Growing Up Gay in a Religious Home Where You Can’t Be Gay

I knew I was gay long before I had a word for it. I also knew that admitting it would cost me my family.

I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, where homosexuality is not simply discouraged — it is grounds for complete shunning. If I came out, my mother and sister would be required to sever all contact with me.

So I learned to live silently.

At school, I was bullied for being “gay” before I even understood what that meant. At home, I learned that being gay was something you simply could not be.

This creates a unique psychological conflict: being attacked for something you cannot admit, and hiding something you cannot change.

I became obsessed with trying to “fit in.” With trying to appear normal. With trying to earn acceptance through appearance, fitness, success, and silence.

Even after prison, when I was faced with the possibility of living authentically, I chose celibacy — not because I didn’t want love, but because I couldn’t survive losing my family after already losing a decade of my life.

People often speak about coming out as liberation. For some of us, it’s a calculation of survival.

This is the hidden story of many LGBTQ+ individuals raised in strict religious environments: not rebellion, but quiet endurance. Not pride parades, but silent compromise. Not rejection of family, but fear of losing them.

And through it all, one question remains:
Where do you belong when you can’t be fully yourself anywhere?

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