Coming Out Stories

Listen to this story on RealAudio.

My name's Leah Sheppard; I'm a third year M.Div. student here at Pacific School of Religion, affiliated with the Community of Christ, which will be unfamiliar to most of you, but I'll have to leave it that way—I've got five minutes.

I think, given the choice today, I would identify primarily as queer. For me that means that I came out when I was 18 as a lesbian, and I came out a little bit later as bisexual, and then I came out a little bit later after that as lesbian again, and then I just got really tired of trying to decide. So honestly, I answer to all of the above. I would say that I'm primarily queer rather than bisexual, which is a statement to make because my primary community is the LGBT one. I don't feel like I swing very much between lesbian and straight; I feel like if I swing at all, that I swing between lesbian and bisexual.

And even the relationships that I have had with men have been very queer. I know that's a very politically charged thing to say, especially here. I know that it lends itself to a stereotype of bisexual people as people who are without loyalties and without politics, and I am here to say that is not true. I know many courageous and brilliant and phenomenal people who choose to identify as bi, and I applaud them for that. It is not where I am right now—and again I have five minutes. So I don't rule out the possibility.

I know, also, that there are people who live what I would call "queer" lives, but they don't identify as this. And even some would treat it as condemnation, or treat it as a swear word, so I want to acknowledge those people. It's an imperfect word, which is why I answer to a lot things depending on the situation.

I think the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered community has at least as many boxes as the straight community. And I'm here to say that what's inside me fits into more than one box. Books have been written on this. Go to the library.

I've thought a lot about this. For weeks it's kept me up at night, trying to think what I was going to say to you. And it's made me talk to many, many people and ask them, "Okay, if you had five minutes, what would you say about the story of your life?" And it's been really helpful just making clear where I am, even if I don't get the words exactly right today.

I've sat where you are sitting for the last two years. And every time someone got up to do just what I'm doing right now, I've held my breath like my own life and my own sense of self depended vitally on what came out of their mouth. Can they tell their story? Can they even tell my story? And can they tell it to me? Can they tell it in a way that makes it the path of the disciple that it is? And can they tell me what it is that keeps them going?

So this is what I'll tell you, because coming out for me is not an event in the past. It is what I told my parents 13 years ago, and it is what I just told you right now about being queer/bi/lesbian/dyke whatever. (That will get me into trouble with more than just a few people.) But it is also my future love relationships; it is my future with my church.

My denomination, which I'm not going into, has a six-year goal which we just received in April at our General Conference called Mission North America. The goal is to spread the word of God, and double our membership in this country. They figure—simple math—that if everyone converted one person that would be all it takes. So the buzz phrase for this is "each one reach one."

At the same time, though, we are wrestling mightily as a body with the issue of gay and lesbian ordination, like most liberal Protestant churches, though my church is not Protestant or Catholic. (I tell people we're an early branch off the Mormon movement, which would get me in trouble at church because we all know that they're a branch off of us. But that's a story for another time—catch me later.) We're wrestling now with these 20-year-old guidelines that forbid the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians. There have been attempts from within the body to overturn the guidelines. There have been what we call here acts of ecclesiastical disobedience, one of which is how I managed to even be ordained a priest last year, while I was openly in a lesbian relationship. But so far the consensus on the whole is that it's not in our favor yet.

So I call our real mission "Each one reach one straight one." I think it's a major flaw in the system that my denomination, and many denominations, choose to look outside itself for new members, rather than caring for the ones they already have.

I grew up a preacher's kid, and I've had to learn over the years, and it's not an easy lesson, is that God is not my dad, God is not the church, and God is not the scriptures. God works through them when it's possible. But if God calls me, and it's God who calls me forward along the path of the disciple, this path coincides with the church in places—but not in all places. There are times when we're going to have to be carpenters and tent makers.

I don't know how this story ends. But I try to be willing and I try to live in trust. I believe very deeply in mission—that's primarily why I'm here. Mission as an expression of gratitude for what has been freely given to me. I don't believe that mission means that any of us are called to make people believe what we do. Mission for me is the commitment to live life on the boundary: get what you need, get community, get a spiritual life, get support, then go to the furthest point of your comfort and stand there. Share your life, be with the people around you, try to love them, try not to fix them, just as you would have them try not to fix you.

I've decided that I have a different six-year missional goal than the rest of the church. Mine is a ministry to the LGBTQ community, because if we don't do it right now, no one else will. And then as I'm able, my mission is to do "in-reach", which is to reach inward to my church, to my family which is still in Kentucky, to educate them and be present with them, and to stand with them on the boundaries.

back to top