Coming Out as Bisexual Pastors

Post Author: Diane Kenaston

Stealthy queers are all around you. Your gaydar won’t detect us. Your discriminatory church policies forget about us. 

Are we closeted? Not necessarily. 

We just go about our business — and you make assumptions. 

You see me as a cisgender woman married to a cisgender man, and you assume that I’m heterosexual. I’m not. I’m bisexual. And my marriage to a cis man doesn’t negate my queerness. It just makes it stealthy. 

Stealthy queers come in many forms, including asexual and aromantic (that is, people who do not experience sexual attraction or romantic attraction). This article will focus on one particular type of stealthy queer: cisgender bisexual clergy women married to cisgender men.  “Cisgender” means that someone identifies with the sex assigned to them at birth. “Bisexual” is an umbrella term that describes being attracted to people of multiple genders, and it can encompass people who identify as pansexual, polysexual, sexually fluid, and other related terms. The commonality is that bi+ people are not restricted to liking only one gender. 

Bivisibility is the cloak of invisibility that society puts on bisexuals. Bisexual people in relationship with someone of the same gender are assumed to be “homosexual.” Meanwhile, bisexual people in relationship with someone of a different gender are assumed to be “heterosexual.” In both cases, bisexual identity is never seen in its fullness when it is reduced to the gender of our partners. Bisexuals become stealthy queers when we are in straight-assumed, heteronormative relationships. 

Sometimes we stealthy queers are even hidden from ourselves. Because I was attracted to men and married a man, I assumed that I was heterosexual (and that being attracted to women was just a normal part of being “straight”). My teenage years in purity culture blocked further self-understanding. Paradoxically, my eventual self-identification as an “ally” continued this self-deception. The fight within the church for “gay ordination” and “same-sex marriage” was constructed on the binary belief that everyone is either straight or gay — and the gender of your current partner determines that orientation. 

It was only after a sexual assault that I longed to claim my own sexuality. I was no longer content with the outside world defining my sexuality for me. As I got to know bisexual clergy in YCWI, I slowly realized that sexual identity involves self-definition. YCWI’s Queer & Questioning subgroup welcomed anyone asking about their own identity. No one was gate-keeping the doors of queerness saying, “You’ve only been in relationships with men? Get outta here!” Instead, they held space for me as I explored the questions: “Am I queer? What are the words that best fit me?” Only I could know the answer. 

As stealthy queers come out to ourselves, we often ask, “What does it matter? If I’m not going to date someone of the same gender, what’s the point of these self-identity labels?” An anonymous stealthy queer in YCWI responds, “I believe it changes the way I view and move about in the world, but I can’t name why. It’s a part of your identity that doesn’t appear to matter but absolutely does.” Bisexual clergywoman Janet Edwards writes, “It was as if my soul became clear, like a pond when the mud settles and you can see all the way to the bottom.” As I came out to myself, I knew myself more fully and beautifully, and my perspective on the world shifted. I learned to look at the identities and roles that had been given to me and then que(e)ry whether they were true. 

Once stealthy queers have come out to ourselves, we then have to decide whether to come out to the wider world. By nature of our stealthiness, we don’t have to come out right away or to everyone. For example, many stealthy queers might be out within the affirming community of YCWI before coming out to their families. Kira Austin-Young notes, “As someone who is out in some circles and not in others, it’s definitely a process.” When Sara Nave-Fisher decided to come out on Bi Visibility Day in 2018, she was making “Facebook Official” something that those closest to her had known for a long time. Other stealthy queers find that they want to be sure in their own identity before making it public. Lindsey says, “I still struggle so much with feeling ‘queer enough,’ which makes the impact of other peoples’ erasure a bit harder to navigate, since it will likely be all the same things I have said to myself for SO LONG.” This is an example of how internalized biphobia relates to external biphobia. 

Discrimination against queer people is unfortunately prevalent within many churches. This creates structural reasons for clergy to remain closeted. Stealthy queers can be very aware of the privileges that the church gives to anyone in a straight-assumed relationship. One anonymous YCW says, “I am privileged in the fact that I don’t have to publicly endure the hurt and anger that will most definitely be aimed at me by many in my congregation (and the rest of the world).” Claire Helton compares coming out in unsafe contexts as “casting pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). In addition to emotional consequences, there can be financial repercussions. My bishop cautioned me against coming out because — although I was not technically in violation of homophobic church law — this would limit my career trajectory. (It did.) But my conscience insisted I act in solidarity with queer colleagues in same-gender relationships who were being forced into much greater sacrifices. 

Even churches that affirm LGBTQIA+ people can still discriminate. Lindsey says, “I worry about the congregation I serve, which is a real mixed bag even though we’re an open and affirming church. I know that we have some folks that have definitely not done that work and were already being pushed by having a female pastor.” Analyse Triolo, who served as the chaplain of Proclaim, a professional organization for queer clergy in the Lutheran Church, struggled to find a call, “often due to the fact that I was Bi and made a point of telling the congregations I interviewed with so there would be no surprises.” She came out publicly at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly through a photo booth with a hand-written sign proclaiming, “I am Bisexual by God’s Grace!” She “wanted to be out in order to better support others in their struggle with the call process and with navigating being queer and faithful.” 

Even when we are entombed by heterosexism, Jesus can call, “Come out!” just like they did to Lazarus. Reflecting on her time before coming out, Kate Mackereth Fulton shares, “Being in the closet was suffocating me physically and spiritually. There’s no air in there. I was sick for the better part of two years before I came out and am really just now finding some healing.” 

Healing comes from witnessing to truth. Claire was encouraged by a Pádraig Ó Tuama quote paraphrased as, “Truth is beautiful, and there is life in its telling.” Jesus invites us to truth and life. The truth can set us free (John 8:32). 

Allison Caudill embodies this freedom. She came out during her denominational discernment process in order to create a “forcefield” around her life that proclaimed: “I may pass, I may present in a very expected and socially accepted white cis femme way, but I am queer and if that freaks you out, don’t hire me because I’m gonna be me in any role I take on. I’m not going back into the closet to make others comfortable, and I’m going to make it known that God made me this way AND called me this way.” 

It is this type of truth-telling that can become the basis of Christian community. Speaking truth causes our communities to grow in love (Ephesians 4:15-16). In explaining the difference between “belonging” and “fitting in,” Julia Singleton says, “I want to be fully seen and loved for who I am, rather than who people assume I am.” When we tell the truth about ourselves, we give others the opportunity to fully love us for who we are. In this way, truth creates community. 

And queer community is fabulous! Kira celebrates, “Coming out to myself, to my spouse, to my close friends and some of my internet friend-circles was really freeing, and people were so supportive. I’m also in a very LGBTQ+-affirming church, so the people who know are like, ‘One of us!’” Kate echoes, “I prayed hard about it and felt God calling me to come out [and] claim the queer community that had always been mine but that I had been keeping myself from. And that community has been just the biggest gift of my life.” This powerful sense of queer community can be true even when you initially come out in unaffirming contexts. Allison noted, “I lost people and there were some who faded away, but I gained and continue to gain (as I re-come out over and over in my new state/city/parishes) more queer connections when people see the spark of recognition and suddenly feel safer in my presence.” 

Stealthy queers who come out have found that their visibility has a positive impact on other people. Talitha Amadea Aho says, “Less than a year after I came out as bi-pan, my dad was empowered to come out as genderqueer. I was the first person in his life who had come out to him with what he & I are calling ‘a subtle identity.’” Julia calls this “the gift of going first.” She says, “If I come out, I’m helping others who don’t have the straight-assumed privilege we have to come out as well. Which is huge in the church and also in many of our families. I’m doing it for the queer kids!” And Kate testifies, “The day I came out to my congregation, three of our youth also came out to the youth group. Don’t discount that power.” 

Stealthy queers are claiming our power. This power is more than being invisible. It is the power of truth, freedom, and community. It’s the power of breaking binaries and restoring wholeness. When we testify to our own existence, we invite others to explore the fullness of their own identities. This is a gift of God.