Jul 17, 2021 08:48 AM
(This post was last modified: Jul 17, 2021 10:01 AM by C C.)
As a gay child in a Christian cult, I was taught to hate myself. Then I joined the Church of Social Justice—and nothing changed
https://quillette.com/2021/07/08/as-a-ga...g-changed/
EXCERPTS: I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland, in a fundamentalist Christian community called The Lamb of God. What began in the mid-1970s as a small group of born-again hippies who played music, prayed together, and proselytized to whoever would listen about Jesus’s unconditional love and mercy, descended into authoritarianism in the 1980s after its founder linked up with the broader charismatic renewal movement that had been sweeping the nation.
[...] I was gay. As a survival tactic, I meticulously de-feminized myself: I cut my hair short, deepened my voice, modified my gait, wore baggier clothes, and, at least publicly, quelled my artistic interests. I became the boy my peers required me to be.
Meanwhile, my thoughts were so distressing—thoughts that I was evil; that God had abandoned me because of who, or what, I was...
[...] in April 2016, I was accepted to Columbia University. That December, one month after the 2016 election that brought Donald Trump to power, my husband and I moved to New York.
[...] The first time I realized Columbia might not be the bastion of radical liberalism that I’d hoped was the night I attended an information session for a student-run LGBT organization. I imagined that this was a hive of activity, which would need my help on any number of initiatives, what with Trump in power and a right-wing evangelical serving as his second-in-command.
As it turned out, things were rather chill...
[...] When the discussion section ended, I gathered my things and caught up with the student in the hallway. “Excuse me,” I said, “I’m sorry, but I was just curious to hear more about why you objected to what I said.”
“Um, I don’t know,” she answered impatiently. “What was it you said again?” She genuinely seemed to have forgotten the whole thing.
I attempted a good-natured shrug. “Oh, it’s not important,” I said. “I’m Ben, by the way.”
She smiled flatly and walked away.
In retrospect, it was an innocuous exchange. At the time, though, I was disturbed by it. I saw myself as an accepted member of this progressive world I’d embraced. But even when (as in this case) pronouncing a fundamentally feminist point of view, my perceived identity—white, male, and conventionally masculine in gender presentation—I’d frequently be perceived by students as privileged, and, therefore, ideologically suspect and out of touch.
During my time at Columbia, people around me would interpret my words in a way that was the exact opposite of what I’d intended; or they’d cast any kind of nuanced, heterodox perspective as an argument made in bad faith. For “cisgender” white dudes like me—no matter my life experiences, my sexuality, my history of adolescent gender-nonconformity, or the complexity of whichever topic we happened to be discussing—it was best to toe the radically progressive line, using only Party-approved language … or shut the fuck up.
Being accused of wrongthink by a woman felt particularly disorienting to me. Since I was 13, I’d been primarily raised by my mother and my two older sisters, and nearly all of my closest friends were females. I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t fiercely passionate about women’s equality. For a young woman to suggest, in front of a room full of people, that I had said something regressive, even sexist, left me feeling ashamed. For as long as I could remember, women had gravitated toward me because I was “safe,” “kind,” a “good guy,” and “like one of the girls.” I believed that my homosexuality allowed me to see life through a dual-gendered lens. But I came to learn that none of this mattered. I would be reduced to the identity that my peers had assigned to me.
As I walked to my next class, I couldn’t let go of the fear that I had done something wrong. That I was bad. That I would be punished...
[...] The summer after my first semester, I landed an internship with the LGBT-rights organization GLAAD. ... Within a few days of starting work, I became aware of how consumed the other interns (early 20s, most of them) were by their identities and by online culture. I also began to see the connection between “gender ideology” (as some now call it) and narcissism, and between extreme forms of trans activism and homophobia. (Note that I said connection, not equivalence.)
I was struck by the way these younger colleagues seemed to conflate gender identity with gender expression, and how obsessed they were with their appearances—their clothes, their hair, their makeup—and their digital personas.
[...] It was also at GLAAD that I first heard the terms “nonbinary” and “cisgender,” and, before I knew it, “cis-supremacy.” And it was the first time that I was pejoratively referred to as “cis.” It’s a nominally neutral term used to describe a person whose gender identity aligns with their biological sex. But it’s also an implicit slur, often directed at gay men with traditionally masculine—thus, “assimilationist,” toxic, and regressive—traits.
At the time, I didn’t have the perspective necessary to challenge this new label that had been assigned to me—by, say, pointing out that I’d adopted more masculine traits when I was young as a survival tactic, due to bullying; that my experience with gender is deeply personal...
[...] I became terrified of transgressing—of either offending another intern (“How can you like Katy Perry when she totally appropriates black culture?” I was asked during my second week) or screwing up someone’s pronouns. But it finally happened one August afternoon, when I said to Morgan (not their real name), who identifies as trans and prefers the pronouns they/them, “Hey girl, you ready to go to lunch?”
Morgan scrunched up their face. I babbled, “I’m so sorry, I call all of my friends, ‘girl!’”—which was the truth and probably had something to do with the fact that most of my friends were women.
It also may have had to do with the fact that, apart from their hairy legs and short haircut, everything about Morgan screamed “woman”—from their wardrobe, to their breasts, to their high voice, to their stature, to all of the other myriad ways on which humans’ evolved intelligence has come to depend as a means to distinguish females from males.
“That’s such a cis gay man thing to say,” Morgan scoffed. And when I didn’t respond, they said it again... (MORE - details)
https://quillette.com/2021/07/08/as-a-ga...g-changed/
EXCERPTS: I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland, in a fundamentalist Christian community called The Lamb of God. What began in the mid-1970s as a small group of born-again hippies who played music, prayed together, and proselytized to whoever would listen about Jesus’s unconditional love and mercy, descended into authoritarianism in the 1980s after its founder linked up with the broader charismatic renewal movement that had been sweeping the nation.
[...] I was gay. As a survival tactic, I meticulously de-feminized myself: I cut my hair short, deepened my voice, modified my gait, wore baggier clothes, and, at least publicly, quelled my artistic interests. I became the boy my peers required me to be.
Meanwhile, my thoughts were so distressing—thoughts that I was evil; that God had abandoned me because of who, or what, I was...
[...] in April 2016, I was accepted to Columbia University. That December, one month after the 2016 election that brought Donald Trump to power, my husband and I moved to New York.
[...] The first time I realized Columbia might not be the bastion of radical liberalism that I’d hoped was the night I attended an information session for a student-run LGBT organization. I imagined that this was a hive of activity, which would need my help on any number of initiatives, what with Trump in power and a right-wing evangelical serving as his second-in-command.
As it turned out, things were rather chill...
[...] When the discussion section ended, I gathered my things and caught up with the student in the hallway. “Excuse me,” I said, “I’m sorry, but I was just curious to hear more about why you objected to what I said.”
“Um, I don’t know,” she answered impatiently. “What was it you said again?” She genuinely seemed to have forgotten the whole thing.
I attempted a good-natured shrug. “Oh, it’s not important,” I said. “I’m Ben, by the way.”
She smiled flatly and walked away.
In retrospect, it was an innocuous exchange. At the time, though, I was disturbed by it. I saw myself as an accepted member of this progressive world I’d embraced. But even when (as in this case) pronouncing a fundamentally feminist point of view, my perceived identity—white, male, and conventionally masculine in gender presentation—I’d frequently be perceived by students as privileged, and, therefore, ideologically suspect and out of touch.
During my time at Columbia, people around me would interpret my words in a way that was the exact opposite of what I’d intended; or they’d cast any kind of nuanced, heterodox perspective as an argument made in bad faith. For “cisgender” white dudes like me—no matter my life experiences, my sexuality, my history of adolescent gender-nonconformity, or the complexity of whichever topic we happened to be discussing—it was best to toe the radically progressive line, using only Party-approved language … or shut the fuck up.
Being accused of wrongthink by a woman felt particularly disorienting to me. Since I was 13, I’d been primarily raised by my mother and my two older sisters, and nearly all of my closest friends were females. I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t fiercely passionate about women’s equality. For a young woman to suggest, in front of a room full of people, that I had said something regressive, even sexist, left me feeling ashamed. For as long as I could remember, women had gravitated toward me because I was “safe,” “kind,” a “good guy,” and “like one of the girls.” I believed that my homosexuality allowed me to see life through a dual-gendered lens. But I came to learn that none of this mattered. I would be reduced to the identity that my peers had assigned to me.
As I walked to my next class, I couldn’t let go of the fear that I had done something wrong. That I was bad. That I would be punished...
[...] The summer after my first semester, I landed an internship with the LGBT-rights organization GLAAD. ... Within a few days of starting work, I became aware of how consumed the other interns (early 20s, most of them) were by their identities and by online culture. I also began to see the connection between “gender ideology” (as some now call it) and narcissism, and between extreme forms of trans activism and homophobia. (Note that I said connection, not equivalence.)
I was struck by the way these younger colleagues seemed to conflate gender identity with gender expression, and how obsessed they were with their appearances—their clothes, their hair, their makeup—and their digital personas.
[...] It was also at GLAAD that I first heard the terms “nonbinary” and “cisgender,” and, before I knew it, “cis-supremacy.” And it was the first time that I was pejoratively referred to as “cis.” It’s a nominally neutral term used to describe a person whose gender identity aligns with their biological sex. But it’s also an implicit slur, often directed at gay men with traditionally masculine—thus, “assimilationist,” toxic, and regressive—traits.
At the time, I didn’t have the perspective necessary to challenge this new label that had been assigned to me—by, say, pointing out that I’d adopted more masculine traits when I was young as a survival tactic, due to bullying; that my experience with gender is deeply personal...
[...] I became terrified of transgressing—of either offending another intern (“How can you like Katy Perry when she totally appropriates black culture?” I was asked during my second week) or screwing up someone’s pronouns. But it finally happened one August afternoon, when I said to Morgan (not their real name), who identifies as trans and prefers the pronouns they/them, “Hey girl, you ready to go to lunch?”
Morgan scrunched up their face. I babbled, “I’m so sorry, I call all of my friends, ‘girl!’”—which was the truth and probably had something to do with the fact that most of my friends were women.
It also may have had to do with the fact that, apart from their hairy legs and short haircut, everything about Morgan screamed “woman”—from their wardrobe, to their breasts, to their high voice, to their stature, to all of the other myriad ways on which humans’ evolved intelligence has come to depend as a means to distinguish females from males.
“That’s such a cis gay man thing to say,” Morgan scoffed. And when I didn’t respond, they said it again... (MORE - details)