I have always admired people who are able to maintain a spiritual or religious connection while being out as an LGBT person. At one point I thought I could be that kind of person. And maybe I still can, I still have lots of life ahead of me. However, it is definitely not something that the Church makes easy for LGBT people. This is going to be neither a case for or against Catholicism, simply a discussion of what growing up Catholic and bisexual looked like for me.
One of the iconic parts about growing as a Cradle Catholic (someone born into a Catholic family) is the Catholic guilt. When you’re eight years old you get thrown into confession and told to tell this man everything you’ve done wrong. And, like I said, you are eight, so most of these confessions are trivial “I talked back to mom and dad” or “I hit my brother/sister”. You are made to feel like so much of what you do is wrong from such a young age. And then, as your transgressions get more severe, so does the guilt. Which for me, led to stifling anxiety that everything I was doing at all times was somehow wrong.
So, in middle school, when I started to have feelings that maybe I was different and possibly gay, I repressed it. I knew how the Catholic Church felt about being gay and I did not feel like telling a priest about it. It was not until high school that I started embracing my bisexuality. I felt much freer to discover who I was. And since I was still closeted during this time, I continued to live my Catholic life, keep my Catholic friends, explore all aspects of myself at one time. I even started bringing my girlfriend to mass with me. Despite her animosity towards the Church, she saw how important my faith was to me and wanted to be a part of it. Looking back, that was a much bigger deal than I realized at the time.
In high school, I was outed to my parents, my mother always told me, “You can’t have the best of both worlds, you have to choose.” I had to choose between being bisexual with whatever future that held or being a part of my family and church community. That is the mindset I continued to have into adulthood. My parents encouraged me to renounce my sexuality and go back to being the good Catholic daughter I had been, using the loss of financial support and relationships as an incentive. At this point, my family and I had essentially been ostracized from our church communities and social circles. Because of my parents’ rejection and the added guilt, I decided to recant my bisexuality and cling to the identity of a Catholic who strayed from the straight and narrow (literally and metaphorically).
Obviously, this mentality did not last for me. But it did last a good amount of time. 5 years almost. I pretended, and truly desired, to be the best Catholic I could be. I would list my sexuality as one of my sins in my list of confessions. When I told a close friend of my “past” it was always a big deal and a big moment of vulnerability. My friends typically took it pretty well, which I am grateful for since I only had super Catholic friends in college. But I always wished it didn’t have to be a big reveal or big confession.
I wanted so desperately to just make my sexuality a part of who I was and incorporate it into this other big part of who I was — my faith. Because of how I was raised, I have always thought, “You can’t have the best of both worlds, you have to choose.” And I chose to be Catholic. It was a sacrifice, I reminded myself. It was a choice I made every single day. I am not going to be bi, I am going to be Catholic. And those two things are in opposition.
It was not until after I got married that I realized maybe it did not have to be that way — I can be bi and Catholic. I have been pretty scarred by my experiences with toxic Catholic communities, so I have been reluctant to put myself back in that environment. I have the privilege of being in a straight-passing marriage, so I do not really have to disclose my bisexuality to strangers or coworkers or friends. For the most part, I can come out on my own terms with people I meet, I just have to do it over and over again. At some point, I hope to get to the point where my sexuality is not a big sit-down confession with the people I know and can be a seamless part of who I am.
I don’t want to discount the large numbers of LGBT children and adults who have been hurt in so many ways by the Church. I feel it. I have been there, disowned. Those feelings are just as valid as my desire to remain a part of the Church. You should never have to place yourself in a toxic environment that does not accept you or treat you like a person. But I refuse to accept the false dichotomy of being bi and Catholic. That is who I am — bi and Catholic. They are not two separate destinations. And this goes for any faith, religion, occupation. The boundaries established socially do not need to define you as a person or direct your path in life.
Being part of the LGBT community does not have to be a disqualifying factor in being religious. Our faith is just as valid, just as our sexuality is not a matter of contention with religion and should not be viewed as so. Experiences as a queer Catholic can be used as a constant reminder to be compassionate and accepting of those that are different or ostracized. Although I am currently in a bit of a religious “limbo”, working on accepting myself so that I may play a more active role in my faith life, Catholicism remains important to me.
So while I will most likely be plagued with that Catholic guilt for my entire life, I don’t have to have bisexual guilt too. I am free to explore all the parts of myself and embrace them fiercely. As Walt Whitman once said, “I contain multitudes.” If you are a Catholic or ex-Catholic bi person, I hope you realize that you’re not alone and how important you are to whatever community you inhabit, faith-based or otherwise.
Comments
Facebook Comments