- Hello everybody!
Welcome to a very special episode of In the Closet.
Niki is dead.
That's your--
- What?! Hi!
- [Host] Just kidding.
- Niki's not dead.
- She's not dead.
Hi, I'm Jen. That's Jordan.
- Yo.
- Today's topic: Christianity
and how it intersects with the queer identity.
Just so you know, we're speaking
from personal experiences here.
I'm here to learn.
Guess who's comin' to hang out?!
Niki, come in through the side door of the closet.
- [Niki] Okay! Okay!
- Get in here, you beautiful, buxom wonder woman.
- Buxom?
- I don't know.
- I'm Niki.
- Cool, what are your pronouns?
- I use she for pronouns.
- Cool.
- I'm gonna wear this.
- Okay!
So we're talkin' about somethin'
that I don't know that much about, which is--
- Yeah, can you be a queer Christian?
- Can you?
- I think so, 'cause I am.
- Oh, problem solved.
- And I think you are too.
- Yeah, that's me too.
- So they exist, so they're real.
I'm gonna take this off now.
Well, okay, I think it's important to say
Christianity encompasses a lot of people.
- [Jen] Sure.
- So many people.
- All over the world, for a very long time in history.
These are just, like, things that we've been through.
But I thought it'd be important to talk about this today
because I think there are a lot of people who are like me,
who were queer, and in Christian homes,
and had no idea how to reconcile two sides of themself.
For me, at least I grew up in a space
where it was like queerness
is this thing that you deal with.
I've heard--
- It's not like a life you live.
Queerness is just something that you try
and perhaps work around.
- Yeah.
Can you hear that phone ringing?
- I can.
- Hello?! (laughing)
- Who's phone is ringing?
- Hello?! It's Jesus!
(laughing)
- You know, I grew up in the church,
but when I was 16 I chose for myself
that I was gonna be a Christian
based off of my own personal experiences.
Then I fell in love with a woman.
- Whoops!
(laughing)
- Who was also a Christian!
So made that very complex.
You grew up Catholic, right?
- I did.
I was raised Catholic, yeah.
I think a lot of my identity
wasn't necessarily tied to religion, so I think--
- Fair.
- Realizing I was gay was difficult, but for other reasons.
So, how did you reconcile being gay,
being Christian and then, like, being happy? (laughing)
- (Laughing) Yeah.
How'd you do that?
- It was tough, 'cause I had
a very confronting experience with other Christians.
I was outed to some pastors.
I knew I had very real feelings for somebody
who also had very real feelings for me.
- Yeah.
- But then at the same time I had these people
that I looked up to and respected as spiritual leaders
telling me what I was doing was very, very, very wrong.
So it was very confusing.
Then after a while I realized that every day
that I was tryin' to figure it out was every day
I was just living as a queer Christian already.
- Right.
- And so there were things that I could torture myself over,
or I could not.
And it took time.
It took, I'd say, like a good year.
Is it ironic that I'm wearing a Santa hat?
- Not ironic.
It's kind of funny.
- [Niki] Christmas, Santa.
- Yeah.
- That's not what irony means, Niki.
- Okay, Jordan.
- What does it mean to sort of know
that you're living as a queer Christian
when you've been taught other things?
- I can't say if anybody's wrong or right,
but I think what really helped for me
was thinking about how small I am,
in comparison to, if you're a Christian,
this understanding of an omnipotent god
who knows the universe in great detail.
Like, I didn't surprise God.
And so I wasn't like "Surprise!"
and he was like "Oh no, I have to redo all of these."
- No, Niki! - This planet!
- All of this work! - All of the work, my God!
- [Jen] All of my hard work!
- That never happened.
- Okay.
- I'm not a part of a church right now
'cause I haven't found a community
that I wanna be a part of.
- Right.
- But what I have done is actually found
a lot of other queer Christians,
Jordan being one of them.
- Wassup?! Here I am.
- Yeah, and I've met a good handful of us,
who have similar experiences, shared experiences,
and all of us are okay. (laughing)
- Are you okay, Jordan?
- I'm cool, I'm chillin'!
- Jordan's great! - You chillin'?
What do you think is something
that might have been comforting when you were struggling?
- Um, God's not mad at you.
There's nothing from my study
of the Bible, be it what it may.
God's not mad at you.
- There is no person or rule, I believe,
that can dictate your relationship with Him.
- Yeah.
Anyways, my girlfriend and I are still together.
We've been together for four years,
we're both Christians, we met in the church, and--
- You love each other and happy.
- We're cool, we love each other.
Yeah, you've met her.
She's great. - She's great!
- She's awesome, she's--
- She's so nice.
- She's a cool lady.
- She's cooler than I am, so--
- That's true.
- Okay.
- Oh, what is next?
Guess what? Niki, turn around.
(laughing) (light bouncy music)
Show everybody the back of your head.
As you can examine, this is the part
of Niki's head that is exceptionally gay.
And guess who's gonna shave this fuckin' thing.
- I hope this goes horribly wrong.
- It's gonna go great.
- You've never used a pair of clippers before.
- I have never used a pair of clippers before.
- What could possibly go wrong?
(beep)
(whiny harmonizing) (buzzing)
- (Gasp) Oh, shit.
(laughing)
It's fine!
(fast-forward zipping)
(high pitched buzzing)
No, I should stop, I don't know.
- What?!
- Wait, just, Jordan, come look at this.
Does this look normal?
(beep)
(buzzing)
- Okay, so what happened, Jordan?
Why am I now behind camera?
- Jen was too much under pressure,
she had an anxiety attack.
I'm taking over.
(fast-forward zipping)
- You wanna look at it?
- I think we can be done now.
(laughing) (crinkling)
- There's hair everywhere!
(groan)
Yeah, it's like down your shirt.
- Oh. - [Jen] We had fun.
- The trash bag didn't work that well.
(laughing)
- Should we leave the closet now?
- Yeah.
- Okay, we're gonna leave now.
- Bye!
- Bye! - Bye!
- [Jen] Everybody get outta there!
(groan)
Tackle!
(shriek)
Pew, pew!
(buzzing)
I dunno, just nice to have a close shave.
(laughing)
Welcome to In the Closet. (laughing)