***Content warning: mention of trauma, hell imagery

Pride refers to the time of the year whereby a month is dedicated to celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community, with lots of parades worldwide and many organisations  donating proceedings to charities in support. 

For me, Pride is not a month that I can outwardly celebrate due to the fact that I’m closeted for my own safety. I would have loved to have produced this article with my actual name, but due to strictly religious parents, I have decided not to disclose this. Pride is such an important time for everyone in the community because it’s a time whereby we can reflect on who we are as a person and celebrate our part in such a beautiful community of people. Personally, it’s important to me because it highlights that sexuality is not something I should feel ashamed about or something that should make me feel guilty. As a South Asian young woman, the idea of shame and guilt has been engrained into us from a young age. We are taught that we should feel shameful and guilty about anything we do that does not align with what we’ve been shown whilst growing up. As many religious leaders say, homosexuality is seen to be a ‘sin’, which is why my parents would never accept me for who I truly am, despite how much they claim to love me. However, my idea of God is that he will not punish me for love, for he made people gay in the first place. Many people will continue to disagree with my views, but I know my true intentions are pure and I never want to hurt anyone by being authentic. 

This is why Pride for me is about removing this idea of shame and celebrating that I’m being 100% myself. I have been through the stage of praying that I am straight, and have now reached the point where I’ve accepted myself fully. The internalised homophobia stage, which is normally very prevalent in people figuring out their sexuality from a young age, never really happened for me. I guess I should consider myself lucky for that because I have heard about how draining and terrible it is to repress your feelings whilst simultaneously being homophobic to conceal it.

This month, I have been doing some work on myself and making some plans for the future in preparation for leaving home. It’s inevitable, but it doesn’t make this any less nerve wracking. I decided to stay home for university and work at the same time in order to allow me to raise the funds to move out after uni has ended or at least a year later. Even though staying at home for these next two years will have a strain on my mental health, I hope it will help my financial stability in the long run when I need it.  Also, I do occasionally make jokes about my situation and laugh about it but the reality of it does hit hard on the days where I end up overthinking. 

For many people, religious trauma is a major problem when it comes to being in the LGBTQIA+ community.

I never really knew religious trauma was a real concept until a few months ago, when I was searching for a name to define how I felt in regards to religion. Religious trauma syndrome is group of symptoms that arise in response to traumatic or stressful religious experiences (Restoration Counselling). It is common with Evangelism and also in Islam too, although it is a taboo topic because people mistake Muslims talking about it as bashing the religion. 

My experience with religious trauma stems from a strict community of people that take pride in instilling fear rather than providing encouragement. I always had a fearful image when it came to religion, and I grew up in Islam surrounded by the idea of fear being instilled into me. I’ve heard the phrase ‘Fear God/Fear Allah’ more than I’ve heard about God being loving and accepting.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that God exists and that he is forgiving and merciful, but I have a problem with the fact that religion is always paired with such fearful language. I am very much aware of the narrative of the fearful nature acting as a deterrent for sin, but I am even more aware of its destructive nature. It has so much ability to be the reason why people are pushed away from a religion or remain scared. This take of mine may come across as controversial, but if you’re trying to help someone to maintain faith in a religion, it would make sense to use more loving language that is welcoming. Instead, extensive imagery of what will happen to people in hell because of their life choices or even factors that aren’t a choice (like sexuality) is used. 

It is evident that I was brought up with the idea that despite how much of a good person I am and how much good I do for others, I’ll ultimately just end up in hell because I’m queer. This concept is hard to grasp because I try my best to be good to everyone and ensure that people feel valid and accepted, so to have that all ignored because of my sexuality would be horrible. However, I can’t just hide a part of myself that is ultimately a massive part of my identity because my religion tells me to ‘fear God’. In fact, the fear of God aspect literally made me fear God to the point where I justified so many things that happened to me as ‘tests from God’, when really they were just incredibly immoral. I’ve always said Islam is a beautiful religion generally and it is, I don’t take away from that at all. It is just clear to me now that it is difficult to maintain a belief when this fear has been instilled into you from such a young age. Religious trauma is a real struggle and can be so hard to push through. People underestimate how hard it is to cling onto a religion that links heavily to your trauma and look past this to see the beauty in the faith. 

Due to this trauma, I repressed my sexuality for a long time because I couldn’t fathom my families reaction to it. I knew I liked girls from a young age but compulsory heterosexuality (comp het) was a major factor in my eagerness to repress those feelings. I felt that it was ‘normal’ to like men, but after being in a 2 and half year relationship with a man, I realised that something was missing. Now more than ever, I realise that my feelings towards women are so much stronger than I ever had with men, with reference to both sexual and emotional attraction. Overall, it has been a lengthy process of self acceptance but I have finally come to terms with the fact that I’m queer. The label doesn’t go further than that because I feel as though there’s no label I fit within at the moment and I prefer not to place myself in a box. Therefore, the umbrella term of queer is what I’m most comfortable with at this particular moment. 

Although I can’t outwardly celebrate Pride, the fact that we are able to celebrate our rights and showcase our authentic selves in a month dedicated to us is so beautiful. For me, Pride teaches me to love myself for who I am and that, in itself, is so important.