Why Didn’t I Know I Was a Lesbian?

At age 36, Steph discovered something important about herself--she is a lesbian. Steph and Beth have an honest conversation about how heteronormativity, especially in the church, delayed Steph’s full awareness of who she is created to be. 

Questions for Reflection:
(1) Do you think people are born queer? 
(2) How have church and society influenced your understanding of who you are? 
(3) Would the you of ten years ago recognize yourself today? What might surprise you? 
(4) Do you care what the Bible says about homosexuality? Why or why not?

Show notes:
Episode 139, How PRIDE Became Personal
Dr. Steve Harper’s book, Holy Love
www.1946themovie.com

Follow:
Steph
Beth

Chapters

• 0:03 Discovering My Lesbian Identity
• 14:30 Exploring the Effects of Purity Culture
• 21:37 The Church and Homosexuality
• 30:33 Bible's View on Marriage and LGBTQ+
• 43:32 Questions for Reflection

Transcript

Steph: 0:03

Welcome to the Discovering our scars podcast

Beth: 0:06

Where we share personal experiences so we can learn from each other.

Steph: 0:09

Our mission is to talk about things you might relate to but that you don't hear discussed in other places.

Beth: 0:13

Our hope is that you're encouraged to have honest conversations with people in your own life. I'm Beth and I'm Steph.

Steph: 0:19

On today's show, we're going to have an honest conversation titled "Why Didn't I Know I

Beth: 0:24

Then we will share a slice of life and the show will close with questions for reflection, where we will invite you to reflect on the conversation in your own life. Okay, that was a little weird. We did our intro backwards. It was a little weird. 152 episodes into this thing to say your part instead of mine.

Steph: 0:41

I was really trying so hard not to say anything and then you did so I was like don't say anything, don't say anything, just be cool, just be cool. So we did reverse the intro today so that Beth didn't have to say she was a lesbian.

Beth: 0:55

to clarify Do you want to confuse my husband? It is straight.

Steph: 0:59

Nothing discovered there. But last year I did discover that I'm a lesbian and we talked about that in our how Pride Became Personal episode last June. It was very timely for Pride Month. I certainly found out I was a lesbian in such a good timing, let's say, because I was full lesbian in June, my first Pride Month. I'm more excited this month for Pride, this year for Pride Month because I've been a lesbian longer now, so I have more Pride.

Beth: 1:33

Pride is even more personal this year.

Steph: 1:36

What I've learned over this year is that Pride Month is actually Pride Year. You actually are gay all year, it's not just the month. I did realize that.

Beth: 1:46

You discovered this about yourself when you were 36. Did it just happen when you turned 36? Was it like you flipped a switch, or do you think maybe actually for all of the 36 years?

Steph: 2:01

I was actually thinking about when, because I think my mom asked me the other day, what day did you? What's the anniversary of you realizing you were gay? And I was like I don't know. But then I realized it was actually the night my birthday of last year. So I couldn't sleep that whole day, that whole night and I'm a good sleeper, but it was that night I couldn't sleep at all and it was that was, and I was basically I had developed a friendship with a lesbian friend of mine in January and I was like obsessively thinking about her and finally realized, I think on my birthday, that oh no, I like her different than a friend, and so I would say my birthday is the actual anniversary of me realizing I was gay.

Steph: 2:46

Wow, yeah, because I remember going on, I was kind of like obsessing about her, not in a like crazy way, but just like thinking about her a lot.

Steph: 2:54

We were texting and I had only seen her at she was working at my vet's office and I had only seen her at my vet's office in scrubs, which you know I thought she was cute. But then I looked up her Facebook on my birthday when I couldn't sleep that night and like I saw pictures of her like not in her scrubs, and I was like oh, wow, okay. And I saw that she had tattoos and I was like, oh goodness, so I learned I liked girls with tattoos, yeah, and I was going to like Facebook friend her but then I was like no, because it's my birthday and that would be weird, cause you know, people like say happy birthday and I didn't want I was, didn't want her to be like why is he friending me on her birthday at middle of the night. So I was like no, don't do it, wait a couple days. So I did like that, I went through my head way to play it cool, I played it cool, I played it cool.

Beth: 3:41

But do you think that when you were 35, you were a lesbian?

Steph: 3:44

I think I was born a lesbian and I just didn't know it. And I have actually spent this year trying to figure out like why didn't I know? People have asked me. It's not like I haven't, it's not like people haven't wondered and like brought it up to me before. Even my mom, when I was in my 20s, she asked me if I was a lesbian and I was like no, but thanks for the question. Great, but I never was like offended when I wasn't, like yeah, overly offended when people asked me because it was like easy, it was an easy no, like I think I would have been really upset if someone asked me and I was and I was hiding it, but I I did take the time to like well, am I? I mean, I'm not into girls, so I guess I'm not and I would like think about it and I'd be like. You know, I always heard stories when people came out and they said, oh, I knew since I was five.

Steph: 4:39

And I was like well, I sure didn't know and I haven't like. So you know, it's, it's. It's a little confusing because I just assumed I would have those same experiences where I would just know from a young age and I would be hiding it or whatever. And so I didn't. I didn't have those experiences. But the more I think about it, the more I realize I grew up in the, the Unite Methodist Church and I I really enjoyed that. Like I, we went to church every week. It was something that was important to my family and I didn't have any issues with it, like there was. No, there was a couple of things I didn't like doing. Like my mom tried to put me in choir and I absolutely hated that. I'm not someone that likes to sing or be in front of people, so don't, don't put me in there.

Beth: 5:28

But also also a lot of small talk happens at choir, and you are not a small talk person, no.

Steph: 5:33

And I didn't like youth group and my mom kept trying to push me into youth group and I was like, no, I don't want to be around young people. I was one, but I was, I was an old young person. I was never like, when they like would like play with like I don't know, like they just do silly things and. I'm just like why? Why are we doing this Like I was?

Steph: 5:53

never, that person. That was never a good youth, but overall I really enjoyed going to church and I was involved with the church. I did a lot of video production for the church in high school and worked with the, the director of all the technology in the church, and I ran sound a lot and I did graphics and so I was really involved. And I don't ever remember in church the topic of being gay being brought up. I don't remember that concept being discussed in any way. So I would say I would think some churches would talk about it in a bad thing, like like this is wrong.

Beth: 6:35

This is the same In a negative way yeah.

Steph: 6:36

But I don't remember it ever really being brought up. The only thing I ever remember is being presented the straight life Like this is life One day you will meet a man and you will marry that man and you could have a child with that man. And that was what was presented. So I really wasn't even present. Like I knew what gay people were? Um, I had a gay math teacher in middle school and it was talked about in hush tones, um, and I remember, like he's my favorite teacher, like what, what? Why are we talking about it? Like this? Like, first of all, why does it matter? And, second of all, like you know, he's a great teacher.

Beth: 7:17

So yeah, yeah.

Steph: 7:19

Um, and then I started meeting people that um were gay and was like I like this person. Why is this? Why is this an issue?

Beth: 7:27

Um, so, even like in terms of society, or like the community that you grew up in, it was, it was present, but perceived in a negative way. Do you think yeah?

Steph: 7:36

I mean, every time that being gay was brought up it was like hush tones or it's like, and actually somebody that I worked with closely at the church was gay. Yeah.

Beth: 7:46

Is gay.

Steph: 7:48

And I found that out when I was in like ninth grade I think, and I found out that he was gay and, um, that his roommate was his partner, yeah, yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh, cause I was a super huge fan of this person. I thought they were a great person, like I just enjoyed working with them and I was like, okay, great. And so early on I knew gay people that I, you know, liked before I knew, I liked after I knew, and so it really was an issue, but in the people that the church knew that this person was gay, but it was never discussed, it was never like celebrated, it was never brought up. And there were gay people in that church besides him that I learned about also as time went on, and but it was always like we know and they can be here.

Beth: 8:38

But if that person had not been gay, if if he were straight and he were to be engaged and then married, it would have been celebrated like in an unbelievable way, right. Everybody would have been talking about it, everybody would have been excited and happy about it.

Steph: 8:55

Yeah, Because when it was the gay people in the church, it was like, cause, I feel like there was also like a lesbian couple that was married, but I didn't know it for the longest time and then, like somebody kind of like hushed to and talked about it. I was like, oh, cool, great. But it was never like this is so just like it would like a straight couple, like, oh, this is exciting, they're together, oh, great. It was just like, oh, they're, they're together. Yeah, you know, you know. And it just was always like like a hushed tone kind of thing, not like we talk about with a straight couple, you know. And so it wasn't that it was presented to me that like being gay was bad in the church, but it just wasn't presented to me in the same way that being straight was like. Being straight was presented as this is the norm, this is right, this is how life is and there are gay people.

Beth: 9:44

But we whisper about them, right, and so I think that was sexuality in general handled well, because I think often the church doesn't handle it well and particularly, you know, in the nineties and the eighties. In the nineties, really, purity culture was such a big deal that I don't know that even that, even being heterosexual was, was handled all that well. So I think that the the teaching point for me is that maybe the easiest, safest thing is to say that sex is a gift from God, because it is. I don't think I've ever said the word orgasm on the podcast. Let me just say, like, orgasms are a gift from God, and so that's going to be the title of the subject.

Beth: 10:24

That's the sound bite. But so the safest in terms of teaching it right, the safest thing is to say experiencing that within the, within the boundaries of a monogamous covenant marriage. That's like the gold standard, Right? I would hope that I could teach that without shaming someone who made a different choice. I think it's okay to teach the gold standard without saying that anything other than the gold standard condemns someone to hell, cause that's not what I believe.

Steph: 11:02

Well, when you say teaching the gold standard, that then makes me think that the gold standard for a couple is a man and a wife. And so then that brings me back to my issue. Growing up in the church was the gold standard was taught of a man and a woman is a marriage and the life you want. And so there was nothing outside of the gold standard being taught. And so where do I fit? Why fit? Because I don't have those feelings that I'm supposed to have towards men. So where's my message?

Beth: 11:41

Yeah, well, I don't think that gender difference is required for a covenant marriage, so I would not want to communicate that in terms of even even in terms of the gold standard, right Like, I think it can be two women and a monogamous covenant marriage. I think it'd be two men. Do you preach on marriage? Um, I cannot think of a time I have preached on marriage. Yeah, I don't think so.

Steph: 12:05

I don't think so, or on relations like I think that's something that we agree is like a gift from God is to be in relation with people and to have a committed partner, and you're taking from your own experiences and when I say you, I mean a pastor, and all the pastors I was presented with growing up were straight white men, and so their experiences are gonna be with their wife, and so that is what their point. So I think, without going out of your way, like I think you would have to go out of your way as a straight pastor to really present what you truly think of marriage.

Beth: 12:53

I think that is so important because we we in, like humanity in general, we tend to like take our experience and make it normative, like this is the truth for everybody, and we need to be reminded again and again that that's not the case and that happens in all sorts of ways not just sexuality, but race, socioeconomics, like all of that. So I think that that is important.

Steph: 13:19

Well, and it continues to be why it's so important to have all different types of people represented in all different types of spaces, and which is why I feel so disconnected from the church as a whole, because everything I mean it's so awesome that you are a female pastor. That's a big sadly, that's a big deal. You know it shouldn't be a big deal, but that is a big deal because that's not the norm. Hopefully you can want to try to convey, you know, a full message that's outside of your own world, but there's only so far you can go without living those experiences and that's why it's so important to have gay pastors, to have them share like. But we, just we don't. We don't have the same representation because of how much the church has ostracized the different, Ostracized, marginalized, scapegoated yeah, all the things.

Steph: 14:15

So back to purity culture because, I think we kind of got derailed a little bit and a lot of that we talked about will be edited out because yeah, if you want the behind the scenes, that's a whole, nother episode.

Steph: 14:27

But so back to purity culture. So I grew up in the 90s when that was like a big, big deal, did you get a purity ring? No, but I did. I did think about like asking my dad like for one, which is so gross and weird, and I think he would have been like if you want one, okay.

Steph: 14:46

Like I think he would have been like okay, sure, Like cause my parents were not like big on like these messaging things. It was just kind of like you know, but I really ate up the purity culture. Let me tell you, I really was like done, I can do this, I can do this. I was like, if I can put my mind to anything, it is this, so. So I was great at this. I would say I was a gold star at this. If you want to preach on it, I'd be like that's me, I'm right here.

Steph: 15:18

Pure, pure is the whitest thing you've ever seen. And I remember actually there was a Bible study. I can't write what it was called, but there was like this Bible study for like multiple churches, for young I think it was men, I think it was young people, I don't think it just was women, but it was basically about purity culture and was about relationships and all those things. And I got my workbook and I filled that stuff out and I did, I did good, I did good. And I do think, though, like now that I think back on it, I do think that that that purity culture concept.

Beth: 15:54

I think the thing about purity culture is that it does assume I mean, it's all it always assumed one one outcome right, every girl is going to marry a boy and she won't sleep with that boy until she's married to that boy and they'll have 2.7 children.

Steph: 16:07

Yes, and I was gonna have 2.4.

Beth: 16:09

2.4 and they'll have middle-class jobs, yes, and retirement funds, and you know, the 401K, the college savings, all that.

Steph: 16:19

I mean, that wasn't part of the study. I have those things.

Beth: 16:21

Dang. I think I just described my life.

Steph: 16:25

You don't have this 0.7, you just have the two.

Beth: 16:27

Just the two, the old two.

Steph: 16:29

Maybe the 0.7 came from. You had to travel so far for them, so they they get a little extra weight. Yes, I think that's what purity culture focus on. But what I took more from the purity culture I feel like was like not having sex before marriage, and so that really limits what a relationship looks like.

Steph: 16:51

But it was something that, like, I focused on. It's like I don't know what it was, but it almost like it almost like focus me in on like okay, I have to find a guy, but I can't sleep with him and I'm gonna find the right guy and I gotta work towards this goal. And so it almost gave me like a goal to focus on without actually asking myself is this what I want? And so it distracted me from the reality of like. I was so focused on this like okay, purity culture thing that I didn't even think wait, do I even want this? Is this a life I want? And so I think it really damaged, was damaging in the sense that I didn't. It didn't allow me to think outside of, outside of that small box it put me in.

Beth: 17:38

It did put you in, it put everybody in a box, because it never asked the foundational question, right yeah, of who do you, who do you believe you are created to be?

Steph: 17:46

Yeah, like even exploring that, which I would love to see that in a study, like exploring who you are and who you are attracted to, and without any kind of Because, do straight people even like explore that? Like, what does that look like? Am I really attracted to these people? Or?

Beth: 18:05

you know so, and how do we find ways to explore that without the undercurrent of shame? Yeah, you know exactly. Oh, oh, no, I had a thought about somebody who's the same gender. That means I'm not okay. No, that's not what it means. Yeah, exactly, that's a misunderstanding, a misapplication of of scripture.

Steph: 18:25

And so I think to me I was just like okay, this is something, check it off my list. I am pure and I, you know, I'm not going to. I never was intentionally like I'm not going to date in high school, but I just was so busy with other things and I also was just kind of like guys are like stupid, like why would I want to spend like? I honestly like I just couldn't understand. Like my friends are so fun and we just had we're silly and had fun together and I'm like, and then anytime I'd spend time with like a guy, I'm like this is boring. Like how in the world are women best friends with these things? Like I don't even understand this. Like that they want to be with like I just didn't understand. I honestly just didn't understand it. But I was like I guess I'll find one, okay. And I remember in high school we would have like sleepovers me and my friends, because you know, that's what we do.

Steph: 19:16

And I remember, like you do that standard thing where you ask like what boys do you like? Right, growing up in all my friends had something to say and I literally like no boy. I was like, I was like I was up here, I don't even like boys. That's how pure I am. And I made up a guy, did you? I was just talking to my friends yesterday about this and they were laughing because they're like, I remember this. I made up a guy named Chris Poupila powers. That was his name. First of all, we had already, we had just watched Austin powers, so I didn't get to outside of the box with that and my favorite guy name was Chris. So you know that didn't. So they knew from the outside.

Beth: 19:57

This was not a real person. No no, they didn't. No, no, they thought Chris Poupila powers was a real person.

Steph: 20:04

I'm Greek and so I made up I wanted to marry a Greek guy, obviously, so that my dream guy was a Greek guy and so his name was Poupila. Okay, it all like worked, yeah, it worked really well. Okay. And I friends might be just a tad gullible, but one of them really is the other ones kind of catch on pretty quick but he was my crush for a very long time and I can't remember how I, where he was, why no one had ever met him. But you know, this should have been a sign for all of us that I was maybe not as straight as we, we uh, as Chris would want me to be and, um, so, uh, it's just funny to think back. It's like, wow, yeah, cause I just I remember sitting there, I can remember like sitting in that circle, and I'm like, oh, no, right, I don't even think of a guy's.

Steph: 20:54

I can't even think of a guy's name, Like I don't even know, I don't care. And so I just like it would be more fun to make someone up. And so I did, and so you did, and I will say, like I air quoted, dated um in college and you know, as I got older, um, but every time I would date I'd be like, Ugh, this is, this is boring, this is a lot of work. And I'm like I really, after I started dating, I was, I still was like how do women enjoy spending this much time with a guy? Yeah, and how did they enjoy? Like how can this be their best friend? Like I just didn't understand that cut, so I just could not fathom that concept.

Steph: 21:34

And so eventually I did. What the church said is you're going to find that guy one day that you're going to fall in love with and you're going to have a family. And so I really worked as much as I could at finding somebody and I was like I'm going to do it. And I did online dating a little bit. I didn't find them. Yeah, it failed me, it failed me.

Beth: 21:59

It's interesting how you're saying, like you can't, you never could understand. Like how could? Why do women say, oh, like he's my best friend? It could be, because what's interesting to me about that is that then, if you flip the tables right and you were running like the church or the youth group or whatever, and you were using your experience as the normative experience and you were teaching everyone that if you don't feel this way, then you're wrong, like do you see what I'm saying? How that would be.

Beth: 22:27

That is what the church did to you and lots of folks, to you, to me, to lots of folks that you know. They took that one experience and made it normative. And I think that if people thought about, oh yeah, if we use Steph's experience and made that our normative experience, we could see how that wouldn't work for everybody, but there's something about, well, this is what works for most people you know, so we use that as our norm, our baseline, our expectation, and maybe it did work for a lot of the people who were in the youth group that you didn't go to.

Beth: 23:00

I mean, did any of the other people that you grew up with in church, are any of them gay? I was not really friends with youth.

Steph: 23:07

Really, in church I was friends. My friends didn't go to my church. I never really became friends with a lot of like Christian people. I was and am a Christ follower, but there was like I don't know if it was the same when you were in school, but there was like the Christians, yeah, yeah, and I wasn't the Christian. I went to church.

Steph: 23:31

I, you know, volunteered, I did that, but I wasn't that Christian. I wasn't the Christian that comes to school and tells you you're going to hell because you haven't accepted Christ in your life. Like, those people were not my friends and we had, there was, a whole group of the Christian girls and you know that just wasn't my gym. My friends are like actually three of us are queer in some capacity that we've come out in the last little bit and we were the closest in our group and it was just so interesting to realize that, like we, there was something different about us, but we didn't really know it at the time and but we like kind of glommed together and and I kind of always felt as an outsider in Christian groups, like I had a.

Steph: 24:16

Bible study in college with a group of Christian girls and I I'm a Christian, so I should work with this group, but they all like there was just a certain type of person Christian that I'm not and I just was a very accepting and like not so strict on rules Like we have to. I mean, I follow, but I followed the rules, but I still like always kind of felt like an outsider, like I wasn't good enough and I didn't know why. And in my Christian Bible study there was one girl that I was closest to because she was very much like me in the sense of acceptance acceptance of other people and I wasn't really close to the others because there was always kind of this like wall of like, yes, you have to be this way, you have to be that way and I'm like why yes?

Steph: 25:06

And like why can't we talk about real life? And like how we feel, and things like that.

Beth: 25:14

I think that you are describing an experience that is not talked about often, but that is very widespread and widely shared, because and maybe this is on my mind, because I think this is what my sermon is going to be this week but that we we like to replace an actual relationship with God with just following rules. Right, oh, I have these rules, I'm going to follow these rules, and then everything will be okay and I'll be safe inside my rules, and really that's not fully living at all. It's not fully living period.

Steph: 25:50

And I think people like to point fingers at others for not following the rules, because it's easier to do that than really look at their own life, yes, and how they're living, yes, which is really, really hurtful and harmful and is what continues to happen just in the world and politics. And you know, pointing fingers at the others instead of at yourself. Right, because that's what God calls us to do, is be in relationship with God and to examine our stuff, our life. Right, and I don't know why that message continues to get muddled.

Beth: 26:23

I think the Christian church in my lifetime has not represented Jesus very well because it because the the broader church. I'm not talking about my congregation, I'm not really even talking about my denomination, so maybe I'm being guilty of this because I'm pointing fingers instead of looking at what I should be working on. But it has. The Christians have been chosen to be known for what we're against, which is not at all the message of the gospel.

Steph: 26:51

So I think that's something that is hard. Now that I'm realized, you know that I'm a lesbian. I think something that's really hard for me is is having a large amount of people hate me because of how God made me, and I think people have weaponized the Bible to say look what it says. So I guess my question for you is what does God say about homosexuals and what does the Bible say about homosexuals, and is it the same thing?

Beth: 27:22

I don't think the Bible says anything about homosexuality. Let me explain what I mean. First of all, let me just also say there's this new documentary out called 1946, the movie, and some really excellent research is is done in the course of that documentary about how we got the word homosexual in one in the one passage of the New Testament where you see it, which is in 1st Timothy. 1st Timothy is a letter that's traditionally attributed to someone named Paul and in Paul's letters he often there are other examples of him using Greek words we don't know that are not well attested in other writings of the first century that are done in Greek, and this word happens to be one of them. And early in the 20th century, in 1946, I guess that's closer to mid century the revised standard version came out and they translated the word, this compound Greek word, to be homosexual, and then it got picked up and put in other translations, even though the committee that for the revised standard version was wrestling with whether that was really the right word and ultimately decided it was not the right word and they removed it from their translation but it had already been picked up in in other translations. So I don't think there's anything in the Bible about being queer, being LGBTQ.

Beth: 28:42

What the Bible does say is that God is incredibly creative in creation and that God creates a lot of diversity. So one one way that I think about this and this is from the work of a United Methodist named Steve Harper, and I'll put a link to his, to his book Holy Love, in case anybody wants to pick it up but one of the things he points out is, like we say, okay, well, god created night and day. That's what it says in Genesis. There was day and there was night. Right, but actually think about a day there's pre-dawn and dawn and midday, and then there's early dusk and then there's dusk and then there's full night. Like our words might be night and day, but also there is a spectrum in night and day.

Beth: 29:34

And so when God creates male and female, why do we think there's not diversity in that? And why do we think that God is limited to only making straight people and what? And also we act like as if that serves some purpose, and I just don't find that in the Bible. So what I find is that there is a lot of good teaching and a lot of good life experience that says we're made for relationship. We're not made to be on our own, so we live in community for the most part. Right, I mean, folks who are hermets are kind of a different situation, but for the most part trying not to make my own experience normative here but for the most part we're made to live in community, we're made to live in relationship and that there are gifts from God that happen that we can only experience in relationship.

Beth: 30:33

Does the Bible talk about marriage? Yes, and in many of the ways that the Bible talks about marriage, it does not talk about marriage as we understand it today and it does not talk about marriage in a way that we would even consider healthy. The folks who are like marriage as one man and one woman are relying on one or two passages in the New Testament and they're taking one or two verses and really making them stand for the whole thing, which is not. I don't think that's really fair.

Steph: 31:06

Like does the same marriage is between one man and one woman, and is that how it's said in the Hebrew?

Beth: 31:12

No, I mean, I mean the world is created in Genesis 1, and by Genesis chapter three, we have a man married to two women.

Beth: 31:27

So if we want to say, well, one man, one woman, because the Garden of Eden was Adam and Eve and they only had each other, like I guess that's one way to look at it, but then by Genesis chapter three, we have lamec married to two women. So every everything in the Hebrew scriptures is um, take it with a grain of salt, yeah, it's a well, it's a different culture, it's a patriarchal culture and God is working within that patriarchal culture, patriarchal slave holding culture. Um, and it just isn't our culture today, it's not our context today, and I don't think God wants to hold us back to what that was. I think God is continuing to be at work in us and through us. There is a place where Jesus is asked about divorce and he is not a fan of divorce, right, and he talks about it in terms of a man and a woman. So people will turn that around to say, well, he didn't say that it could be right, because he's speaking to a context in an audience right.

Steph: 32:35

Was he speaking to an audience? Yeah, speaking to an audience and he's speaking to the vast majority of the audience and what they need, what they, what language they understood yeah, and he's being descriptive, not proscriptive.

Beth: 32:49

He's not saying these are, you know, these are the bounds of of.

Steph: 32:53

He's giving an example, yeah, yeah, which is kind of going back to when a pastor is speaking in a church. You're speaking to that congregation where they're at what their understanding is, and I think pastors tend to speak the straight message because that's the vast of their audience, but when that is always the norm, I think that's where we continue to get to this issue of queer people not being represented and not hearing that God loves them and they can have the same type of life that a straight person can, because that message is not being communicated Right and we're not going to fix that today, not today.

Steph: 33:44

But I will say I watched that movie 1946 and it was great. Um, it's, it's really well documented and there was some it doesn't tie up in a little bow at the end, you know, I it would be wonderful, but society never just ties up in a little bow. I think it's. It's, um, definitely worth watching and understanding, because the more people the knowledge is power and the more we have well researched, understood things, the more and the more that people are understanding these things and taking the time to understand them. Um, I think change can happen and I think more understanding can happen. I know I've changed in my lifetime. Um, you know, I really spent time throughout, you know, high school, like when I met someone gay. I'm like, why am I supposed to hate them? Because that was the kind of the message and like the messaging. Like there was, uh, you know there was definitely a generation where it was okay to call someone gay as an insult, right you?

Steph: 34:47

know, I never. I never thought that that was okay, like that was never part of my like verbiage but um we were um, where it was just like the norm to say that.

Steph: 34:57

And so, you know, I spent a lot of time just like coming around and realizing, no, like I accept these people, these are people and I love these people and I want them to have the same life that I'm afforded. And so, you know, I spent all this time accepting other people so that, when I realized I was gay, I was able to accept myself so much easier than I think some others are able to.

Beth: 35:21

because, you know, we society is telling us this straight message, because the vast majority of people are straight yeah, which which also comes up in that in that documentary in 1946, because, um, one of the one of the main folks is really vulnerable and honest about how he really can't open himself up to intimacy because he's really not sure that the way he's made to experience intimacy is okay with God. Like he's really struggling, um, and I appreciated his vulnerability in that.

Steph: 35:51

Yeah, I mean it's a heartbreaking moment because you're like, I see how you got to this place and and I'm sorry, the church messed you up.

Steph: 35:59

Yeah, the church really deprived him of a life, of a life of a full life that we're all afforded by God, and yet society is telling us no, like God is giving you this gift and is allowing this, but society is telling you no. I feel like I was looking through straight lenses, you know, before my life, and now I'm looking through gay lenses, um, or conscious gay lenses. I guess it always was a gay lens, but again, I just wasn't conscious of it. I can, I just see stuff so much differently now, like I would have been heartbroken by that, by that even you know before. But I can totally just feel that now. I can feel what that feels like and and I just I even love the story, how the, how the movie begins where it's. It's a straight woman that's really on this quest to and, uh, to find what the Bible says about homosexuality and how that all came about.

Beth: 36:57

It's not even like her primary, it's not her main job, it's not even like her primary area of study. She just was curious about it, you know, and just really dug into it and started teaching it. And you know, when you teach something you learn more and then you, oh, how about these other questions? And builds her curiosity and it's really really remarkable. I mean digging into the archives of how the revised standard version committee was working and reading their letter letters and it's really, it's really well done. So, as we've said, it's been, uh, it's been about a year since you discovered that you are a lesbian. Do you see your life differently now?

Steph: 37:37

Really has opened up a whole new world of possibilities that I had never, ever, ever considered, because I always considered a man and I was like I'm not super interested in that. So I guess if I find them, I'll find them, If not, whatever. And so I never considered myself married to a woman Like I, cause that was not a positive, that was not something that I even, you know, ever thought about. And so now the possibility is there and and it's strange, cause I was like I'm cool being single, but now I'm like I don't know, I kind of think I want to be married, Like I am way more excited about the concept of being married to a woman than I ever was about me married to a man. I was like that tracks right, I was like yeah.

Steph: 38:22

I, you know, and when I think about it I'm like I really have only dated one person really like, the more I think about it.

Beth: 38:29

It's like when I dated those guys.

Steph: 38:30

That wasn't the right thing. So I well, I don't even like. The more I think about, the more I'm like I didn't date them. So I've dated one woman and we actually, um, we broke up a month ago. We're we're still friends and um, it was, you know, I think, the right, the right thing for us and hopefully we'll both find someone else.

Steph: 38:54

But I don't know. It's just a weird thing. When I had already kind of like been like I'm cool being this and now it's like wait, I'm not, it's like wait, I had never considered this before and I'm kind of excited about what that might look like. So I'm assuming I feel like girls feel, probably in high school, when they start to like get excited about guys, like I'm assuming that's the feeling. I never had that feeling, so I don't know. Um, but when, when girls start to realize the possibility of like love and companionship and what that looks like, yeah, so I'm assuming that's what the feeling is and that's kind of like cool.

Steph: 39:31

But there is a part of me that I've started to randomly get anxiety about being gay, not about not being okay with it, but with society not being okay with it, but just kind of heartbreaking when you think about that's not something straight people have to go through.

Steph: 39:50

And like the excitement of, like possibility of finding love and finding your person, like as a straight person realizing just ending there, the excitement of it, yeah, yeah. But then as as a queer person, realizing the excitement that all of these things, but then the thing that stops you and you realize like there will probably be people that will not want me to have the happiness and not allow me to have the happiness and will stand in the way of that, politically, potentially to my face. And so it's a harsh reality to realize I will probably never be afforded the same ability to love as a straight person in society, that there will always be some kind of hush tones about my love but not about the straight couples love, and I can't change that. All I can do is live my life. But the but there is anxiety about the reality of others.

Beth: 40:52

Yeah, and and there are judgments in there and there that there is the the likelihood that there will be someone at some point who is coarse and cruel, and it just feels like we're going backwards in this. You know, maybe because we live in Florida. But yeah, yeah, I mean, I really want to, I really want to say like I I don't know, you know it's, we're progressing, we're going to get to a point where that's not going to be an issue, but I don't feel like that's the truth. I think that this is going to. I understand your anxiety. So, steph, what's the answer? Why didn't you know you were a lesbian?

Steph: 41:36

I don't think there was enough representation of an alternative to straight. It's not an alternative choice, like I didn't choose, but that there is a spectrum and it's not just man and wife. Yeah, and something my ex-girlfriend she like if you know her, you know she's gay, like that's a big part of her and when before I realized I was gay, I was kind of like why is she always like so harping on being gay, like why she's like the only gay person on her job and like why is that? Like you know that's just a part of you. But and I asked her about it and she's like because people need representation, they need to see, like, what gay people are and that they're around, because there's plenty of gay people that you don't even know are gay. Yeah, yeah, and I think you should be able to choose how you want to live your life.

Steph: 42:39

So I don't think every gay person needs to represent gay to the world. But there's power in representation, there's power in seeing, like a loving relationship of two women or two men. Yes, I do think there's a responsibility. I feel a responsibility as being gay, to represent it in a healthy, good way. What that looks like, I don't know. Like I'm very new to this. I do see the importance of like making sure that the next generation doesn't have to wait until they're 36 to realize they're a lesbian. At the end of each episode, we end with questions for reflection. These are questions based on today show that Beth will read and leave a little pause between for you to answer to yourself, or you can find them in our description.

Beth: 43:31

Number one do you think people are born queer? Number two how have church and society influenced your understanding of who you are? Number three would the you of 10 years ago recognize yourself today? What might surprise you? And number four do you care what the Bible says about homosexuality? Why, or why not this?

Steph: 43:55

has been the Discovering Arts Gars podcast. Thank you for joining us.