarterback took Donna out on a date, got her
drunk, and raped her. Donna called Marie while she was working on her second Spinney paper.

“There was nothing I could do about it,” Marie said. Both girls sobbed over the phone.

Donna became pregnant, but she lost the baby a couple of weeks later. She and Marie had always talked about having children together and had even picked out names.

“I felt that I had lost my own child,” Marie said. They named the baby Jasper. He would have had blonde hair, blue eyes, and Donna’s smile.

After a student at PHC witnessed to Marie, she “gave up the dross and took the gold,” and now considers herself straight. Donna is still trapped in her abusive home situation.

“I think about this woman who I loved, who I was engaged to for five years …. I have to look at her and know she will go to hell because no one loved her enough to show Christ’s love for her. And it breaks my heart beyond all bearing,” Marie said.

I can’t even begin to fathom the pain and personal tragedy that Marie has had to deal with. And it’s not up to me to decide whether Marie is straight, lesbian, bisexual, or some other orientation. But if Marie reads this post, I want her to know this:

Marie,

You and Donna had to deal with an overwhelming burden of pain that would have put strain on any relationship, especially one between two young girls who had to weather a long-distance relationship. Death, abuse, rape, a baby that you both loved and then lost — your strength and courage in loving each other through all of that is astounding. Such painful events would cause emotional and psychological trauma for anyone. If you had been a man, you might have still had to break up with Donna anyway. No one can be superhuman forever.

But you should know that loving another woman is not the problem. Loving another woman does not make you broken. You’ve decided that you want to be with a man someday and that you want to live as a straight woman. I don’t know you, and I don’t know the details of your situation. Maybe you will find lasting happiness with a man.

But you should know that if you are still attracted to women, that is OK. You can lead a full, happy, meaningful, moral life as a lesbian or bisexual woman. And if you remain a woman of faith, you can maintain a relationship with God that will only enrich your friendships and relationships with people of any gender and orientation.

If you fall in love with another woman, a woman with whom you could see yourself building a long and happy life, a woman with whom you could see yourself raising children, don’t run away from that because you’re afraid of losing God’s love. Not only does Romans 8 remind us that nothing can separate us from the love of God, but a love that beautiful (even if it’s with someone of your own gender) brings us closer to God.

Whoever you are, Marie, my heart goes out to you.

Ally Week: October 15-19, 2012

This week is GLSEN’s (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) Ally Week. According to its website, “Ally Week is a week for students to identify, support and celebrate Allies against anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) language, bullying and harassment in America’s schools.”

So what is an Ally? An Ally is someone:

Who does not identify as a LGBT student, but supports this community by standing against the bullying and harassment LGBT youth face in school. Allies can be straight or cis gender identified youth and adults, or LGBT identified adults! Anyone who takes a student against anti-LGBT bullying and harassment can be an ally.

If you’d like to become and Ally, you can sign the Ally Pledge here.

I believe all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression deserve to feel safe and supported. That means I pledge to:

• Not use anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) language or slurs.
• Intervene, if I safely can, in situations where students are being harassed or tell an adult.
• Support efforts to end bullying and harassment.
• Encourage others to be Allies.

Here and Queer

You guys, I fail at writing Fabulous Friday posts on time. I’m skipping it this week, but I promise it’ll be back next week.

Photo by Lauren Charlea Nolting

I love Out Magazine’s interview with Ezra Miller, in which he identifies himself as queer.

“I’m queer. I have a lot of really wonderful friends who are of very different sexes and genders. I am very much in love with no one in particular.”

He goes on to use the term “zefriend” in addition to “boyfriend” and “girlfriend,” in describing who he might date or be attracted to. I love this kid!

Miller’s choice to use the word “queer” is an important one. When we first started QueerPHC, we had a conversation about what we would call the site. We batted around the idea of calling it “LGBT PHC” but decided that it was too acronym-heavy. “Queer” is also used regularly in academia, in the context of classes on “queer studies,” something we very much lacked at Patrick Henry College. We also didn’t want to inadvertently leave out any group of people that fell under the queer umbrella but were not covered under the LGBT acronym.

Why Did I Believe It For So Long?

I’ve known for quite a long time now that I liked guys, at least a dozen years, but it wasn’t until just recently that I actually comprehended it. For the longest time it didn’t really mean anything to me and I just assumed that I wasn’t really attracted to girls was because the ones that I knew didn’t really met my ‘list’ for what I was looking for in a wife. This heterosexual worldview was one of the 2 main reasons that it took me a long time to come to terms with my sexual orientation, but the other was that I believe for a very long time that homosexuality was sinful.

Boy Scouts Continue to Exclude Out Gay Kids, Leaders

This morning, my Facebook newsfeed exploded with praise from my Patrick Henry College acquaintances for the continued Boy Scouts of America ban on out gays as members or leaders.

Prayer as a Weapon

Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household, I heard quite a bit about how prayer was the ultimate weapon. The first line of defense.

“A good offense is the best defense,” my mother said, citing some wartime cliche.

We were taught to pray offensively — to attack specifics in our prayers.

There’s No Such Thing

This was a phrase I had heard a couple of times in my youth. But by the time I was ready to finally put some kind of label on my sexual personhood, I went with it anyway. Bisexual. There, I said it. I had heard people from both sides of the coin say that bisexuality just doesn’t exist–you have to go “one way or the other.” Interesting, I always thought, especially since LGBTQ/I advocates have been trying to deconstruct the binary conception of gender for a long time. But I digress . . .

What is Being Gay?

By Alan Scott

For such a simple sounding question, it is anything but. Well, that’s only partially true. There is a simple answer, but as this is not a simple issue, that answer is often lost or ignored.

Straight up (excuse the pun), being gay means that I, as a man, am attracted–both sexually and romantically–to other men. (More generally, being homosexual means getting turned on by other members of the same sex.) And no, it isn’t a choice. Whatever the cause may be, it is most definitely not a choice.

However, for such a simple answer, it was not simple to answer that question for myself. Growing up, there was no such thing as just liking someone of the same sex. Being gay and the “gay lifestyle” were indistinguishable. Being gay was tied to acting gay and it was all a matter of choice.

Fortunately for me, reality never quite matched up with theory. I met quite a few gay people that didn’t fit the stereotypes at all. First off a lot of them were quite masculine, not feminine, which was quite the surprise to my sheltered self. And then they weren’t all drunken drugged out partyers either. And some of them even claimed to be Christians and love Jesus with all of their hearts. Oh, and let’s not forget that they also claimed that being gay was not a choice at all.

However, in spite of all the evidence it was no easy task to reconcile what I thought being gay meant with what the reality of being gay meant. I read books about it, I read articles about it, I watched videos about it, I talked to gay people about it, and above all I prayed about it. I feel as if I’m doing an injustice to what all I struggled through by being so short in my description, though I also feel as if I’m going on and on about it.

It took me years to come to terms with my sexuality, and even after I came to terms with being attracted to other men, I still struggled with the idea of calling myself gay because of all the baggage it carried from my past. But eventually I had to decide whether I was going to accept the definition and understanding of what being gay was from those who condemned it without actually knowing anything about it, or if I was going to accept the definition and understanding of what being gay was from those that were actually gay. Putting it like that makes me laugh at myself for adhering to the understanding of those who had no understanding, but then, as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

Of course, it is always wise to be mindful of the circumstances and the understanding of the different people that we interact with, but ultimately it is we who are gay or queer, not others; and thus, it is we who should say what we are, not others.

Growing Up Queer: “We Don’t Use That Word”

By Kate Kane

When I was growing up, my mother read me 1 Peter 2:9, from the KJV: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”   Because my mother was focusing on my vocabulary that year, she asked me what I thought ‘peculiar’ meant.

“Oh, doesn’t it mean strange or queer?” I asked innocently.

“You can say strange, but you shouldn’t say queer,” she told me gently. “Some bad people have decided to call themselves queer, so we don’t use that word anymore.”

I asked her what people she was talking about, and she only said that the some of the same people had stolen the word “gay” and I couldn’t use it to refer to happiness any longer.

Later my dad pulled me aside to tell me that this same vaguely-defined “bad” group of people had been cursed with a disease because one of them had slept with a monkey. He was sick at the time he told me this, and I remember his fever making his eyes strangely bright as he hoarsely whispered this story.

What I did understand left me horrified, and that was the beginning of my internalized homophobia. I now consider myself pansexual and genderqueer, but back at the tender age of twelve, I was just confused.  To my flat-chested FAAB self, puberty was a betrayal. I was being forced into a body I did not want. When my mother asked if I wanted to be a boy instead, I said, “Of course not! I just want to be a person — not a boy or a girl.”

“Well, sweetheart,” she said. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to choose.”

Except I didn’t want to choose.

The presence of certain boys and girls began to leave me breathless and weak in the knees. I correctly recognized that those feelings about boys were crushes. But my feelings about girls? I just wanted to be really close friends with them, I told myself. I dreamed of having a double wedding with one of my best friends. The faces of the guys in this fantasy were hazy, but the vision of her in white was crystal clear.

Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family, I did not even hear the word “lesbian” until high school. I did not hear the words “bisexual” and “pansexual” until I left for college.

A pastor at my church preached a sermon on how homosexuality was a result of demonic possession. He did not touch on any other portion of the queer spectrum. I was a firm believer in the spiritual realm, and my fear of demon possession caused me to reexamine my feelings for some girls.

One night, after tossing and turning for hours, I confessed to my sister that I was afraid of demon possession because I had crushes on girls. Alarmed, she told me she didn’t want me to sleep in the queen bed we shared any longer. In my depraved state, she said, I might commit incest with her. I fled the room and spent the rest of the night lying in the bathtub, crying.

I suppressed that aspect of myself for the next five years, until I began reexamining it at Patrick Henry College. I had so successfully blocked out the memory that I did not even remember telling my sister until I came out to her a few months ago, at which point she told me that she already knew this about me.

I was always told that homosexual attraction was a unique perversion that prevented those who suffered from it from having a relationship with God. However, my acute sense of loneliness and isolation, of queerness, made me identify more closely with Jesus. When he cries out that his father has forsaken him, I feel the pain in my own heart of knowing that someday I will tell my father, and he, too, may reject me. I may sometimes feel as if I’m too queer for the peculiar people, but I know when my Lord cried out in loneliness, he felt my loneliness too.