I Had All This Internalised Homophobia

My dad is an SDA pastor. We moved from South Africa to Ireland and Britain, and it's really interesting to see what crosses over throughout the global church, and some of the differences as well.

Growing up, my parents (especially my mom) really tried to have a bit more of a sex positive approach and didn't want to create shameful atmosphere, but more so an informed and healthy understanding of sex. But I just wasn't having it.

I felt so uncomfortable that when my parents took me to the British museum at age 11, I was so offended that they tried having me walk through the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian sections because all the statues were naked or half naked.

My mom was baffled, as if to say 'Who taught you to be so prudish?' But it wasn't like we talked about sex openly. That feeling of awkwardness when a kissing or sex scene in movie came up was very much there. My dad was definitely in the more conservative side, and there was this whole culture of modesty that we grew up with. But my parents made a decent effort at sex ed early on, about consent, and sexual diseases. But it was still this strange topic.

So when we went to the museum, I put my foot down and refused to walk through those sections. But in the months that followed, I started to question my sexuality and romance, everyone had a crush. I went to a public school and people were obsessed with relationships.

But at church too, people would tease me, asking if there were any boys I liked. If the topic of marriage came up, I'd say 'No, I don't want to get married.' They'd be like 'Oh you will change your mind as you get older.' And I was getting this starting from age 11-12, all the way through the years I was in church.

When I was 12, I got baptised. At this point I was already questioning my faith, my sexuality, I was stressed and suffering a lot, I cried almost every week in secret at church, I had started self harming but no one knew.

I was desperate to be baptised two years earlier, but by the time I turned 12, it felt more of an obligation. My granny was visiting from South Africa and we thought it would be great to have her at my baptism, so I started doing the bible studies. I would pray for a sign that God existed, ask for random miracle like 'Make it rain now,' or count the drops of rain on the car window and say 'If that one falls in 5 seconds, then God is real.' I was desperate for some kind of affirmation of the holy spirit and this divine being.

I would also flip to random parts of the bible and for some reason I kept landing on Leviticus and found some random passage that said self harming is a sin. I randomly landed on the ones about homosexuality and they were all sore spots for me. So I knew that I was about to promise myself to God while actively living against him from an SDA perspective.

Family friends wanted to be with me as I prepped for my baptism, help me get changed and such, and it gave me so much anxiety because here they were going to see my self harm. I was so self conscious about my body. Somehow I managed to hide it. The actual baptism was alright, my dad did it, I have these great pictures of him trying to DROWN ME. And it was one of my favourite sermons, because he used a quote from Doctor Who which I loved at the time and had started watching with him.

It was about how water would always win. I remember afterwards teasing my dad that some members wouldn't be happy because Doctor Who is this sci-fi "evil devil" show. I was pretty well informed about baptism and what it meant, but I also knew it wasn't what I wanted and I did it anyway.

I think that's because I didn't know how to set boundaries or ask for help or say no—and I think my parents were the same. But for some reason one detail of what it means to be a baptised SDA member slipped past me. I only found out in the weeks after that there was something about promising celibacy if you were lesbian or gay as a practising Adventist.

I was devastated. I had all this internalised homophobia and self loathing about my LGBT identity, even though I thought it was unfair. Then, I just got it stuck in my head that I would be an SDA nun. I thought nuns were cool as heck, because I loved The Sound of Music, but at that point I started using it as a shield to deny a part of myself, like 'This is the solution. I'm queer, but I can be celibate for the sake of being SDA.'

But this was also very distressing because why was I SDA? Did God really exist? And I think that stuck with me for ages, just this self-consciousness, wanting and finding ways to explore my identity as an LGBT person but always with this caveat of religious shame that made it harder to reach out and explore more openly.

In secret, I started reading fanfiction and homemade stories on a website called Wattpad. I had just gotten a phone, the internet was at the tip of my fingers, and while I had no romantic inclinations, I loved romance. And that's when I discovered stories that focused around gay couples, two guys, and I thought it was interesting and I didn't at all think it was gross and weird.

It was like this slow realisation that 'This seems alright.' While I felt wrong for reading it, I didn't regret it, my eyes were opened. And then I found lesbian stories and was like 'This really doesn't bother me.' But I heard people talk about gay people in church as if it was shameful and wrong.

I remember crying to my parents in the car as my dad was going to do a hospital visit, 'Why do people talk about gay people like that?' And 'If god makes everyone in their image, then why can't people see that includes gay people?'

I'd say, 'I'm not gay, but it's not fair.' And I really didn't think I was gay at that point, but I started questioning. And my parents comforted me. I think they agreed with me and said it was complicated. Fast forward to 14, at this point I knew I was queer, I didn't know if I was lesbian or bi, but I was something other than straight. I landed on the label 'pansexual' and was like, 'That's me!' Gender was not a factor in my romantic attraction. My coming out story is interesting one, but I'll save that for another time.

The episodes about sex and the interview with Melissa made me think about these things a bit more, and I thought this was an interesting story about how our relationships with sex and identity can be influenced by the SDA environment.