Below is a computer-generated transcript:

How are you doing?

Doing well.

Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself, who you are?

My name is Leah Anne Galliar Ouimet. We may I also just go by Leah.

It's uh, impressive.

Last

name

last name.

It is. So I am 28 years old. grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia. small conservative town. And I recently moved back to Richmond, was living on the West coast for a while. . Never thought I'd come back, but me and my wife found our way back here and I am working a tech job. . So my way with vocation and what I wanna do long term with that, but for now, committing myself to it and, working from home, which is a good way of

life.

That's me in short.

Welcome

to the show.

Thank you.

How about you? Who are you?

Uh,

I'm the wife of Leah. That's how I like to introduce

Yeah.

Uh, I'm Megan I am from San Diego, born and raised, and so I am new to the city of Richmond and the state of Virginia, but enjoying it so far. was my first fall and I'm excited to see the leaves drop.

I too work in tech and from home with our Husky Rogue who's just full of antics and adventure. I am an Engram three definitely use the language of the engram to articulate my experience quite often. So, uh, may make references during the podcast. I'm also working to be any Graham certified, uh, in, in teaching.

And so I really, uh, enjoy that through, uh, the narrative tradition. So, yeah, it's a little bit about me.

You are an agram three.

I heard you talk about this a lot. Yes. Can you explain a little bit what it is?

Yeah. Um, if anyone's familiar with the Myers Briggs, I like to think of that one as. Descriptive of how we function in the world. So it's a lot more about, the types of things that we do in our behaviors.

And so in comparison to that, the engram, instead of answering the question of how is more of the question of why and kind of where our motives come from and kind of asking that deeper question of what's behind our behaviors. and I find that really helpful for some of the things that we do because so often we can behave in very similar ways, but have very different motivations for doing that.

And I think it's important to get to the root of it.

So in Agram three, what does that entail?

Yeah. Well, uh, the end angiogram three, the, the kind of why behind what we do is we wanna be okay through our achievements and how we are seen by other people. And our image is very important. And so, um, we try to bring attention to our good qualities and our successes and really avoid our failures.

And so navigating through life, really trying to, appear in the best light and, often very concerned with vanity, wanting to, Come across in a way that will be received well. and often in that pursuit, can really rob themselves of being genuine and being true and often putting on a lot of false mass.

That's pretty big, but it's also cool that you can say it about yourself.

you know, it's all part of the work.

How about you? what an agram Are you, Leah?

I am an Engram one.

What, what does that mean?

I used to actually identify with an Engram four, and so the four is very dear and close to my heart, but now definitely feel more so agram one-ish, but it really just depends on my season of life, the stressors, things like that.

I would say Agram one is, you know, referred to as a perfectionist or the reformer. I definitely associate more with that word perfectionist, just because that's, Kind of the atmosphere I grew up in. Everything had to be done the right way. There was always a right and a wrong, very black and white thinking.

Yeah.

And so that's how I oriented my life really. And viewed situations, people, circumstances, you name it all through a filter of how can this be done the right way? And if someone wasn't doing it the right way, I almost viewed it as inferior. And so there's just this constant judgment of not only others, but yourself too.

Because you're always just judging yourself based on what could I have done better? How could I have been better and so forth. And then, you know, Enio Grand four. I still very much relate to that in the sense of like, no one understands me. No one understands how I'm feeling or what I'm going through. You almost feel kind of like a lone island sometimes.

And I do feel that way just mentally, a lot of times, less so in my life, I guess. Like I don't feel alone necessarily, but I do feel alone in kind of my mental processes of things or kind of what I spend my time thinking about.

I'm, I'm an eight, as you guys know, by now. Which I think just means that I'm rude, but I'm direct. But I have a lot of those things too. Like what you said of the number one, I am very intolerant of lazy thinking. If people cannot figure things out, I just get frustrated.

But I also hear to Agram four that I feel misunderstood.

I think, the feelings that we have like are often felt by each other, right? Like, I think that isolating feelings to a type, I think is dangerous because we, we share so many feelings, right? And so I think it's really paying attention to the dominant style that kind of motivates your life.

I think we all share to some degree that feeling of being misunderstood and feeling alone.

I remember that. I did one of those divergent tests, like from the book. Yeah.

And

guess what came out? Candor came out

for me Yeah.

Like the most boring

it not boring,

I was like, yes. I'm perhaps also divergent. No candor. You love justice and you mostly speak truth. You know when a police officer pulls me over and they say, Do you know why I pulled you over? I'm like, Yeah, because I ignored a stop

sign.

And then it's awkward because I, I cannot lie. Why would I lie there?

There's no benefit to me lying at that point.

Yeah. See my three is all about deception,

Oh, oh, I

Yeah You that appearing in the best light. It's not gonna happen if we admit our mistakes.

So that's the battle and that's the work you know, leaning into the discomfort of being seen in

those

moments of, you know, being caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

So I invited you guys over because I think you have a pretty interesting story. Like I recognize a lot being queer and coming out later in life and thinking, how does this work? Can you tell me a little bit how it was growing up and how it is that you now know, Oh no. I definitely am queer. But that you could also say with certainty four years ago, Oh no, I totally wasn't queer. How did that work?

Yeah, that's a great question. I grew up in a pastor's home. My dad was a pastor, and it was a very just evangelical conservative atmosphere. So the discussion around anything queer, the possibility of any of my parents', kids, my siblings being queer or myself, was just outta the question.

it was just never something that was freely talked about, but I would say around the age of 14. , I just sensed that there was something different about the connection that I had with women and just that energy that I would feel around them, not even turning it sexual or anything, just, just a different energy, a different feel, good vibe.

Right. And I was curious about it, and I didn't act upon that curiosity until 16. And so it was just kind of like a, huh, I wonder But that was never a wondering with anybody or in discussion with a community of people. I kept it to myself because again, that was considered basically like the worst sin next to getting pregnant out of wedlock.

And so either one was, was terrible. and then, yeah, around 16. I just, that, that curiosity kept growing. I would say from the age of 14 and I struggled a lot with just everything from self-harm to eating disorders to, you name it, just over drinking and things like that. Um, and it was, I don't know if I would say I did all those things out of this, like hidden queerness, but I do think there was just so much tension that I was holding inside that I couldn't release or talk about that I just used those, you know, methods as a way to get out that, that tension that I was feeling inside and the things that I couldn't talk about.

So at 16 I was just kind of like, you know, screw this, I'm gonna pretty much live a double life. Like do the whole church thing, good kid

thing Mm-hmm.

don't tell anybody about it, but.

Start dating women. and so I did, yeah, I, I went on the online dating sites cuz there's obviously no one that was eligible in my spaces that I was in.

And, you know, I entered college at a young age, 16, so I was exposed to a lot of things before that. I was homeschooled all my life. So there was just this like bubble that I was living in for most of my life. And then, you know, 16 boom, I'm around a lot of people exposed to a lot of things and I just went for it, you know, I was just kind of like, All right, let's do this.

I, I can't,

I

can't keep all of this inside anymore. I have to find a release for it. And I have to discover this part of myself that has been left dormant for a long time. But I never told anybody. I, you know, I had, gosh, four or five best friends that are still my closest dearest friends to this day who saw me, literally had known me ever since I was in diapers.

And it took me four or five years to tell them to. And so you can just imagine like the deep, deep shame that was associated with just me identifying as someone that may be queer.

and so it was just a very long journey of discovering myself and coming to terms with it, but also never feeling like this was something that I could live into.

And so there was this, going back to this whole mental models thing, is I just judged everyone that kind of gave in to this. Fleshly passion or this fleshly desire because even though I was technically giving into it myself, I would always repent and go back to Jesus and ask for his forgiveness, right?

And just have this whole cycle repeat itself over and over again. But I was always better than those that were out in queer because I was not out yet. And I was constantly asking for forgiveness.

Hmm.

And it, it honestly made me feel closer to God because it felt like we're in this together. And so there's been this, I think, breaking of false intimacy, I guess you could say, from my relationship with God Now, it's, it's a hard thing to navigate post me coming out because so much of my, relationship was around my struggle and my lack of, uh, embracing it.

And so me and God were in it together, fighting it together.

it together Yeah

So,

First of all, I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. That sounds, super hard. you said something about the shame that you felt. Where do you think that shame came from?

Oh, it came from religion. It came from the construct of God that I was taught to believe. Um, came from my parents, my community.

I mean, everyone in my life I don't think knew that they were contributing to that shame, Right? They wouldn't put those words around it. But the entire atmosphere was built for this almost shame mindset and model because I can never live up right, let alone I come out as queer. Like now, you could never, you could never measure up.

So

your up that's

pretty intense. Was your story similar or was it completely different?

Megan?

I think dissimilar to Leah, I don't think I've ever felt like I had a secret, that I was hiding in the way that Leah was. And, You know, I, I too was raised in a, you know, evangelical Christian conservative space, but, the way that I think that I coped with developing and, you know, the time that most people are starting to notice crushes, I didn't feel anything at all.

I think it was just completely repressed. because it wasn't an option. It wasn't something I could explore. And so while I had really close friendships, that's all they were for me. And I, uh, valued them to, a really great degree to the point where now I'm like, Hmm, maybe I could have clued in a bit earlier.

But, yeah, I do think that there was such a part of me that I, you know, as a three, right, as an any gram three, I was so invested in being. Good being seen by everyone as this like good Christian girl. And I was, I was a worship leader. I went to Christian college and was doing all these things and, and volunteering and, did missions and all of these things that, was getting me everywhere I wanted to be that, like to, even explore or.

Kind of asked those questions wrist shattering, everything that I had built for myself. so I think there was a big part of me like in kind of repressing my sexuality that felt like, kind of holy in a way that I didn't, you know, I wasn't boy crazy like the other girls at Youth group. And I know there was a period where I wondered if I might be asexual because, you know, I, I just didn't feel that way that they all described and, there wasn't any room to imagine experiencing that way for the same gender.

so that's like a big part of how that kind of showed up in my growing up. And so, I had came.

quite a bit later, you know, maybe five years ago. And at that time I immediately found a really unique community that was all kind of coming out together in conservative church. And so we were all very passionately side B.

And so, kind of for any of your listeners, you might like not understand that term. side B is like, a Christian perspective of, I'm acknowledging my orientation, rather than like saying, Oh, I, you can't be gay cuz God wouldn't make someone gay. and you need to just accept yourself as a straight person, but rather acknowledge that, you know, I, my experience is queer and a lesbian.

but in that I'm gonna hold myself to the behavior, of maybe traditional sexual ethics. Huh. And so, We were all together in that in a way where it was like, We identify as queer Christians, and we're all gonna just be celibate and, Refrain from, any of our sexual urges cuz that's not what God wants for us.

And so it was a lot of very, sad listening to Julian Baker on repeat, together, And, it was in that, that we all started asking this question of like, okay, if this is what we're gonna do, this is hard. Yeah, this is really hard. What's being asked of us? And also noticing ways that the church really fails, folks who do identify as side B and hold to that belief system because, you know, there's all of these, programs for.

Marriage retreats and the singles group is really to like get people together. And so people who, you know, if they feel called the celibacy or, hold to a side B perspective, there isn't a lot of space to feel supported. What are you gonna do for holidays? What are you, who's gonna pick you up from the airport if like, this is your lifestyle?

And so starting to notice some of those things and, kind of asking this question of, okay, if we're gonna live our lives like this to this code, we need to really understand the book that's telling us to do this. And so collectively, as, as a group, we all started kind of asking a lot of questions of the text and looking at scripture and the way that, we interpret the Bible.

And at that time I also returned, to Biola where I went for graduate school, for seminary. Cuz I was like, I'm, I'm gonna learn how to understand

this

book . it was in that where I started realizing like, I thought I was gonna get surety going back to school of like, I thought I was gonna go back and I was be like, Okay, I know how to understand this now.

but what I found was that it was way more complicated than I would've thought possible. And there's so many different interpretations to understand just one verse, let alone all of scripture. it was kind of that real realization that made me start to deconstruct and, uh, think about my sexuality in a new way.

She,

that's

two completely different stories.

Yeah

But

similar in a way that there's some sort of like, I'm not gonna acknowledge who I am sexually attracted to, or who I am as a person.

Right. Leah, did you also feel shame in there, or was it strictly. You had a certain belief that you cannot be queer and therefore I will acknowledge that I'm queer, but I'm gonna be, celibate.

Yeah. I think there's a degree of shame. I like, I remember even just overhearing my parents casually referencing the gays and even just using phrasing like that made me digest that group of people in a certain light, right? And you know, so I think there were a lot of little things like that where it really formed that kind of off limitness of being able to even explore and wonder.

And I think to this day I kind of feel really curious about if I. could go back and feel a lot more permission to have explored. Yeah. How much of like becoming myself could I have done a long time

ago? Yeah

Um, and so I think like there's a part of me that grieves for that still.

Wow. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry also for you that you had to go through that.

So now you're married?

To a woman?

What happened in your brain?

Yeah, it's a great question and I've, I've been asked this a question like this, you know, a version of this several times, and there's this kind of a story that comes to mind, which is, I think there, I reached a point when in kind of grappling with scriptures, grappling with many different voices telling me what not to listen to, what to listen to, and calling me to repentance.

And even just in my searching, even when I hadn't done anything, that I reached a point where I was just so anxious. So anxious, just crippling anxiety, like feeling just at this brink of like, I'm not sure what I think about all of these things. And in that point, like starting to click, like I just don't know if.

If I actually believe or hold to these things, I would've held my whole life. And what does that mean? It was more the follow up, more than anything that just felt, um, that kept me paralyzed at this place of indecision, even though I could feel in myself like this un unraveling of, you know, I'm just not sure that these things sit with me in the same way

that

they did before.

And so in that place of anxiety, I kind of really just was calling out to God and got this picture of, you know, Jesus as my good shepherd. And if I'm this wandering sheep and I have my eyes fixed on Jesus, I have to trust that. He's gonna use his winnowing fork and, and guide me home. And so it was almost this like leap of faith with that picture of just like, All right, I'm gonna take this step and I'm just gonna have to trust in that step that like these things that feel unraveling will either come together in the way that they were meant to be or continue unraveling.

And this is my news path. This is my new journey of an unraveling faith. And really just trusting that Jesus would make it clear to me one way or the other, whether by just like the continued, Yep, this still doesn't make sense, , and I'm just gonna lean into this, this step in this direction of ultimately Leah and, and marrying her.

or I would, you know, it would make sense to me. and I would come back to my old belief system.

I think there was like a point too where I was feeling like very frustrated because at. Point I really wanted to be the next Beth Moore and I wanted to write Christian books on prayer and all of these different topics. And I remember someone telling me, you know, very earnestly and you know, with love for me that like no one's going to buy those books if I'm openly queer, even if I'm side B and not acting in my, you know, uh, attraction that like the books that they would wanna buy from me would be about how I'm celibate. that was like such a blow to me of like, my value to the Evangelical Christian community as an openly queer and celibate person at the time was only be in my celibacy.

How is that for you, Leah?

Yeah. It felt like a very, very, very long journey. and I never in a million years would've thought that I'd get to the place of peace where I could marry a woman. And so it's still a little bit surreal, to be honest. And I would say it took many, many, many dark nights of the soul and many hitting rock bottoms in order to get here.

It was a culmination of a lot of things, but I do think that those really dark nights, maybe for lack of a better word, like helped me get here, um, because I was just desperate for an answer. I was desperate for something better. And so I knew that it wasn't working. You know, you can only do that for so long and you either end up dead or

you find a new way.

And so, It's kind of how it was gonna be for me. And so I was like, I gotta find a new way. And I just was like, You know what, this, this girl Megan, she's pretty incredible. Mm-hmm. .

And I had always told myself that if I ever did come to that place of acceptance, she would be that person who I would wanna give it a shot with.

And so it came after, you know, again, one of those, really surfacey relationships. And I was like, I want something deeper, you know? But I was just giving myself scraps.

and I just finally was like, Okay, I'm gonna come out. I'd already been out at that point, to be honest, but it was again, like the wording of, Oh, I'm struggling with my sexuality.

All the christianes type of words that you use. And so there was a definite shift when I started dating Megan. You know, I came out to my family in more of an accepting way of just saying, Hey, this is my girlfriend. I had never openly said, that I was dating anybody. being very public about it was crazy for me.

Hmm.

it was really just like, Okay, I'm gonna give this a shot. I have no idea if I'm gonna feel peace. I have no idea. But up until this point, what I've been doing isn't working. Yeah. And so it, it took a lot of that just like trying it out. and feeling it in my own body, in my own mind. But from the point of us starting dating to becoming like at peace in myself was probably two, three years.

and so it's a very, it's a very recent thing, even though I've been out, I guess to myself for quite a while, actually feeling peace within myself is only really in the past year or so. And I would say the thing that kind of tipped it over the edge was probably in 2020 when I feel like for the first time I just kind of woke up to world and how, terrible Christians were, and not all of them, obviously, I don't wanna, you know, Put everyone in that same bucket.

But there was just something with, you know, um, just all the shootings and, just, just all that was happening in our world, especially with politically wise. And I just saw like these people around me whom I listened to all my life just start behaving in a way that felt very not like Jesus. And I was like, I don't wanna identify myself with this way of Christianity.

You know? And they weren't necessarily, acting in a way related to, you know, queer issues or anything like that. But it was so much more than that. It was so much bigger. Right. And I just started seeing cracks in the way that I was taught. And just got to a place where I feel at peace now that even if I'm wrong, that like there's enough love to go around and that makes me so happy. Like it, it brings me so much peace. And just knowing that. I'm good, I'm covered. God's gonna love me at the end of the day, even if we're getting all of this wrong.

That's

Like that's the best. That's, that's who I wanna serve, and that's who I wanna dedicate my life to.

do. That's such a huge mental model shift for, for the entire world to hear if you ask me, because this is not a salvation issue, right

yeah. To your point real quick, I, I do feel like people react in such a, almost a violent way because there is such fear that it is a salvation issue and I think coming to the point where I don't believe that anymore takes such a load off and leads to a much happier life.

Does being an affirming church help find that happiness?

I think so because, there's so much of being a person of faith where. there's common language just in, in the things that we value and, and being able to kind of speak about things, in that sense, but then also to have queerness together.

I think sometimes I've felt too Christian for the queer community and queer for the Christian community. So sometimes trying to find a community that shares both, is rare but precious. And so having an affirming church that kind of gathers that niche is refreshing.

What would you say to. The millions of young Leah out there,

I would say try to be a little bit easier on yourself.

I would say almost a sense of like, life is too short and I truly believe that. I know it's such a cliche, kind of life is so short, blah, blah, blah. But.

it's so short that it's like not worth it to like beat yourself up so

much Especially around things that I now believe are uncontrollable and just beautiful parts of your personality that need to be expressed.

And there's no one right way to be. I'm still learning that myself, but just this take a load off like life is already hard enough, Don't add unnecessary burdens to yourself. And that is so much easier said than done. And I think a major thing that has helped me be able to like say that and try to live into it is surrounding myself with amazing people like my wife, my friends, who just affirm who you are, community makes the absolute difference.

I think one thing that Leah said that I think is really important to flag too is like the piece of the beating yourself up. it takes up so much mental, emotional

space and I think even just, you know, being someone who loved Leah during a time where she was.

beating

herself up and, and, and really just, it took up all this space just to try to, you know, deny her sexuality right. And,

and to try to you know, be in the fight, right. To, to use that terminology and to struggle and wrestle with her sexuality. That there wasn't anything left to kind of give to the world or to offer like, everything, every ounce of her was going into, the, the fight.

And so I think like that was something that really stood out to me as I was navigating my own sexuality too, is just that we weren't meant to not have anything

left over. if this is a fight that like God wants me to fight, then I should have strengthened then some to be able to give good things to the, this planet and, and other people.

And I have nothing left if all of my energy is going into repressing my identity.

Is that what you would say to the millions of Megans out there?

Millions of Megans. You heard it here first.

That's right As you know, I have millions of listeners that after my thousands of guests,

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

I feel like.

Can fill another podcast up with all the questions that I have. Like, . I can talk with you guys forever and that's why I love you guys so much. Thanks for making me

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for making me feel this way. And thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really appreciate

You're

welcome. Thanks for having us. Happy to

be here. We love you.

is a computer generated transcript