Being Queer And Spiritual (Or Not): The Autostraddle Religion Roundtable

SINDU:

I was raised Hindu, and I now identify as an atheist. Because Hinduism doesn’t have one primary text (whatever your religion teacher may have told you), it’s easy to justify pretty much any worldview with Hinduism. Did you know it’s possible to be an atheist Hindu? In fact, atheism and atheist philosophy have a long history in South Asia, dating back to before 200 BCE.

For me, my religion and sexuality never had to battle it out. Hinduism says a lot of conflicting things about sexuality. Most of the conflict, however, comes from the culture of South Asia and South Asian diasporas, a culture that is socially conservative and homophobic. For Hindus like my parents who believe in the concept of dharma (truth and duty), sexuality becomes a problem when it deviates from everyone’s moral duty to build a family with an opposite-sex partner. Most LGBT Hindus who come out are disowned by their families.

My parents have tried to force me to be religious. Most of our conflict comes from our separate understanding of spiritual Hindu practices. My mother believes in astrology and numerology. I do not. My parents believe in praying at crowded temples and singing in communion with a thousand other people at festivals. I believe in being kind and meditating alone on a mountain top. And while these differences produce a ton of conflict between me and my parents, in Hinduism technically both paths are legitimate and valid.

I’ve made peace with my atheist identity. For my parents, that peace is a long time coming. They struggle both with my religion and my sexuality. Because though Hinduism as a disjointed, unorganized religion accepts atheism and non-normative genders and sexualities, most Hindus don’t.

“I’ve made peace with my atheist identity. For my parents, that peace is a long time coming.”

I usually try to find partners who are also atheist. This Matthew Shultz quote sums up my feeling about friends and partners: “You’re allowed to believe in a god. You’re allowed to believe unicorns live in your shoes for all I care. But the day you start telling me how to wear my shoes so I don’t upset the unicorns, I have a problem with you. The day you start involving the unicorns in making decisions for this country, I have a BIG problem with you.”

On a daily basis, I find spiritual meaning in being kind to people, to animals and plants, and to the environment, in being out in nature and appreciating beauty where I find it, in being physically active and keeping my body healthy, in forming good relationships with good people, in writing and doing things I love, in feeling my emotions and being fully present in the moment, and in fighting for a better world.

KATE/KADE:

I would say my family are all super culturally Catholic because even the members of the family who aren’t staunch believers anymore are still hardcore Catholic in every other way. I was sent to Catholic school, I was raised by a family who fashioned their style of raising and disciplining on Catholic examples, and for the first 10 years of my life or so, I was mostly unaware that other people weren’t Catholic. Because of this, I was only allowed to come out to about three members of the family outside of my parents. I will never come out to my grandmother. That’s really hard, since I love her to bits, and knowing that our relationship might crumble based on my sexuality would kill us both, I think. She will also never know that I’m not Catholic anymore. When I tell her I miss Catholic school, though, I am being honest with her. I do.

I went from being a kid in a Catholic school who felt like dipping in and out of the faith was part of being popular to being a scared agnostic to realizing, for the second time in my life, that there was absolutely something out there pushing me around the playing board, so by the time I was getting around to figuring out my identity in my teens, I was dealing with spiritual issues at the same time. I didn’t really come into one until I’d come into the other.

“I know my ancestors are always keeping me out of trouble, although sometimes they let me dip my feet in to learn a lesson.”

I know I have been the subject of some jokes, but I try not to pay attention. I had a lot of fondness for my community and I don’t want to lose that fondness, so there are things I choose to ignore. (I say town in place of religious community a lot, because they’re one in the same. All of my friends from my public high school got confirmed with me, I grew up with kids who either went to the parish near my house or the parish attached to my school: my experience of my community outside of Catholicism was nearly identical to my parish community).

Looking back, I’ve almost exclusively dated people who were raised Catholic and from culturally Catholic backgrounds. Which is actually kind of strange, considering I didn’t start dating until after I’d left my community where that would be unavoidable. I don’t know if it’s because we find each other, or because it just works out that way, or what. I tend to be the one in the relationship who still harbors feelings of affection and nostalgia for Catholicism and the Catholic community, though.

My daily spiritual practice now is a mixed bag of stuff. I still believe in a higher power that is present in my life. I read a lot of omens. I talk to a lot of ghosts. I know my ancestors are always keeping me out of trouble, although sometimes they let me dip my feet in to learn a lesson.

MEY:

I was born and raised Catholic, and went to Catholic School for Kindergarten and First Grade, but I also started attending an American Baptist church when I was in the 6th grade. I kind of lost myself in my faith there, at first going to youth group and Sunday school every week and volunteering at every opportunity I got, and eventually becoming a youth leader, Vacation Bible School teacher and Sunday school teacher.

My church started becoming increasingly conservative as my own personal faith started becoming more and more liberal and universalist. Although I’m very far from a strict believer when it comes to Catholicism, I still have a lot of cultural ties to the Church. When I came out as both trans* and a lesbian at the same time a lot of my friends were super supportive, but other people at my Baptist church told me that I wasn’t following God’s plan and that they would be praying for me. I had to have a meeting with the Pastor where he told me that I wouldn’t be able to volunteer for the foreseeable future. He said that we would have to keep meeting and that he would also have meetings with the church elders and with parents of the church youth before we moved on. So I left that church.

“Although I’m very far from a strict believer when it comes to Catholicism, I still have a lot of cultural ties to the Church.”

I currently still go to Catholic mass on most Holy Days of Obligation and also sporadically attend a local episcopal church that is very welcoming and affirming to the queer community. I’m also an ordained minister from the Universal Life Church, so that means I can legally perform weddings.

STEF:

I was raised in a reformed Jewish household, which meant that while my family weren’t particularly religious, I still knew that I was somehow separate from “normal” American society. Our area of northern New Jersey had a pretty large Jewish population, but I remember feeling acutely aware that most of the holidays we actually got out of school for were things my family didn’t participate in. As a small child, I was really jealous of the kids who got to celebrate Easter and Christmas and eat a lot of fun candy, while our holidays seemed to mostly be about somberly remembering various incidents of Jewish oppression. I went to Hebrew school twice a week and we attended synagogue on important holidays, but that was about it; for my family, the emphasis was on Jewish tradition, holidays, food and family. I studied my torah portion, had my Bat Mitzvah, dropped out of Hebrew school a couple of years later and never looked back. I’ve never minded participating in cultural Judaism, and as an adult I’ve grown to appreciate that aspect of my life.

“I still identify strongly as a Jewish person. I make a mean potato kugel and I can swear in Yiddish with the best of them, but I will never be a religious person.”

As an adult, I still identify as Jewish, but I also consider myself an atheist. I don’t believe in any sort of God; I believe in logic and science, but I can appreciate what that belief means to people I’m close to. I can certainly appreciate having been raised as a non-Christian person in the USA, and that has affected the way I navigate this country. I still identify strongly as a Jewish person. I make a mean potato kugel and I can swear in Yiddish with the best of them, but I will never be a religious person.

When I got a little older and started exploring what life as a queer human would look like, I learned very quickly that I could expect an entirely different level of cultural othered-ness. I suppose that being raised in a relatively low-pressure Jewish environment helped prepare me for feeling a bit separated from heteronormative, traditionally Christian America. It’s not something I’ve ever put into words before, really, but I’m sure there is a parallel in some ways.