I recently read The Stonewall Reader1, an anthology of primary sources from the decades before, during, and after the Stonewall Riots in 1969, drawn mostly from the New York Public Library Archives and published by Penguin Books in 2019 (fifty years later). Several reflections emerged from my reading, especially about how these primary sources might relates to my own little corner of the LGBTQ+ world: the Side B community (that is, Christian sexual and gender minorities who submit to what is often called a “traditional sexual ethic,” and who therefore pursue either opposite-sex marriage or lifelong celibacy).
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Audre Lorde, from Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
An excerpt from the indomitable poet, author, scholar, and activist Audre Lorde’s autobiography, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name2, is the opening text of the anthology. In it, Lorde describes what it was like to be “young and Black and gay and lonely” in New York City in the 1950s, at the intersection of sexual minority status (lesbian woman) and ethnic minority status (Black). I was particularly struck by her insistence that living at this intersection meant carrying both heavy burdens and considerable gifts:
In a paradoxical sense, once I accepted my position as different from the larger society as well as from any single sub-society—Black or gay—I felt I didn’t have to try so hard. To be accepted. To look femme. To be straight. To look straight. To be proper. To look “nice.” To be liked. To be loved. To be approved. What I didn’t realize was how much harder I had to try merely to stay alive, or rather, to stay human. How much stronger a person I became in that trying.3
It certainly goes without saying that the overlapping marginalization Lorde describes here is not the same as that experienced by LGBTQ+ Christians, let alone those of us who are Side B (and, importantly, there are plenty LGBTQ+ Christians who are also racial or ethnic minorities). But I think the point that Lorde is making here—that being unable to conform fully almost anywhere can be extraordinarily painful, but may also offer unexpected freedom and opportunity for growth—is one that LGBTQ+ Christians can take to heart.
LGBTQ+ Christians can feel that tension: unable to feel completely at home as LGBTQ+ in certain Christian spaces, as Christian in certain LGBTQ+ spaces. For Side B folks there are some additional layers, depending on where we find ourselves: being Side B in plenty of majority Side A spaces, being LGBTQ+ in the Christian spaces in which we feel we must remain (which share our sexual ethics but are still not welcoming or accepting), feeling uncomfortable using sexual identity language in spaces where such language is the norm (and there are strong feelings about it), feeling invested in LGBTQ+ history and culture in spaces where such investment is viewed with suspicion, being a gender minority in spaces structured by commitments to sexual ethics rather than particular ideas about gender per se, etc.
For anyone who finds themselves confronted with these tensions—or any tensions like these—it can be painful and frustrating. It can feel like there are few, if any, places where we can be both embraced and understood, safe and not required to translate our life to those who speak a totally different language. Lorde suggests this “position as different from the larger society as well as from any single sub-society,” is also a gift. An inability to conform can be re-envisioned as the freedom to not conform; “I felt I didn’t have to try so hard,” she writes. Rather than understanding this “not fitting in” as merely a lack of ease in belonging, it can be an opportunity to forge a new path.
This is easier in one sense, and more difficult in another: there is no longer the pressure strive to measure up to certain standards of respectability, but it can be lonely. Forging a new path can be exhausting, and we may find ourselves longing for more than mere survival. But as we move through uncharted territory, swimming upstream, we may find that we exercise some muscles others do not. We can become stronger, more ourselves.
Jason Baumann, ed., The Stonewall Reader: Edited by the New York Public Library (New York: Penguin Classics, 2019).
Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, (Trumansburg, NY, Crossing Press, 1982)
Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, in The Stonewall Reader, p. 8-9