**Disclaimer (added in 2021): When I wrote this blog post in 2017, I used the terms “gay,” “lesbian,” and “bisexual” to refer to people who were open to being in same-sex relationships. I was not intending to make a statement about whether or not I believe Christians should apply these labels to themselves. To read the following as a stance on that particular debate is to misunderstand my original intent.**
(Because I come from an Evangelical Christian perspective, I am assuming an interpretation of scripture that views homosexual behavior as sinful. I do not intend to engage in a theological debate concerning whether God condones homosexual behavior.)
I’m not gay. I’m not lesbian. I’m not bisexual.
I’m same-sex attracted.
I have chosen same-sex attraction as the next conversation to tackle because I felt that it was time. It’s time we talk about it, and it’s time I tell my story.
When I was 12, I found myself in the middle of a battle that I did not understand and had never asked for. I was experiencing a romantic attraction to a female friend, and I was so terrified of what I was thinking and feeling that I convinced myself that it wasn’t real. I convinced myself that I had simply misunderstood my desire for female friendship. I had just come out of a period of loneliness after being transplanted into a new city, and I needed friends. I really wanted friends. That’s all it was. Satan just wanted to mess with my head a little bit, but I knew the truth. I was straight. I didn’t want to be gay, and if I liked girls, I was gay, right?
I went on in this state of denial for 6 years. Each time I felt myself getting too attached to a girl, I just reminded myself (and others) that I was “as straight as they come.” I liked boys, and they liked me, and so I dated a lot of them. And as long as I liked boys, I was straight, right?
When I started college, I was forced out of denial. I found myself attracted to someone who I was spending an exceptional amount of time with, and I was angry. I was angry that my narrative for what I was experiencing was falling to pieces. It had been working for me for 6 years, but I was no longer convinced that what I’d been telling myself all those years was true. I was angry that God would keep letting me feel these things that I so adamantly did not want to feel. I prayed angry prayers at least once a day. “God, I keep telling you that I don’t want this. Why won’t you just take it away? Why would you let me keep sinning when I keep telling you I don’t want to?” I wasn’t in denial anymore, but I swore to myself that this was the secret I would take to the grave, and I believed myself.
God answered my prayers in far different ways than I wanted at the time. He got that person out of my life, and it was painful, but also inexplicably liberating.
At the beginning of my sophomore year of college, I began to break under the weight of shame. In a whirlwind of equal parts fear and courage, I told my closest friend (and roommate at the time). I was shaking and scared, and trying to explain my way around it so that she would not be scared away from friendship with me. I thought that she wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore, or that she would start treating me differently. I was convinced that she was going to be uncomfortable around me. Quietly, patiently, she listened to me stumble through my confession. And then she opened her mouth to speak.
Her response rocked my world.
“Megan. Lust is lust. Lust is a sin, whether you’re lusting after a woman or a man. You’ve done the right thing by not acting on your feelings.”
What?! But surely God would rather me look lustfully at a man than a woman. Surely. But that’s not what my friend said. Instead of shaming me for feeling a desire for women, or trying to fix this flaw in me, she applauded me for living faithfully through my same-sex desires. And since then, I have had so many more people respond with the same grace, including my fiancé. I am surrounded with a support system that has only been encouraging and loving. I had been beating up on myself for nearly 7 years, fighting tooth and nail against my same-sex attraction. The problem was not that I was same-sex attracted, it was that I had been fighting on my own. I had felt like I was fighting by myself against the whole world, God included, but God wanted to fight this battle with me. That’s why he sent his Son: to fight the battle with me, and when I’m not strong enough to keep going, he picks me back up again. That’s why God intentionally put the right people in my life at just the right time: he knew that I couldn’t fight alone.
The shame had built up for 7 years, and that much shame doesn’t go away overnight. It has been a process, and there is still shame, but I am at peace. I know that this is likely my reality for the long-term, and I am at peace. I have made a conscious decision to live faithfully through my same-sex attraction, just like all Christians are called to consciously live faithfully despite their own temptations, whatever they may be. I choose to find my identity in Christ rather than my sexual orientation.
I’ve been in the church my whole life, but I never heard anyone differentiate between same-sex attraction (SSA) and a gay identity until I was 19. Many don’t, and some have so much trouble reconciling their faith with their SSA that they leave the church and adopt a gay identity. In Mark Yarhouse’s book, Homosexuality and the Christian, Yarhouse says that the gay community views SSA Christians as “their people,” and they feel that they’ve failed them, “sending them to a group that, in their minds, took advantage of them and misrepresented research to the detriment of sexual minorities.” In response to this, Yarhouse says,
“It got me thinking about why the church doesn’t lead with the thought and attitude that Christians who struggle with homosexuality are our people. Think about that for a second: sexual minorities in the church, by which I mean believers who experience same-sex attraction, are our people. Framing the issue this way can lead to greater compassion as the church tries to find ways to provide support and encouragement to those in our own communities who would benefit from it.”
Not surprisingly, SSA is something that typically is realized during adolescence, and the shame begins very early. Adolescents don’t know how to think or talk about homosexuality, and often the conversations among young adolescents are very degrading. They use the word “gay” to refer to something or someone that they don’t like, and the young person experiencing SSA internalizes this. Can we blame them?
The question I want to ask of you is not whether or not we should talk about this with teenagers, but how we should talk about it. How can we help teenagers understand the difference between SSA and adopting a gay identity? How can we help teenagers with SSA understand what living faithfully through SSA looks like? How can we help the SSA individuals in our youth groups and schools feel less marginalized, and more like our people?
While I welcome your feedback on this issue, please keep in mind that this is a sensitive subject to many who may read this blog. Please be mindful of treating our stories with dignity.
**Note: I reserve the right to use comments left on this blog as part of my research for this project and any further related projects**
The Proverbs 2 Project 
I have been softened to this particular subject more and more each year and I’m not very educated on talking about it. My goodness this has been so encouraging to read and to understand a different way than black and white. Your writing is beautiful and your bravery will be used for His kingdom. I’m so glad to know you.
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Pingback: When Same-Sex Attraction Encounters Covenant Marriage | The Proverbs 2 Project
How are you making your current marriage work in light of this? I’m confused how either of you are sexually fulfilled.
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Hi Hannah! Thank you for your question, and sorry for my delayed response! I have a new blog post in the works in response to your question, and hopefully it will be going up soon. Stay tuned! I’ll let you know when it’s public.
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Hey Hannah! I just released a new blog post in response to your question. You can find it here: https://proverbs2project.com/2018/06/30/when-same-sex-attraction-encounters-covenant-marriage/
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One thing that I’ve found incredibly helpful as I try to make sense of the Bible and current attitudes about homosexuality is that our society has turned romance and sex into major idols. I’ve had conversations with people where they break down in tears at the thought of denying someone the chance for romance or sex because of their SSA. Romance and sex are both good things, but they are not to be worshiped above God. When we put them in their proper place, I feel like the air is let out of the balloon and we can look at the issue in a more godly way.
Thank you so much for this post. I learned from it and will be taking your thoughts with me. Blessings!
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Megan, thank you so much for this. Thank you for your vulnerability, for your gentleness, and for your courage.
I am a Christian, I am a woman, and I experience same sex attraction. It would feel disingenuous to call myself straight when I am attracted to women, and it would feel disingenuous to call myself bi when I would never date women, so I call myself nothing and hope no one asks.
I have LGBT+ friends of all kinds of religious beliefs and moral convictions, but no matter what they believe, there are some things that remain consistent: each of them feels alone, and if they do not, then they are terrified of feeling alone. If they are not rejected, then they fear rejection. If they are not wounded by the words and actions of their pastors, their families, their friends, and the customers buying slurpees at QuikTrip, then they fear such wounds.
And all of this fear is not unreasonable. The church has been cruel–not the whole church, and not all the time, but it has. And so this is where we, Christ’s imperfect bride, begin: we show Christ’s love. If our children know one thing of Jesus, let it be his love. If our children know one thing of us, let it be Jesus’s love, as well.
This is not to say that truth is not important, or that morality is not important. But when Jesus deals with sexual sin and sexual shame, he is nothing if not gentle and nothing if not kind. To the woman at the well, he does not just tell her to repent, but he addresses a need that he knows she has: a need for living water. He sees her sin, and he sees her longing for a different life, as well. He shows her gentleness and kindness even before he confronts her, and even in that confrontation, he loves her well and tells her of a better life she might have, if only she should follow him.
I think that’s the starting point. I don’t really know where we go from there. I used to have this many-step plan that started with acknowledging that same sex attraction exists and springboards from there into an in-depth discussion of how to love our LGBT+ friends and our LGBT+ selves, and that probably had something to it, but nothing can ever, ever compare to communicating love through gentleness and courage. We may break cultural boundaries, and we may commit cultural sins, but letting our children see that Christ’s love (and therefore ours) knows no bounds.
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Megan,
Great post. I have some friends on the same journey with you and they each affirm the wisdom of your words. Thank you for your honesty and your commitment to biblical living.
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Wow. Can I just start by saying that I am so proud of you? I can’t imagine the fear you had working up to this and I am so very impressed that you would be so openly vulnerable. I love all of the thought and wisdom you have poured into this topic- it definitely helped me understand it better!
This is such a hard topic because there is so much shame involved in the Christian community. While there is no hierarchy of sins, we have created a different category that makes same-sex lust so much worse. The worst part about that is that people are so gripped with fear and shame (as you shared for yourself) that they don’t feel like they can talk about it to anyone. I’m sure there are a lot of brothers and sisters hidden among us who struggle in silence, and that hurts my heart. So I think the first step is communicating that
1) there are no sins worse than any others- you get judged for murder and gossip alike
2) that there is a difference between temptation and sin- Jesus was tempted but was without sin, so…
3) SSA is not a death sentence. Just as feeling heterosexual attraction does not mean you are sinning, SSA does not mean you are gay. It is what we do that matters in this instance.
If I could instantly change the culture of the American church around this topic then I would. It has bothered me for many years that we treat same sex attraction and sin as if they are worse than anything else you could do. But unfortunately the church is full of sinners and that isn’t going to happen, so I think it is up to us as youth workers to speak the truth to our students, especially in one on one settings. I never want a student to feel as if there are things so bad about them that they could never share them or come back from them, but I’m sure that happens all the time. I have tears in my eyes as I type this because I hate so much that people feel so dirty that they can’t belong in the church. But that’s a bigger problem than just this issue.
I’m going to be thinking more about how to practically speak to my students about this. I haven’t heard that SSA phrasing before and I find that kind of language really helpful. Thank you so much for your thoughts and your testimony. I love hearing how God is working in your life.
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Thank you. Thank you for your thoughtful words. Thank you for being so intentional to think and process and grow, and facilitate changes that need to be made in this particular field.
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God calls us to be celibate outside of marriage. So if we’re attracted to a male or a female, we are to remain celibate until marriage. As your roommate said, lust is lust no matter whether it is male or female, and you did well not acting on it. And we are all children of God and need to have our identity in Christ. Thank you for this blog.
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Thank you for your post! I’m really glad more people are talking about this subject. I too am an Evangelical Christian, who struggles with Same-Sex Attraction. I really identify with your testimony about the shame and guilt that you struggled with as you dealt with your feelings. And I wanted to say that I have struggled with many of the same things. As for your question, I would like to give some great resources that have helped me a lot in my battles with SSA and also give a personal take on your question. First, there are 3 people that I have really looked up to in my search for answers about my feelings: Wesley Hill, Christopher Yuan, and Rosaria Butterfield. All 3 of them come from different backgrounds but they all struggle or have struggled with SSA. Each of them offer a unique perspective on the topic of SSA and homosexuality. However, they all have similar conclusions and insights based on Scripture that are really helpful for anyone going through this struggle. They are all active speakers and teachers as well, so their talks and ideas are easily found on the internet.
As for your question, I will share what I have experienced with the people that have spoken with me about my struggle and the lessons that I have learned from them. The first people that I told about my struggle were my parents. Although they were clearly shaken and blindsided, they immediately prayed with me and started looking around for ways that they could help me in my struggle. I then told my siblings through an email, since they were both away in college at that point. Both of my siblings responded with the same message: We love you no matter what, and we will always be there to talk about it and encourage you. When I went to college myself, I was involved in a Sexual Purity group with a bunch of other guys and I was open with my struggle. The leader of the group asked to meet over coffee some other time to talk about my struggle more in depth. Over coffee, he told me very honestly that the ministry he was involved with didn’t condone a homosexual lifestyle as a holy lifestyle, but he wanted to make sure that I felt welcomed and loved regardless of whether I decided to adopt a gay identity.
There are 3 main things that I learned from these conversations that hopefully answer your question. First, we need to be compassionate when we talk about SSA. Struggling with SSA is a really hard, and its even harder when the person you are talking to is trying to “fix” you. I feel welcomed and loved when somebody cares about me as just another person that struggles with a sin problem rather than a problematic christian needs to “fixed”. Second, we need to talk about SSA honestly. The Bible is clear: a homosexual lifestyle is against God’s plan for sexual relations and marriage. A big part of making someone feel included is trust. And when we are clear in what we believe, but kind in the way that we deliver it, we establish a foundation for trust to be built and nurtured. Third, we need to talk about SSA humbly. The church is made up of sinners who are redeemed by the grace of God. If we forget that we are also sinners as we talk to people that struggle with SSA, we will only further alienate these people and they most likely won’t ever come back.
Anyways, I’m sorry for the long post. I hope this helps!
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Thanks for you honesty. I think it is honestly harder today than when I was growing up in the 60s. I also know that pretty much all kids go thru some normal feelings about sexuality. I think it is very normal for girls to “wonder” about other girls and what they look like. Especially if they “develop” later. As a still flat chested preteen / early teen I wanted so badly to have breasts and to know what they felt like. I remember accidentally bumping my friend’s breast (fully clothed) and thinking – “wow, they are firm”- I think that kind of innocent things can get kids curious, and today they hear – “You don’t know if you are gay unless you try it.” Then if you are at all insecure one group that will welcome you into their circle is the GLBT one. So it is very easy to get involved in order to have a group, a home, where you are accepted. Then you are basically labeled. Hang in there. It is great that you are struggling thru this issue and will encourage others to not be afraid to address it.
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This might be something that you get to later, but it seems like there might also be an interesting discussion here about what “lust” is. Growing up, it was really never explained well to me and I got conflicting messages. Is it just looking at someone and finding them attractive or sexually appealing? If so, how do you counteract that? Theological explanations seemed vague at best and emphasized the heart without really giving me any better guidance than anything else. I’ve heard a definition that I’ve found interesting of lust as objectification – the separation of a person from their personhood to view them simply as an object for your pleasure. Maybe sexual attraction is lust in and of itself, but I’ve found thinking about objectification to be really helpful for me. If I view someone as a whole person with thoughts and feelings and fears just like me, it affects how I think about them and treat them and makes it harder for me to have selfish thoughts about them. This is completely off-topic for the post, but it stuck out to me. I haven’t been a Christian for a little while and I do experience same sex-attraction that I didn’t identify as such growing up because being anything other than straight wasn’t on my radar.
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Thank you for your work. I have a few friends who struggle under the burden of same-sex attraction, but I personally do not. So I won’t say much. But as regards your first question, I think the answer is simple. The leaders must themselves understand the difference between same-sex attraction and a homosexual identity, and then decide to speak about it. They must understand that our sexuality is not our identity. I think this is of primary importance. I think that the Church as a whole has probably not had to fully address this issue at any point from like 500 AD – 1950 AD, and this grieves me, because I am certain that an uncountable number of people have struggled their whole life with this without the Church. But thankfully, culture has brought your experience to our attention, and we must acknowledge our faults, and work to change them.
Now, for letting SSA teenagers feel like our people. I think the answer is again about identity. If they believe that their identity is their sexuality, then they will necessarily feel excluded. This is because their sexuality is, in fact, different from most of their peers. I cannot fully imagine what your SSA is like, because I do not experience it. This means I cannot truly enter into your experience, I cannot empathize. It’s like there is a barrier there, so I cannot be fully there with you. Does that make sense? But that is totally okay, because sexuality is not identity. I can look to you and see a daughter of God who is different from myself and who I don’t understand, but I can still love you as such, and wish you strength in your life that is different from mine. I’m certain I have difficulties that you would never understand. But we both are children of Christ, and in through this truth, we can fully form a community. I think this is beautiful! So I guess the issue is two-fold. If the person who struggles with SSA takes a bi- or homosexual identity, they will never feel completely welcome in a community of heterosexual people, no matter how welcoming the community is. At the same time, if a group of heterosexual people establish a community whose identity is their heterosexuality, then a person with SSA will never be welcomed. Both the identity of the individual with SSA and the identity of the community, what the community is built upon, both of these identities must be about Christ. Of course, this is easier said than done.
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Hey Megan! Not sure if you remember me from human sexuality with Dr. Eames, but I was the one who always had something to say! I’m pregnant with my first baby, and I’ve been thinking a lot (already) about how to discuss and act regarding sexuality. I feel like the best approach is, like Dr. Eames suggested, to acknowledge how sexual we are, and how that is inextricable from every aspect of our identity. That said, I think SSA is extremely normal. In fact, I think many women find the safety of female friendships and deep intimacy to be what they fear they will lack in a male-female relationship. Of course, the reasons someone would experience SSA are vast and wide. As a personal anecdote, I can remember the first time I saw pornography. I was horrified and really scared of the violent nature of the male body, and just assumed that was normal. I developed SSA for the female figure around that time because it felt like a safe place to direct my sexual desire. I spent most of my freshman year of high school believing I was lesbian because I had kissed a few of my friends. Now, my parents were always oddly open about how they discussed sex. When I told them I had done those things, they treated it as if I had just had my first kiss. I understood that SSA was as normal as opposite sex attraction, especially at that age. But I certainly don’t think I would have felt that way if my parents had shamed me for those decisions. Anyways, I thought I would add because I love what you’re doing with this project!! This is awesome stuff.
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Hey Shannon! Of course I remember you! Thank you so much for this insight. I think you’re really getting at the key problem: we don’t talk about sexuality as if it’s normal and part of everyone (and part of God’s image in us). Thank you also for being so open! I’d love to talk with you more sometime. (Sorry it took me so long to respond!!)
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I used to go to a public school where people were very affirming of homosexuality. I knew many people who labeled themselves as gay or bi,and until college I never knew one could struggle with SSA without labeling themselves as gay or bi. I’ve called myself bisexual since 10th grade, and I’ve had a hard time not thinking of myself that way. At this point, I have a lot of close friends who are Christians but still sort of affirm my bisexuality. They make jokes about it or ask my opinion on different celebrity women…part of me is thankful for their acceptance but part of me wishes there was a way that they wouldn’t encourage my temptation to think of my bisexuality as normal or right. I want to truly struggle with SSA and label myself foremost as a daughter of God…it’s just hard to do that when I know if I bring up attraction to a woman my friends will just laugh and move on.
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I don’t know if gay means: “a person acting out their homosexual attractions,” or just a person with same sex attraction.
To me, that is similar to debating when the three letters R-E-D stop expressing a particular hue because it is now C-R-I-M-S-O-N. We created words, give them meaning and use them according to our own purposes.
I do think it is important to distinguish between sex and temptations, not to exculpate the sinner, but at least to understand the sin.
So lust is a sin. Lust for the same sex is a slightly different sin. And acting on either lust is, in each instance, a tremendously greater sin. And having the strength to confront that sin is of great value in God’s eyes.
So all that said, I don’t think we need a profoundly different paradigm for helping those who struggle with one type of sin cope than any other. In Galatians we are told to restore any such brother in a spirit of gentleness. In Phillipians we are shown to do it with humility. In Colossians we are challenged to do it with thankfulness and love.
And that is the challenge before us – to do for the most awkward what we really won’t do for anyone – love them enough to even begin talking about real sin issues.
Incidentally, I do think it is interesting that at this point, everyone who liked the link on Facebook that I clicked, is a woman. I think that means men and women interact differently on these subjects. That is, men don’t.
And some of those men are your Pastors, your Elders and your fathers. Some of that is on them. But some of it could be because particularly women spend so much time yelling that men should stay out of issues related to their body, that finally they do.
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Thank you for your reply! To your first point, I think we are simply using and defining our terms differently. In my experience and research, LGB(TQ+) labels tend to imply an accompanying identity and lifestyle, and I am using these labels in accordance with that definition. I choose not to use these labels when referring to myself because I have neither accepted my experience of same-sex attraction as a core part of my identity nor have I chosen to adopt a homosexual lifestyle.
I appreciate and agree with your thoughts on how we should confront sin. Thank you for your concise, biblically focused thoughts.
I hope you will be pleasantly surprised to know that the responses I have gotten have been well balanced between men and women. I have gotten many likes, shares, and comments from men, and have even had some approach me in person. I understand your concern, because I believe this happens with many issues, but this has not been my experience for this one in particular. Maybe that is because I have been blessed with thoughtful, encouraging, outspoken and godly men in my life. Maybe it’s because this is not a “women’s issue” like many of the issues we push men out of. Regardless of the reason, I am encouraged that the body of Christ has acted as just that — a unified body with different parts, working to spur each other on. I wish this would happen more often and with other types of issues.
Thank you again for taking the time to write your response. Your input is very helpful to me and this project!
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I don’t actually know how to talk to youth about this, but I still thought I’d respond as someone who is still trying to figure out her own sexuality (and quite frankly the difference between being lesbian or bisexual + struggling with SSA). I think in the past two years, I’ve taken more of a kingdom-minded mindset then ever before, and that helps a lot. Like repeating to myself, over and over, “I am not a slave to fear. I am a child of God.” or “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” I’ve struggled with Evangelicals often depicting SSA as something to be “overcome”, like when Rosaria Butterfield came to speak at Covenant – or ex-gay ministries like Harvest USA. Like maybe I’ll wake up, and it’ll all be a dream and I just have to trust God hard enough and perhaps read Scripture a little bit more, as you guys are portraying it, and poof – I’ll be straight. I have many friends who are part of the progressive, Christian LGBT-affirming circle and I’m still trying to figure it out myself.
That being said, maybe I can offer something to your last question. I think as Evangelicals, sometimes when we find out about someone’s sexuality – we say that we will love them unconditionally and treat them like before but we really don’t. Maybe it’s how we look at them when they aren’t looking. Maybe it’s how we label them henceafter as “*that* one person”. We think that we’re inconspicuous enough and they won’t notice, but oh they do! Perhaps this really is not evangelically realistic, but maybe if we hold to what we say and don’t treat them even a bit differently, they will feel like “our people”. In other words, we need to drop the us/them mindset (and this holds true for issues like racism as well).
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