As difficult as it was for me to come out as gay when I was not yet 23, it has been even more challenging to come out as an Atheist. A comparison of the two coming-out processes has left me with some interesting insights (ok—at least I think they’re interesting).
Although self-identifying as an Atheist has resulted from a process of struggle, reflection, seeking knowledge, understanding, and self-acceptance—just as self-identifying as gay or queer did—one important difference emerges.
For as far back as I can recall, I have always known that I am gay/queer; I have always been attracted to men and masculinity, I have always lusted after attractive guys, and I have always wanted to have a boyfriend/partner. Although I tried and tried to be heterosexual—I flirted with girls, dated them, made out with them, even had sex with them—it just didn’t work. It wasn’t for me. It never felt right. It was always awkward, forced, unnatural. Coming out meant, in part, that I finally gave myself permission to stop trying to act as if I were heterosexual and that I could begin to enjoy being myself. It was a huge first step in a lifelong journey that continues today (if you don’t understand “coming out” as a never-ending process, we should talk—or maybe I could blog about that some other time). The real transformation in coming out lies in its incredible power to allow me to celebrate and rejoice in the very aspect of my identity that once caused me unbearable misery and emotional pain—my sexual orientation. As my good friend Will once said, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
I grew up thinking it was good to believe in God. I attended Catholic school through 8th grade. I was even offered a full scholarship to one of the most prestigious Jesuit secondary schools in NYC—Regis High School. I turned it down. I’m not quite sure what my reasoning was at the time, but I do remember feeling that it was not the right fit for me. I was also simultaneously terrified and thrilled at the prospect of attending an all-male private secondary school in Manhattan. But ultimately, I was more terrified than thrilled, so I said “No thanks.” I also declined admission to at least three other Catholic high schools (St. Francis Prep, Archbishop Molloy, and Christ the King). I attended a public high school, Hillcrest, in Jamaica, Queens.
I’m pretty sure that turning down a scholarship to Regis was the first step in my “coming out” as an Atheist, although I can recognize that only in retrospect. Although I would continue to self-identify as a Catholic for many years, I know that’s when I began questioning the value of faith in religion. Any number of circumstances surrounding my childhood and family life could have served as a catalyst for this doubt, but the death of my father—and the subsequent hypocrisy of allegedly religious friends and family members—accelerated my journey to Atheism.
So here’s the crux of the difference between coming out as gay/queer and coming out as an Atheist. Whereas I am sure that I have always been gay, I am likewise sure that I have not always been an Atheist. I used to be Catholic; now I’m an Atheist. Based on what I learned, what I observed, and what I thought, I decided to abandon the Catholic faith, and all religion for that matter (for numerous reasons—again, that’s a topic for another blog). I used to think that this was a pretty simple matter. Belief in religion is a matter of choice; I chose not to believe. End of discussion. Or so I thought.
My emerging Atheism has paralleled my growing knowledge of queer theory and what it means to be queer (and not just gay). Although I might feel (emotionally, in my gut) that I will always be unequivocally attracted to men only, intellectually I do believe in the unstable, ever-changing sexual orientation/sexual identity posited by queer theory—the idea that neither sexual orientation nor identity is permanent and fixed and that we all inhabit various loci on the sexual continuum at various times. Therefore, yes, I do believe that it’s possible for someone who identifies as heterosexual to, at some later point, identify as gay or lesbian. In fact, I have seen it happen numerous times. So sexuality is fluid.
Then I watched an episode of “Our America with Lisa Ling” on the Oprah Winfrey Network (please bear with me on this—I promise it will make sense). In the episode, entitled “Pray the Gay Away?”, Ling focused on Exodus International, the infamous religious organization that (depending on which propaganda you choose to believe) does or does not promise to help gay men and women “become” heterosexual. Although much of the rhetoric spouted by the leaders of Exodus and other “ex-gay” ministries was ignorant and revealed a rudimentary (at best) understanding of human sexuality, I began to question the underlying assumption upon which Exodus International’s mission is based—that a gay person can become straight. And then my analytical brain kicked in—“Well, smarty pants, if a straight person can ‘come out’ as gay, why can’t a gay person ‘come out’ as straight? Does coming out only work in one direction? If you really do see queer theory as a useful framework for understanding sexuality, shouldn’t the fluidity of sexual orientation and identity account for all variations, whether it be straight-to-gay, gay-to-straight, temporarily bisexual, bi-curious, heteroflexible, pansexual, omnisexual, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum…?” Or does it all just boil down to behavior, and labels be damned? (Ah, yes, I can hear Judith Butler whispering in my ear…”Performativity, Jim. Performativity…”).
So now I’m in a quandary, which, some might argue, is precisely the point of queer theory. You can’t truly be a queer theorist until you know what it is that you don’t know.
