#lbtqa

【LGBT+!】〉

I just want to make this clear right up front: I’m not here to insult or make fun of anybody. I felt the need to make this post when I found the Queerstake tag here on tumblr. It’s a group that profoundly saddens me. I’ve never seen a group so deeply in denial before in my life. The king and short of it is that they’re mormons who are also queer. If you know anything about mormons, you might see some conflicting beliefs in that statement. This group made me so sad, reading through their posts. So clearly so many of them hate being in the church, but have never lived a life where there were any alternatives. Posts begging the church leadership to not make them choose between their sexuality and their faith. Posts complaining about how every 6 months the leadership stands up in front of every mormon on earth in a broadcast that is mandatory to view, and condemns them and their lifestyle. Posts that start asking deep questions if the church, ones that really scrutinize it, that get so close to understanding the truth, and then miss the mark at the last second.

It really hurt me to read this because I remember being in a similar place. Trying my best to love myself in a world I felt like not only did I not belong, but also hated me. Praying to god every day to please help me understand only to be met with silence. Crying myself to sleep at night, feeling just so guilty about being who I am. Talking to people I trust only to be met with the mantra “doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith” as if I wasn’t riddled with enough self doubt at the time. Tricking myself into believing in the church because knowing god had a plan for me was much less scary than accepting that I had to figure it out myself.

And it wasn’t all bad. A sense of community I that I almost fit into, a set of rules to follow. It was even good at times. Rituals are good for anxiety, and what is prayer but meditation. Sometimes, I felt the “”spirit”” too (which is insidious for its own reasons. We’re taught that good feelings or that feeling of making the right choice is not our selves but god/the Holy Ghost telling us that feeling is correct, and not a conclusion we came to by ourselves) but of course this wasn’t the divine doing of god, it was just… people. My friends, my family, myself. It wasn’t god it was people. I get the same feelings hanging out with my friends as I did on church sanctioned camping trips. Bearing my heart out to people I love late at night is the same as bearing my testimony. Breathing exercises when I’m panicking are the same as the prayers I reflexively said any time i got nervous. And now I’m aloud to love myself and make my own decisions and know I’m the one making them instead of some outside force! And the best part of all of this? It comes without all the negative downsides and baggage the same experiences in the church gave me!