If you are a gay Mormon follower of my Twitter, please let me vomit some unsolicited advice at you: you truly don’t have to accept that your options in life are a mixed-orientation marriage or perpetual celibacy and loneliness.
You are not required to seek out or listen to people in mixed orientation marriages or anyone who is pitching this to you as a reasonable option. By the way, if you are listening to someone in a mixed orientation marriage and it sounds like they are trying to convince
you they are “making it work” and that it’s “worth it even though it’s hard,” that should tell you all you need to know. If I ever hear my husband describe our marriage in those terms he will be living in the yard by the end of the day.
You don’t have to let anyone, and I mean ANYONE, describe you as a person who “struggles with same sex attraction.” You don’t struggle with it. You struggle with the assholes who are making your life hard because you are gay.
You don’t have to apologize to your family when you come out. You don’t have to feel embarrassed that you are gay. You don’t have to feel ANY shame around this at all. Let the bigots inherit the shame. Will it to them. It’s their turn.
You don’t have to pursue or even consider any kind of therapy that promises to change or limit your sexual orientation. You don’t have to listen to anyone when they propose this as an option. You don’t owe change to anyone, and you can’t deliver it anyway.
You can have an absolutely full and beautiful life. You can wake up every day focusing on the people and activities you love without shedding an ounce of energy on feeling bad or worried about your sexual orientation.
You absolutely can find spiritual fulfillment and genuine holy peace outside of a religious structure that forbids you from living authentically. You can find valuable therapy to unpack your trauma while celebrating who you are.
You deserve the happiness I have. You deserve the support I have. Let me be that support to you. Let the many others in your life who are standing ready be that support for you.
I truly don’t know that I really understood human compassion and love until I came out and started living my life. That’s when I started growing as a person. That’s when I finally became someone I liked—someone I was proud to be.
That is available for you. You don’t have to experience depression or sadness caused by your sexual orientation. You don’t have to experience any more stress over this. You don’t owe that energy to anyone. You don’t have a price to pay on this.
If your sexual orientation is a “test” at all, it’s only a test of your efforts to forge a valuable path for yourself and a test for others to stop being a piece of shit about it. Let those people deal with their own part of that. You get to just focus on finding peace.
I love you and care about you and want you to know that I’ve been in your shoes in many ways. I truly felt trapped and terrified. I made my way out of that, and you can to. And I’ll be standing on the other end to greet you with a gay ass cake (of MY choice).
Gah! *too. Whatever. Just be gay and stop focusing on my typos.
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