In contrast, I was far more aware of the changes happening in the girls around me. Puberty was hitting all of us, and I blushed anytime I found myself looking too long at someone across the school dining hall or tennis courts. I would catch a glimpse of someone I liked across the classroom and feel butterflies in my stomach. I would daydream about how amazing it would be to hold her hand or kiss her cheek, wishing I could ask her to the school dance, and wanting to help with her English essay just because I would get to spend time with her.
I remember one awful moment when a girl a year ahead of me was changing for sports and walked in front of me in her bra. My eyes fell on her for a couple of seconds longer than would have seemed normal, and she snapped, “What are you staring at?” Blushing terribly, I stammered, “Nothing, sorry. I was just thinking about something else … It was nothing to do with you …” This wasn’t about lust or ogling anyone—I was just struck by how beautiful she was.
A similarly awkward moment happened when, at a school assembly, a group of girls from an older class decided to perform a Madonna song. I had been sheltered from dance parties and clubs as they were considered to be unwholesome by the Christians I knew, so it was a shock to my system when the girls emerged onto the school stage dressed in revealing clothes and danced to the pop track.
My classmates clapped along to the music, loving it, but I felt extremely uncomfortable. I stared at the floor, with no idea where to look. The girls who were performing seemed like the most stunning humans I’d ever cast eyes on, but surely those feelings were not right—God would not be pleased. What on earth is wrong with me? I thought, as I blushed with ever-increasing embarrassment, hoping no one around me had noticed my discomfort.
Outside of school, it was the same. Every now and then, often when I least expected it, these thoughts would break into my consciousness. I went with my family to watch a local performance of the musical South Pacific and was embarrassed when I realized how gorgeous I thought the female lead actress was.
Once at a Christian conference I attended, I was distracted by one of the female singers in the worship band; her voice and personality were so captivating. Whenever these things happened, I felt a wave of shame and did all I could to drown out the thoughts in my mind, especially in a place like church. These were just the normal, run-of-the-mill moments of attraction that would take place in any straight person’s mind each day and be dismissed without a second thought. But for me, as a gay person, each one of them was laced with anxiety and left me feeling dirty and ashamed.
I was certain I couldn’t hide these thoughts forever. Someone would figure me out, I worried. Acting on any of these attractions wasn’t an option for me—I might have daydreamed about it, but I shut down those thoughts as, to me, they were off-limits and wrong. But I feared my accidental gazes at girls might make people suspicious, and it felt awful.
Honestly, I hoped it was just a phase—I wanted to fit in with my Christian friends and my church; I just wanted to belong. Sneaking away from my parents once at the local library, I found a book about teenage psychology. Flicking to a section on sexual development, I read that lots of young people experienced attraction to people of the same gender for a while and then they grew out of it.
After reading that, my prayers every night—offered with urgency—begged God to help this “phase” come to an end, so that I could stop these sinful thoughts and start living a holy life. The guilt these feelings generated was leaving me feeling paralyzed. I had nowhere to go with them and no one safe to confide in. Would God still love me if I was attracted to girls? I was pretty sure the answer was a resounding no.
Go on, Vicky. It’s just for a weekend,” a school friend said, handing me a paper invitation. “You’ll love it—loads of us are going.”
Despite my increasingly solitary behavior at school, one Christian classmate invited me to a weekend event for church youth. Lately, I’d felt miles away from everyone, behind an invisible wall, trying to navigate the tensions in my life created by this new awareness that I was attracted to girls and not boys. All my friendships had grown distant as I spent my free periods alone in the library writing in my journal or with my Walkman plugged into my ears.
I didn’t feel like being social, but since this would be a conference to develop young adults in their Christian faith, I thought I’d give it a try. It would be held in a beautiful old property in a nearby town and was a Catholic event—something outside my usual Protestant tradition. I was curious and intrigued. “Okay,” I said. “Count me in.”
The weekend arrived, and my initial nerves about being with a roomful of strangers dissipated when someone grabbed a guitar and led worship songs that I was familiar with. I enjoyed the talks, the meals, and, most of all, the singing. But, as always, nagging shame and fear plagued me as I thought about my orientation, knowing that everyone on the weekend would see me in a totally different light if they knew I was gay. Their friendliness would have turned to disapproval and judgment, and I would certainly not have been viewed as an “up-and-coming young faith leader,” as they were describing me there that weekend.
Every time we prayed, and each time we sang a slow song encouraging inner reflection, my mind played the same broken record that beat me up mentally and emotionally for being broken and sinful because of my orientation.
I wondered if maybe, somehow, I could get help that weekend. Perhaps in this more anonymous setting, one of the Catholic leaders could help me? I thought. Whispering a prayer, I asked God for a breakthrough.
On the final afternoon, the event leaders announced that something different would be happening. A priest was visiting for a few hours and would be performing private confessions in a small room down the hall. Any participants wanting to go to confession, to repent of whatever sins they had committed and receive the priest’s absolution (official forgiveness from God), could make their way to that small room and wait their turn.
The Church of England didn’t offer one-on-one confession, neither had my earlier Pentecostal denomination. This was something new to me and I wondered if it might be the key to getting free from my feelings for girls.
Summoning all the courage I had, I made my way down the hallway to the small room and knocked on the dark mahogany door. The sound of that knock seemed to echo for miles, and I blushed, hoping none of my friends knew I was going to see the priest. It could only mean I was struggling with something. And for an “up-and-coming” young Christian leader like me, that was not the impression I wanted to give anyone.
The whole exchange was unfamiliar to me, but the old Catholic priest was friendly and put me at ease. With a smile, he gestured to an empty seat opposite him. After reading some liturgy, the priest wanted to make it more teen-friendly, so he spoke in everyday language: “Are there specific things you’d like to repent of, to say sorry to God for? If there are, just speak them out now, and we’ll give those things to God.”
I listed some minor things—like getting angry, using bad language, and forgetting to do my daily Bible readings. When I left a long pause after this, he sensed that there was something I hadn’t mentioned, the real reason I was there.
“Is there anything else?” he interjected.
I gulped and felt my chest tighten. Desperate for change, for the first time in my life I tried to voice the words: “Um … Yes … I am having feelings for other girls … like gay feelings … and I want to be forgiven for that, and set free from it as I know it’s sinful.”
I hung my head, red-faced, as heavy tears began streaming down my cheeks. It was a shock to hear those words come out of my mouth for the first time.
The priest gave me a kind look and said, “That was very brave. Well, let’s pray, shall we?” Then he read the prayer of absolution, offering my repentance to God and pronouncing