Be a lesbian Catholic. My story of identity and love

Testimony of Anna Buescher* Published on Medium (United States) on May 10, 2022. Freely translated by the volunteers of the Gionata project.

When you ask someone to imagine a homophobic, the image that immediately comes to mind is often that of an elderly, white, Catholic person who lives in a rural or suburban town and who pronounces hatred speeches claiming to be on the side of the Bible.

This stereotype was born from the same mechanism as all stereotypes: observation and generalization. Of course, it may be true that many homophobic people are Catholic, but this does not mean that every Catholic is homophobic. I am Catholic ... and I'm lesbian! My story is not unique. I am sure that there are other people like me out there, and that's why I want to share it.

The inner conflict that I have experienced over the years, between my faith and my sexuality, has been painful. Yet, it was not caused by my teachers, by the Bible or my priests, but by strangers on the street and, unfortunately, by my father. I can't choose to be just one thing or another, because they are both.

This is the story of the inner struggle that involves being Catholic and being lesbian. It is a personal prayer that I have addressed to God for years. An uninterrupted dialogue between me and him.

I have always been Catholic. My mother attended a Catholic school, my father comes from a religious family. Even before I was born, when I was just a set of cells in a womb, my parents had already chosen a Catholic school for me and my brothers.

So, I grew up going to Mass on Sunday, praying before sleeping and thanking God before each meal. When I was large enough, I attended a small Catholic school. In the southern Illinois, in the early 2000s, homosexuality was not a topic that was often spoken of. As a child, everything I felt in this regard were the stories of adults with their "intimate friends" or "roommates", at least until the third grade.

One day, in my small Catholic school, a partner of mine made no way out with some of us. He said he was gay. Someone asked him what he meant, and he simply replied that he liked the boys instead of the girls. Everyone looked at him for a moment. Then, a group of Catholic children said:

"Oh. Okay. "

And it ended there. No discussion, nobody told him that it was wrong, nobody took it around. It was normal for us: he liked the boys, so what? From that moment, everything remained exactly as before, only that he now talked about his cooked without problems.

A few years later, at first average, I received my first phone as a birthday gift. That moment the wonders of the Internet opened before me, and I discovered that the world was much more complex than the simple division between heterosexual and homosexuals.

I discovered the existence of lesbians, bisexual, asexual, transgender, non -binary people; The world suddenly seemed full of new words and possibilities! Growing up, I was taught that sex was something that happened between a man and a woman who loved each other a lot, and that children were born.

Now I find that there was an entire vocabulary to describe the sexual and romantic attraction. I was amazed. I mean ... did not only need to make children with the person you loved?

At the beginning of the last year of the middle school, I realized that I did not try any attraction for sex and the idea itself put me uncomfortable. I made no asexual. After a few weeks, I started wondering why my feelings for someone should deal with his body.

I identified myself as a panromantic. This label lasted a year, perhaps two, before I realized that the rigid terms made me feel confined, so I began to simply call myself queer and went on. In all this, my friends never treated me differently, because nobody really cared.

After all, they had taught us that God created us in his image, that he is omnipotent and that he does not make mistakes. So if God had created me like this, then it was fine.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple for everyone.

One night, my father and I quarreled, and in the middle of words full of pain, I revealed him to be a lesbian. His reaction was denying: according to him, I was wrong. He said I was convinced that I was a lesbian only because of the trauma of my past and that I would have grown and changed. I was shocked and wounded.

Did my father think I was inventing everything? For a year we often discussed. He insisted on the fact that being a lesbian was wrong, that he went against everything we believed in. I replied that God had created us perfect, in his image.

One evening, during one of our worst discussions, he told me that if what I had confessed to him was true, then I could not be Catholic.

He broke my heart.

I tried not to be a lesbian. I tried to give up God. For months I bounced between these two parts of me. I could not change my feelings and I was afraid of being forced to abandon my faith. Then I understood that I could not choose between the two, because both were part of me. I decided to be both Catholic and lesbian. And it was the best decision of my life.

Since then, I have spent years reconstructing my faith. They are openly lesbian and openly Catholic. I am part of the Catholic community in my college and I found wonderful LGBTQ+ friends who respect both my faith and my identity.

My father and I still discuss sometimes, but we have found a balance that prevents conflicts from exploding as in the past. He knows that I will not change, and I know that maybe he will never completely understand who I am. But what matters is that we are present for each other.

I know that there are other people who fight with their faith and their sexuality there. I mean to them: you are perfect. God created us unique and his image. His drawing is bigger than us, and we can't understand it completely. So be yourself.

If you need support, look for it. Feeling part of a community is always important.

*Anna Buescher is currently in the third year at Butler University, where he studies biology and French. Use She/They pronouns and identifies herself as a queer woman. It is passionate about LGBTQ+rights, climate change, mushrooms and much more.

Original text: The Gay Catholic - A Story of Identity and Love