My Widest Circle Yet

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I will give myself to it.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

I often reference the above “widening circles” line because I think, and certainly you will too, that it’s very cool and interesting that I’m able to reference old Austro-German poetry (even though I don’t speak a lick of German). I even recently got three widening circles tattooed on my forearm, because I’m desperate, I guess, to appear intellectual.

But these widening circles are significant to me. After over ten years in uniform, I’m stepping into my widest circle by getting out of the Air Force. This was not an easy decision. I’ve met dear friends in the military and seen far reaches of the world. I’ve sung in front of Simon Cowell and flirted with a Spice Girl. I’ve skydived alone five times and flown really tiny planes. I’ve summited Mt. Fuji, played cards in Kuwait, karaoked in Paris, bathed elephants in Cambodia, surfed in Senegal, and danced in Brazil. More importantly, I’ve enjoyed serving my country (mostly) and am proud of what I did. 

I joined when I was only eighteen – an odd choice for a kid who knew every word to Phantom of the Opera and straightened his shoulder-length hair. When I look back on why I joined, I can’t connect with it anymore. Despite the obvious reasons for serving— free school, masculine affirmation, cool new clothes— I thought the military was my chance to become a man, and more specifically, a straight man.

I’ve known I was gay since I was six and coming to terms with it has been a painful process. As a teenager, I spent a lot of nights crying, pressing my nose into the carpet and asking God to heal me. I started to think I’d be better off dead. And so at eighteen, with no change in sight, I decided to join the most masculine institution I could think of, hoping it would change me.

Unsurprisingly, the military was tough on a closeted teenager.  The institution fuels and is fueled by heterosexual norms. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was only repealed in 2011, and like a stale smoke, its scent lingers. The feminine is strongly rejected, even for women. The straight couple is held in high regard: extra pay is offered to those with families, work excusals to those with kids, and deployments and holiday shifts are given to those who are single. Beyond my sexuality, I never felt I could be my fullest self while wearing the uniform. In every military space I inhabited, I was tuning myself to the military key. Sharpening masculinity, flattening identity. This process wore out my strings and sometimes made me forget what key I was in, even when I wasn’t at work. 

In Christmas of 2021, my office threw an ugly Christmas sweater party, which I begrudgingly attended. I donned my most masculine holiday outfit (I’d sooner die than wear an “ugly”  sweater)  and snuck in the back of the fluorescent-lit venue. At these parties, my fifty year old colleagues would typically talk at me about their careers. To them, I was a vessel for their self-aggrandizing advice. They’d say things like, “You should stop dying your hair, only women do that,” or “You should deploy as soon as possible, because once you have a wife and kids it only gets harder.” Hoping to avoid another round of advice from late-career officers with pot bellies and buzzcuts, I sat in the back and ordered a Manhattan, dreaming of an alternate life where I lived in my cocktail’s namesake. A few drinks in, I ended up chatting with the wife of one of my colleagues, who I knew was a devout Christian. We had a pleasant conversation and she offered to introduce me to her daughter, promising that we’d hit it off. I accepted her offer, as well as an invitation to dinner a few weeks later.

I arrived at their house for dinner excited but apprehensive. I wanted to befriend this family, but was scared I’d disappoint them if I didn’t try to date their daughter–a feeling I’d become all too familiar with. After a pleasant meal, we sat on their backyard terrace, sipping hot tea and overlooking the front range of the Rockies. Someone posed the question: “What have you learned about yourself in the last year?” When it came to his turn, their youngest son talked about his journey coming out as gay. Because he came out, his parents had spent the last year reading about the place for LGBTQ people in the Christian church. I was in shock: I didn’t know there was a place for LGBTQ people in church. From an early age, my church had instilled in me that homosexuality was the ultimate shame and would lead to hell. In high school and college, I read every book on anti-gay theology and paid for a Focus on the Family conversion therapist to tell me that with enough self-deprivation, I could rewire my neural pathways to avoid homosexuality altogether. This gave me false hope for a few years that I could make myself straight, but I soon realized that after twenty seven years of total sexual deprivation, those shameful desires were as strong as ever. I developed even more intense patterns of self deprivation and harm, hoping that not only deprivation, but self-punishment would do the trick. But it didn’t. Why wasn’t I changing? Did I not have the faith?

That night at dinner, when it came my turn to answer the question, I felt a weird tug to tell this family about my own sexuality. I stared at the ground and started shivering, explaining that I struggled with my own “unprovoked same-sex attractions” and assured them I was trying to change. I sat and waited for an empty Christian placation about hope for the restoration of my broken sexuality. But instead, something very important happened. The mom hugged me. It felt like the first time I was ever hugged, one of those deep soul-touching hugs where you can feel a heartbeat. It felt like I showed someone a dark and mold-ridden part of me, and let it air out in the sunlight of their affirmation. I drove home that night crying so hard I couldn’t see the road. I had always viewed this part of myself as a deficit; something broken that needed to be made whole. A few months later, the dad of the family would say to me: “We love this very part of you, as it makes you the full Benjamin we know and love.”

I spent every second I could with this family over the next few years, basking in that sunlight. Beyond my sexuality, they also affirmed the scared little boy still inside me who never got the chance to be curious about life. They celebrated my writing and my songs and pushed me to make more, encouraging me to be the fullest self I was created to be. And so, last year, when I was faced with the option to continue with the military or to get out and explore those widening circles, there was no question. They told me to go for it. 

And so now I step into my widest circle. Having just moved to New York. Having just come out to my friends and family (some affirming, some ashamed- fortunate to still love and be loved by all of them). Having committed to being my fullest self. This is it. I want to figure out how to write and sing in ways that dismantle shame for gay youth, especially those in the church. I want to grow out my hair, pierce my ears, and wear excellent clothes. I want to reconnect with that scared and curious little boy who loved Phantom of the Opera. I want to stretch out my creative arms and let them fly in the wind, with the smallest chance I might take off. As it turns out, I’m not just stepping, but running into my widest circle yet.

There are some troubling statistics regarding LGBTQ+ youth today. Young gay kids are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide as their peers.^[1] Even further, in a 2023 national survey the Trevor project found that 41% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year.^[2] These halting statistics should scare you. If you’re a non-affirming Christian, then I beg you to at least consider that the church may have fumbled this one. Christ never used shame (John 8:7), and yet shame was the hinge upon which my faith swung growing up. As Matthew puts it, “If a tree is good, it’s fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, it’s fruit will be bad.”^[3] Shame, exclusion, and suicide are bad fruit. So what is the tree? If you are a non-affirming Christian OR you are just curious about the topic, I recommend the documentary “1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture”, the book “Torn” by Justin Lee, or the podcast “Blue Babies Pink” by B.T. Harman as good starting points. Or just ask me about it, no more shame here!

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^[1] Johns et al., 2019; Johns et al., 2020

^[2] https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/article/facts-about-lgbtq-youth-suicide/

^[3] Matthew 12:33-37 New Living Translation (NLT)