Transcriber: HOÀNG BẢO CHÂU TRƯƠNG Reviewer: Leonardo Silva
So since I was seven, I knew I was gay.
But growing up during my childhood,
I had heard repeatedly that being gay was a sin,
so I just never questioned it.
After college, I moved from England to Boston,
and I joined a church whose motto was, “Come as you are and be all you can be.”
Ironically, that’s not what they meant.
(Laughter)
So, in order to be accepted by God and the Church, I hid who I really was.
Fifteen years later, I’m married to an amazing guy, and I have two kids.
On the outside, I have a perfect life,
perfect marriage, somewhat perfect kids.
(Laughter)
I am the administrative director and staff pastor at the church.
I preach on Sunday mornings. I facilitate women’s conferences.
I am project-managing my life,
all life tasks being executed perfectly -
homework done, dinner served, house clean.
But on the inside, I am dying.
I am living in constant fear that I am about to be discovered.
I avoid hugging or touching anyone,
just in case someone figures it out.
Society loves to say that we choose a gay lifestyle.
I prefer to say I chose a straight lifestyle.
Some of you may be wondering why a gay person would marry straight.
So let me take you back to the beginning.
Because I couldn’t tell anyone at church who I really was,
I tried really darn hard to be straight on my own.
I fasted 40 days at a time, begging God to change me.
I ended all my same-sex friendships.
I even tried sleeping with guys
in order to be straight.
It didn’t work.
(Laughter)
One of the most damaging things I did was attempt gay conversion therapy.
Without the church knowing, I reached out to Exodus International,
which was an ex-gay ministry
whose mission was to help gay Christians become straight.
For those who don’t know,
conversion therapy is the damaging practice
of attempting to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
It is reported that suicidality is three times higher
amongst LGBT youth who have gone through conversion therapy
than those who haven’t.
In 2018, it was estimated
that over 70,000 LGBT individuals had gone through conversion therapy,
and over 50% of them were youth.
Since then, an additional 57,000 have gone through conversion therapy,
20,000 of them under the age of 18.
For me,
conversion therapy was more like repression therapy.
I read books and watched videos
that repeatedly told me I was broken and needed to be fixed.
The message was I was still gay because I didn’t have enough faith
or I didn’t believe in God enough
and was deserving of hell.
During this time, I suffered four spontaneous lung collapses
within 12 months,
and I truly believed that God was punishing me.
So as any good Christian, I just prayed more.
I went to every church service.
I buried myself in work.
I wore dresses ...
(Laughter)
heels and makeup ...
(Audience) No!
grew my hair out,
and I convinced myself that if I did straight things,
like marrying a guy,
I would become straight.
To the outside world, I’m this strong, born-again Christian woman.
On the inside,
I could no longer express or feel emotion.
I am ashamed of who and what I am.
I am numb.
We cannot selectively choose which emotions we feel.
We either feel all of them or we feel none of them.
I no longer felt joy, happiness, sadness, grief.
I recoiled at the idea of being touched,
even by my kids.
Let’s fast-forward 12 years into my marriage -
the 12th year, the year I call “the year of the apology,”
the year when Alan Chambers,
the president of Exodus International,
the ministry I worked with before I got married,
he publicly apologized to the LGBT community
for the pain and hurt Exodus had caused
and announced that the ministry was permanently shutting down.
Exodus published letters ...
(Applause)
Exodus published letters that included statements such as,
“I’d never seen one member or one leader become heterosexual,
so I knew deep down it wasn’t true.”
Another one said,
“I don’t believe that conversion therapy heals sexual orientation
or changes sexual orientation.
In fact, it does much harm to many people.”
Alan himself, who had said that he was healed of homosexuality,
admitted that he still had ongoing same-sex attractions.
He said it was strange to be someone who had been hurt
by the church’s treatment of the LGBT community
and also to have to be someone who must apologize
for being part of the system of ignorance that perpetuated that hurt.
This apology shook my world.
It eroded at my ability to keep hiding.
I questioned everything.
Working with people became increasingly difficult.
Going to church and listening to sermons ...
torturous.
Being around Christians just continued to amplify the fact
that I wasn’t being myself and that I wasn’t sure that
I could continue worshiping this God for whom I had crafted my life.
Later that year, we are heading into Easter
and I’m about to discover
that the voice of God and the voice of the church are not the same thing.
The senior pastors gave me a sermon, a title to a sermon to write,
and the title of that sermon is - get this -
it’s the Jesus who calls you to stop playing it safe.
And I write this message,
and the basic premise of this message is:
the cost of playing it safe is too high.
It limits your impact.
It stunts your growth.
It shrinks your faith, and it shrivels your heart.
And on one Sunday morning during Lent,
I shared that message.
And while sharing that message, I felt like the greatest hypocrite on Earth -
showing to a congregation one thing,
and yet living another,
very similar to what Alan Chambers had done to the LGBT community.
It was in that moment
that I made the most difficult decision of my life:
to come out.
Within six months, I lost everything -
my 12-year marriage,
my job,
my house,
my community,
my church
and my friends.
My husband and I decided to co-parent the kids.
The church paid for us to go to Colorado for sex therapy,
and instead of me coming back healed of homosexuality,
I was diagnosed with depression and the inability to feel pleasure.
I felt alone.
But now was the time that I could hear God for myself.
However, I struggled with shame, guilt,
rejection and betrayal.
I wrestled with the guilt of what I had done to my kids.
It felt like my choosing to be my true self.
I had ruined their lives,
and that felt really selfish.
So, in good old fashion, I buried myself in my new job,
I tried not to feel any emotion,
and then 18 months later, I got laid off.
Being alone at home forced me
to feel the shame and guilt I had around being gay.
I struggled with my faith and my relationship [with] God.
How did God really see me?
I went to churches in Massachusetts
because I couldn’t go to any churches around here,
but every time I heard the word “God,”
I felt triggered -
this being, who just saw me as broken and only worthy of being discarded
was not one that I could serve.
But I could not shake the belief
that there was something out there that’s bigger than me.
I needed to redefine who God was to me.
I spent months, years, deconstructing my faith,
reading and learning about source energy and the power of the universe
and the freedom that comes from truly being yourself.
And it was in this space
that I began to overcome the shame I had around being gay.
It was in this space that I discovered a God
that is bigger, more loving and more inclusive
than the God that I previously believed in.
As painful as my story is,
it is not uncommon.
Most queer people do not grow up as themselves,
and if they choose to come out of the closet,
they spend years deconstructing who they really are
and trying to figure out which parts they created to protect themselves.
However, the reality is we all have closets.
(Applause)
Regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identity,
how many of you are living in closets,
closets designed to hide who you really are
or how you believe the world will see you?
Since I’ve been out of the closet,
I am truly happy.
I feel all the emotions.
I’m no longer numb. I no longer hide who I am.
I’m openly gay at work.
My kids, now 10 and 15, hug me.
And I no longer cringe at the idea of being touched.
I walk in freedom.
So -
I want to leave you with this:
living authentically requires a hell of a lot of courage,
and it’s the only way to be the best version of yourself.
(Applause)
As we aim for authenticity -
Let me just remind you: authenticity is not a destination.
It’s an orientation.
(Audience) Yes!
Yes, it’s a posture.
It’s an attitude that you bring to your everyday life.
It’s about how you show up moment by moment.
So,
how are you showing up?
I challenge you:
reach out and touch the walls of your closet.
Dare to own who you are -
your voice, your power and your truth.
Dare to own all of you, with no apology,
and stop playing it safe.
Thank you.
(Cheers) (Applause)