Since I was about the age of 14, I have been aware of two things – my faith in God and my attraction to both boys and girls. It became more apparent to me in 2014 when I developed a massive amount of emotions for my best friend; she suddenly became attractive to me and I wanted to spend all of my time with her. At the time it wasn’t a problem as my Christian faith had just blossomed and it wasn’t the most important thing to me at that stage of growing up.
When reaching the age of 16, I knew my faith had to come before anything else after relationship problems with both boys and girls and I started to focus more on that aspect of myself, it was difficult as I soon realized that my sexuality had more of an emotional impact on me than anything else. This is when the guilt started. I felt disgusting and uncomfortable when going to church or attending any related group, I walked into the room and immediately felt like I was looking out of a glass box as if I was detached from everybody there. This was and has been a very struggling time for me as I have recently come out to my pastor and he informed me that I was still welcome and was still very much loved although I could not pursue the job I previously wanted within the church if I gave into my sexuality.
This is when I realized I was doing the wrong thing. I love God, I would never remove him from my life because I simply cant but there is one thing I am not standing for and that is being told that the person I am is wrong or sinful. As a bisexual girl, I am capable of developing sexual and romantic feelings for guys and so to be told by my pastor that I had to pretend to be straight shocked and upset me because as soon as I announce that I- a female have feelings for both genders, the idea of me being “normal” and being attracted to just guys goes out the window and I am just labelled with such horrible stereotypes. It is not common or focused on for women to come out in the church, say the word “gay” and they will think of gay men because of what the Bible says.
But to my fellow Christian gays/bisexuals/pansexuals etc it also says that God loves everyone and you are part of that ever-growing number. There is no reason to feel ashamed or unclean because of who you are, our sexuality is just another thing we were born with and we cannot change it- even if wanted to.
When we walk into church or we are around our church family, we should not feel dirty or self-conscious. We should walk in and feel brave, strong and proud because they have no right to tell you who to be; they have no right to tell you who you should and shouldn’t love. I am aware of how scary it is to be thinking that way but I can tell you now, once you get it out into the open and let people know you are proud of who you are then you will love yourself more than you ever have. I am currently in a place where I am a lot more comfortable with myself and know that I don’t have to worry about people judging me and I know for sure that whoever is reading this whether it be in the church or anywhere where it is looked down upon, that you can get to this point too.
Whoever we love is not in our control, we should not push it away and pretend it is not there because its what makes us, us and there is no changing that.
I was recently on a walk with a girl from my church; I am at the stage where I want to tell everyone I know just to get it out there and let them know I am confident about it. I told her everything and she too was shocked that I had been told I wasn’t up to standards. We then went on to talk about marriage and she said she wouldn’t want to attend a same sex wedding within a church which I can understand- it was later on in the evening where I was thrown off.
First of all, before going in to my house she told me everyone goes through “a phase” and I made it very clear that I was not feeling that way. Then later on we attended a Bible Study group and we were discussing sins within the media and this girl started talking about a mother who refused to let her child watch ‘Beauty and the Beast’ due to a short clip of two men dancing as it was “explicitly gay” she then went on to say that she had spoken to someone within the church about it and that they had said Disney also has things such as stealing,kidnapping and even murder in their movies. This is what shocked me. In what world is a gay relationship comparable to murder?
Ladies, if you EVER feel like you should hide because of who you are, just know that there are people out there in this world who compare love to murder. The only love we need in this world is for ourselves and whoever we fucking want.
LOVE WHO YOU ARE AND WHO YOU LOVE.
