#religious wlw

[girls-are-very-pretty]

I’m not religious but I know that some WLW are religious and I want you to know that I love you and support you even if some of the people in your religion don’t. If people in your religion do support you, fantastic!! Now support someone like you so that they can feel accepted too. Religion is often a tricky subject when it comes to lgbtq and I want you to know that no matter who you are and what you’re doing, Your God Loves You.

[a-wlw-reads]

Was it possible to become catatonic after just one kiss? I sat there in the prayer box, ten minutes like she asked me to, thinking about this sin that didn't feel like one. Bad things were supposed to make you all heavy at the ankles and slumped at the shoulders. Guilt should be bearing down like a gorilla on your back. But, all I felt was light and fluffy and giddy. Like a laundry detergent commercial with the fluttery dress and soap suds and unbelievably white seamless panties. I wanted to sing and dance. On my way back to class, I think I did.

Brigitte Bautista in Don’t Tell My Mother

[a-wlw-reads]

Religious WLW Masterlist

I still like to categorize things and there are so many different ways to break up the LGBT experience, so here’s a list of wlw books that feature religion, split by religious denomination. Again, this is a list exclusively of books I’ve read, and I’ll be continuously updating it as I go along.

AME Zion

Tailor-Made by Yolanda Wallace

Catholic

Don’t Tell My Mother by Brigitte Bautista

Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence edited by Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahan

Hood by Emma Donoghue

Days of Grace by Catherine Hall

Map of Ireland by Stephanie Grant

Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermann

P.S. I Miss You by Jen Petro-Roy

Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen

Christian (unspecified)

Kaleidoscope Song by Fox Benwell

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst

Dress Codes for Small Towns by Courtney Stevens

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

Druze

Bareed Mista3jil edited by Meem

Evangelical Christian

Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

Hindu

The Normal State of Mind by Susmita Bhattacharya

Jewish

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Bombshells by Marguerite Bennett

Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer edited by Angela Brown

Echo After Echo by Amy Rose Capetta

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Cinnamon Blade: Knife in Shining Armor by Shira Glassman

The Second Mango by Shira Glassman

Sister Mischief by Laura Goode

Finder of Lost Objects by Susie Hara

Challah and Callaloo by La Toya Hopkins

Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home by Leah Lax

Sappho’s Bar and Grill by Bonnie J. Morris

She Is Me by Cathleen Schine

Rat Bohemia by Sarah Schulman

Pulp by Robin Talley

Speaking for Ourselves: Short Stories by Jewish Lesbians edited by Irene Zahava

Maronite Christian

Bareed Mista3jil edited by Meem

Mormon

When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, And That’s When My Nightmare Began by Alex Cooper

Muslim

The Others by Seba Al-Herz

Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis

If You Could be Mine by Sara Farizan

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam

A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar

The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan

Bareed Mista3jil edited by Meem

I Can’t Think Straight by Shamim Sarif

Pentecostal

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

[a-wlw-reads]

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst

7/10

Do the wlw end up together : No

This one’s a pretty fun read because there’s so much going on. It’s got seven different points of view, all (but one) of them contestants on the game show Lost and Found. The characters are traveling across the world, solving scavenger hunt clues and competing in mini-challenges while lugging around all of their souvenirs from the trips. Everyone involved has some type of interesting backstory; the game show is really a secondary plot and the book is about the drama all these people bring with them. One of the more prominent characters is Cassie, a high school senior who hid a pregnancy from her mother until she gave birth in the house alone and who has recently realized that she’s a lesbian. She’s on a team with her mother and they have a whoooooole lot to work through, although I’ll let you know they end the book with a better relationship than ever. Also really interesting are Abby and Justin, a married pair of ex-gays who end the book as ex-ex-gays. Just a heads up that their chapters are still hard to read as they start out wanting to be on this show to have a chance to spread the word about salvation. They’re pretty outspoken about the possibility of living a sin-free life. Without spoiling too much, they both end the book at quite different levels of acceptance, but I think Parkhurst did a good job at showing that no matter how devoutly you may believe, it simply isn’t possible to change your sexuality. Those three were my favorite to read about (for the obvious reason being that they’re the gay characters), but there’s also Carl, a recently divorced man whose three year old son has serious health concerns, Juliet, a washed-up child star trying to make her comeback, and several others. It’s not really a world-traveling Indiana Jones-style adventure novel so much as a study on what happens when you throw a bunch of people with radically different life experiences together in a stressful situation and have them fight it out for a cool million.

[a-wlw-reads]

Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions by Susan Tive and Cami Ostman

This isn’t a wlw book per se, but I’m going to talk about it here anyway because I thought it was so interesting. This is a collection of slice-of-life stories written by women who, for familial or their own reasons, joined what they personally consider to be “extreme” religions and then later left. Three of these stories were written by lesbians, which all had very different approaches. 

“Uniforms” by Leah Lax : Lax writes about what first drew her in about Hasidism, a conservative sect of Judaism with very recognizable dress. She briefly mentions her girlfriend when reflecting on how different the rules of men and women are, in Hasidism and in larger society as well. This story is an excerpt from her memoir about being a closeted lesbian among the Hassidim, Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home, which I really want to read but sadly my library does not have. 

“Body Language” by Pamela Helberg : Helberg writes about the moment when her fundamentalist Christian parents confront her about her relationship with a female friend. The story moves between her parents taking her to the pastor for a laying on of hands and her reflecting on her first night with Chris. She sees this as the beginning of her split life of closeted lesbian/good Christian daughter, something I’m sure many religious wlw can relate to. 

“Witness” by Melanie Hoffert : Hoffert writes about the terrifying experience of  calling the paramedics after seeing her brother go into shock in the bathtub. This is following David’s confession that he doesn’t believe in God, and Hoffert’s eloquent conversation with him about judgement, spoken from the seemingly contradictory position of a fundamentalist Christian and an open, proud lesbian. Hoffert also has her own memoir, Prairie Silence, about returning to her hometown in North Dakota.

[a-wlw-reads]

Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen

Do the wlw end up together : Yes

8/10

I was definitely not quite adequately prepared for this one; while I typically do enjoy coming out books, this one was quite painful. Hannah is starting her senior year full of indecision: she doesn’t know where she wants to go to college, she doesn’t know whether her and her friends will manage to stay together, and she doesn’t know what to do with her feelings for her best friend, Baker. Her group are the popular kids of her private Catholic school, throwing Mardi Gras ragers and spending spring break at a beach house partying it up. When Baker and Hannah become a little closer than they both intended, shame and fear threaten to keep the two of them apart permanently. For starters, the writing in this book was absolutely beautiful. I read it on my kindle, and every couple pages it told me where people had highlighted passages, as they quite well deserved to be highlighted. It also really exquisitely captured the struggles of a religious lesbian and the intolerance of the leaders our children are expected to look up to (bonus: her parents were quite supportive in the face of this opposition). I do feel I should warn you though, the bullying Hannah faces is relentless and the party scene near the end is incredibly hard to read between the homophobic language and violence.

[a-wlw-reads]

Bareed Mista3jil by Meem

This is a collection of interviews from Lebanese queer women and transgender people created by the Lebanese lesbian organization Meem. It starts with an introduction that describes some of the culture in Lebanon and some of the fledgling LGBT organizations such as Meem and Helem. It also talks about the difficulties of talking about LGBT people in the Arabic language. Then it moves into the life stories of women from across classes and geographic areas of Lebanon, although many are from Beirut. Many discuss their struggle to find other gay women, often through online chat sites and online groups such as #lesbanon. Coming out to family is another important theme. Several women say that their parents are pushing them to marry men, otherwise they won’t be able to leave their home or act independently without public scrutiny. Some choose to leave anyway, some even choose to emigrate to another country, where they may or may not be happier. Women who are Muslim, Druze, and Maronite Christians are represented in this book. Some of these women are older and were there for the construction of the LGBT organizations in Lebanon, and it’s really interesting to see how their history and their present experiences differs from that of my own.

This book is almost impossible to find, so download it as a pdf here.

[wlwoffaith]

Sometimes, religion is hard. We all have fallow periods and doubts. Sometimes mental and physical health gets in the way of actively practicing your faith. Sometimes there is no community to support you in person, and even if there is sometimes it isn't accessible to you. Sometimes we have to practice under the radar, or even practice a faith that isn't ours to keep the peace with family. Sometimes, religious communities are not accepting, especially of LGBT+ individuals. That does not mean you are less of a believer, or less devout. They are simply circumstances beyond your control, like any other. You're not to blame.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, religion is hard. And that's okay.