For as long as I can remember I've been attracted to all genders. Even before I became cognisant of my sexuality, there was always a baseline knowledge that I liked boys and girls (that is, before I knew that other genders existed).
In a sad twist of fate, however, my sexual awakening came at the exact same time as my conversion to Christianity, which meant that, from the get-go, my sexuality was shrouded in guilt and shame.
To some extent it was still okay to like boys, as long as I didn't stumble into the realm of fornication, but under absolutely no circumstances did the same allowances extend to girls. Couple that with the vitriolic transphobia of my religion of choice, and it was clear that if I was to survive in the Church, I would have to stick to heterosexual cisgender Christian boys, thank you very much.
Throughout those religious years, I never forgot that I was bisexual, but I could conveniently shove aside the parts of myself that didn't conform to the innocent image that was expected of me. I never spoke about it, never acted upon it except, perhaps, in my most private fantasies.
When I was 19 I 'came out' to one of my best friends in the church. It wasn't some seminal experience, though; in fact, it was almost an offhand confession, slathered in a heavy layer of self-flagellation. Nevertheless, it didn't feel like too big a deal since I was interested enough in men that I could, in practice, easily pass as a straight woman. Not only that, but I knew that, although it was a forbidden realm, my status as a ciswoman, and the fetishization of women-loving women (even within the minds of the supposedly pious) protected me from too much backlash so long as I promised to feel really bad about it.
The same could not be said of my friends. My confidante, it turned out, was himself bisexual, as he sheepishly revealed to me after my confession. Not that he used that word - instead, he explained in a flurry of Christianese that he, too, had 'sinful desires'.
His experience was, to some extent, similar to mine - he was attracted enough to women to be able, for the most part, to ignore his desires for men and pass as straight to the outside world. His status as a cisman, however, made his sexual orientation an incredibly dangerous one. Had others in the church found out, he would have been subjected to the most heinous homophobia, all in the name of God.
At the time he and I came out to each other, the third in our trio of best friends had been having similar conversations with the bisexual friend I'd come out to.
His lot, however, was the most difficult of us all. Although he'd tried to be with women, he knew, in the depths of his soul, that he was gay. Within the conservative Christian church, there is perhaps no greater sin - not because God is particularly bothered by it, but because of the rampant homophobia and misogyny that lies at the heart of the institution.
I watched as this friend tore himself to pieces over what he saw as an irradicable stain on his soul. I witnessed hours and hours of weeping and wailing in prayer, of this beautiful soul being tormented by what could have been a joyous embrace of his true nature. I witnessed him spiral into a depression of self-hatred fueled by a love for God so deep that it was killing him.
And I watched as his deepest and most shameful secret was used against him when he confessed to our pastor.
For years after that, he battled with his desire to be true to himself, and the desire to be true to his faith, even in the midst of so much hatred from within his religion. Eventually, though, the tension broke. It took ten years, but he finally left the church, and the abuse, behind.
I find it hard to tell my story without telling the stories of these other two friends. We each lost parts of ourselves to an arbitrary idea of what was 'right' or 'wrong' about our sexualities.
When I left the church at the age of 21, after 8 years of repression, I was suddenly free to explore my sexuality in ways I never could growing up. I found myself overcome with an immense sadness at all I'd lost.
Only now, more than ten years later, am I working through some of that pain, though I feel there's still a long way to go.
I want to live in a world where people are free to love whoever they love. I want to break the stigma around sexual and gender diversity, which, far from being restrained within the walls of the church, exist in so much of our patriarchal and puritanical culture.
This month is Pride Month and I'm proud to be a bisexual woman, even if I'm still working through some of that latent shame.
The first Pride was a riot. We're still fighting.
°°°
I'm selling NFTs to raise money for ILGA - an LGBTQI+ organisation that offers financial, legal, social, and psychological support for the queer community here in Portugal.
70% of proceeds will be donated at the end of the month - https://ilga-portugal.pt
Buy the NFTs here for 25 WAX each: https://www.nfthive.io/collection/halfmooncrft?tab=drops&collection=halfmooncrft&order_by=drop_id_asc&market=all
