This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne.
Questioning
3. What media (if any) did you read or watch that made you rethink your assumptions about sexuality?
Melissa and Haley
Melissa:
My ideas on sexuality were already changing by the time I allowed myself to read anything that was positive about LGBTQ people. I then started to read the stories of LGBTQ person’s lives, just listening to them telling their stories for the first time. And they weren’t disease riddden, sex obsessed, unable to have relationships or build families, or anything else I had believed about LGBTQ people. They were normal, average, people. They loved and lived the same as any other person. They were nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be despised.
Haley:
The movie Milk, Whipping Girl by Julia Serano, and countless internet resources including Lynn Conway’s site on transgenderism.
Lina and V
Lina:
Nothing really comes to mind as far as rethinking assumptions about sexuality in general, but I did have a marathon viewing of the first two seasons of the L Word, because I was convinced that loving a girl meant I had to shave my head, never wear dresses, and ride a giant motorcycle. I stopped watching the show when it started to convince me instead that I’d get cheated on and never end up happy (no, said my future wife, that’s just called television).
V:
[What Lina said!]
Latebloomer:
I can’t think of anything that was influential.
Katy-Anne:
I actually started using media very heavily to figure out my beliefs. I followed the Tina Anderson case very carefully. I began to seek out documentaries, blogs, news stories, etc about people who used to be fundamentalists who now weren’t. I didn’t limit my consumption to just the Christians, either, because I wasn’t sure at the time if I wanted to stay Christian, and either way a person’s story is their story and it’s legitimate even if they don’t believe the same things I do.
