Our Space

It’s hard to be a gay blogger, especially one who has come out of an evangelical background, and not write about Zach Stark.  I’ve refrained from writing about him, partly because others were doing so, and partly because I am a bit gunshy when it comes to commenting on the lives of private individuals.

Unfortunately for Zach (but fortunately for the dialogue in this country), he ceased to be a private individual, at least in part, when he began posting on MySpace.  Now, having finished an 8 week stint at LIA/R, Zach is asking for his own space.

I, for one, am going to give it to him.  This has, however, given me impetus to think about my life as a sixteen-year old (a short ten years ago!) and my own journey “into the homosexual lifestyle” as Zach’s counselors might put it.  While I never went to a residential ministry like him, I did consider it—and my parents did suggest it at least once, offering to pay. 

Let’s back up a moment.  I’ll spare you too much of the “I was six and felt different from other little girls”, though that much is true.  When you teach yourself to read and occupy your time reading the Bible (much to the surprise and delight of my parents), you’ve marked yourself as “different” from the get-go.  And yes, I was a tomboy, though I did date a couple of young men by the time I got into high school.  It was after I broke up with the second of those, in my junior year, that I really began to recognize what was developing inside of me—a deep attraction to women.  This was, in part, a reason that I broke up with the second young man—I had a profound crush on a beautiful girl in my seventh-period Spanish class.

I came out my senior year of high school to two friends at the Annapolis mall over some pizza in the food court.  They were a bit surprised, but accepting.  Slowly, but surely, my identity as a lesbian began to form—in the mind of others and myself.  At the same time, I continued to battle with the truth of Christianity.  Questions I had always had (I’d been reading the Bible for almost a decade!) now seemed more urgent.  Was I going to hell for certain?

After my freshman year of college, when (not for the first time) I “rededicated my life to Christ,” I came home and told my parents I was gay, but wanted to change.  Off I went to my first counselor, Dr. Frederick DiBlasio, Ph.D.   (He doesn’t advertise his work with “SSA-afflicted” people, to my knowledge, but he boasted in our session that he’d helped many men become straight.)  At the end of the summer, I went back to my school (Grove City College), feeling as gay as ever—and not sure if I really wanted to change.  I flip-flopped back and forth about my motivation to change, as well as my relationship with God, throughout my time at that small school.  Surprisingly, I found friends struggling with the same questions, even though our school’s handbook (which I scoured for policies regarding homosexuality) threatened that students who were gay would be expelled.  (The policy actually changed while I was there—first maintaining that homosexuality itself was an expellable offense, later that homosexual acts were.)

Later in college, I began to see Dr. Warren Throckmorton.  He covered similar territory as Dr. DiBlasio, but without the emphasis on the demonic causes of my problems (Dr. DiBlasio believed that this was at least part of the problem, especially given my history of night terrors which he interpreted as demonic oppression.)  We went over my father’s emotional abuse towards me and my mother, my sense of being “different”, why I became attracted to that girl in my Spanish class, and so on.  I left GCC with a well-constructed narrative about my life, but with no firm views about where I’d end up.  I still only “wanted to want to not want to be gay.”

I graduated from GCC when I was twenty.  Keep in mind, going back to the parallel with Zach, that this is four years after my initial sense that I was gay.  Four years of struggle, of depression, of alcohol abuse, and of feeling very alone.  After college, I continued that trend, seeing the pastor of my church, in place of a counselor, for motivation to change and for spiritual assistance.  I even decided against graduate school at Penn State because I was so afraid that the climate there would encourage me along the “wrong path.”  Still, I managed to find that same path within the church I attended.  Finally, I moved to St. Louis, to get an M.Div. at a conservative seminary—hoping that the theological study would help frame my ongoing questions with Christianity, and the community there could keep me close to God (and away from being gay). 

When I met my partner, I was in weekly sessions with my third counselor, this time a woman who was a graduate of the same seminary where I was enrolled.  For a third time, I began to construct a narrative around the difficult family life that I had, and work through my “emotional attachments” with women.

The purpose of this article isn’t to explain in full my journey—I’ve done that elsewhere—but to consider what Zach may have in store for him.  Of course, he is not me.  It could be that, given enough time in LIA/R, and a dedicated community of faith, he will modify his behavior and successfuly “re-orient” his attractions.  Perhaps my failure lay in a lack of faith, or in my lack of motivation.

We are all affected by our experiences, for good or for ill, and we all have choices about how we are going to respond to those pressures on our lives.  I believe that I have profited from the ten years between my initial awareness of my sexuality and my final acceptance of it.  However, I hurt and disappointed many people in the process—including myself.  Looking back upon the choices I made, I wonder how my life would have been different had there been another voice during those initial years, one that provided the space for me to explore options without fear of failure or retribution.  I wonder what would have happened if someone had allowed me to work through the morality of my sexuality, the complex questions of faith and truth, and the reality of my family’s troubling relationships in a place where there was no pre-fabricated answer that I had to strive for.  Would I have chosen the life I have now?  Maybe.  Would I have learned as much without the deep struggles I’ve had?  Perhaps not—but a space for questions doesn’t mean that struggle is avoided, only that we have room to do so without fear of harm to ourselves or others.

I don’t know what is in store for Zach.  In fact, I don’t know what is in store for me—I am only twenty-six, writing this post just ten years after making furtive journal entries about that girl in my Spanish class.  What I do know is there are many others like me and Zach, and that society needs to begin to make a space for us.

Comments

[Lee]

wow colleen - that's a pretty amazing story and one that no doubt will shadow what Zach Stark may face in the years to come...I grew up in a fundamental Southern Baptist household and luckily was able to either hide my sexuality from myself or the church long enough to put the distance I needed between me and that kind of mindset...I've never reconciled with any kind of spirituality and wandered here by accident, it's good to know that this place is here!

[ck]

Lee,
Thanks for stopping by. There are some good writers here, all with different stories to tell. Come back again--this is a good place to begin reconciling, as you put it.
ck

[Denise]

Well Lee lured me over here and I'm glad she did, even if it means yet another blog to read.

Homosexuality and spirituality are two difficult "alities" to merge. Space to explore both is so important.

[Amy]

Colleen,

Thanks for your story. I think what is hardest for me with these debates is that there is very little room for people to recognize homosexuality as a gift from God, not something to be tolerated or endured, but to be enjoyed and celebrated.

[Yvonne]

Amen to Amy!