This topic contains 21 replies, has 11 voices, and was last updated by 
David Hayward 1 year, 5 months ago.
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AnonymousActually that does help @Wade, thank you for heartfelt response.
Anonymous@Seeking_Heart I have been an advocate for LGBTQ for about 6 years now, but my process started many years ago when my little brother came out to me. Then I realized that when my son was about 12 he too was not heterosexual. He came out to me when he was 19 (about 5 years ago). Since then I have gone to bat for these folks who are routinely battered by the church. I was a pastor when I started doing this. Mostly I wrote about it publicly.
One thing I realized early on is that we have to stop differentiating between folks who choose to live a certain way and those that feel they have no choice. Many people who identify with homosexuality do in fact say that they chose it. Many feel like they have always been this way. Each of them deserve our love and respect and our alliance. So to argue with Christians that God cannot judge gays because they never had a choice is a bit of a misnomer. God does not judge LGBTQ people as sinners because gender and sexuality issues are NOT an issue for God. Here are a couple of articles I wrote from a Biblical perspective about it here that shows my point of view:
http://www.thelastingsupper.com/topic/alabaster-jar-a-parable/
http://www.thelastingsupper.com/topic/david-a-man-who-loved-women/
Leah, I have the same problems with my folks. Very religious. And to top it off I’m trans-gendered. The biggest issue for me is religion, rather than my gender, it’s a tough battle. I went to visit my folks 2 years ago. But I mad a stipulation, don’t try to save me! The Great Divine and I are ok with each other. My relationship with god is between it and myself, no one else is privy to that relationship. Took me a long time to find my beliefs among all my mom and dad’s beliefs. I made my dad promise he would not try to save me. He said ok, I said I want to here you say it. Because if you don’t I wont come. And if you do while I’m there I will leave. He said it.
But dangit if he didn’t find away around it. Last day there he had his pastor come talk to me. I told him the same thing. The Great Divine and I are fine. He asked to pray with me I said sure. And it was over. It was easier talking to the minister, I had nothing to prove to him. My dad kept his end of the deal… sort of.
Lately I can tell my brother and his wife have gone to a seminar on how to bring back your family to the belief system. It’s a soft sell, but it makes me laugh because don’t they know I grew up with this stuff? I guess they aren’t really aware of how transparent they are.
When I was in a religious college my roommate decided to come out as gay. It became obvious that he wasn’t choosing to be gay, because in our culture there would be no reason to choose to be gay. He thought we could no longer be roommates, but at the time, since I knew him, it didn’t really seem all that threatening. I knew I was straight and as far as I knew I didn’t choose to be straight because women were attractive to me from pretty young so I came to understand that, at least, he wasn’t choosing to be gay. At this point I figure, so what if someone chooses to be gay.
At this point a transgender scale makes more sense than biology to me for looking at gender. I would imagine that people who are “choosing” their orientation must be closer to the middle and are probably bi-sexual. An interesting transgender take is a son of one of my friends. He is biologically female, but considers himself a gay man in a woman’s body. I’ve kind of given up trying to even define gender since each person is so different. I think we kind of project ourselves onto others in a lot of different areas and gender is certainly one of those areas.
One of the insights I had while hanging out with my friend’s gay friends was how it might feel to be the only woman in the room. I kind of noticed how everyone was so “nice” to me. I have a lot of interests, including the arts and exploring personal relationships, and I think it messes with the mythical “gaydar.” But, unfortunately, the man body doesn’t do it for me.
I talk with my family pretty straight forward and they seem to have a fairly robust denial system in place, so I don’t worry about it too much anymore. I certainly feel better while I’m with them for the most part. I kind of reverse proselytize as a way to deal with it. I’m pretty immune to it because I recognize this low grade fear that I used to live with all the time and I certainly don’t want to rejoin that.
I don’t really have taboo topics anymore, but there are so many things they “can’t” talk about, that it really feels like work to be around them when I used to edit what I said. I’ve learned to use humor a lot more these days.
I like it @Richard!
great stories!
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