QUEER FREEDOM: How can we be both held and free?

July 6, 2021

Glennon Doyle:          

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Today the hard thing we are going to be discussing is queerness and shame. And in particular, the kind of false shame that many of us learn from religion. It’s like we’re handed this shame and we’re told it’s from God. So, we just take it without questioning it and we carry it throughout our lives. And we end up walking through life, a little hunched over, burdened, tired, angry about all the heaviness. My wife, Abby for example, she’s a pro athlete, champion, a beloved leader, an American icon. So many people adore her. People have been cheering her on for decades.

But right beneath the surface of her is a little girl who learned that God rejected her, and she carries that bad news in her bones to this day. As you will hear in this conversation today, there’s lots of laughter and lots of tears in our conversation today so get ready. Tears for me are a sign that the work is happening. That progress is being made. That healing is imminent. It always makes me cringe when anybody says, “Hush, shh, don’t cry. Don’t cry.” Why on earth not? Crying is organic baptism. It’s how we were made to feel it all and begin again.

Last week I heard Ashley Ford say, “We are never going to be okay if we don’t talk about what hurts.” We are never going to be okay if we don’t talk about what hurts. I love that so much. Ashley didn’t say we have to fix what hurts. She didn’t say we need to make it stop hurting even and she didn’t say that talking will make it okay. She just said we’ll never be okay if we don’t at least start there. So, we’re going to start there. We’re going to talk about what hurts because sometimes the burden we’re carrying is too heavy because we were never meant to carry it and telling it, getting it out into the light is the first step in giving it back and setting it down. We all carry something like that, don’t we?

We got to put down what was never ours to carry so we can start living light and free. We deserve that. So, let’s begin.

Okay. So, babe, first of all, thanks for, thanks for joining us on We Can Do Hard Things. I appreciate that you’re here.

Abby Wambach:        

Thank you for having me back. I guess this means I did good, right?

GD:

Yeah, you did so good. You always do so good. You are always welcome.  So, we’re talking about queerness and religion and shamelessness and freedom and all of that. And so, I wanted to start with a story about when we first met, because when I met you, I was so fascinated by so many things about you and one of the things that I was fascinated about was this approach you had to faith and spirituality. And I would say that back then, you would have probably described yourself as the atheist, the most atheist atheist that ever atheisted, right?

AW:

Yeah.

GD:

You were belligerent, just a belligerent …

AW:

Yeah.

GD:

… adamant atheist, right?

AW:

Yup.

Amanda Doyle:          

She was an evangelical of …

GD:

Yes-

AW:

Yes, that’s right.

GD:

… she was an evangelical for atheism. That’s right. Um, and, and I understood every word that you said about all of it. I felt your approach deeply. I understood it. But then this weird thing happened, which is when we moved in together a long, long time after we met, we were unpacking and I’ll never forget being in a back room and opening…I was looking, looking for the boxes with your books. That’s what I wanted to see more than anything. I wanted to see what books you had, because I feel like that’s the most intimate glimpse into who a person actually is.

AW:

Yeah, that’s right-

GD:     

I never believe what, you know, I never believe what you say, just show me what you read. Okay. And this wild thing happened, which is that I started opening a huge box of books and it was full of Rumi and Hafez and Neruda and Eckerd Toll, and freaking The Case for Christ.  I’ll never forget opening and books about Buddhism and mysticism and the Torah and freaking Thomas Merton. Like we had all of the same books and I felt like some weird music was playing as I was opening these books ’cause I felt like I was discovering that you were, that this public atheist was a closet seeker. Like you were closeted, right?

AW:

Yup.

GD:     

So how, can you just tell us, take us back to the beginning and tell us the story of how you became a public atheist and closet seeker?

AW:

Um, yeah, I mean, I think when I, I look back on my life, I remember, I guess I’ll go back to what I first remember about church and God. You know, being in a big family, Sundays were a big deal. I grew up in an all-Catholic family and, we would get dressed in our Sunday’s best and go to church. My parents would march us up to like the first pew and my mom would look down the aisle and say, or the pew and say, you know, “God is watching.” So that like kept us in line.  But my first memories of church were, are actually very beautiful. I remember the music. I remember loving to sing. My feet planted on the pew while holding the back pew in front of me and just belting out the songs. And for whatever reason, I, I was like really good at like memorizing the songs. In fact, I could actually probably orate the entire service right now, front to back.

GD:     

Mm-hmm.

AW:

And I just remember feeling completely seen and held in this community, you know? And slowly but surely it wasn’t ever something that somebody said, like really. I’m sure that I had heard the gay joke here or there growing up, but it was a feeling like an overall, like an overwhelming sense of understanding both at the same time of like who I was inside and who the church expected me to be, and both of those things didn’t match. They didn’t meet up. And so, I’ve, I, I remember feeling, you know, and I even had, um, a friend back then that, um, I was able to go to church with, without my family. I felt like I had this connection beyond like, “Oh, I go to church with my family.” I was doing it on my own.

Um, I had this friend that, we would go to church together and, you know, one day I eventually told her that I was gay and this was around the same time that I was just like, feeling like what was happening on my insides as like the little gay kid. I was like probably 16, 17 years old and then what the church’s expectations were. Though nobody ever said these things out loud, we’re not the same. And so, when I told my friend that I was gay, she ran and jumped into the pool. And we were at my family’s house and actually like, sadly, we like stopped being friends after this moment. And so, I don’t know. I think that it was a, a kind of a smashing of a bunch of different things happening at the same time, but I understood that I had a choice to make, and it was like, I was either going to choose me or God, you know?

And so, I guess, like to say like going from the beginning, I loved church and I loved like that community and I loved feeling like I was a part of something, but then when it didn’t start…when it immediately started to feel like I didn’t belong and I wasn’t accepted, there was a choice I had to make. They’re just, they’re just simply was and I, and I chose myself from a pretty young age. For lack of a better way of actually knowing how to say this beautifully, when I met you is when this thing kind of re-lit inside of me. You know, I think for a long time, I had to, I had to turn my back from, to church and what I thought was God, out of self-preservation, because it was almost like, “Well, if you don’t accept me, then fuck you. Seriously like, if you don’t accept me then you can go and like go straight to your own hell. I’m going to go over here and do my thing.”

But I, I feel like when I met you, I know this might sound so cheesy, but the first time you wrote me that email, and then the first times that we started talking on the phone, I just remember distinctly feeling like, “Oh, you have a kind of faith that I could get on board with.” Um, and I think that you said one thing to me, like, you know, your atheism is, is so righteous. It’s pretty interesting to me that you’re fighting so hard against something that you don’t believe in.

AW:

And I was like, “Oh yeah.” Like, why am I so righteous? Like, and I understand it was, I was fighting for myself, right? Like this was the way that I could keep, or a way I thought that I could keep my power. Um, but I just think that you see Jesus as a reason to fight for the underdog and you’ve been able to, because of the, the road I went down with atheism and agnosticism. Um, you know, some of the stories in the Bible just don’t feel true to me.  And one of the things that you always tell me is just think of these, these things in the Bible as stories. And one thing that you’ve been able to give me is almost like a dictionary at how to read through some of the BS, and the things that don’t feel true, but have truth in them, if that makes sense.

GD:     

Or they don’t feel like fact.

AW:

Yes, exactly.

GD:     

Right.

AW:

And, you know, that’s kind of what atheism stands itself by is, is facts and reality and science. But I guess, I don’t know. A- what I want to know though, from you, G is why has Jesus been somebody to you that you have, I don’t know, you do worship the guy. Why Jesus?

GD:     

First of all, why Jesus? That’s such a good question. You know that I have always felt this wild faith. I don’t know what it is. I relate to this thing I read, somebody said a long time ago that was, I, I don’t know what my faith is. I just know that whenever somebody asked me, I said, “Yes.”

I just feel that deep yes inside of me that there is something more going on down here than what we can see, right? And even at my worst moments when I was just so lost and sick, I mean, I remember being high as a kite, stoned out of my mind wasted and sitting in my backyard talking to God. Not feeling like God was mad at me. I mean, I definitely felt like God was probably like, “Okay, are we going to get started anytime soon here?” Like moving right along. But I always felt that there was this being, I don’t know, energy, something there that, you know, when I decided to pick myself up off that bathroom floor, was there the most like this God of the bathroom floor that is always with us at our most brokenness and has this, has like you know, I remember thinking, looking at a pregnancy test, sitting on the bathroom floor, so broken, so sick and being like, “This is definitely not a God that does background checks.” Like this, “God, whoever this God is, has the lowest expectations of any being on the planet.”

AD:     

He’s a reckless, reckless God.

GD:     

This is a God that does not do its due diligence. Okay?  All right? That looks down at a broken, broken girl and says, “Let’s give her the best thing she’s ever had now. Let’s give her the most important invitation of her life now, in this moment, in this brokenness, now. Let’s not wait until she cleans herself up. Let’s give it to her now.” Like the God of the bathroom floor is the one that I’ve always walked with, right? And, when I did, I, I got up the off the bathroom floor and started this family and I got to this point where I was so tired. I was just, I had so many children and I was trying so hard to be a good mom and I got this postcard, the mail that said, “Come to our local church.” And it said like “daycare and coffee.” Okay? So I went, not for Jesus, but for coffee and for daycare. Like that’s …

AD:     

Which is as close to Jesus as …

GD:     

Amen.

AD:     

… as you can get.

GD:     

Amen. And, Craig and I kind of just like folded into this, it was, you know, one of those churches where they meet at like a local school and you walk in and there’s all this like coffee and preachers and jeans and like everything seems so like casual and cool and, and progressive. It just feels very modern, right? And this thing happens at that, well, I’ll just, I’ll just say. This thing happened to me. Which is that I felt the sense of belonging there. It was like, I could walk in and just turn off. They took my baby; they gave me my coffee. They sat me down in this pew. They played beautiful music. They brought that spirit out in me that you felt in those pews, Abby. That singing, that wild energy. And, and it just, and, and they gave me stuff to do. I mean, we had groups on Wednesday night, social things on Thursday night, come Sunday. I didn’t have to plan my social life anymore.

I didn’t, there was part of me that got to turn off my maddening, nuanced conflicting life and brain and just belong, right? And I wanted that at that point in my life. I wanted that safety. I wanted that belonging. And then as happens, the thing that got in my way is freaking Jesus. That’s what screwed me up, okay? It’s because I actually had this love of this Jesus in the Bible, which is different than the Jesus we see, you know, on the news and in the, that is represented by this like, you know, less gays, more guns Jesus, right?  The Jesus that I fell in love with was this, when I read the gospel, I just, what I saw was this man, character, whatever you want to call it, who walked around his life, his community, his world asking two questions, which were, “Who is religion forgetting?” and “Who is power oppressing?”

It’s just those two questions over and over again. And what he did was ask those questions and then gather up those people around him, right? And back then it would have been, you know, the lepers, the tax collectors, the prostitutes. And so, he just gathered them up and he just ate with them, and he spoke out for them and he stood between them and those throwing stones at them over and over and over again, right? And, while he did that, like while he gathered those people, those hurting marginalized, pushed-to-the-edges people, he, he walked with them. This part I love. He just gathered them all up, ate with them, shepherd them, took care of them and then walked towards the empire. There was something about that that just lit me up inside. This idea that we take care, we fight for the people in our communities, but we also have this directional thing where we are challenging the power structures. We are coming at them. With our lives, we are saying, “We’re together in this and we are coming for you. We are not afraid of you. You need to be afraid of us.” There are more of us than there are of them. We are walking direct, entirely political. Personal, communal, and political, right?

And so, the question for me was always like, okay, so what if we are walking around our communities and our lives asking “Who is power oppressing? Who is religion forgetting?” If we’re asking those questions over and over again, then who do we end up with in our communities, right? If we do that now, who are we walking with? Who are we standing with? Who are we getting between the stone throwers and these people in there?

You know, they’re immigrants, they’re queer kids, they’re brown and black people, women, children, men, they’re disabled. They’re all of these people and if we are not surrounding those people, standing between them and the lawmakers who would hurt them, standing between the stone throwers and them, then we don’t have a church. We have a country club. We have a voting bloc, right? And what I kept finding myself in that church, I, when I’d go to bed at night, I would think, “Wait a minute. With these people, I am no longer, I am not the one standing between the stone throwers and the hurting. I am the stone throwers.”

AW:

Oof. Yeah.

GD:     

So often in those churches where they put up this modern, progressive front, and then you look at what they’re teaching and it’s, it’s stone throwing, right? So, you know this, this time Sister, I just, I kept just asking questions. I kept just, you know, at my groups, I started raising my hands and saying, “Wait, where is that teaching coming from?” Where’s this teaching coming from? I was calling ministers and priests in our community, right? I would call Sister at work and she would answer at her law office and she would say…what,  Sister, would you say when you answer the phone?

AD:     

“Are we, are we talking about the gays again?”

GD:     

Yes.

AD:     

It was always like you were doing a master’s degree in queer Christian theology.

GD:     

Yes.

AD:     

Because you just could not, you couldn’t. That should have been a clue to me maybe at some point but-

GD:     

Maybe, maybe. 

So, during that time I wrote a letter. I remember Chase was very, very little, maybe two or three. And I wrote him a letter because I always work out all of my thoughts and feelings and ideas and anger through writing. I wrote him a letter and it was a letter about baby. This is what would happen if you one day came out to your father and I. Because when it, when being a part of this group that didn’t, that didn’t jive with my ideas about God and love got to me the most was when I would drop that baby boy off in the nursery. And I would think, what am I passing down to him? What is he soaking up in here that I don’t even believe, right?

And so I wrote him this letter about what would happen if he came out to us and about my specific ideas about God and the Bible and gayness, and it became an essay in Carry On, Warrior, in the first book. It’s called “A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On.” And by the way, two days after I came out online, someone in this community, probably someone who’s listening to this podcast right now, sent me an email and it was anonymous. This person had written back to me the entire essay, “A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On,” but had changed all the words in it so that it was no longer a letter to Chase. It was a letter to me, from my community online-

AW:

Oh.

GD:     

So, it said, “Dear Glennon … ” I just opened up the email and it said, I didn’t understand was, what it was at first. It said, “Dear Glennon, here’s what would happen if one day you came out to us. If one day you told us that you were gay. Here’s-

AW:

Oh, my God.

GD:     

… what would happen, Glennon, we would wrap our arms around you. We would pray that the shortest amount of time possible pass between the moment you knew and the moment you told us. We would celebrate…” just on and on this letter to me, from me, from my community.

AW:

I mean, it still gives me the chills when you even tell that-

GD:     

Me too.

AW:

… story now.

GD:     

… years later, years later, when our baby boy Chase came out to us, a decade and a half later. You and I sat at that table, Abby, and he told us. And then he, well, to be clear, then we had a “Born This Way” dance party with a strobe light in our kitchen, which we’ll talk about another time, but that did happen. And then he went out with his friends, and I thought, “Oh my God.” And I went and grabbed Carry On, Warrior and I opened up the book to “A Mountain I’m Willing To Die On.” “Dear Chase, here is what would happen if one day you told us you were gay…” And I left it on his pillow for him to come home to that night. And the reason I’m telling that story is because what if I had not fought that battle early when he was two?

AW:

Yup.

GD:

What if I had stayed in those pews? What if I had let that poison soak into him? Soak into me? What if I had just decided, “Mm-hmm , you know, we don’t really believe it. So, it’s okay if I just sit here.” “What if?” So, I know “what if,” because I talked to parents every day who sat in those pews, who sat in those conversations, who sat at dinner tables and let that homophobia live, let it live. And what they didn’t know was that their babies were sitting there soaking all of that hatred up and that when they come out, it is too late to undo all of that. When you fight for someone else’s humanity early, you are fighting for your family’s humanity. You are fighting for your own. Whatever you do to them, you do to yourself, you do to your own family. If you are part of an organization, a family, a conversation, a friendship, a church that is letting homophobia live—even insidiously—you have three choices.

Number one, you can stay and be quiet and that means that you agree. That means that you also are anti-queer. That means that that is what you are passing down to your children. That is a decision. There’s no silent, quietly disagreeing. That’s not a thing.

Number two, you can fight like hell within the institution, within the conversation within the family to change it. You can fight loudly, you can let your dissent be known, you can choose that path.

Or number three, you can leave. You can say, not my family, not here.

Those are your only three choices. You just gotta do it now. It’s too late once you find out.

AW:

Yeah. I mean, listen, I, I’m just going to just jump in really quick, because I know that there’s a lot of apathy when it goes into choosing a church. “Well, this is the church that I grew up in,” or “this is the church that my family took me to,” or “this is just the church around the corner from my house.” And I just think that if you don’t know who your children are yet, because you don’t, they’re going to figure it out as they grow older, you have to protect them, and I needed a mom like you, Glennon. And I have forgiven my mom on a lot of, in a lot of ways, but I was the kid that sat in that pew hating myself for so long. And in some ways, I still have it in me. You know, I still have homophobia in me. So, just protect who your children could become one day and make that easy for them. Church isn’t God.

GD:     

That’s right, baby. Church isn’t God. And if you are giving, if you are being given a choice between love and God, you better think hard. That is a false choice.

AW:

Mm-hmm.

GD:     

God is love. So, if you, if your family, if you are being given a choice by some sort of institution that you can either love your baby or follow God, get the hell out. You are allowed t-

AD:     

Or love yourself. Or love yourself. I mean, it is about queerness. It’s also about how many women are being abused and told that they, that go to their pastors and say, “I need help. I need out of my marriage.” And they say that their job is to pray for their spouse and they stay there because of that. I mean, how many unwed mothers are told that they’re raising their kids in a way that is not God’s plan for them or people who are suffering from mental or physical health challenges that are told that the answer is in God and not in doctors. I mean, any of these things that rail against what you know you need and who you are, that’s not God, that’s not love.

GD:     

No. I mean, even the ideas of being a part of a congregation, I know people who are committed to equality who believe in gender equality and who will sit in seats in religious places where they don’t allow women to teach and just accept that.

AW:

Yeah-

GD:     

What is that passing down to our children? Anyway …

AW:

Yeah. I think that I want to tell that, that story, the not story, that’s in Untamed. And I feel like every human being listening or anybody that knows a person listening today, they just have to hear what happened to me this night. I think that might have changed everything for me. And I’m going to try to do this without crying, but whatever. 

GD:     

You’re going to read it?

AW:

Yeah. Is it okay?

GD:     

Yeah. I love you.

AW:

I love you too.

Knots, for Abby

Tonight, you and I are in a minister’s office somewhere in Texas. We’re chatting before I go out to speak to the waiting crowd. You don’t like these steepled, echoing rooms. You come with me anyway. You sit in the front pew and listen to me talk about God and the hunches I have about her.

You think I’m wrong to believe there’s a God, but it’s what you love and need me for. You borrow my faith like we borrow our next door neighbor’s Wi-Fi. 

This minister said something that made you feel safe. You look down at your hands. You said, “I don’t feel comfortable in churches. When I was little, I knew I was gay. I had to choose church, my mom and God. Or myself. I chose myself.”

“Damn right,” the minister said. She cleared her throat. I smiled at her, but d”Damn right” wasn’t exactly it.

I turned to you, touched your hand. I said, “Babe, wait. Yes. When you were little, your heart turned away from the church in order to protect itself. You remained whole instead of letting them dismember you. You held onto who you were born to be instead of contorting yourself into who they told you to be. You stayed true to yourself instead of abandoning yourself.

“When you shut down your heart to that church, you did it to protect God in you. You did it to keep your wild. You thought that decision made you bad. But that decision made you holy.

“Abby, what I’m trying to say is that when you were very little, you did not choose yourself instead of God and church. You chose yourself and God instead of church. When you choose yourself, you chose God. When you walked away from church, you took God with you. God is in you.

“And tonight—you, me and God—we’re just visiting church. We three came back for a visit, to offer the folks here hope by telling stories about brave people like you who fight their whole lives to stay as whole and free as God made them. When we’re done tonight, you and I will go, and God will go with us.”

I thought you’d looked at me every way possible. But now. The way you look at me in this minister’s office is new. Eyes wide, watery, and red. The minister disappeared when you looked at me like that. Just you, me, and God there.

“Wow,” you said.

Like that time, your “G” necklace got a knot in it.

You stood there by the bed, grumbling, threatening to throw it away.

I ask you for the chain. Held it my hand,

Almost invisible—delicate white, gold, impossible.

You left.

I kept at it for a while.

Impressing myself with my patience.

 And then—one tug in the right place—it all came undone.

You walked back into our room.

I held it up, proud.

“Wow,” you said.

You bent down, and I clasped it back around you.

I kissed your cheek.

May we lay more elegant ideas around our children’s necks.

Oh, geez Louise, honey. You can write.

GD:     

Ahh, may we lay more or elegant ideas around our children’s necks.

AW:

You saved me that night. You really did. Like, you healed something in me that I was so scared to know, and I was so scared to feel like, but maybe everybody else had the answer and like you told me that night that no, I also did too. And so, thank you. Continue. Sorry.

GD:     

I love you.  Baby-

AW:

It’s beautiful.

GD:     

… thank you. Thank you, thank you for bringing us your story. I love you so very much. I don’t, I think of all of the people that I have ever known in my entire life, that you are the closest to God and your kindness and your honesty and your generosity. Um, you’re it, always have been. I love you so much.

AW:

I love you.

AD:     

Okay, Abby and Glennon, we are back with hard questions.

Um, first of all, thank you both for sharing so much. That was really beautiful and helpful. And I think going to be very healing for a lot of people. So, thank you for being so brave and Abby, thank you for sharing so much.

I feel like we can’t do this conversation without addressing the go-to move of, “I don’t agree with your lifestyle, but I still love you. My Christian beliefs say that what you’re doing is not correct, but my heart is still overflowing with love for you, Glennon and Abby.” Can you just address that please? That elephant in the …

GD:     

Yes.

AD:     

… theological room.

GD:     

Oh, my favorite thing I hear a million times a day. “Well, can I, I’m just, I just disagree with you, but I love you. Can’t I just, can’t we love each other and just disagree?”

Okay. First of all, as a words person, I just need to first break down what a disagreement is.  Okay? Like, first let’s about what it means to disagree. So, we disagree with an opinion that someone has, right? So, someone says rain is the best weather.  You can disagree with that opinion, right? I do not in fact agree that rain is the best weather. I like sun. Solid disagreement, okay? Lately as a culture, we have also decided that we can disagree with facts.  Okay, I’m not sure when that happened, but now, so if I present to you a bunch of facts about climate change, you can disagree with those facts, apparently. Okay? Fine, fine. Where I will draw the line is that you do not disagree with someone’s identity.

AW:

Mm-hmm.

Okay? If I say to you, “Rain is the best weather.” You have the right to disagree with that. If I say to you, “I am queer,” you do not get to disagree with someone’s identity, okay? So, let’s get real clear about what you’re doing. You’re not disagreeing with me. You’re rejecting me, okay?

So do not come with me, to me with your sweet, you know, cursive pink, disagreeing. You’re making it sound soft and it’s not soft. It’s violent. Okay? You are not disagreeing with me. You are rejecting me. So, let’s get the question right. What you are asking me is “Can I reject you and still love you?”

AW:

Mmm.

GD:     

And what I would say to you is “No.”

AW:

Yes, that’s right.

GD:     

Let’s get real intellectually honest. You either love me or you reject me. One or the other. You need to choose. Okay? But can you do both? The answer is no. It’s your choice. All right?

And, also, since the people who always asking this question are always coming from a Christian perspective. I can’t say always. Usually. These are Christian people who are saying my Christian beliefs will not let me love you. Okay. What I would say to that then let’s, let’s take it from a Christian perspective, okay? So, so the Christian idea of love, “Love others, as you love yourself.” Okay? That’s the Christian Golden Rule, right? Let’s talk about what that means.

To me, when you love others as yourself, that means you have to think up every single good thing you want for yourself. Okay? Do you want freedom? Do you want to be able to marry the person that you love? Do you want protection by the law? Do you want to be able to walk around your community safely? Do you want safety for your children? Do you want those things? Then you better sure as hell want them for others too. You better want those for me. That is loving others as yourself.

If you want things—good things—for you and your family that you vote against or withhold from me, that is not loving me as yourself. Okay? I’m going to tell you this.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my daughters came home and showed me a post that someone, um, in her school, in her middle school had posted, um, that said, all the words were written out, that said “F you faggots.” Okay? That was posted on the middle schooler’s social media. Our family had a lot of plans and reactions about that.

We spent the next week talking every night about the homophobia in our community, and what we were going to do about it and my son shared with us that twice in the last year, he’s been riding his bike around our neighborhood. My precious 18-year-old boy, he’s been riding his bike around our area and twice cars full of young boys have, had roll, has stopped, rolled down the window and screamed, “Fuck you, faggot” to him riding his bike. He didn’t tell us until last week. Um, when we asked him how he felt in those moments, he said, “I felt afraid. I felt very afraid.”

What I want to say to people who disagree, who reject my identity, my wife’s identity, my son’s identity, or who don’t even, but sit quietly in families and conversations in churches where homophobia is allowed to live, if you are one of those people, who’s privately allowing anti-queer beliefs to live and thrive then you are the fuel inside that car that stopped and screamed, “Fuck you faggot” at my son. You do not have to be the one that’s screaming.

AW:

Yep.

GD:     

Can I have private beliefs that are anti-queer? No. Because there is no such thing as a private belief. Because your private beliefs don’t stay quiet, don’t stay private. Your kids catch them from you, and they go out into public, and they scream at queer kids and they bully them sometimes to death and eventually they grow up and they kill trans women. Your private beliefs make our public lives less safe.

AW:

Mm-hmm.

GD:     

There is no such thing as a “private belief.” So, “can I love you and privately reject you?” The answer is “No.”

AW:

That’s right.

GD:     

You are either for us or you are against us. We have accepted this in the realm of racism, right? We know we are either anti-racist or we are pro-racist.  There is no complicit middle. And in terms of queer rights, there is no complicit middle.

AW:

Yes.

GD:     

You are either standing with my son or you are part of the fuel in that car.

AW:

Yes.

GD:     

That is scaring my son and that’s all I have to say about that. Choose.

AW:

Mm. Damn.

AD:     

Our next question is from Jenna.

Jenna: 

Hi Glennon. My name is Jenna. And thank you for having this podcast. I’m really enjoying it. My question is regarding my son. So, I am in my early 50s and I don’t think I’ve ever had anxiety. I don’t recall ever having anxiety. However, my son came home after freshman year in college and came out to us and although we always knew and we were waiting for him to tell us, all of a sudden, all this anxiety hits. Only because I am afraid of how my son is going to be treated in this world. I love him. We love him. He’s everything, he’s the kindest, most genuine human being in this world. I just worry about how he’s going to be treated. And that is where all of this anxiety is residing in me now. How can you help me with this? Thank you.

AW:

Ugh. Yeah.

GD:     

Jenna, Jenna, me too, me too, me too, me too.

AW:

Mm-hmm. I mean, I think that I can, can I speak?

GD:     

You can always speak, my love.

AW:

Well, I just, this story came to mind as soon as she started talking because, you know, I have my own personal coming out story to my family, and then I have the beautiful coming out story of Chase. And I remember, literally, having no idea. And even though like a few years beforehand, anytime I would ask him, I would always just, just to cover my bases, like, “Hey, do you have any girlfriends or boyfriends that like you’re interested in?” I would always cover my bases. So, I feel like proud of myself for that, but I truly didn’t believe that, or think that, was who Chase would tell us he was one day. But he sat us down—we were at the dinner table—and he informs us of who he is for the first time. And I remember sitting next to you and I remember holding your hand underneath the table and us squeezing our hands really tight and then I remember us doing everything that we could do to make this coming out story perfect for him.  So we danced, you know, to Gaga. We had the strobe light and then, you know, it was like, so perfect because he wanted to go be with his friends. And so, it gave us this beautiful moment to like exhale and process. And so, we went into the bedroom and I remember you looking at me and I remember telling you, “It’s, it’s, it’s okay” because I know how I was feeling, and I was feeling shocked and actually truthfully terrified. So …

GD:     

So scared. We were so scared.

AW:

Yeah, so scared. And, and almost like traumatized in this-

GD:     

Yeah.

AW:

… weird way. But what was even more weird for you and me, Glennon, is like we’re, not only are we gay and in a gay marriage,  but we’re like gay activists.

GD:     

We’re the gayest gays that ever gayed.

AW:

So how, how could this be happening to us?

GD:     

Fuck.

AW:

Like why, like why are we so scared right now?

GD:     

I don’t know.

AW:

And, and so we talked about it for a while and something that I think, I mean, it is so beautiful how our children can help us heal our childhood traumas, right? My childhood coming out story wasn’t that wonderful. And so, Chase giving us this beautiful gift to process and think and feel, I understood deeply that him coming out to us and that fear was we’re just so terrified because we know what the world is like out here. I’ve experienced it much longer than you have, Glennon. I was so, we were both so afraid for him and it made me understand, and you said this to me that night, and you said, “Babe, maybe your mom wasn’t scared of you and afraid of you. Maybe she was just scared and afraid for you.”

Because the world is brutal. And when you are a margin person, it’s harder. It just is. It’s just the facts of life. So yes, we see you, Jenna-

GD:     

Mm-hmm.

AW:

… we feel you, and there is still so much more beauty to uncover with your son. We are so proud of you. You just keep walking him through this journey, side by side. I mean, and quite frankly, ever since Chase came out to us, I can’t unsee. Like now, now I see him.

GD:     

Yeah-

AW:

Before, before I don’t think I ever saw him. We didn’t know him and now we know him. So yeah, Jenna, great question. Thank you for asking.

GD:

Okay, let’s move to the next question.

AD:     

This question is from Kaylee.

Kaylee:

Hi, Glennon and Sister. My name is Kaylee and as I’ve been working through freeing myself of all of these expectations for women. One of the things that I’ve had to sort through is religious trauma. It’s something that I’m going to counseling for and then I never even realized I was undergoing until I came out of the Southern Evangelical Christianity. Not saying it’s bad for everyone, but it was very harmful to me. Um, I guess I was just wondering, especially because you came out of the closet, which I have as well; I’m bisexual. How did you sort through religious trauma, if you did? And how did you reconcile your spirituality, because I know you’re very spiritual? How do you still love that part of your life in spite of some bad experiences that you’ve had? Thank you so much. Bye.

GD:     

I just like that Kaylee very much. Good for you. Well, first of all, for growing up in the Southern Evangelical Christian church, that’s a lot. And then, for seeing that part of that experience as the trauma it was, going into counseling about it, still being so kind about other people, maybe having a different experience inside the evangelical church than she did. You sound very healthy, Ms. Kaylee, very healthy indeed. I mean, I think that, you know, one of the most important things that I know about recovering from religious trauma is just the deep understanding that God and religion are not the same thing, right? That a lot of the trauma and voices inside of ourselves, that we have been trained to believe are God telling us we’re bad are not in fact God, that those are the leftover echoes of self-appointed God gatekeepers, right? Of people who told us that they were middlemen between God and us and really separating those voices.

To me, I can tell you that spirituality, you said, how do I hang on to spirituality? Spirituality to me is connection. It’s like this allegiance to, or commitment to, or dependency really upon this, knowing this deep inner knowing that I believe is as close as I can understand to God, right? That is trusting this deep inner, knowing that’s the faith. That’s the faith that I have. What I will say about a lot of fundamentalist religion, is that what we learn inside those fundamentalist religions right away, what I learned inside Christianity was not to trust myself.

AW:

Mm-hmm.

GD:     

Right? And we, we get hit over the head with that. You know, the heart is wicked. We learned about original sin. We learned that we are deprived. If we are women, we learn the story of Eve, which is that everything will be fine if we can just be grateful for what we have and we do not get curious, and we do not ask questions and we do not want more. If we do do that, all hell will break loose and all suffering will be unleashed forever and ever, amen. Right?  It’s just a little bit of a fricking, uh, gaslighting there, right? It’s like what we are told over and over again is you cannot trust yourself. Now let’s ask ourselves, why would religion? Why would it be so important for them to not, to teach us not to trust ourselves? Who do we trust then? Oh, we trust them. Okay?

We, now our allegiance is to a group of gatekeepers who say they represent God. Okay? They have now broken our allegiance to our self and gaslit us so completely that in the absence of having that, knowing to follow, we now follow them.

AW:

Mm-hmm.

GD:     

Okay? Which is why I sometimes feel like 100% God can be found in church. God can be found inside religion, but it is often the hardest place to find that deep connection to God because inherent, inside a fundamentalist religion is a breaking of that allegiance to the deepest self so that we will be dependent upon them. Right? So, um, I just have to constantly remind myself, you know, over and over again, that those little voices of shame, they get quieter and quieter. I barely hear them anymore, but that, those were never God. Right? That, that they’re actually at the end of the day, does not need to be any middleman between me and God.

I think that’s why I relate so deeply to mysticism, right? It’s just this idea that we can constantly have a direct experience with God. And of course, religion would not want to allow that because it takes away the whole gig. But sister, you have some thoughts about that are more fact-based.

AD:     

I love, I really, really appreciate this question from Kaylee, because even the way she asked it, “how do you still love that part of your life?” I think it’s so important, because I think queer people who grow up in non-affirming religious institutions, they’re given a very bad set of options.

AW:

Mm-hmm.

AD:     

You know, either stay there and swallow this and continue to internalize and internalize homophobia or leave it. Leave this religion, leave it, leave this spirituality. So, when she says, “how do you still love that part of your life?” it’s such an important thing. I think the way that we, the data actually does show that mental health outcomes for queer people who grow up in non-affirming churches, the longer they stay, the more internalized homophobia they have. But actually, when they leave, they net out with higher levels of mental health consequences, which was completely counterintuitive to me. So, we set this kind of example, that’s like, “Hey everybody, once you leave, aren’t you going to be like, ‘Hell yeah, forget that church! They were my oppressors.’” When in fact the reality of people who are going through this trauma and this conflict is that their situations are much more nuanced, much more tragic and deeply, deeply sad. It’s a-

GD:     

Mm-hmm.

AD:     

… you know, love is not a victory march.  You know-

GD:     

Mm-hmm.

AD:     

… it is, it is a very deep loss that people experience and it’s because they’re forced to throw away what they needed and valued from that. From-

GD:     

And what they were trained to believe they needed and valued, right?

AD:     

No, no, no, no, no, no.

GD:     

Okay.

AD:     

There’s also something, like the Kaylees of the world. They had to keep what was good and true and real to them about their connection to God that they found there, they had to accept this truckload of horseshit, but in throwing away the truckload of horseshit, they lost a very real thing to them because they think they have to throw it all away. That’s the false dichotomy.

GD:     

Yes. It’s like this idea of that I could feel constantly, which is like, I don’t want to let you have Jesus. It’s like these people have hijacked what Jesus is, attached all of their own political agenda to it, and now they get to have it and so my only choices are to say, “If I don’t want your version, I get nothing.”

AW:

Mm-hmm.

GD:     

Like, I don’t want to. It’s like my faith. Jesus has been kidnapped and my only options are to let you have it? I want the real thing. I want it. So, what’s the answer then?

AD:     

Well, I mean, I think the answer is, first of all, affirming that, if you are a person who had to leave your church, because you needed it to save yourself, affirming that your actual experience is much more complicated and sad and full of loss than what we present to you, which is like, “Yeah, F that church, hell yeah.” It’s deeply sad. There’s connections there, there’s community there. There, a place where you first identified your spiritual needs and had them met. And so, I think the end answer is acknowledging not working through it. But I think for the rest of us, who aren’t forced to deal with that specific trauma, is to make sure that when we’re sitting in these churches, that we are raising our hands about things that don’t make sense to us. Because if everybody in a church honestly raised their hand and said, “I don’t agree with that particular thing.” Then we would have churches where queer kids, where kids who were struggling with mental health, where kids who have any of these particular shame zones in the churches would not be forced to choose …

AW:

Yeah-

AD:     

… between their spiritual identity and their selfhood.

AW:

Yup.

GD:     

Yeah.

AD:     

Where they really could not be forced to be saddled with this trauma that we say like, “Well, I guess you have to choose.”

GD:     

Yes. We just have to flip some tables.

AW:

Yeah.

GD:     

We just have to actually say the things. We have to stop sitting quietly. We have to stop being so afraid of a few small men with small minds who are telling us things that we know are not true. We just need to, to tell the truth from the pews.

AD:     

And don’t throw away the things that you need. Like if there’s things that you, like you don’t have to choose one or the other. You don’t have to choose, well, I guess I either get a spiritual religious community or I get myself.

GD:     

Yeah.

AD:     

Like we need to—those of us who are not personally dealing with this trauma—need to work to create a world in which people don’t have to throw away what they need from a place, because we have allowed it to become so unhospitable for them.

GD:     

Amen.

AW:

Yup.

GD:     

That’s the gem. Places where people can be both held and free. Alright, let’s get to our last question.

AD:     

Alright. Our last question is from Aubrey.

Aubrey:           

Hi Glennon. This is Aubrey. So, I just wanted to ask, I just listened to your first episode with your sister and it was beautiful. I’m in a very similar time of life where my kids are all getting older. And I actually had to pull over on the side of the road while listening, when you and your sister were describing your relationship. My question is I have a sister who was the kind of close that you both seem to have for 43 years, and I could not imagine that relationship ever disappearing or failing in any way. We’ve been through the loss of our father, and a lot of other hard things, but I chose to leave Mormonism, which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when we found out that our daughter was gay and suicidal because of the teachings of that church. My sister decided that she cannot maintain a relationship with us because our kids were no longer examples to her four kids.

Mine were willed to her, hers were willed to me, and we could not have been closer and that died. I am wondering if you have any advice on how to move past that. It’s been five years, how to heal, how to manage losing her children who felt like my babies too, and to recover from her rejecting my children. Anyhoo, kind of a lot, but I just felt like you might have some ideas. Thank you so much and I’m looking so forward to the rest of your podcast. Your work means so much to us. Thank you, bye.

GD:     

Oh, God.

AW:

Gosh.

GD:     

Aubrey. Um, well, that’s a doozy. I, um, I just think that you are hero. I just think that what you have sacrificed, in terms of sisterhood, for your baby. It’s just, you know, you chose loneliness so that your daughter doesn’t have to. I just think there are these times in our lives where we have to choose, where we have to choose mother or daughter. We have to choose mother or sister, like, what are we going to put first? And it feels to me like you chose mother above everything else. And I just think it’s heroic.

I think sometimes in life we’re just choosing, everything’s hard. Like, life doesn’t give us these easy choices, good or bad, right or wrong, hard or easy. Like there’s often just, we have to choose what is the right kind of hard and you had a fork in the road, and you could have chosen the hard where you continued your relationship with your sister and your daughter paid the price. Or she had to hide herself or she had to wonder why her mother allowed that into her life. And that would have been one kind of hard. And you chose a different kind of hard where now you are suffering, and you are missing the most important relationship in your life, but your daughter is free and has no confusion about what her mother believes about her. You know, it sounds like your family got busted up in a way. And so many of us are taught to avoid, by all means, by any means necessary having a broken family. But it feels to me like what you’ve chosen is a whole family, meaning that nobody in your, on your island, none of the people you are responsible for, your children and you, nobody has to break herself into pieces to fit at your table. And that is a whole family.

You have created the goal, you know, which isn’t easy. It’s not, it doesn’t come without pain. It is that idea that love is not a victory march. It’s a cold and a broken hallelujah. But you have created a place where your baby is held by you and free to be her. And so, I don’t know how to make it easy. I don’t know what healing looks like. I just know that you have chosen the right kind of hard.

AD:     

God, I mean, Aubrey, that’s heartbreaking. And I think that I’m thinking of Aubrey’s sister and how many of us might be thinking, “How could she? That’s terrible. That’s so awful. I could never do that.” But it, it’s a long march up a staircase to get to the place where you’re rejecting your sister and your nieces and there is a step at every level.

GD:     

Mm-hmm.

AD:     

And any of us who have sat in an institution where we are walking up that staircase and not asking, “What? Why? No, not this step.” We are all leading to a place where Aubrey’s sister is convinced that her choices are between disowning the closest member of her family and her nieces and God. It is a direct line through.

GD:     

That’s right.

AD:     

And that is tragic, and the inevitable result of people not questioning when they’re asked to swallow things that insult their soul.

GD:     

Amen. Let’s end with that. Examine every single thing you’ve been taught in a book by your family, from a church and dismiss whatever insults your own soul. And if you are a part of a family or any organization that requires you to abandon yourself or the people you love for belonging, think hard. Okay, let’s get to our next right thing.

Okay. Here we are with our next right thing. I think everybody’s just going to have to decide what their next right thing is this week. Maybe we all just think hard about the spaces we’re in, and the conversations we’re a part of, the institutions we’ve joined, the communities we live in, and we just think hard about, is there anything that’s tolerated or allowed to grow in those spaces, that we’re complicit with, that we need to speak up about? Maybe that’s our next right thing as a whole pod squad.

Here today, at We Can Do Hard Things, we know what our next right thing is. Did you all know that LGBTQ youth represent five to seven percent of the total youth population, but make up 45% of homeless youth in the US? LGBTQ homeless youth experienced limited access to emergency housing options that affirm their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

As many as 50% of LGBT youth at emergency housing programs may be physically assaulted and up to 78% of queer youth placed in foster care are kicked out or flee their placement due to hostile treatment. And many youth emergency housing programs, religious affiliations lead to the denial of services to these youth. In love, in fury, in relentless hope and in support and solidarity with these beloved youth Together Rising made a $100,000 donation to the Ruth Ellis Center, an incredible group that provides housing, wellness, counseling, educational services, and transitional care to LGBTQ youth, as well as advocacy and training to reproduce their vital model in other locations, across the country.

To our LGBTQ youth, we love you. And to Ruth Ellis, we really love those who’ve walked through the fire and gone back to help others through.

When this week gets hard, don’t you forget: We can do hard things. Love you.