Religious, cultural backgrounds influence students’ sexual identities – The Columbia Chronicle

MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM

Students from a strict religious or cultural background may face both freedom and internal conflict when exploring their sexuality or identity if these topics are not discussed at home.

Sometimes they just need a place to talk.

Several community centers in Chicago provide that safe space to deal with the mental and physical impact of confronting their background while creating their own definition of who they are.

What they did:

Formerly known as Horizons Community Services, the Center on Halsted first opened in 1973 in Chicago and is now the largest LGBTQ+ social services agency in the Midwest. According to Kathryn Brown, an advocate for the Anti-Violence Project and the center’s behavioral health units, a variety of resources are offered, including a religious trauma group that Brown leads.

“We center everything around the lens of gender expression, sexuality and how they can be influenced or affected,” Brown said.

They said the support group serves as a space for community members who have endured religious trauma. Members can talk about their experiences and learn how it has affected their mental health, gender and sexual identity.

Religious trauma is defined as a religious experience that has been stressful, humiliating, dangerous, offensive, or harmful.

The support of community donations and grants allows the center to continue providing other resources that are open every day. With a primary goal of providing accessible mental health support for LGBTQ+ individuals, they also offer other types of therapy groups, youth and family services, training for students wanting to become therapists, and more.

“What sets us apart is offering accessible and comprehensive mental health care,” they say.

The center expanded its services to the South Side and opened The Center on Cottage Grove in 2022, along with a youth and family services program.

What they found:

According to Brown, the impact of religious trauma can be divided into four main categories: cognitive, emotional, physical and social. Across the board, symptoms such as anxiety, depression, identity confusion, fear, excessive shame and guilt are seen among those who come to the center for help.

“Of course, that does not mean that this is all due to religion,” they said. “There are many other factors at play, but these are some of the most common ones that we see talked about, especially in the religious trauma group.”

According to the numbers:

According to their fact sheet, their $7.1 million in revenue has allowed them to continue providing services to support the center’s visitors, such as the 1,796 customers who have used behavioral health services.

These services include therapy sessions for LGBTQ+ families, relationships and individuals community, along with the religious trauma group.

Between the lines:

To give community members the opportunity to have their voices heard, The Center on Halsted hosts events such as Community Listening Session, Gay Men’s Book Club and ‘The L Lounge’, a social support group for lesbians and queers whose members include are cisgender, transgender and gay men. non-binary women. They are able to build community and gain a safe space to come out and be themselves.

They also offer resources such as HIV/AIDS and STD testing, and LGBTQ+ affirming youth groups. The center is open to the public and all ages every day from 8am to 9pm.

What students say:

After McKay Davis, a marketing senior, came out as bisexual at age 15, she saw her mother walk out of the room without saying a word. Davis went to find her mother in the living room to continue the conversation, but found that her mother did not understand.

According to Davis, her mother said it would be easier if she could just choose between being gay, or even easier, being straight.

Because the cultural and religious backgrounds of Columbia students continue to influence their identities today, many are taking the initiative to challenge the norms and create their own definitions of what it means to be connected to their roots.

Although Davis described the moment as “heartbreaking,” she appreciates how far her family has come to accept her identity and understand their perspective, coming from a Japanese and Polish Catholic background. In Davis’ experience, coming from an immigrant family influences the freedom to talk about sexuality and gender identity at home.

“I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me, ‘You don’t have to hide; go home and tell your family, use the pronouns you feel most comfortable with,” she said. “If they don’t understand that, it would break a lot of my family’s heart if I said that.”

Because talk about sexual identity is kept to a minimum at home, a similar attitude was adopted toward sex education, Davis said.

“My mother was actually a very rare sight,” she said. “We didn’t take sex ed, we went to a private Catholic school, so no one knew and was in complete ignorance.”

Sumana Syed, a film and television major, also found herself in the dark as she learned to adapt to the changes of puberty.

Syed, president of the Muslim Student Association, said her grandmother passed on cultural and religious practices by telling her that a woman’s menstruation should not be discussed, especially with the men in the family.

“I remember the first time my mom and my sister were in town, I got my period and needed sanitary pads,” Syed said. “But I was young and I couldn’t just go get them myself, so I just had to tell my dad… I remember it was so nerve-wracking for me to work up the courage to tell him, but eventually, I was like, that was something I had to do for me.

While Islam has religious practices forbidding premarital sex, rules for who women and men can marry, and gender roles within marriage, Syed empathizes with Muslims of different identities who are stigmatized for practicing outside the norms.

“Ultimately, Muslims need to be open to people of all backgrounds wanting to be in the sun; it doesn’t matter if you are part of the LGBTQ+ community, if you are not Arab or not Indian, everyone should be welcome,” Syed said.

Creating a personal definition of a relationship with one’s own religion, even if it means breaking the norm, is all too familiar for William Molina, a freshman film and television major.

After a few years of fearing rejection from his Mexican Catholic family and those in his church, Molina came out to his parents as gay during his sophomore year of high school. Although he has since faced some judgment within his church, he has gained the confidence to attend Mass comfortably in his own skin, and has accepted to learn the word of God alongside his peers, with the support of his parents.

“There are a lot of tensions when it comes to being gay in the Catholic community,” he said. “Every time I go to church with nails or makeup on, I get strange looks, or people ask me, ‘Why do you still believe in this and follow these things?’ But God, it’s just me and him. And it’s my personal choice, so I shouldn’t be influenced by what anyone else thinks.

Copy edited by Vanessa Orozco

Summary in Spanish

Past crises, culture and religion influence sexual and sexual identity, for many young people who are independent. El Centro in Halsted offers services for young people and families, entrenamiento for students offering their therapies and groups for the LGBTQ+ community. Kathryn Brown, an anti-violence project development clinic and a spiritual leadership department at the center, leads a religious trauma group. The group is one of the LGBTQ+ communities that suffer from fear, identity confusion, excessive resentment for being our own son, and the norms of their religion and culture. The use of this method is based on the years of Columbia studies experimenting with creating their own definitions that are meaningful for connecting to our systems.

Summary in Spanish by Sofía Oyarzún

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