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There are degrees of acceptance throughout the religious communities of their LGBTQ brothers and sisters. Refinery29 talks about several of experiences of coming out within different faiths.
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00:01So June month was Pride month and it was the most colorful, exciting, fun time of the year.
00:06Pride month is all about individuality and self-love, but we often forget about the people that don't have an
00:11easy time coming out.
00:12So I couldn't help but wonder, what is it like being within a certain faith group and also within the
00:16LGBT community?
00:18First I wanted to talk to my friend Alisa about her experience.
00:20She identifies as a lesbian and grew up in the Catholic Church.
00:23So talk to me a little bit about your spiritual or religious upbringing.
00:28I was involved in the church from age about 5 to 17.
00:33I kind of loved going to church.
00:36I went Saturday nights because I was a cantor.
00:39I went Sunday mornings because I was in the choir.
00:41I just loved the music and the harmonies and I loved madrigals.
00:44And yeah, I was there for like the singing and the performance.
00:47Not so much the religion, but I definitely think it seeped into my identity.
00:53Ultimately I left because it felt disingenuous to my identity.
00:58As a critical thinking feminist and queer woman.
01:01How about the greater religious community? How did they react to you being gay?
01:04So yeah, I never really like came out in the church.
01:07But through the power of Facebook and Instagram, people knew my identity.
01:11And I think that they were accepting and welcoming.
01:16I never received any like hatred or anything.
01:20But I also never went back to that community to look for their support or guidance.
01:25Like I never looked to them to be included.
01:27I never made an announcement that I was having sex with men.
01:30So why would I make an announcement to this community that I was having sex with women?
01:33What is your advice to someone who's struggling with coming to terms with being in a religious community and identifying
01:39in a certain way?
01:40I think religions all throughout history, you've got to take from it what you can get and what's helpful for
01:47you and leave the rest at the door.
01:49Having a faith and being a feminist, having a faith and being queer is a hard thing to reconcile and
01:56to reckon with.
01:56So it makes sense that that is difficult.
01:58I just think it's super important for people to take what works for them and leave the rest.
02:03Although Lisa seemed really confident about her decision to leave the church, I knew it wasn't as easy for everyone
02:09to just disown a part of their identity and leave a place that they grew up in.
02:13I wanted to talk to my friend Josh who was raised in a Christian household which really shaped his sense
02:18of self.
02:18So tell me about your religious upbringing.
02:21I basically grew up in a very fundamentalist Christian upbringing in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona.
02:28And I was at school every single day of the week and then I had to go to church maybe
02:32two to three times.
02:33You know, Wednesday nights, Sunday nights, Sunday mornings.
02:36So it was just full immersion.
02:38Things were really strict, things were really sheltered.
02:40Everyone loved me because I was this like perfect Christian.
02:44So a lot of it was me trying so hard to be like this perfect Christian in other people's eyes.
02:48What was the view about homosexuality growing up?
02:50There wasn't really any talk about it.
02:52I do remember one time when I was five asking my dad if men could marry men and if women
02:57could marry women.
02:58And he said, like, no, like that's disgusting.
03:02Most people are worse than pigs.
03:03My summer going into sophomore year of high school when I just felt this really huge need weighing down on
03:08me to tell anyone.
03:10You know, because I was just so afraid of going to hell, of not being able to change this.
03:14Because I always felt like it was something that I could change on my own.
03:16My dad was like, you know, he handled it in a very dad way.
03:19You know, like freaking out, kind of just being like, what?
03:21Like, why would you like that?
03:23It was kind of a three-way decision that we would all, that I would go to conversion therapy.
03:27So for those that don't know, what does conversion therapy mean?
03:30Yeah, so conversion therapy is any means method to try and make someone who is queer not queer.
03:38It can range from, you know, talk therapy or to like the most extreme release, like electro, like convulsion, stuff
03:44like that.
03:45I went for about two years, like once a week.
03:47Mine was, thank God, on the lighter side.
03:50It was mostly talk therapy.
03:51The main thing was that they thought that they could change that.
03:54And that wasn't the truth.
03:55How did the treatment of your parents change when they found out that you were gay?
03:58And then what happened?
03:59So they took away computer.
04:01They took away my phone.
04:04I couldn't hang out with friends, especially like my male friends at the time.
04:07So it was just like really hard.
04:09It was a lot of isolation.
04:11How did this experience impact your faith?
04:13When you're in such a good, like loving Christian environment, you feel so warm and connected.
04:20And so not being able to have that kind of communion with other people, it can be so challenging because
04:24you just feel really like cut off from everything.
04:27What advice would you have for someone who maybe was raised in your community that wants to come out and
04:33or any gay people in general?
04:35I would tell them not to give up on a faith system or any type of spirituality.
04:40High school is not that long.
04:42You can get out and you can start living your own life.
04:45And it's only just a matter of time.
04:48So just don't give up.
04:49And don't give up on the people that are around you because they're really going to be the ones who
04:55are like your life support.
04:56Similarly to Josh, my friend Auden also faced judgment for being gay within his religious community.
05:01I'm from a wee little town outside of Dubai named Alain.
05:06It's a hyper conservative version of Dubai, I would say.
05:11I was raised conservative Muslim, kind of like orthodox style, having to pray five times a day, do all the
05:19five pillars of Islam.
05:20I would always like kind of distance myself from it and I was always very scared of it.
05:23For a while I was just like, oh my God, like God's going to send an angel and it's going
05:27to like topple a mountain over me.
05:29Did that scare you?
05:30Engaging in homosexual acts shakes the throne of God, which is like to a child.
05:35I mean, I remember the first time I heard that was like when I was 12.
05:38So I remember just being like, oh my God, like God himself, like his throne is shaking just because like
05:44two people of the same gender are like engaging in like acts of love.
05:49How were you wrestling with that?
05:51How did you, and how do you come out?
05:53My first realization of like my gay identity or like my sexual identity really came about when I started doing
06:01theater.
06:02I, when I went to college, I was like, you know what? I'm done.
06:05I'm done. I can't do this anymore.
06:07And it was because I didn't really feel like what I was doing was in par with like how I
06:13viewed my religion.
06:14Or at least how I wanted to view my religion, you know?
06:17Now do you attend a mosque or did you leave the community you were a part of?
06:20I can't and I refuse actually to like detach from my religion or my, that identity or whatever.
06:27People back home are not being provided and I, it's like my responsibility to like at least try, you know?
06:35Auden continues to face criticism for practicing his faith as a gay man.
06:38But I know that there's places where acceptance does exist.
06:41That's why I wanted to talk to my friend Gabriel who's a part of the Jewish community and who had
06:44a more positive experience coming out.
06:46Tell me about your spiritual background, how you were raised.
06:49I was raised Jewish. It's been a really strong cultural identity for me.
06:54My mother is actually a rabbi and was a professional Jew leading up to that.
06:58So I received a fairly comprehensive Jewish education and it was always ingrained in me as a large part of
07:03my identity.
07:04How did that relate to your sexual preference and identity?
07:08Everyone knew I was gay including my family and everyone was spending time pushing me in that direction because everyone
07:14was very eager for me to come out.
07:15So I actually gave my Dvar Torah which is basically like an analysis that you do of the Torah portion
07:21of that week for your bar mitzvah.
07:23It was the story of Jonathan and David which is widely considered to be a story of two gay lovers.
07:29I remember the minute that I said the word homosexuality I watched a thousand people just like lift their heads
07:34up simultaneously and then they listened to the rest of it.
07:38So for the most part you feel like you were accepted within your community?
07:40I think that my experience is probably more common than not but there is obviously a diversity of the experiences.
07:47If I grew up in a more traditional Orthodox Jewish family I don't think that it would have been the
07:52exact same story for me.
07:53Jews do not have the same intense like sodomy Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve thing that I think
08:02is more of a predominant rhetoric in Christianity than in Judaism.
08:08What can religions do to make people feel more comfortable about coming out?
08:12I think a lot of homophobia comes from lack of exposure and I think that once you actually meet and
08:18interact with people who are you know being themselves openly I think it's a lot easier to have these you
08:25know various identities exist alongside each other and in order to you know stay relevant and continue you know giving
08:31positive benefits to people in their lives I think religion needs to evolve.
08:35After hearing from Gabe, Elisa, Auden and Josh it became clear to me that being a part of the LGBT
08:40community and within a place of worship is complicated.
08:44Reform Jews are openly accepting gay couples and transgender men and women are being recognized by Islamic cultures all around
08:51the world.
08:52We still have a long way to go but if we continue to live with the intention of loving our
08:56neighbors then faith will become more accessible to us all.
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