Tag: religion | A Banana Peeled

Tag Archives: religion

The vastness of the universe

Posted on June 9, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I grew up fundie evangelical Christian. I was told repeatedly that I would go to hell for having sex. And other things, but that was the biggie when I was a teenager. My youth pastor made it very clear how big a sin premarital sex was. I remember he once said that it was better to not even kiss because it could lead to sex. Which, even at the age of thirteen, I knew was ludicrous. Or rather, I knew that there were so many steps between kissing and sex. He was a piece of work in many ways, and this was one of them. I never really believed in the Christian God, but I spent a large chunk of my childhood desperately wanting to believe. And thinking something was wrong with me because I didn’t.

I used to pray at night that God would make me a boy because I hated being so restricted as a girl. Let me be clear. I don’t feel like a man. I know I’m not a man. I don’t actually want to be a man–and I never did. I just did not want to be a girl/woman because of all the things I was not supposed to do. Top of the list was climbing trees at the age of eight. Running around and shouting in glee are two other. Sitting with my legs open in yet another. Not ever having to wear a dress is at the top of the list, too.

I would pray earnestly for God to change my gender, and I was crushed every morning when he hadn’t. It must have been because I hadn’t prayed hard enough! That was a trope pushed hard in my church, too. If God didn’t do what you requested, it was because you didn’t have enough faith/didn’t pray hard enough.

I had sex for the first time when I was twenty and that was also when I lost my religion. Or rather, when the wool fell from my eyes. Because, you see, the thing that I had been warned against my entire life, that was classified as the very worst thing I could do and would send me to hell for infinity, was one of the best feelings I ever had in my life. I wanted to do it over and over again until I was rubbed raw.

Once I realized how I’d been lied to, there was no going back. I started questioning everything else I’d been taught and the chips went flying everywhere. See, that’s the problem with perpetuating a lie at the core of your religion. Once that gets exposed, it’s impossible to make up for it. This was emphasized so much when I was in church, there was no way they could hand wave it away.

The word for today is apathetic

Posted on September 21, 2020 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I’ve been thinking about gender lately for obvious reasons (it’s in the societal zeitgeist at the moment), and where it ends for me personally is the same place it ends for me on many issues. A massive shrug, a loss of interest, and a sense of frustration because nothing quite gets to the heart of matter.

I’ve done the same thing with religion (not a theist or an atheist, uneasily call myself an agnostic), sexuality (not gay or straight, reluctantly labeled myself bi), and to a lesser extent, ethnicity/nationality (not Taiwanese and not American, so I guess Taiwanese American).

Now, it’s gender. Here’s my thought process on gender. I’ve always felt like I use woman by default because it was my gender at birth. I hated it when I was a kid because I was told there were so many things girls weren’t allowed to do. Climb trees, for example. I used to pray to a god I didn’t believe in that He (yes, a He, of course) would turn me into a boy as I sleep. I also prayed He’d give me blond hair, which was the result of being an Asian kid in a white suburb of Minnesota in the ’70s.

I don’t want to be/think I’m a man. I want to make that clear up front. My issues with ‘woman’ are more because of the societal expectations than the actual equipment. I mean, I don’t love my boobs (way too big and distracting), but I don’t hate them, either. They’re just there. I accept them much like I accept my legs. I mean, I love boobs in general, but I’m indifferent towards mine. I do find it amusing how much attention they used to get (alternating with annoyed), but I’m meh towards them on the daily.

I used to pride myself on messing up gender expectations. I’ve lesbians inform me that they didn’t know where to put me on the butch/femme spectrum (yes, I’m that old), which always made me happy. I’m not androgynous but more a mishmash of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ traits. Physically, I look like a woman. Long hair past my ass, big boobs, wide hips, etc. Yes, I’m been told I have good birthing hips. That always made me laugh heartily because I knew from my early twenties that I most emphatically did not want children. Vocally, I sound like a man. I get called sir/mister on the phone all the time. The advice from my father when i was fifteen on how to get a boyfriend was to raise my voice a few registers and let them beat me in games/sports/fix my car/whatever. I am inordinately proud of myself for retorting that I’d rather be single than do all that bullshit which had no effect on my father (he’s a narcissist), but at least I stood up for myself.