Every PRIDE month is a mixture of complicated emotions for me. I’ve just finished The Book of Queer Prophets, and the chapter ‘Notes on Passing’ by Erin Clark voiced much of my discomfort. Although I often proclaim my queer identity every year around PRIDE and National Coming Day (October 11), I struggle with the question of being ‘queer enough’. Being in a heterosexual marriage to a cisgender man means I often ‘pass’ as straight. This is generally a privilege as it affords me access and power, but it is also often painful.
When I have publicly proclaimed my Christian faith, I have never had anyone criticise me, challenge my convictions, or say I was shoving it in their face. The same goes for when I discuss my identity as an immigrant. But for some reason when I talk about my queer identity, people from across the spectrum have found it appropriate to tell me my identity is invalid because of my marriage, to question whether I’m actually queer because of my lack of open same-sex relationships, or to say I don’t need be so vocal about this aspect of my identity. Still others completely ignore my revelations, their silence speaking volumes. This is all erasure, and it is painful beyond description.
When I began the discernment process to be ordained in the Church of England, I had to read through and assent to ‘Issues on Human Sexuality.’ Written about 30 years ago, I can’t say it’s aged particularly well, but I do believe it was quite progressive for it’s time. In my reading of the document, I saw a clear acceptance of gay and lesbian couples. While this was promising, the discussion on bisexuality was much more problematic, suggesting that sexuality was a choice and I had made the ‘right’ one. My sexuality never really came up during discernment, most likely due my ‘passing’ status. And perhaps it was cowardly of me to not mention it, but I naively believed it shouldn’t make a difference. With hindsight I can see how naive it was, because when I made clear my affirmation of the LGBTQI+ community, finding a curacy for me was made more difficult. This shock of reality was also incredibly painful.
PRIDE month is painful for me because I am so often denied my queer identity. It’s painful because there are many who claim this integral part of my identity contradicts another integral part of my identity: my Christian faith. It is painful because I have to constantly carve out my queer, Christian space and announce that I am both worthy of my ‘queer card’ and a beloved child of God. It is painful because I have to constantly explain that I am not hypersexual, or in love with every single person I meet. It is painful because I have to constantly remind myself that as a previously divorced woman with a history of promiscuity and alcohol abuse, who has contemplated and attempted suicide, my sexuality is not a reason I would fall out of relationship with God. In fact, nothing of my past or my identity could ever cause God to love me any less.
I hate that I have to be vocal, but I know I have to be vocal. God called me as the queer, complicated human that I am, and I firmly believe I was called to be a vocal opposition to homophobia and injustice in the Church. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said he ‘could not worship a homophobic God and would not go to a homophobic heaven.’ I share his sentiments and add that I will also speak against a homophobic Church.
God is love, so love is holy. Love is not an abomination, but a pure offering, the truest form of communicating with our Creator. Our Creator who lovingly knitted each and every one of us in our complicated humanity, who created our innermost beings.
Yes I am Queer, and yes I am Christian. I am also God’s most beloved child.
And so are you.
Reflections of a Christian 