The author of Fearing and Fighting for Space in the Bible Belt shares the emotional and psychological turmoil of growing up in a conservative, Christian family in Oklahoma, where societal and familial expectations clashed with their developing sense of self.
Navigating the constraints of gender and sexuality, the author uses reflexive autoethnographic narrative to explore the fear and shame they experienced around their emerging queer identity, compounded by the rigid views on womanhood and sexuality within their family.
Their journey toward self-acceptance was fraught with heartache, trauma, and the painful realization that to live authentically meant risking familial love. Through perseverance, they learned to embrace their true self, finding strength in their independence and the love they now have for themselves.
This autoethnographic narrative highlights the ways in which the researcher can provide a thick intersectional narrative of life as a queer woman in Oklahoma.
To start, I should probably explain a little bit about my family or as I call them, “The Family.” Both sides of my extended family are conservative Christians who fall into many of the tropes of Oklahoma rednecks but I will focus mainly on my mom's side. My mom is one of eight kids, five boys and three girls and it is with her family that the closeness and connection has been always instilled in me. The men (and my tomboy mom) joined the US Armed Forces around age 17–18. The women stayed at home and raised children and moved around with their husbands, first through the Armed Forces and later through the oil industry. I do not particularly distinguish between those married in or my “blood” relatives partly because they all run together for me but also because those who married in very much resembled their counterparts. My grandma was the head of this family – no matter what my grandpa might say or how domineering and controlling he could be – and the aunts and cousins that I look up to have always been following in her footsteps. She was my favorite person in the world and is still the person I consider before every obstacle, every choice, every win in my life.
I remember there being this odd disconnect that I experienced as a person who was identifying as a woman in this large extended family where I saw my role as someone who brought people together, who made everyone feel welcome, who comforted and consoled someone when they were hurting, who stepped in and helped as much as possible, all while being warned by my aunts and older cousins of the dangers of being a woman in the world. It felt so surreal to hear all of these strong women who had moved all over the world and been the primary and often sole caretakers of children act as though women were the “weaker” sex. Shortly after I started driving, one of my aunts explained that she had heard on the news that men were pretending to be police officers in order to kidnap and rape women. Her advice was, if a police officer tried to pull me over, I should drive to the nearest police station or a public, well-lit area before stopping. I was not allowed to walk by myself in my neighborhood even as my idiot brother was strolling back and forth to work and all over town despite being completely oblivious to his environment. It seemed so contradictory to see my grandma, aunts, and female cousins who could give birth, care for all of these people in their lives, maintain their own careers, and support their husbands, all while believing that they had to be protected. I had to be protected while my brother who was two years younger than me could do whatever he wanted. It was infuriating and possibly THE primary argument in my house throughout all of my teenage years went something like, “Why can Jake do this and I can't?” Response, “Because he's a boy and it's not safe for you”.
Meanwhile, I was also trying to come to terms with my sexuality with the conflicting messaging around my uncle and, later, my cousin being presented as dangerous sexual perverts who were going to hell but who were also perceived as beloved members of our family and who helped watch us kids. It was so confusing! When my older cousin was starting to show some “signs” of being gay (feminine mannerisms, joining the cheerleading squad, being caught with images of men hidden in their room), the family gossiped that this was the result of him having been dressed as a girl when he was a baby. I was only four years younger when I started to have some confusing attractions toward the same sex; knowing how the family talked about my cousin I was also acutely aware of my risk of becoming one of the sexual deviants in the family if I were ever to act on the desires, even though they became increasingly difficult to ignore. In fact, the more “typical” desires of Devon Sawa and Leonardo DiCaprio on the covers of my teen magazines were my only solace, as I attempted to convince myself that I could just ignore all the attraction that did not fit the “normal” mold. I remember this constant anxiety about being a lesbian (or maybe bisexual?) and having this inner dialogue where I wanted so desperately to convince myself that since I had boy crushes, I must be straight. Or if I just ignored the other attractions, they did not count. I got myself so worked up, sometimes I cried in despair and other times I had panic attacks about going to hell. I was desperate to talk to someone and terrified out of my mind to confess anything out loud, all at the same time.
Part of the confusing messaging around sexuality was not just one of familial anecdotes but also a persistent message within the nondenominational church that was a central figure in my family. One of my aunts regularly repeated that if we did not believe that Jesus Christ was our lord and savior, then we would end up in hell; so, we should believe in case that was true. I remember being about 17 or so and really starting to question whether I truly believed in something if I was only “believing” from fear. I would say that this was the point in my life where I moved from denial to anger in my grief over my sexuality. And as I was acutely aware by that point that I was going to hell (albeit secretly as I had not admitted to any family that I was bisexual), then there was no longer a point to attempt to believe. Again, I really struggled to understand how my family (or at least a sizable portion of them) could believe that a person would go to hell for not believing in Jesus or for having sexual desires for the same sex no matter how good of a person they were or what good deeds they may have done in their lives. It felt awful, as though I could never really be loved by them if I allowed myself to love the people I wanted. Sometimes, I felt sick to my stomach when I thought about it too long. Other times, my heart was burning with the pain of desire to be myself and also to be loved by others.
So at 17, I was dating a girl and also a guy. Both of them were somewhat flaky and a good deal older than me. My girlfriend would come stay the night with me but my mom did not know that I was dating her. We would be affectionate with one another and at some point after my girlfriend left, my mom asked, “April, you're not gay are you?” My immediate answer was a resounding, “No?!” because of course she had already given me the answer in the way she had worded the question. My heart was pounding hard and deep in my chest, in my head, in my ears, sending waves of pounding through my whole body. I had never been so panicked in my life and I could not get out of that room fast enough. When I was alone again and felt my body calm down, I reasoned that “technically” I had not lied because I was identifying as bisexual.
This fear, this constant overwhelming concern about the dangers of womanhood and the looming damnation of hell got to a point where I had to decide to either really truly live or to give up and kill myself. And I would be lying if I said that it was an easy choice. In fact, I would be lying if I said that it was a choice that I made once. Fear was a consuming force in my life in so many ways. The thing that really brought me through living in fear, though, was a realization that I can only truly LIVE as who I am. My realization came through lots of pain, loss, panic, exhaustion, and more stubbornness than I could possibly put into words. So, as I look back at these moments and rekindle that panic, that inner turmoil, that disgust with who I might be mixed with the love of who I now am, the piece that hurts the most is that my family, The Family, could not really love me for who I was. My heart still burns and throbs as I write – simply write – about the heartache I had to push through as I learned to walk through all of that alone. I had to risk giving up the love of the people who meant the most to me to be who I truly am. And I had to ignore all the warnings of the dangers of being a woman to even figure out how to live and carve out space for me in this world. I had to figure out what my values were, not with the support of my family or through being empowered in my body or my sexuality. No, I had to figure out that being authentic to me is embracing that my ultra conservative family has been both my saving grace and has broken my heart and brought up feelings of entrapment. All because some of them do not truly love me for who I am because of the people that I want to love or fuck. But, I now accept that this is the way it is because as long as I can be the most authentic version of me, I will be loved by the most important person in my life, ME, and that feels so much more freeing. And my heart still aches with this knowledge; I still cry tears over that loss and grieve the choices of my family members; I still feel hesitant walking alone at night or taking trips by myself and have to endure the risks inherent to being a woman; and I have experienced more truly authentic love in this life than would have ever been possible if I kept living in fear.
