[NOTE: Sorry for not posting for a while! I’ll try and post every two weeks or so as I don’t have that many ideas for posts. So, uh, if you have any ideas or want to share your own experiences then please tell me! Anyway, onto the post.]
As you probably know, my name is Oliver. I run CHRISTRANS. And this is my story.
I wasn’t always pro-LGBT. A few years ago I was pretty homophobic and transphobic – and proud of it. Because after all, I was in the right! If people wanted to call me homophobic for speaking the truth then I would embrace the label!
Sigh.
I knew I was queer, but always dismissed it as ‘just a sin I was struggling with’, dismissing all the pro-LGBT arguments I’d heard without ever really considering them. But one day that changed. I thought to myself, ‘Hey, maybe I should actually check out the other side’s arguments more fully!’ And that I did.
I went onto the GCN website and looked at the two essays it had there (unfortunately they’re not up anymore), one for both sides of the debate. And I read them through. Then I read them again. And again. And finally I came to the conclusion that maybe being LGBTQ wasn’t a sin after all!
Then other things started to change.
I became a theistic evolutionist, when I had previously been a young earth creationist. I became a lot less conservative in general when it came to my faith. I realised I was trans, in addition to being queer. And I left Christianity.
I guess the way I phrased that sounded like I stopped being a Christian because I became more liberal. Which isn’t true. I was happily Christian for around six months after I became an evolutionist and two months after I realised I was trans. Heck, my faith was probably the strongest it had ever been in the month leading to my departure. No, it was something else. To this day I’m still not sure why I left. I always tried to justify it to myself by saying that the church wasn’t welcoming and had hurt me, which I guess was kinda true? But not really. At least, not to the extent that I made it out to be.
Anyway, I went through loads of different religions over the course of around five and a half months. The longest lasting one was Mudoranism/Paganism in general (around 3, 4 months?) but I also tried athiesm (not really a religion but bear with me), Judaism, Islam, Bah’ai, and Sikhism. I also made a couple of WordPress blogs (which are still up, actually) about these different faiths. But in the end, I returned to Christianity.
I still struggle with my faith, and forget to pray, and don’t read the bible as much as I really should. But I feel secure in my identity. Finally. And honestly, I think those five and a half months were useful in their own way. I learnt more about faiths which I didn’t know much about before. And I can now truly say that it was my own decision to be a Christian, as opposed to just being raised one and sticking with it.
So, that’s my story. What about you?
CHRISTRANS 