Coming out and leaving the church was a death: of an identity, a worldview, everything I thought I had known about myself. Like so many queer people before me, I lost friendships, family, community. But there is a secret that the church does not want those of us who have left to remember. There is a love that is as strong as death—the love you discover for yourself when, as Audre Lorde once wrote, you define yourself for yourself. I buried my old self years ago. Do not look for her; she is not there. This is the truth about queer people: We have resurrected ourselves. We are born again. Our
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