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KristenQuesadaFirstEssay 3 - 19 Feb 2025 - Main.KristenQuesada
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | |
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< | -- By KristenQuesada - 16 Feb 2025 | >
> | God, Gays, and Gaga: Between Flesh and Faith | | | | |
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> | -- By KristenQuesada - 19 Feb 2025 | | | | |
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> | Introduction
Over the last four years, I’ve learned to live with and love my identity, while my parents remain steadfast in a religious worldview that refuses to see me. This essay isn’t about reconciling with them, but rather how I’ve reconciled with myself. | | | | |
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> | My Garden of Eden: The Beginning of Knowing
In hindsight, I don’t feel like I was a real person until I turned 18. It’s as if one night I underwent a Big Bang and gained consciousness, waking up to layers of complexity and previously unthought questions stacked on top of my daily existence. So, I have a lot of mercy for my past self; after all, my brain is only four years old. | | | | |
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> | Seeking clarity into my confusion, I took memoir writing my freshman spring. That class became a turning point, helping me confront the tension between my religion and sexuality in a seven-page reflection of the six-month journey that ended with me abandoning God for Lady Gaga (is this why Fox News hates the Ivy League?). In that memoir, I wrote about hiding “my newfound identity from family for the foreseeable future. I cannot imagine a scenario in which they accept me for who I am.” Those words proved prescient. Four years later, I’m still doing damage control: “because we will never agree about same sex attraction” (my mother’s text, 2/17/2025). | | | | |
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> | Ironically, that very memoir revealed my secret when my parents searched my phone. Professor Moglen criticizes the surveillance state, and considering I was raised in a panopticon of my own, I get it. Their invasion felt like a betrayal wrapped in concern—a love so conditional it needed surveillance to confirm its fears. | | | | |
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> | Even now, I get calls accusing me of selfishness for refusing to date men and lacking self-control over my sinful desires. Sometimes, I feel like that terrified teenager again, pleading for this part of me to disappear. Then I remember: I’m 1,300 miles away, free from divine scrutiny, building a bright future, and loving my life in the greatest city in the world. That reality dulls the sting of their disappointment that my gayness hasn’t dissolved despite their daily “war room” prayers. | | | | |
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> | Since that freshman-year memoir, I’ve learned being gay was merely the catalyst for my story; it’s not really about coming out—it’s about what happens when you grow, and the people you love refuse to meet you there. | | | | |
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> | Meeting Myself
The summer my parents found out about my identity, they sent me to our pastor to talk me out of these “demonic confusions,” flooded me with biblical readings, and (briefly) convinced me I was just straight and confused. That was, until I returned to campus, surrounded by people who saw me for who I was—friends who didn’t pray away my reality but embraced it. Denial crumbled under the weight of that affirmation. Plus, it’s kind of hard to deny yourself when you have to live with her every day. | | | | |
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> | My struggle with being gay began within. I was a devout Christian, so this struggle had to have a purpose: if I gave in, would I fail God’s test? As a lifelong evangelical, nothing was scarier than realizing I had no choice but to decide whether I would be a child of God—denying myself—or give into my flesh—denying God. Non-Christians often question this binary: “Why did it have to be one or the other?” I get their point. Shattering my entire belief system seems drastic, but evangelism doesn’t allow for middle ground. | | | | |
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> | In our house, no one counted as a true Christian unless they matched our theology: the Bible was infallible, historically accurate, and divinely inspired. Accordingly, no mental gymnastics could get me out of the bind of Romans 1:26-27 (the only verse in the Bible explicitly condemning lesbianism). Later in college, I wrote a research paper contextualizing that verse as the distinct progeny of Paul’s Roman world, shaped more by cultural influence than divine mandate. But even that softened interpretation doesn’t coexist with evangelical infallibility. | | | | |
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> | Now, safely outside that framework, I see religion differently. Not every faith is as mentally invasive and self-oppressive as Christianity, but after witnessing what it did to my psyche, I find it hard to see any as entirely harmless. I’m not anti-religion, but I absolutely recognize how tightly it still grips my family. | | | | |
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> | No Divine Answers Needed
What once was a rigid rulebook I obeyed is now a moral compass I consult. I have no problem admitting that I fuck with Jesus; just as a philosopher. He is no longer the glue binding together my existence, motivating my daily actions, and invading my thoughts. Instead, his gospel sits alongside Seneca, Buddha, and Camus as a “WWJD” when I feel a bit lost in this world. Where faith once dictated my choices, philosophy now offers options. It’s less “OBEY OR BE DAMNED,” and more “consider! reflect… decide :)” No longer agonizing about the morality of every show, curse word, or crop top has shown me that I never had an anxiety disorder—just religious trauma. What once shattered my world now grounds me. I’ve made peace with what I lost, and, more importantly, with what I found. | | | | |
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> | When my parents call my queerness a lack of self-control, I’ve learned it’s the opposite. Both Christianity and Stoicism preach surrender to what you cannot control, but to different ends. Stoicism offers peace through acceptance; meanwhile, Christianity had me praying for change that never came, waiting on a God who never acted, trapping me in needless suffering. Dostoevsky saw suffering as a path to salvation, but I’ve realized some suffering—like begging God to change who you are—is pointless. | | | | |
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> | Gone are the nights I spent in tears, asking God why I was burdened with this intrinsic sin. Sartre says we are our decisions—so whether my identity is nature, nurture, or choice, it doesn’t matter. As long as I choose to live authentically, that’s who I am. I no longer pray, “Why me?” Some questions don’t need divine answers––just the courage to accept them. | | |
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KristenQuesadaFirstEssay 2 - 16 Feb 2025 - Main.KristenQuesada
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< | | | | It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | |
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> | Title | | | -- By KristenQuesada - 16 Feb 2025 |
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KristenQuesadaFirstEssay 1 - 16 Feb 2025 - Main.KristenQuesada
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
Paper Title
-- By KristenQuesada - 16 Feb 2025
Section I
Subsection A
Subsub 1
Subsection B
Subsub 1
Subsub 2
Section II
Subsection A
Subsection B
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
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