Sian: Coming out and leaving a high-control religion – Part 2: Coming out to friends

In this three-part series, Sian shares her personal experience of growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness in North Wales, coming to understand her sexuality, and ultimately leaving her religion. This is Sian’s own story and reflects her experiences and perspective.

My name is Sian. I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness in North Wales. I am the fifth of six

children in a devout Jehovah’s Witness family. Early on in my life, I knew I was different. At that young age, I didn’t yet understand how or why, but little did I know it was going to change the trajectory of my life. This is my story of coming out, leaving my religion and how that was the best decision I ever made. It does get better!

Click here to read part 1.

At 17, I got my driving licence. Freedom! Freedom from the little town that I lived in! I found a women’s football team and started to play on Sundays after the meeting. It was a long drive from the meeting to the matches, often down in mid Wales. I didn’t care. It quickly became my favourite thing in the world. I had always wanted to be a part of a team but had not been allowed, as this meant socialising with people outside of the religion. The people not in the religion were referred to as ‘worldly people’.

I had also started working, at an outdoor centre. This involved some evening and weekend work which clashed with our meeting times. This was a big cause of friction between me and my parents. They would never have taken jobs that clashed with the meetings and could not understand why I had. My independence grew, I was making friends at work, at football, my priorities were clearly shifting. This worried my parents and the Elders and my friends within the congregation. I felt so much pressure from every angle to carry on attending meetings and taking a full part in the religion, but I knew that I didn’t want to do that. I just wanted to enjoy my life.

At 22, I started working as a Sport Development officer. One of the women that I worked with was a lesbian. This was the first time I had knowingly spent time with someone from the LGBTQ+ community. She knew about my religion, and I had been told that she was a lesbian but I wasn’t sure if I believed it.

I don’t remember how the conversation came about, but over lunch one day she told me that she was a lesbian followed with the words – ‘you have to hate me now don’t you’. She said that because she knew of my religion. My stomach sank. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I fought back tears and held my voice together. I assured her that I did not hate her. I told her that I thought she was brave. In that moment, the only person I hated was myself. Those words were pivotal for me. I knew that I never wanted someone to feel like that about me because of religion again. But I was stuck. There was no way out. I wasn’t earning enough money to leave my parents’ house. I had to keep going, keep pretending, keep the peace at home.

At work, I was thriving. I loved working with children, I was good at it! I had always wanted to be a teacher, so I decided to apply for University. I was 23 so a bit older, but determined not to let this stop me. My plans were halted when I realised that I did not have enough UCAS points to get into uni. I had made a half-hearted effort at completing my A-Levels when I was at school. I knew that I wouldn’t be allowed to go to University, even though I wanted to, because my religion taught that Uni was all about sex and drugs and that it was a corrupting influence. When I had suggested it, the idea had quickly been dismissed. I resat some of my A-Levels and when I was offered a place at University, I broke the news to my parents. This was met with surprise and some disbelief. So I agreed to live at home whilst studying and that during the long summers I would Pioneer. Needless to say, I did not hold up my end of the bargain.

University was truly one of the best experiences of my life. I met fantastic friends who quickly became a support system. I joined a local rugby team as well as the university rugby team and this became my new team sport.

Playing rugby introduced me to a group of people where the LGBTQ+ community were accepted. This was the first time that I had been around people that held these views so openly. In our religion we had been taught that ‘worldly’ people (anyone that wasn’t a JW) were controlled by Satan. We were taught that homosexuality was a sin. It was abhorrent. Detestable to Jehovah. These were the views of every close friend I had ever had, and now, my world was being turned upside down. The women on my team were amazing, vibrant, full of personality, strong, athletic. Very quickly, I fell head over heels for one of the women. This was beginning of a very dark and difficult period of my life.

As often happens with first loves, it ended in heart break before it had even really begun. The problem was, I had only just realised myself that I was gay. I hadn’t told a soul other than that one woman who was now out of the picture. I couldn’t tell my family or my friends in the religion. I couldn’t tell my friends at uni or work in case the information got back to my family. “Homosexuality is a sin.” If they found out, I would be shunned by my whole family, my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. By my congregation. By all the close friends I had grown up with. So I didn’t say anything. I held it deep inside. The pain was unbearable and consumed my every thought. Heartbreak had hit me hard and I was all alone feeling like I was choking.

One evening that summer, I had found myself having a few drinks with work colleagues. Under the influence of alcohol I let my guard down. It all came gushing out. I poured my heart out to my friend through uncontrollable tears. I told her all about my heartbreak, my loneliness, the darkness, my fear of losing everyone and everything. I had told all of this to a ‘worldly’ person. Someone that I had always been taught to never trust. She held me. Looked after me. Batted off questions from concerned passers by. She took me home. She stayed with me all night and made me promise not to do anything stupid. She promised to keep my secret. Even though she worked with my sister for many years, she never told her. She waited for me to be ready. Words will never be able to express to her how important she has been to me.

After that, I slowly began trusting my friends at university and work with my ‘big’ secret. Making sure to explain carefully how important it was that it couldn’t get back to my family and congregation. I had expected people to be surprised at my coming out, but it turned out that there was very little surprise. The person that was most surprised was myself. Everyone was understanding of my situation and offered support in any way they could.

Click here to read part 3.

Sian found support through Faith to Faithless, a group supporting those leaving high-control religious environments with a phoneline and online groups.  If you have been affected by the content of this story, you can take a look at Faith to Faithless and the resources on our support page.