Part 3: Coming out to the culture
Culture is an umbrella term used so frequently that we risk losing track of its meaning. It is a complex phenomenon that helps to shape an overall group identity within society. The overarching themes are broad enough to make space for pockets of variability that still fall under the umbrella of the larger identity; subcultures. To identify as an American has very different shaping implications than to identify as a Korean, for example. To identify as a part of K-Pop culture within American identity is very different than identifying as a part of country music culture within American identity. Add to that the intersectionality of ethnicity, gender, socioeconomics, education, nationalist philosophies and social rules, and it becomes easy to understand why we can sometimes misattribute the effects of culture to personal or more divine sources.
I had a not-joke that I used to tell my friends in the bitter aftermath of leaving my faith. “What’s the difference between a cult and religion?” I’d ask. The answer? “Popularity.” All of the interactions I’d had with family and friends from my faith culture had been deeply painful, and a majority of them traumatic. One of the symptoms of trauma is hypervigilance; scanning the environment for danger and going into nervous system high alert for anything that provides a hint of familiar threat. After a few surprise doorstep interventions with various family members, some of whom flew from Canada to confront us, my family took refuge at our friend’s house for about a week. We needed to create a sense of safe space that would allow us to process our pain and grief; home was no longer safe for us. We didn’t ever feel any physical threat, but the possibility of nonconsensual confrontation, judgment and gut-wrenching perspective stalemate put my then-wife and I into stress overdrive and breakdown. We decided to formally separate ourselves from our faith due to long-simmering ideological differences with the church over same-sex issues and gender inequality, among others. The aforementioned were, however, our sticking points that we detailed in the letter shared with our families. The swift condemnation we received from some, the immediate shunning from others, and the bait-and-switch tactics from more still prompted me to make an observation to someone (I can’t remember who); leaving our church felt a lot like what I had heard the coming out experience was for many queer people (I had in fact been asked directly by multiple family members if our leaving was because I was closeted, which I now find ironic, since my coming out years later was such a shock to so many of those same people).
My joke about cults and religions was ill-made and largely inaccurate, given my research into high control groups (the technical language for a cult). Cults are identified by high levels of behavioral control, entrainment of mental gymnastics to bypass cognitive dissonance, isolation from society, centralized authority, secrecy, and leadership-sanctioned abuses. Certainly not all religious groups operate in these ways, though folks with religious backgrounds may find elements of cult dynamics present in their faith systems. I’ve certainly taken time to scrutinize the tradition I was raised in, and can see indicators of high control groups that still don’t add up to crossing that threshold into true cultism. The deeper a system drifts into high control dynamics, however, the greater the likelihood for rigid responses from group members when someone violates the rules. Not all religions are cults; all religions do, however, inform and reinforce culture. And for all of its useful (not to mention unavoidable) qualities, culture reinforces worldview with all of its blindspots thereunto, appertaining.
I spent a lot of energy bashing my head against the metaphorical wall of my family’s inability to really see and hear where I was coming from. In that time I worked as a kind of free-lance gay apologist, scouring religious texts from various faith traditions, philosophical writings, and anthropological assessments to try and find the right wording that could magically make me visible in the way I craved to be. I underestimated the way that culture interlocks and reinforces itself when established around a rigid worldview. Put simply, I came to the understanding that the inconvenience of my gay existence as a beloved family and community member, along with my insistence to be experienced from within my own subjective reality, served as an existential threat to those who knew me. Holding space for the possibility that I could be and live as a gay man (and have that be okay,) alongside the concrete strictures of eternally consequential narratives creates a paradox which threatens to implode all that they live by.
This is the challenge of coming out as a queer person to the world around us. It isn’t a matter of whether or not people want to be loving and accepting. It’s instead a question of whether the dynamic cultural forces at play in shaping their reality permit the kind of empathy necessary to allow for that love and acceptance. In a world where subjective realities are treated like unquestionable truths, empathy becomes dangerous. We need look no further than recent political developments, where empathy has been called a sin by our more extremist members, for evidence. To be gay then, means to accept being cast as the villain, the problem, the sinner. It means to accept that because other people’s reality strips us of our human dignity, we acknowledge that our existence is at best inconvenient, and at worst under threat of death and violence.
There are three pieces of media I’ve encountered that brilliantly give insight into the lived experiences and humanity of the queer community, which I recommend to you as my reader. The play/film The Boys in the Band highlights the neurotic effects of living as an undesirable in a society that force-feeds heteronormativity to its members, whether they choke on it or not. The limited series Fellow Travelers gives a longitudinal perspective of how desperately folks have tried and often failed to live acceptably to society while authentic to their own truths (along with some beautiful historical fiction covering major political events in the realm of queer issues). Pose is a multi-season exploration of the struggles, resiliency, beauty and mess of the queer community navigating the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s and 90’s. If you can watch any of these media without feeling even a pang of emotion or compassion, then no amount of empathic writing from me or anyone else is likely to help you gain insight, and I leave you to your reality.
I remember sitting on my couch several years ago after watching an episode of Pose. Two of the main characters had traveled to Hart Island to visit the grave of a loved one lost to AIDS, only to stand before a massive trench filled with unmarked pine boxes of needless death. At the time, I was in that liminal space between coming out as bisexual and realizing that I was gay. Tears streamed down my face and I fought back sobs as something deeper than empathy washed over me. It was the horror of realization that because of my queerness, there are those in this world today who would not care at all if I were to die, and there are many more who would celebrate it as divinely appropriate. The germ of that sinister idea of justice is something that I’ve encountered amongst known enemies of my sexuality in the highest stations of society, and which I’ve traced through the gestures of well-meaning loved ones fearing for my soul. But I’ve also seen it in the off-hand comments of those I’ve considered allies.
A great example of this is when shortly after coming out, my friends and my family had gathered for a New Year’s Eve celebration and, as folks do, I commented on the attractiveness of a performer in the Times Square broadcast. My closest friend at the time responded by saying, “Rob, just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you have to rub (my ex-wife’s) nose in it.” A small cut to be sure, but not at all bloodless. This was a statement made by someone who is themselves a mental health worker, and a social justice advocate. The traces of cultural conditioning and the threads of moral dehumanization run through the fabric of everyone’s internal world, my own included. Sometimes the call from the killer really does come from inside the house. This is what makes coming out to the culture difficult - knowing that there are those whose reality mandates your exclusion, death, or at least passive shame. It then also means mustering the resiliency to stand and be visible, facing the overt and subtle acts of violence because shrinking back and disappearing is a fate worse than death.
When I was in my faith, an oft-promised prophecy was delivered to my congregation; the words of Jesus. He said that to be a follower of Christ meant a life of oppression, of being hated, despised and persecuted. I will acknowledge that in many parts of the world and throughout history, that prophecy has certainly been true for some. I find it a great irony however, that in this modern age and in this society, I didn’t experience those words as true until I lived as a gay man. It’s an irony made cruel by the fact that such hatred is now a byproduct of ‘faith’ and often at the hands of those claiming Jesus’ prophecy for themselves. This is why coming out is hard. This is why being gay is hard. Not because it is in itself anything - it’s simply giving oneself the right to be and exist. It’s because other people, in the certainty of their unexamined reality, need it to be a struggle. It’s an easy fight because their lives aren’t the ones on the line.
Of all of these three essays, this one has been the hardest to write, because the seed of bitterness is something that I have to prune back continuously. I experience what I can only describe as a divine rage against the easiness of hate, the convenience of ignorant faith, and the smug self-assuredness of closed cultural echo chambers. My words may be easily disregarded as “just another one of those angry gays” who hate faith and Jesus and good ole American values. I hope they won’t be; because in the words of Tolstoy, “There is more faith in honest doubt… than in all the creeds.” I have a more lively faith today than I ever did, doubts and all. I understand the radical love that Jesus talked about, even if I mistrust the historical manipulation of his words; I’ve seen them brought to life in the queer and hetero family that have filled the gaps of all I’ve lost. And I have deep respect and appreciation for the society that allows me (for now) to raise my voice in dissent of its erroneous movements while still enjoying its privileges. I hope that in reading this far, dear reader, that you feel my gratitude for staying with me to take in these words. And I hope that they can be a doorway to greater understanding and empathy for those who’ve read them.
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