When a concerned grandmother calls in about her granddaughter identifying as gay, Catholic host Cy Kellett and chastity speaker Jason Evert offer a compassionate and faithful response.
Transcript:
Caller: I’m a grandmother of four girls ages 16 to 21, and I’m concerned over one of them who has a girlfriend. They’re all girls, and she knows that. For instance, I usually send the girls different things from social media that say, this is how someone should treat you. One day, I sent her something about how you want a future husband to treat you. She responded to me saying, “You do know that I’m gay.”
I thought, no, you think you’re gay. Because I truly believe that the pressures of the culture and the way public schools are in the world is that it’s okay to be gay and it’s okay to experiment. I just want more or some information to give her in a way that she can relate to.
Jason: Yeah, yeah. No, no. Thank you for loving her, because I know that you do. A couple of thoughts I think may be helpful. I wouldn’t recommend going down the route of like, “You’re not gay.” “Yes, I am.” “No, you’re not.” “Yes, I am.” Because in her eyes, if she experiences any type of same-sex attractions, that now becomes her identity. “Gay” is the word for what I feel.
What we want to do is not invalidate the fact that those feelings are present. She might experience attractions for other girls. What do we do about that? Step number one you can do is point out that everything in the world seems to be sexualized. I mean, look, there’s a chewing gum commercial with sex, there’s a car with sex, there’s a roofing company. I mean, I saw a pickup truck drive by that said, “Sexy roofing.” I’m like, really? That’s a big stretch, you know? Tiles and like, no, no, that’s not what that word is for.
But like, everything is sexualized. Any young person is going to realize, yeah, I mean, I was at Home Depot and there’s a magazine on how to build sexy shutters for your house. It’s like, oh, enough, okay? Everything’s being sexualized. Products are being sexualized. But what’s also being sexualized is identity.
If anyone defines their identity by who they’re sexually attracted to, life would be confusing really fast. Because what if I see a woman who’s not my wife and I think she’s attractive? Is that my identity now? Am I an adulterosexual? If I see a pornographic billboard and she’s pretty, like, oh my gosh, am I a pornosexual now?
And so this is what’s happened. We’re defining the human person by who they’re sexually attracted to. But that’s not the Catholic Church’s teachings. The Church would not talk about there being gay people, lesbian people, trans people, you know, non-binary people. The Church would say, no, there are people made in the image and likeness of God who experience same-sex attractions or transgender inclinations.
We’re putting the person first, and the attraction is a subset under that instead of making their attractions their very identity. Because if your identity is your attractions, then your very personhood will be stifled if you can’t act upon those attractions.
So products are being sexualized. She’ll agree with it. Our identities are being over-sexualized too. But a real key we want to get across is that attractions are being over-sexualized all over the world.
Students are coming to me, and a girl will say something like this: “Jason, I think I’m straight. My friends think I’m a lesbian, so I’m concluding that I’m bi, and I’m trying to figure it out.” And I’ll be like, what’s going on? She’ll say, “Well, the boys in my school are really perverted and immature and gross. But there’s a girl on my campus. I come alive with her when I’m around her. She’s beautiful and funny and smart. My friends are telling me it’s a girl crush and we should experiment, and I don’t know what to do.”
And I said, look, I don’t know if no one’s just not told you this before, but you’re supposed to be repulsed by everything repulsive. You’re supposed to be attracted to everything attractive. So your friend here, her wit, her charm, her beauty, doesn’t that draw you to her? She said, it does.
I said, well, look, I go to a Bible study. There’s an 85-year-old man in our class with a gigantic beard, and I’m completely attracted to that guy. I mean, his sense of humor, his joy, his wisdom. I just want to be around the guy because guess what? Not every human attraction is a sexual attraction.
And I’m telling you, this girl’s eyes lit up. She’s like, I’ve never thought about it like that before. That makes so much sense now. It isn’t always that cut and dry. Some people do experience sexual attraction as members of the same sex.
So how does chastity apply to them? Well, I think for young girls, it’s so important to point out that just because you feel drawn to another girl and experience a connection with her doesn’t mean that is your identity as a lesbian.
I was at a junior high in Dallas, and like six girls came up to me—seventh-grade girls—all identifying as lesbian. I started talking to the girls, and they were not erotically attracted to the eighth-grade girls. They just thought the eighth-grade boys were disgusting, which of course we know they are.
Instead of shaming these girls, I said, you know what? I’m glad you’re not attracted to those kinds of boys. I’d be more worried about you if you did find those kinds of boys attractive. But let me just guess: what you’re after is a relationship where you’re safe from objectification. You can connect with somebody in an emotionally profound way.
And shocker, you’re not finding it amongst adolescent males today. This doesn’t become your identity. We’re replacing this whole story, which is a label of lesbian. These are things that I try to bring up gently in conversations with them.
One student came up to me the other day and they’re like, “Are you straight?” And I said, “No, I’m Jason.” And they’re like, “What?” It just kind of froze them up for a minute. I tried to explain, no, no, if I’m a book, my sexual attractions aren’t the cover, okay? It’s on page 57 in the book. It’s like chapter four. It’s not my identity as straight.
Like when I did the talk at your high school, they didn’t say, “Our speaker today is Jason, and he’s straight.” That’s not my identity. Yeah, I’m exclusively attracted to females, but that’s not the front of my business card.
As soon as we make our sexual attractions the billboard in front of us, there’s so much more to the story than that. So those are some things I try to share, and just love her to death. I mean, go shopping with her, send her Christmas cards, perplex her with your love.
Because she’ll be so convinced that if anyone doesn’t endorse her identity as a 15-year-old lesbian or whatever, that they hate her. But then she’ll scratch her head and think, but I know grandma loves me, but she doesn’t buy off on this stuff. You want to perplex her with your love.
In terms of resources, there are two things I recommend. One, there’s a ministry called Desert Stream, and I think their website is DesertStream.org. Marco Casanova has lots of really good resources they’ve got there.
So Desert Stream has a lot of resources for Catholics who experience same-sex attractions and realize that gay pride and gay shame are not the only options on the table. Chastity is another option here.
So DesertStream.org and the ministry of Kim Zember—Z-E-M-B-E-R—she’s been on lots of different radio shows. She’s doing talks as a woman who’s Christian, who experiences same-sex attractions, and talks about how she’s pursuing chastity and how profound healing is possible.
So Kim Zember and then the work of Desert Stream are two really good resources. If you want to find more, we’ve got a website, chastity.com, and if you do chastity.com/SSA for same-sex attraction, there’s a lot of good resources there.
But just keep loving on her and try to gently unhinge this idea that her sexual attractions are her identity because then they become her destiny. Now, there are some things she experiences, and you’re not going to argue with the fact that she experiences them. You’re just kind of gently pointing out that just because you feel extremely drawn to another adolescent female and perhaps not to adolescent males is not an indication that that’s her identity or her destiny.
Caller: Right. Very good. Thank you so much.
Cy: Thank you. Thank you very much. Let’s see how many we can get on here with Jason Everett. Let’s go to Kentucky.