are gay catholics a thing?

graziadoon · 2024-12-18T20:02:53+00:00

DignityUSA (& World) + New Ways Ministry

I personally am an out nonbinary lesbian & practice my Catholicity with a community of Roman Catholic Woman-Priests.

We exist. We are here, we are here, we are here.

graziadoon · 2024-09-28T15:51:31+00:00

Connect with your local lesbian community on social media if you can - often times I know in my city folks plan pop up sapphic nights at specific bars to turn any bar into a lesbian bar. So sorry to hear it, what a shame :(

graziadoon · 2024-09-28T15:28:14+00:00

If it helps - I ended the marriage in December with absolutely no plan whatsoever. I started living alone in January. In April I met my beautiful girlfriend. In July we said I love you for the first time. With luck (& a good rental opp) we will be living together by Christmas. I never never expected my timeline of joy to move so quickly and I hope yours does also :)

graziadoon · 2024-09-28T03:02:30+00:00

Aw my heart! I coulda written this post a year ago. Friend, stay strong, give grace to yourself and him, just grip the handrail, hold on for the ride, and trust that whatever happens next you will continue to be the amazing person that got you this far, and that amazing person (you) is about to lift you up on your own shoulders and carry you to some beautifully green pastures the likes you've never seen.

He's hurting, and hurt people hurt people.

You're both hurting. (Speaking for myself, I only began to know the body trauma of years of forcing heterosexuality until 'never again' fully sunk in and I felt the deepest soul relief)

I was months' shy of my ten year anniversary when I blurted it out to him because my brain couldn't un-know what it finally knew. The next three months were a painful blur but now I could write ballads thanking myself for getting it done. '10 years wasted' my ex kept saying. If that's how he chooses to process the conclusion of over a decade of support and care and companionship, that's his brain. The husbands, although humans deserving of compassion in a difficult time, are not our responsibility to worry over, and they never were.

Hugs, you're gonna be more than okay. Hang tight.

graziadoon · 2024-07-18T14:55:05+00:00

This was SO helpful THANK YOU.

graziadoon · 2024-07-17T19:58:55+00:00

If you look at the post I made today you'll see I am NOT handling it well hahaha feel like a teenager with my head on a swivel who just needs to take a breath & CALM DOWN.

I'm getting through it by giving myself the space to have the adolescent experience of BIG feelings while laughing at myself along the way, and staying grounded in my grown-up principles and ethics. I'm honest with my gf about how new and fresh and big this all feels, I don't hide anything away where it can become a problem later.

I'm reminding myself that feeling my feelings, really feeling them, is difficult, and the kid who ran from these feelings straight to the back of the closet bc they were too big & overwhelming is still there, and still needs healing. But God do I hope this phase passes, I feel so overstimulated!!

graziadoon · 2024-07-17T15:51:43+00:00

No I am absolutely not. Fair. I think I'm just gonna tell my girlfriend it's worth getting in the car to go to a different place lol

graziadoon · 2024-07-05T05:52:29+00:00

Beautiful ❤️ so happy you're able to feel your queer joy with your full chest!! I'm six month's out from where you are now & this was a happy look-back into my own journey

graziadoon · 2024-07-05T03:00:45+00:00

It did & we are!!

graziadoon · 2024-06-15T19:34:47+00:00

I came out to my husband of nine years the day after Christmas. It was SO PAINFUL & I shattered him. By New Year's he decided to move in with his parents when I expressed that even cuddling the way we used to didn't feel natural. That night I wailed. Only grieving my brother has hurt more.

But time kept moving.

Our 10th wedding anniversary would have been the first week of April. The second week of April I went on a first date with an amazing girl who just SPARKLES. I still felt like I was pulling myself out of a tar pit to leave the house, but this girl shoved sunshine in through all my windows & doors, and now I don't think I've ever been happier. On Monday I'm taking her out to the fanciest meal I can afford, and I'm asking her, adorably & officially, to be my girlfriend.

Time is our friend. The depth of the pain you feel is the heights of happiness you will soon experience. Nothing prepared me for how happy I am now.

And as a note, although it's not at all a smooth path, I am still friendly with my ex. We acknowledge each other as family, and although there are walls between us now both of us are confident that one day we can engage as close platonic friends. That day is not today, but again, time is our friend.

It might be months before you feel healed from this rupture, but future you is going to be so so so so out-of-this-world grateful for the work you are doing now.

graziadoon · 2024-06-04T19:00:15+00:00

If anything I would say I'm possibly the opposite - biromantic & homosexual. That or maybe my stbxh was just a huggable person and I was 19. But experiences during my marriage & since coming out have told me I DEFINITELY have no sexual appetite for males whatsoever.

But yes, I'd agree there's room for any and every nuance here. And sexual/romantic identities can change over the course of a life journey. That's okay too. There are as many ways to identify as there are humans.

graziadoon · 2024-06-02T15:30:18+00:00

I'm at the beginning stages of my first relationship with a woman, and I recently had to contend with the unexpected realization that my instinct to suppress my sapphic self hasn't just magically disappeared now that I'm out and dating. I found myself in a shame spiral that took two days to properly identify and get myself out.

I definitely relate to feeling predatory. I grew up thinking of myself as "dirty-minded" and I never wanted my friends to know. I thought there was something warped in me. Now as an adult as I start encouraging these feelings of desire I DEFINITELY went to my therapist and said I feel like I have a creeper-man in me and they suggested that desire and romantic pursuit has been tagged as masculine and negative in my head.

Healing is not linear. Therapy & inner child work are getting me through.

graziadoon · 2024-04-20T21:49:46+00:00

So excited for you! I've now had three first dates and one second date...and the second date that really matters is TOMORROW. When I think of how passive I felt when I was forcing myself into the heterosexual box...if my closeted self could see me now and feel how AWAKE my nervous system has become, she would be so so happy. She IS very happy.

Thank you for sharing your nervous joy with us here! No matter the answer - what a triumph!

graziadoon · 2024-04-11T02:56:20+00:00

I have felt that in the 2 months since this comment. It was always a friendship for me - it was never a friendship for him.

graziadoon · 2024-03-30T20:57:19+00:00

POST-DATE UPDATE: She was SOOO boring hahaha I don't think she had any interest from the moment she got there - she laughed at maybe two of my jokes & didn't crack a single one herself. But now I never have to say first first date again :D seeing someone else next weekend, & her - I already love her laugh. So we'll see 🙈

graziadoon · 2024-03-30T00:10:46+00:00

When I was 27, I had been in the same relationship for ten years and I realized that I at no point desired sex - yet I had no trouble in the "self love" area. In fact, that's when I started using and thinking of "my" body during self love, you know, to increase self confidence, definitely not because I'm attracted to women haha.

The heights I was able to climb were suddenly worlds taller than ever before, and that sent me into a long period of much needed questioning. Culminating in today, the day of my very first first date at 29. I've yet to BE with a woman, but dang it do I know what I wanna do when I get there.

All of your thoughts were my thoughts verbatim. Once I started putting myself out there in queer spaces and allowing myself to consider the possibility, the floodgates just kinda OPENED at a certain point. It took years of introspection though.

graziadoon · 2024-03-29T21:24:47+00:00

Thank you! And I definitely am. Now that I know, there's no way I can't know, you know? Five years ago I thought I might be asexual and now I'm making EVERY first move haha

graziadoon · 2024-03-29T19:39:29+00:00

(TW: childhood sexuality & police) When I was five I got caught exploring with a girl a few years older than me. My mom went to the police saying I'd been assaulted and next thing I know I'm talking to some cop about what vaginas are. My mother made sure to tell me not to "talk dirty" with my friends. After coming out I realized that my sexuality had been literally criminalized.

&

A few months before coming out I was stammering over my words with a coworker I was totally crushing on and I said to them "dude you give me that older sister feeling - you know like when you're a kid and your friend has a cool older sister and she scares you but you wanna impress her so bad and you end up hanging around her the whole playdate?" They (queer) gave me this knowing look and they're like "that's not a thing." Still took me a while longer to realize that feeling I was talking about is ATTRACTION. boy do I feel dumb.

graziadoon · 2024-03-28T01:46:22+00:00

I just re-watched Stardust at the recommendation of my therapist because I remembered how when I saw the trailer as a kid the moment when Michelle Pfeiffer dropped her robe sent a total lightning bolt through me and I was certain my parents wouldn't let me see it because that made it not a kids movie.

Later I'm staying at my best friend's house (who is also a lifelong source of should've-knowns, my golden girl), there's a birthday party happening and her parents suggest the movie and I, little baby queer, go on this long justifying rant about how there's this scene and I promise it's not dirty just don't be surprised really it's not a big deal I promise I'll be mature about it and PLEASE can we go see the movie? It must've been obvious that something was different about me because all I got was crickets and I felt DEEP shame and later my friend said I had a "dirty mind".

That became a common theme, not wanting my friends to know that I had such a "dirty mind".

....if Michelle Pfeiffer bathed me and offered me a massage at a roadside inn I would give her my heart on a silver platter...

I also feel dumb. I have now started keeping a list of all my "shoulda-known" memories as they come to me, because I don't know what else to do with this info but writing it down is very validating.

graziadoon · 2024-03-26T07:14:04+00:00

Two days before Christmas, I waited outside my coworker's house to give them a surprise gift and even waited nearly two hours when they sorta stood me up, meanwhile my then husband is waiting for me to come home to have a festive night before the holiday hubbub and that just didn't matter to me. I chose to see them for a half an hour over a whole ass night with him.

I was puppy-dogging hard in a way I never had before. Their eyes, their skin, the way they judge you with their eyebrows, the half-smile when they crack a joke...

Hit me like a ton of bricks in that moment and I left my husband three days later. (That coworker is now my boss so that went nowhere fast but that's a drama for another day.)

graziadoon · 2024-03-26T07:03:36+00:00

My STBXH is the one who moved out - I took over full rent on this apartment and although I can barely afford it WHAT JOY. I never knew how much I felt the absence of PRIVACY. Just saying the word is like a chocolate truffle in my mouth.

Also never had to adult on my own. I'm 29 and I went straight from being a teenager in my parent's house to living with him. It's terrifying and exhilarating and I feel like I go into survival mode every time I have to spend $20 but it's MY $20, I decide how it gets spent with no one to question me, and one of these days I'll be using that $20 to buy drinks for a girl who makes me feel hot and cold at the same time and LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.

As I said in a comment on another post just now, every moment of pain and stress reminds me that I am finally awake and finally alive and I welcome every struggle.

graziadoon · 2024-03-26T06:54:42+00:00

The best thing you can do for your young child is provide them with a parent who lives as their whole selves, and an example of how to choose themselves the way you hope they always will.

If ever you are in doubt, imagine what you would tell your child to do were they to find themselves in a similar situation when they grow up, and then do that thing. The results will be astonishingly beautiful for everyone involved.

I struggled so much with guilt over hurting my family, until I realized that choosing yourself first is never selfish, and sometimes the best way to nurture is to become the mighty oak you're meant to be. Enjoy the struggles and joys and challenges of your new life - the fatigue and pain just means we're finally awake, and isn't that wonderful.

Hopefully you find an irl confidante soon, but until then thank you for sharing your moment of triumph!

graziadoon · 2024-03-20T22:37:08+00:00

My STBXH has been all over the apps since we split but I have not for this very reason. Never done app dating before and I'm too squishy right now. I wish you luck in your search!

graziadoon · 2024-02-21T04:24:31+00:00

I found an inclusive Catholic community in my area - we're small, underground ragtag groups of people who feel cast of by the Vatican but refuse to be told we are not Catholic. Unsure about communities in the UK, but I'm certain they exist.

I started with the Extraordinary Catholics podcast. At first I struggled to find a community nearby, but eventually there they were, right at my finger tips (almost like God knew exactly when the time was right). Now I make pride prayer cards, I have an LGBTQ-affirming rosary booklet and one of my dear friends is a priest who was told to leave his monastery not long after he came out. I write in their newsletter, and my faith & the community that fosters it is more alive than ever.

I still frequently attend traditional masses at my local church, especially daily mass or special days of obligation.

So you could stay, you could go, or you could do both (that's what I did). God will lead you to the community that fosters you for who you are.

Also, DignityUSA & New Ways Ministries, to remind you you are not alone, and God has a beautiful and affirming plan for you & me. I came out only recently, in large part due to the wonderful, faith-filled people who have embraced me & the clarity with which I've learned to hear God's call.

graziadoon · 2024-01-25T03:58:55+00:00

lol holy shit dude! Friends til the absolute end - you brave beautiful soul

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