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rotationalsymmetry · 4 years

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A brief history of Unitarian Universalism (casual, with swears, have not fact checked as such but I think it’s correct): In New England back before US independence, there was Calvinism -- you know, that predestination thing, you’re already going to go to heaven or hell, but you should be good anyways so people will think you’re going to heaven, or something like that. Then there wasn’t. Then there was Congregationalism. Which was a lot more chill, but still very “fuck Catholicism”. And around this time, deism was on the rise: the idea that maybe God created the universe, then fucked off, and hasn’t been actively involved with anything since. Then, some people who were actually reading the Bible, because you can’t look down on Catholicism unless you actually read the Bible, were like... wait, maybe Jesus isn’t all that. You know -- the Savior, the Son of God, one third of the Trinity, all that. Maybe he was just, like... a prophet, or some guy who said some interesting things. A teacher. And other congregationalists were like: uh, what, no, Jesus has to be all that. If you don’t think Jesus is all that, how can you even call yourself a Christian? And they decided they couldn’t really be around each other any more. So the first group, which was mostly in Boston, started calling themselves Unitarians (because they rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and instead believed in a one part God), and incidentally at some point also stopped calling themselves Christians because the other guys had a point, and the others called themselves the United Church of Christ (UCC.) Emerson and Thorough -- sorry, Thoreau -- were both Unitarians, as were John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and pretty much everyone else from Boston in early US history. (We like to claim Jefferson, because his beliefs were kindasorta similar to Unitarian beliefs at the time, but as I understand it he was never actually part of a Unitarian congregation.) (Btw: if you’re lgbtq+ and Christian, they’re a pretty friendly denomination. If you’re lgbtq+ and Christian and you think the UCC is too liberal (in the religious sense) or you want a majority-lgbtq+ congregation, consider MCC, which is otherwise unconnected to all this. If you’re not Christian and are lgbtq+ -- atheist/agnostic, or maybe something else if you’re down with worshipping with people that aren’t specifically your thing -- Unitarian Universalism tends to be pretty good. As in: we have a bunch of gay/lesbian ministers and other religious leaders, and a few transgender ones. (Knowledge of less mainstream lgbtq+ identities can vary a lot between congregations and generations -- the younger generations tend to be more aware than the gen x’ers.) I’ve been involved with Church of the Larger Fellowship for most of the past year, which did zoom worship before it got cool and serves people around the world, and people like me who live a mile from a UU brick and mortar congregation but still can’t get their disabled ass over there anyways. Anyways, CLF has more POC on the worship team than most UU congregations (the denomination does tend to run pretty white), is very social justice oriented even by UU standards, and is somewhat more cool about general weirdness than most congregations, which again for UU congregations is saying something.) Then, at some point (sadly, I’m significantly more familiar with the history of the first U than the second) there was this other protestant denomination in the South (as in, the US South) where people decided that God was too nice to send people to hell for all eternity, so they started calling themselves the Universalists, as in Universal Salvation. All dogs go to heaven. Well, time passed, each denomination evolved in its own way. (In particular, Unitarianism caught humanism pretty hard -- the joke was the Unitarians believe in one God at most.) In the -- ok, I’ll look this one up -- in 1961, there was a big old merger, creating Unitarian Universalism, and in the process, everyone got together and was all...wait, so what are our official beliefs about God and stuff? Should we even have official beliefs about God? Maybe we can unify around some ideas around how people should treat each other instead. So they did: they drafted a set of Principles (broad-strokes guidelines on how people should act -- peace is good, truth is good, people have value, stuff like that) and a set of Sources (where UU’s get their ideas about God and morality and so on from, starting with direct experience) and left everything else up to the individual. And then a little while later, the tree-huggers got a seventh Principle and a sixth Source added in -- respect for the environment and Earth-centered religions, respectively -- so now the joke is that UU’s believe in one God, more or less. Currently there’s a movement on to add an 8th Principal that explicitly names racial equality and fighting oppression as something we value, since while the current Principles mention justice and equality, they don’t specifically name race, and the people of color who have stuck with the predominantly white denomination figure Unitarian Universalism can and should be doing better on that front. Unitarian Universalism runs religiously liberal (ie, decentralized, individualistic, non-authoritarian, non-dogmatic, inclined to believe science over the Bible) and politically progressive. Unitarian Universalist congregations tend to be very politically active and concerned with social justice, mostly in a well-educated middle class kind of way: committees, Robert’s Rules of Order, donating to non-profits, Get Out the Vote, inviting in speakers and asking “questions” that aren’t really questions, forming partnerships with other congregations and community organizations, etc. Many UU congregations have put a Black Lives Matter sign out (and when necessary keep putting it out when it gets torn down or vandalized), shown up for the protests, opposed the weird immigration BS that’s been going on in the US recently, etc. In addition to more charity style work, like food pantries and homeless shelters.

Point is: yeah it’s got flaws (don’t even get me started on Unitarian Universalism’s flaws) but if you’re a social justice person and want to meet other social justice people who are doing things, Unitarian Universalism can be a good place to look for that. You get more done in groups.

You’re less likely to burn out, too. With marginalization, it’s complicated, right? Again, for LGBTQ+ people, it’s going to be better than most religious organizations. For people a little bit on the autism spectrum, you probably won’t be the only one. (If you’re unmistakeably autistic, people might be weird/ableist; it might depend on the congregation.) If you’re from a working class background or are currently kinda broke, you might run into some frustrations or feel like you don’t fit in; if you’re a poc or if you’re disabled (or your kid is) or you want a lot of personal support, you might struggle more -- this really might vary a lot, but at least the congregations I’m used to tend to assume congregants can mostly stand on their own feet, metaphorically speaking, and have some extra time/money/skills/whatever that can be directed out into the wider world. It can be a good place for pagans and Buddhists and other people who don’t want a church but are having trouble finding a church-like religious community where you can hang out with people on the same spiritual path. (Uh, for a while UU congregations were emphatically not churches and some officially still aren’t; others gave up and were all “eh, it looks like a church, whatever, we’re just a weird church.) Some congregations are more atheist-dominated than others -- many avoid Jesus language most of the time, some avoid God language most of the time (UU’s who believe in God tend to believe in God in a relatively abstract/metaphorical way), some I hear are pagan-heavy, others do use Christian language a lot more. In all honesty you don’t have to go to Sunday worship if you don’t want to, and really a lot of UU’s don’t; if you want to be heavily involved in the congregation but don’t want to go to Sunday worship and don’t want to deal with pressure to, one way out is to teach RE (religious education -- basically “Sunday school”) the RE curricula are amazing, just absolutely astounding, and if you’re teaching it you get a ton of leeway with adjusting anything you don’t like. (Which could happen -- a lot of this stuff was developed before the idea that cultural appropriation is a big problem became mainstream in social justice circles.) What adult worship is like has basically zero correlation (perhaps negative correlation) to what RE is like. (Which sucks for young adults coming of age in a UU congregation, like I said don’t get me started on UU’s flaws.) Finally: for people who care about sex positivity and sex ed, Unitarian Universalists (in partnership with UCC) developed Our Whole Lives, a sex ed curriculum that, well, it’s not abstinence based education. You wouldn’t expect sex ed coming from a religious org to be better than the sex ed in schools, would you? And yet. Comprehensive sex ed that acknowledges gay bi and trans people and that disabled people have sex too and teaches about birth control and masturbation and abuse and consent and boundaries and bullying and internet safety and abortion. It’s good stuff. The course aimed at teens is most popular of course, but there’s actually (age-appropriate) OWL curricula for all stages of life: young kids, adults, older adults, everyone. And it’s versatile enough to be taught in secular contexts (after school programs etc). Given the direction that unfortunately a lot of school districts in the US have been going in in terms of sex ed, it’s a really important program.

#Unitarian Universalism #unitarian universalist history #feels weird plugging the denomination when I get so frikkin frustrated but still #if it's not something you know about and you care about social justice #it's something you should know something about #even if you're not interested personally #I'm open to questions on this drop me a line

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arokaladin · 4 years

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Can we talk about the pressure on people with less well known or ‘newer’ identities to represent *specifically* that identity and the shame that might come with questioning?

The idea of being an ‘ex-gay’ is something that’s considered to be pretty fringe, and would be mocked even by most decently educated straight people. But ‘detransitioner’ is a label that even queer cis people will use quite seriously (often incorrectly, aka to mean they used to identify as trans, rather than to mean they have medical transition regret, and in a way that adds further stigma to real trans experiences). And of course there are people whose entire personality is based in how they used to think they were asexual.

(I had to ask tiktok to stop showing me videos from this one girl who seems to be quite popular because most of her content from what I can tell is about how much she hated being ace and how she has all this supposed inside gossip about the ace community being cultish and lesbophobic because she ~used to be one~ but god. lets not get into that ok?)

All of this, along with the fact that ‘obscure’ labels are targeted even more by the ‘just a phase’ argument, even within the queer community, makes things so much harder for people who are re-questioning or even just using a different label under same umbrella. People can be hesitant to talk about their experiences out of fear of proving the stereotype. I think I’ve seen a few people touch on this. However the other effect is that when you are comfortable in a label with this kind of stigma, there’s pressure to be really loud about how comfortable you are, and constantly be reaffirming your identity to outsiders. You kind of have to be aro/enby/bi/whatever else before you get to be queer, because you feel a responsibility to be a role model for this specific part of yourself that is least represented.

Personally, I started this blog when I was what? 16? I was barely confident in my own aromanticism, still working on unlearning a lot of things, and was inspired to start posting here so I would have a space to vent and work through those feelings. I was always open about my age and the fact there were plenty of things I didn’t have answers for, but nevertheless I got absolutely tons of asks from people wanting advice. My community was so small that I was simultaneously a baby aro, and being cast in the role of community elder just because I was out of the questioning stage.

As well as an overwhelming number of people wanting advice, I also regularly got asks (and even direct messages) from people who were venting, a lot of the time obviously depressed, and often not even asking a question but just using me as a place to send negative feelings. It got so bad that a few times I had to make posts asking people asking people to stop. People did this to me because our community was so tiny and lacking visibility that some teen’s inbox was possibly all they had, and I was well aware of that.

I think in part this is why I started many projects within aro activism that I never continued with (aside from my executive dysfunction and the aforementioned fact I was 16). I felt like I had to be the one to bring certain resources into being, because most of the time nothing of the kind existed.

Nowadays I’m the least certain of my identities I’ve been since I originally questioned. I genuinely think I am still aro, but I’ve been pretty shaken up all round recently and it’s made me realise how upset I would feel if that did change (even though I still wish feel ashamed of my aroness sometimes and still fight the desire for a ‘normal’ amatonormative life) I’m honestly pretty terrified of losing community were my labels to change too much, even though logically I know my friends wouldn’t drop me if I turned out to be a slightly different kind of queer, let alone just a slightly different type of aspec. And I think this is probably in part because of how outwardly adamant I’ve had to be about my identity for years.

I guess it’s worth noting the role of the ‘Discourse’ in this: being constantly under attack has meant the aro and ace communities specifically have had to become pretty isolated. A lot of us don’t trust even other queer people, for good reason, and a lot of us again keep to even smaller subsets of the community to avoid other bigotries. And the way the internet is encourages the urge to divide yourself up and put the parts in boxes. But I think the pressures I’ve talked about would exist even without those factors.

I’m not sure if I have a conclusion to this, because I’m still thinking about it a lot. I’m not sure how we fix a problem like this because I’m not sure there’s technically any problem to fix. A lot of it is just the growing pains of a small community. I would like to start a dialogue, however. Does anyone else feel this way? How do we accept possible future re-questioning without telling ourselves this might be just a phase, or rolling back our progress accepting our aromanticism? How do we create spaces needed to vent, and discuss difficult topics, without burning each other out or creating a crab bucket? How do we vent about burnout without depicting the aro community as toxic? What do we do to fill the absences left by non-existent elders? I don’t know but maybe we can figure some things out.

#sorry that this is incoherent #im not rlly sure how to phrase all this in a way that isnt #mine #im also not sure what to tag #ah well

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imaginebeatles · 4 years

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Hello, I'm a homo-romantic ace whose been having a lot of weird conversations lately about who belongs in the LGBT umbrella. I think anyone who is ace has the space if they want it because it is a little understood sexual orientation that experiences a lot of corrective reactions. But lately people have been arguing to me that only aces with non-hetero rom orientations and/or folk who are non cisgender have access to the space. I was wondering the following things:

2/2 what’s your take on asexuality belonging to the LGBT term, the LGBT community and the LGBT complex (cuz I think it’s gotten more complex as a functioning being)? Does asexuality belong in a tertiary space like BDSM which crosses over with queer (and shares similarities) but is not fully within it? Thanks for sharing about your thesis, every time it pops up on my dash I feel very excited. It’s been awhile since I engaged in queer theory and I am loving your work! No pressure to answer tho!

Okay, so…. this is a very contentious topic, but I have a lot of thoughts on this, especially since I’ve started doing research for my thesis. I’ve read some articles on asexuality and the queer community so… here we go. I’ve put it under the cut, so people can easily scroll past it if they’re not interested.

(I would also like to first say that I will be use the word “queer” here. I know some people are uncomfortable with that because its past use as a slur, however, because it is an actual academic term that is used by everyone writing about these issues, and especially within queer theory, I will be using that word too. I use the word to talk about all non-normative identities/practices related to gender and sexuality, which includes the LGBTQ+ community, but is more extensive than that, including any letters not part of that acronym. Queer is also a (political and academic) practice, not just an identity. This already possibly shows where my answer to your question is going…)

Firstly, I want to say that I understand why some people within the LGBTQ+ community might be uncomfortable about letting asexual people into that community. There is a difficult relationship between asexuality and queer identities. Some people in the field of asexuality studies have begun to write on this (I’ll list them down one or two down below). Within queer politics, historically but also now, there is a heavy focus on sex. Because queer people have struggled against oppression based on their sexual habits, not having sex is generally viewed as conservative or as a form of assimilation. For wlw this is further true because for a long time healthy sexual behaviour (aka having sex at all) was seen as impossible between two women, because both women would be sexually passive. Not having sex is not radical. This is why hetero-romantic aces are often dismissed as being “straight anyway”. Non-normative sexual practices (like cruising) are an important part of the queer community (academic work within queer studies in especially the 1990s and 2000s shows this too, wherein theoretical and political potential is mined from non-normative sex acts, including bare-backing because of its relation to the HIV crisis in the 80s).

It therefore makes sense that queer people (especially gay men and women, but also others) are uncomfortable with asexuality’s focus on not having sex, and as such asexuality is often seen as being “sex negative” instead of “sex positive” and thus bad. At least, politically.

I, however, and other academics, do think asexuality is queer, if you define queer as being non-normative in relation to hetero-normativity). Asexuality is seen as non-normative in our current hyper-sexual society and sex is seen as a vital part of heterosexuality too (you have to reproduce and women are meant to be sexually available to men at all times). Asexual people are discriminated against because they refuse sex, which society sees as natural. While the struggles of asexual people are different from those of gay people, bi and trans people (and other identities) also have their own struggles against which they fight. This does not diminish their struggles.

Acephobia is based on ableist ideas: if you don’t want sex, there must be something wrong with you either mentally or physically, because sex is naturally and everyone should want it and have it (often). Asexuality is often dismissed and not seen as “real”. There must be something that inhibits you from having sex, whether that is physiological, hormonal, or having to do with trauma, or maybe just because you are not “hot enough to get a boyfriend”, which reminds me of how for a long time lesbians were seen as being men-hating ugly women (and feminists). This view leads to asexuality being pathologized (as homosexuality used to be). There have been numerous ways in which low sexual desire or a lack of sexual fantasies has been sees as a disorder in the psychoanalytic tradition. Attempts to “fix” asexual people are made through things like therapy or hormone treatment (or stuff like viagra or other such things), but also through corrective rape, either in a medical contexts under the idea that sexuality needs to be “awakened” within the patient, or in the private sphere at the end of a partner or friend. Research has also shown that people see asexual people as less human, more machine-like. They admit feeling uncomfortable with asexual people, and that they may discriminate against them, such as refusing them rent.

Asexual people have their own political issues to work through, just as any other identity within the LGBTQ+ community. However, each of these issues and more are related to the fight against hetero-normativity. Another example is that asexual people, especially those who are also aromantic, can help critique the way society privileges heterosexual romantic couplehood, especially married heterosexual couples. Asexual and aromantic people often privilege non-romantic and non-sexual relationship, such as friendships or family, allowing us to re-evaluate these other relationships and open up new forms of queer relating, which will also be appealing to other queer people, who often form their own social group or families and whose relationship and friendships are often in some way “queer”.

On top of that, it is important to realise that there is a lot of overlap between asexual people and other queer identities. However, queer asexual people constantly remark on how they do not feel safe or represented by the queer or LGBTQ+ community, even those who “welcome” queer aces, but not hetero-romantic aces. The queer and LGBTQ+ community are heavily sexualized spaced, which makes aces feel unwelcome, but also leaves many non-asexual queer people to complain about the lack of safe spaces for queer people that aren’t about clubbing, such as the lack of queer cafes or library. The queer community (and LGBTQ+ community) is itself deeply entrenched in compulsory sexuality, just like hetero-normative society, making aces feel like they don’t belong to either community.

If an asexual person if gay, or bi, or non-binary, or trans, or queer, or whatever, it is the LGBTQ+ and queer communities that should provide them a safe space and fight for them. Their asexuality informs their experience as homo-romantic or trans or anything else, and cannot be separated from that part of their identity. These are not separate issues. If we want to protect trans kids or gay kids or any other member of the queer/LGBTQ+ community, these communities need to be inclusive of asexuality and provide spaces where these kids are safe and can talk freely about their experiences and the challenges they face. These will undoubtedly also be informed by their asexual identity.

We are stronger politically when we fight together. We fight the same cause. Asexual people do not ask other LGBTQ+ or queer people to not be sexual. They only ask that they are included and that their own issues are being taken seriously.

On top of that, asexuality intersects with a lot of other queer issues. For trans folks, for example, the focus on sex in society and romantic relationships may leave them uncomfortable because of their body dysphoria and may thus run into similar issues as sex-repulsed aces. Stone butch women may find common ground with asexuality too, because of the focus on penetrative sex in society. The hypersexualisation of gay men may find that they experience similar issues as asexual people who feel they are being (hyper)sexualised despite not being sexual. There is a lot of overlap, and these issues need to be addressed. We can help each other and offer new perspectives that will help us fight for the same rights.

On top of that, on a more abstract level, can also be valuable for queer politics in the way that it undermines our current understanding of sexual identity. The way we now think about sexuality was constructed by straight people with the aim of pathologizing and thus actively discriminate against and eliminate perverted sexuality. This started with homosexuality with Freud, and quickly began to expand. If you want to know more about this, Foucault’s History of Sexuality is a good place to start. This allowed for sexual object choice to be used to group specific people together and make them into a specific type or “species”, as Foucault calls it. Our conception of sexuality, then, was constructed to uphold heterosexuality as the norm, making heterosexuality (that is the opposite sex as the sexual object choice) out to be the natural and normal and healthy form of sexuality.

Asexuality undermines this construction. Asexuality not only shows that there are different forms of attraction, which do not need to be connected to each other in a one-on-one relation, but also shows that sexual attraction is not the only or even the most important basis for attraction. Asexuality is not explainable in our current system and forces people to consider their sexual preferences. What do I like in sex? What kind of sex? What kind of sensuality? And with whom? If I like having sex with men, but only being sensual with women, what does that mean? Asexuality asks us what we prefer, putting the focus on preference rather than something biological or innate that makes us feel desire towards one gender and not the other.

This is not to say that asexuality makes sexual identity into an arbitrary choice. Rather, it shows that you cannot divide people into identity categories based on sexual object choice shows that attempting to do so is just as silly as doing so based on if you like tea or coffee. Or ketchup or mustard. On top of that, it allows for sexuality to be seen as fluid, not that it changes, but that it is not fixed. Maybe you like ketchup for a long time, and then no anymore. Or maybe you are briefly in the mood only for this specific type of mustard but not the others. Focusing on preference allows us to undermine the whole construct on which hetero-normativity is predicated. Making identities such as heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual or pansexual almost meaningless or nonsensical. If we want to do away with hetero-normativity completely, this is a crucial step to take. It allows us to focus on sexuality as a social construct, rather than something that must be biologically explained.

TL;DR: I understand why some LGBTQ+ people are uncomfortable with the idea of bringing asexual into the community. However, I think ultimately we are fightening the same cause despite our own specific issues that we face. We have a similar stake in queer politics and queer academia. Asexuality can offer the queer or LGBTQ+ community a lot, and being inclusive to asexuality is crucial if we want to protect queer kids. As such there is a lot that both communities can offer each other.

This goes for both queer aces and hetero-romantic aces. Hetero-romantic aces also benefit and often have a stake in dismantling hetero-normativity because they are asexual. Hetero-romantic aces also face discrimination under hetero-normativity. Because of this, asexuality at large ought to be included. Excluding hetero-romantic aces from the queer community or LGBTQ+ community shows a misunderstanding of asexuality and its political issues and seems not so much inclusive of asexual issues, but rather inclusive of those issues that relate ONLY to the other part of their identity. For queer aces, however, these two are not separate issues. If you want to be inclusive to queer aces, you have to be inclusive towards asexuality in general.

Asexuality, then, should be fully within the queer community, not be treated as a separate but overlapping thing like BDSM. Asexuality, when taken seriously, will affect all spaces of the queer community for the better, while still allowing for sex-positive politics.

Reading suggestions:

Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality.

Megan Milks, “Stunted Growth: Asexual Politics and the Rhetoric of Sexual Liberation.” In Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, edited by Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks.

Erica Chu, “Radical Identity Politics: Asexuality and Contemporary Articulations of Identity.” In Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, edited by Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks.

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sophygurl · 6 years

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Thoughts for National Coming Out Day in this year of our lord twentyGAYteen:

1. When I was a teenager, I knew I was straight. In my 20′s, I knew I was bi. In my 30′s, I knew I was pan. I’m in my 40′s now and it’s gotten complex.

I’m non-mono romantically and sexually attracted, as in I have attraction to multiple genders.

But I’m also suspecting more and more that I fall on the ace spectrum along the lines of akoisexual. I experience attraction, I like the idea of dating and relationships, but I don’t like the feeling of being attracted to, and the reality of dating or sex or being in a relationship feels yucky to me. Some of this might be due to PTSD stuff and/or other medical reasons. But it also might just be who I am. It could be a combo of both. Whatever the case, I’m cool being single.

I’m also poly, and I know not everyone thinks polyamory belongs under the queer/lgbtetc. umbrella, but for me it most definitely fits as part of my overall orientation and identity. When I was dating, I did mono or poly relating equally, but FELT poly whichever I was doing. And as a singleton now, I still FEEL poly. It’s important to me. And my platonic life partners still feel like a poly community to me. We have each other in ways that significant others do but just minus the sex and romance.

I’m also genderqueer, and I’ve thought a lot about what that means to me individually. I don’t consider myself trans or non-binary. There’s a lot of complicated and personal reasons why that is the case for me, but it ends up sounding like gatekeeping because other people might share similarities to my situation but do consider themselves trans and/or enby, so we’ll just leave it as - it’s just how I personally do and don’t identify. I feel that I have a multiplicity of gender, including feminine and masculine both. But I am also very comfortable with my assigned bio sex as female. It’s my gender that’s queer - not my sex. For some people it’s the other way around, or both.

All of this is long-winded and complex, and so much easier summed up as queer, so mostly I just go with queer. Also because apparently queer is having to be re-reclaimed these days which pisses me off so I’m just gonna use the word queer as often as possible. Queer. Queer. Queer!

2. I’m out, open, proud, and loud about my identities. This is mostly because I’m just an obnoxious self-discloser in general and will tell anyone anything about myself at the slightest provocation.

BUT Also, I do think it is very important for the people who can and want to be out to do so. Someone has to answer questions and challenge norms and be an example to young folk and make all this shit visible and normalized. And since I have no qualms about being out, I am happy to do these things for the folks who can’t or just choose not to. Because that shit is valid as hell, too.

There are so many many reasons why someone might not feel safe to come out, or ready to come out, or not want to come out fully, or might just want to come out to some people and not others, or might want to come out about some aspects of their identities and not others, or might want to be fully out but not be bugged or questioned about it beyond stating what is true about themselves, etc. All of that is valid.

But I’m here and openly queer and ready to talk about it. So feel free to ask me about my queerness. (This goes for other shit in my life, too. For example, I will answer questions about my chronic illnesses or my mental illnesses or about living on disability benefits or about being an abuse survivor or about my favorite books or my cats or whatever the fuck.)

Leave the people who want their privacy alone. But I’m someone you can come at, as long as you’re polite and respectful about it.

3. My coming out stories are kinda weird. Because my life has been kinda weird. So like, my dad came out to me when I was around 10 and my parents were splitting up. It came out along with a whole bunch of other stuff about the dysfunctional aspects of my parent’s marriage and some wrong things my dad did which is maybe the one thing I won’t talk publicly about yet because it’s not really my story to tell but I do talk about it privately. But so anyway. Yea.

My parents split up, my dad came out as gay and left the ministry as a result, and he moved out of town. This was in the mid-80′s in a conservative area of the midwest, so it was not a thing that was talked about publicly. I did not tell any of my friends for years. One friend found out by snooping through my things and then told me. Another friend and I got talking because he had a gay older brother and we were safe people to talk to about this thing (it later turned out we were both queer too but I sure didn’t know back then and I think he was probably in early figuring it out stages himself at the time).

I didn’t tell anyone else until I got to college. Not even my bestest friend knew. So first things first - I had to come out about my dad being gay.

I didn’t personally have an issue with my dad’s gayness. I just knew other people were likely to, and I was being actively bullied by half the student body already and if this secret came out it would just have given them more fodder, so I kept it in. Turns out, some of my friends had figured it out anyway and were fine with it. And all of my friends were great about it once they were told.

But not only was my dad gay, but my parents were very liberal and we had family friends who were gay, and my parents talked openly with me about trans people and intersex people and many other things so it was not an issue for me. I used to sometimes wonder if I might be gay and then go, nope, I like boys too much! lol

So then I got to college. And met and befriended people who were bisexual or at least bi-curious and it got me thinking... and one day while out thinking I caught myself watching a woman’s butt wiggling as she walked in front of me, and I realized that I enjoyed watching such things a lot, and the lightbulb clicked on like ooohhhhhhh I’m bisexual!

My friends who were fine about my dad being gay were equally fine about my bisexuality. I mean, listen, some of them were conservative Christians who believed I was probably going to end up in hell some day - but they probably thought that about me before this realization for other reasons anyway - and they still loved and accepted me as a person, which is what mattered to me. I was a little worried to tell my dad because I knew not all gay people accepted bi people, but he was fine about it.

The funny part was my mom. When I went off to college, my mom started doing as much self-exploration as I was doing. So we kept coming to the same realizations around the same time. Bisexuality, polyamory, Unitarian Universalism, etc. It was like - I discovered this new thing about myself ... oh yea, me too! lol

I’ve never had a negative coming out experience with anyone I actually care about. I’ve had strangers or casual acquaintances on the internet react badly, but that shit doesn’t bother me.

I know I am incredibly lucky - both in how easy it’s been for me to figure out and accept my own identities, and in how easy it’s been for the people in my life to accept them and me. I remember I told my bestest friend about my bisexuality when I had just broken up with my first partner - a guy - and was heart broken and going to come live with her for a little bit until I got my life sorted back out a bit. I wanted her to know, in case I started to date a woman. But I also didn’t want her to worry about the whole living in the same space thing, so I assured her I wasn’t attracted to her in that way. She very comically asked me why, wasn’t she attractive enough, and acted offended, which was just the perfect reaction and I will love her forever for that.

Not only have I never had a bad coming out experience, but I know that my coming out has directly helped others to come to terms with their identities, and has helped to educate open minded but unaware allies about lots of things. So I am very fortunate.

And this is a huge part of why I can so easily and comfortably be out and proud. Not everyone gets to have the experiences that I’ve had. So if there is anything I can do to pay this shit forward and be there for other queer folk, I’m gonna always do it.

I’m here and I’m safe to come out to. I will hold your secret as confidential. I will help you open up about it if that’s your desire. I will support you as you question and figure shit out. I will help you find resources. I will believe you. I will accept you. I will help raise your voice. I will be your voice if you can’t speak up for yourself. I will fight off your bullies. I will field your ridiculous questions. I will listen. I will hear you. I will tell you that you are not alone.

#national coming out day #coming out day #coming out #queerness #queer

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margot-bargot · 6 years

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Listen, fam. I'm coming out.

Look, I've been working on the best way to do this for a while. I had a whole long thing typed up & I kept re-writing it for months. But I think I'm just gonna get to the point. I'm coming out. I identify as pansexual. What is pansexuality, you ask? Well, it basically means that I feel attraction to anyone, regardless of their gender. Cis men & women, trans men & women, agender folks, demigender folks, etc. If you've never heard of pansexuality before, lemme hit you with that Wikipedia link real quick to help you out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansexuality . Pansexuality is pretty adjacent to bisexuality & often gets confused for it. However, the two are slightly different in that bisexuality is attraction to two or more genders & pansexuality is attraction to anyone of any gender. A couple things to note real quick before we continue: 1. Pansexuality doesn't mean that you're attracted to EVERYONE you see. It simply means that your capacity to feel attraction isn't primarily based on gender. 2. If you make any jokes about having sex with pans, you're officially a cornball. I'm just giving you a heads up, is all. Sorry but I don't make the rules. So the thing you might be wondering is how I figured this out. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out how I could go 29 years without knowing this about myself. But every time I think back, there is one element of my past that explains why it took so long. Growing up in a predominantly conservative christian home, the idea of being gay or anything close to it was a non-starter. It was a sin & a heavily condemned one, at that. As a result, any time a "gay thought" would pop up in my head, I tried to get it out of there as quick as possible. It became an instant reflex to keep that kind of thought out of my head. But I still would feel guilt for the thought, as well as guilt from "lusting" for women. My teens were a confusion time where I was discouraged from even considering an attraction for another gender while also being told I was TOO attracted to the "right" gender. Not a great situation, emotionally. Unfortunately, I suspect it's not an uncommon occurrence for kids growing up in strict christian homes. That said, I felt more comfortable exploring attraction & affection towards cisgendered women (even if it led to "sin" or whatever ugh) mainly because it was instilled in me by conservative christian culture that being gay was worse in the eyes of both God & the church congregation than sleeping with a woman before marriage. If you did that, the church congregation would murmur about you for a bit & engage in some form of slut-shaming hidden under the guise of "asking god for forgiveness." If you were gay? That was a disease. A sinful disease. You'd be quarantined, or ostracized, from that community unless they had the "grace" to help you get therapy to pray the gay away. So, being a massively horny but perpetually nervous teen, I chose to guiltily explore attraction to cis women & push everything else out. In college, my views on both religion & sexuality became more liberal. I no longer thought of being gay as a sin disease (although Sin Disease is a good name for a metal band, now that I think about it). This trend continued after college & beyond, to the point of total acceptance & support for the LGBTQIA community. Folks were gay (including several friends of mine) & that's cool. But I never thought about it for myself. I never allowed myself to really consider the possibility that I could be attracted to anyone else because I always struck the thought down when it popped up in my head. Even though I was no longer religious, I still carried that reflex I learned as a child years ago. The reflex that conservative Christianity taught & encouraged within me. I guess what I'm saying is that religious suppression is a powerful thing. And that only started to unravel for me late last year. I can't point to one thing that started the unraveling process because it really was a culmination of a bunch of different things (such as talking with some cool queer folks about their experiences & finally allowing myself to let in/process non-heteronormative thoughts). It was in late January where I first admitted out loud to one of my roommates that I was beginning to think that I wasn't actually straight. It was really hard for me to find the words for how I felt. None of the established labels (gay, bi, etc) felt 100 percent accurate for me. She actually helped point me toward the idea of pansexuality, which seemed closer to how I felt (I would later talk to some cool queer folks who helped verify some information about pansexuality, where it fit in the rainbow, etc). And a weird thing happened that night. I felt a weight lift off of me. It happened almost instantly. It was like a weight that I never knew was there. And I started crying. Was this what I was carrying with me for 29 years? Was that reflex to kick the idea of anything queer out of my head keeping this weight on me? Even now, with the large amounts of stress/worry that I feel on a day-to-day basis, I think about all of this & it feels like a bright spot in an otherwise dark world for me. Like, the world is going to shit, but I finally figured out this important truth about myself. Anyway, that's a lot of words up there. And I'm not done! I still need to tell you why I'm saying all of this! But I know this has been a long read, so feel free to run to the bathroom if you need to. It occurred to me that I might not be the only one in this situation. If conservative christian culture was able to burrow that repressive reflex that deep into me (so deep that it lasted years after I left the church), it had to do the same to other folks. Maybe there's someone reading this that hasn't even allowed themselves to consider their sexual identity. Maybe someone's reading that's just starting to ask some questions about their identity. If so, I want to tell you that it's okay to question & explore that side of yourself, even if you don't really have a name for it yet. I certainly didn't know what to call myself at first, other than "not straight". You're 100% not alone in this. I'm out here with you, grasping at bits of truth, filling in the gaps, & trying to find answers but feeling so much more free in the journey than I ever did in the comfort of what I knew. If you are in that situation, there are a lot of good resources to help you fill in the gaps & answer some of those lingering questions. If you have a friend in the LGBTQIA community, don't be afraid to ask them about their own experience. Talking with folks who had an experience coming to grips with their own queerness helped me quite a bit, even when our experiences were different. It's just nice to know you're not some unsolvable mystery & that this this thing (whatever you end up calling it) is a very positive thing. If you live in a big enough city, you probably have an equality center that provides resources, access to affordable counseling, support groups, & social events (where you can meet other folks within the community). If your city doesn't have something like that, there are online resources that can help as well. Here's a link for the GLBT National Help Center, in case you're in that situation: http://glbtnationalhelpcenter.org . Hopefully that ends up being helpful to anyone who needs it. It's 2018 & while there have been massive strides in LGBTQIA rights/visibility, there are still many ways in which members of the community are harmed & discriminated against (spearheaded largely by our current administration). We're not in a time where everyone everywhere can feel 100% safe openly exploring their sexual and/or gender identity. I'm a huge dummy in many respects, but if some of the information in this post helps someone feel less alone or points them in the right direction, then it'll be worth it. I realize that there are folks I know who hold more conservative views. They'll probably read all of this (or like, just the first two paragraphs lol) & decide I'm heading straight to hell. If they're being generous, they'll say that they're "praying for me" & pity me as another lost soul. Which, whatever. I'll be fine. If anything, I feel more free than I ever did repressing such a big part of myself. Plus, these are people who voted for Trump (& if they didn't, they are still largely okay with the gay-hating coward Mike Pence). So we're not gonna see eye-to-eye on this no matter what. 🤷‍♂️ Also they can fuck off. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ I guess that's all I have to say. If you stuck around & read all of this, I appreciate you indulging me as I tried to fumble around explaining myself. It's been about 5 months since I first came out to my roommate & I'm happy to finally share the good news with y'all. I'm going to my first ever Pride parade soon. It'll be my first time around a large gathering of queer folk. I normally don't really like being out in large groups (nor do I love highly corporate-sponsored events, which this surely will be). That being said, I'm really excited! I seriously can't wait for this. Probably because it feels like finally being united with a group you never knew you were a part of. It's an event specifically celebrating the idea that it's cool & good to be queer, to be part of this rainbow. For the first time in a long time, it feels like I'm moving in the right direction.

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