coming out: a rant from outside the closet.

I did it. Finally. I came out to a roomful of queer-minded, sex-positive, anti-oppressit, liberal feminists.
They didn't stone me alive. or mock me. they didnt spit on my shoes. or shatter my spirit. they also didn't collectively boo me, with choir like precision.
Instead they listened, as i fumbled nervously for the right words to say.

risk. there is an enormous risk involved, in any coming out- a daunting vulnerability that can either leave you broken with humiliation and pain, or can leave you with more freedom and confidence than you started off having.

in this case, I left the room, with more wholeness, than I had coming in.

It sucks living a fragmented life. It sucks having an internal civil war between your own identities-- a constant struggle, that leaves you aching for peace. but that peace doesn't come when your in a space that makes you feel unsafe. when your in a space that makes you feel ashamed to be who you are. guarded and on trial. when you exist in two worlds that battle one another, until you are so divided it hurts to claim allegiance to anything at all. It's a relentless inner monologue of fear. A fear that their hostile words, burning glares, troubling sarcasm and patronizing dismissive assumptions create. After five years of hiding. Five years of denying one part of my self in the classroom, and the other-part of myself at home, IM DONE.
Im desperate to harmonize my conflicting identitites. Im despserate to stop living in the confines of a closet.
Im desperate enough, that I'll step out and just say it.
Im..... a......a....... c.hr...is...t..ia...n.

I shannon hope gendron, friggin love jesus. and his radical teachings of love. I love the Creator with a a love that shouldn't be apologetic or guilty. with a love that i am proud of. with a love that i believe will change the world.

i shannon beleive that the god i worship has alot to say about feminism, social justice and freedom. the god i praise is a god of love, a love so radical and so political that it becomes revolutionary. my god is an anti-racist, anti-capitalist, peace-monger, who wants to "stick-it-to the man" just as much as any feminist i know does. My jesus isn't silent about oppression. he isnt silent about a system that screws, and dehumanizes us all. he isnt silent about the chains wealth, greed, hatred, power and war create. he offers a new way, a new life, a kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. why do i have to be ashamed of this? why do i let people tell me i can't/shouldn't be both a "christian", AND a queer-minded, anti-colonialist, sex-positive, class conscious feminist.

i wish i had a t-shirt, that said these things on it. so every time i have to explain what i believe to someone, i can avoid the , "oh, but im not one of those christians. the 'in-your-face, anti-abortion, anti-fag, conservative, bigoted white-washed, middle-classed, heterosexist, evengelical, "you and your post-modernist/liberal politics are going to hell"', suburban sort of christians", speech.

if i had it on a-t shirt, i could just point to my chest and smile quietly.

people like this frustrate me. sometimes i feel their ruining the "god thing" for the rest of us.

their actions/histories humiliate me. they tarnish something beautiful. for a long time, (and still) i have a hard time identifying as a "christian" because immediately non-christians tack on the meaning for me. because of the unfortunate actions of "churches" and people. the meaning people attach to the term "christian", often in a feminist environment is the shitty and limiting stereotype of the crazy conservative evengelical rawwing about how god created adam and eve, not adam and steve. our histories as christians have given a black eye to the god of love. our histories of war, genocide, colonization, exclusion, homophobia, corruption, they are real histories whose legacies haunt us today. but they are things we ought to step up and OWN.

If im going to come out as a christian, or rather, as someone who professes a love for following jesus, then I've got to take responsibility for, rather than deny the shit "the people of god" have done to create the (often justified) negative view the rest of the world has of us. we've burned people really bad, in the name of god.

It's easy for me to separate myself from those types of christians. its easy for me to other them, and blame them for screwing up everything. but as hard as it is, "people like that" need to become "people like us". If we're all following jesus, we're in it together.
the church is a whore, but she's my mother. is slowly becoming my anthem. The crazy conservative middle-class Evangelical man down the road, who has a bumper sticker of the jesus fish, and beside it "support our troops" sticker, and who spends his Tuesday mornings protesting abortion outside the clinic, while wearing expensive name-brand middle-aged man pants, made by children in the "third world", makes me cringe. but this man, this conservative, frustratingly upsetting man, is my brother. and even though i disagree with his expression of faith, I've got to love. and realize again, we're in it together.

And if Im going to make any change, at all, the best thing to do is come out. Come out as a feminist, to the dress-pant wearing church goer, with the fancy car and homophobic and sexist attitudes, and come out to the feminists, the lesbians, the academics, who inferioirize my faith and my god.
my only solution is to come out. come out and dance. write. and speak, fearlessly and without apology, for what i believe in, on both sides, with the hope that somebody, somewhere will be challenged. that somebody somewhere and some point will have to rethink, and reimagine a broader face for both christianity and feminism.

I will come out because

the closet is stuffy. and far too small to dance in.