| Original Full Text | [a]Memoirs of Impossible Identities: Exploring Biographical Narratives of Gay Jehovah’s Witnesses[b]Abstract:This article offers a critical examination of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ positionality on homosexuality. After making the case for engaging with memoir literature, the article analyses two narratives that depict the experiences of gay Jehovah’s Witnesses: Paul Mendez’s Rainbow Milk (Dialogue Books, 2020) and Daniel Allen Cox’s I Felt The End Before It Came (Viking, 2023). The critical discussion of narratives and meta-narratives interrogate the social world behind the Witnesses, as well as the relationships between the enactment of their beliefs in relation to LGBTQ+ identities. The resultant thematic analysis explores the following issues: disfellowshipping, identity negotiation, and sex work and education. Keywords: Jehovah’s Witnesses; homosexuality; ex-member; memoir; identity. [cMemoirs of Impossible Identities: Exploring Biographical Narratives of Gay Jehovah’s WitnessesIntroductionIn recent years, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have caught the attention of the mainstream media. The film, Apostasy (2017, BBC Films), explores a number of issues that result from the indoctrination and authoritarian teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. A number of biographies from ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses have been published, including Kyria Abrahams’ I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed (2010, Touchstone), Amber Scorah’s Leaving the Witnesses (2020, Penguin), and Ali Millar’s The Last Days (2022, Penguin). As Jehovah’s Witness teachings stress their strict separation from the secular world, these public outputs can bring unwanted attention. These portrayals of the Jehovah’s Witnesses pique the interest and curiosity of those outside the community because they offer glimpses into the distinctive social world of this religious organisation. Jehovah’s Witnesses have a strict attitude towards homosexuality[endnoteRef:1]. In this article, I examine Witness doctrine and ex-member memoir in relation to homosexuality, using sociological, psychological and religious studies perspectives. I critique the dominant rejection of ex-member testimony and memoir inside the Jehovah’s Witnesses, that worryingly seems to have permeated the critical academic study of the Jehovah’s Witnesses too. After making the case for engaging with memoir literature, I offer a critical examination of extracts from two narrative accounts that depict the experiences of gay Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are Paul Mendez’s Rainbow Milk (Dialogue Books, 2020) and Daniel Allen Cox’s I Felt The End Before It Came (Viking, 2023).[endnoteRef:2] My deconstruction of the narratives and meta-narratives serve to interrogate the social world behind the Witnesses, as well as the relationships between the enactment of these beliefs and sexuality. The resultant thematic analysis explores the following issues: disfellowshipping, identity negotiation, and sex work and education.[endnoteRef:3] [1: It is interesting to note how religious institutions often retain the term “homosexuality” in articulating their positional statements, when society more broadly uses the term LGBTQ+. The term therefore denotes a reductionist, archaic and conservative framework for encapsulating non-heterosexuality, which contrasts with LGBTQ+, a more popular, inclusive umbrella term that captures the diverse ways people define themselves.] [2: Rainbow Milk is a semi-autobiographical fiction, as Mendez draws on his own experiences but ultimately the product is a fictionalised account. My choice of texts were to ensure engagement with full length accounts. Lesbian, trans and genderqueer experiences of the Jehovah’s Witnesses remain scarce in memoir literature. Pamela Godfree (1999) ‘A Falling From Grace’ offers a very short memoir narrative from a lesbian ex-Jehovah’s Witness (4 pages); Lee Jay recounts being raised as Jehovah’s Witness in Trans Boomer: A Memoir of My Journey from Female to Male (Biblio Publishing, 2015).] [3: A source of support for LGBTQ+ people navigating or exiting the Jehovah’s Witnesses can be found through the organization ‘A Common Bond’. Available here: http://gayxjw.org/support ] As a religious organisation that has received little critical attention in the study of sexualities[endnoteRef:4], it behoves me to sketch out a few basic foundations of the beliefs and practices of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Established originally as the Bible Student movement in 1879 by Charles Taze Russell, they are a fundamentalist and apocalyptic religious organisation organized into congregations, overseen by male elders (women are not permitted to be elders). Their beliefs and teachings are collectively known as “the Truth”. There is a Governing Body, which establishes all doctrine and sometimes receives “new light” to amend previous teachings.[endnoteRef:5] The Watch Tower[endnoteRef:6], Bible and Tract Society (known as “the Society”) has its headquarters in New York and produces publications in printed and digital form, to ensure uniformity of teachings across global congregations and platforms – both physical and digital. Most significantly, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in the forthcoming intervention from Jehovah (God), who will cleanse society of non-believers and the righteous will be saved. Part of their role, therefore, is to disseminate this news to non-believers, in order to bring in as many people as possible before Armageddon (Beckford, 1976). [4: In the journal Sexualities, only two articles have been published that make reference to Jehovah’s Witnesses, both in passing. Toft (2014) describes to how the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) is composed of members different religious backgrounds, among them Jehovah’s Witnesses. Similarly, Simpson (2007) lists Jehovah’s Witnesses among a list of Christian groups in his study. ] [5: While typically conservative religions present doctrine as continuous and unchanging, ‘new light’ from Jehovah is the term used within the organisation for change or adjustments in previous teachings. Holden comments ‘The movement has been successful in persuading its members that such change comes from the Almighty who never tires of teaching them new things: ‘the path of the righteous ones is like the bright light that is getting lighter and lighter until the day is firmly established’ (Proverbs 4: 18)’ (2002, 32). See also Chryssides (2016, 174/262) and Knox (2018, 178 particularly on the issue of blood transfusion).] [6: The Watchtower is also the name of public-facing literature from the organisation, including the prominent the Watchtower magazine. I am struck by how the phrase ‘watch tower’ has connotations of both a fortified tower, and a place of surveillance. ] The Jehovah’s Witnesses and ‘Homosexuality’Jehovah’s Witnesses are “a group of people who claim to be in but not of the world” (Holden 2002, xi). Scheitle and Adamczyk assert how “Jehovah’s Witnesses are typically considered to be among the most demanding, high-cost, theologically and culturally exclusive religious groups” (2010, 326). As a high-cost conservative group, immorality takes many forms:Adultery, fornication, masturbation and homosexuality all flout the organisation’s teachings on sexual conduct. Anything other than highly controlled heterosexual activity is regarded as immoral, and sexual intercourse is confined to marriage. Drug abuse, smoking and the excessive consumption of alcohol, although not symbolically polluting, are believed to be physically polluting and offensive to Jehovah. Blood transfusions are both symbolically and physically polluting (Holden 2002, 26).There are consequences for Jehovah’s Witnesses who articulate thoughts about or engage in such activities of sexual immorality. Holden continues that “major transgressions such as adultery, slander, homosexuality, apostasy and continual drunkenness call for greater punity which may result in disfellowship” (2002, 79). Indeed, it is important to distinguish between ‘disfellowshipping’, ‘disassociation’ and ‘fading’ as means of exit. Disfellowshipping is the forced exit of a member of the congregation, often including their ostracism and shunning from the rest of the congregation. Disassociation is when a member resigns of their own volition from the organization, usually by formal request in writing. Fading is a slow, quiet, backing out approach that avoids the formal channels of disfellowshipping or disassociation. This can be a crucial process for members who wish to retain a relationship with family and friends still in the organization, as one had not been formally removed. For LGBTQ+ people, disfellowshipping and/or disassociation mean that members deemed “sexually immoral” are removed and shunned by congregations, including friends and family members (Holden 2002; Ransom 2021, 2022). According to the Jehovah’s Witness teaching, “disfellowshipping is a loving provision” and “disfellowshipping protects the clean, Christian congregation” (The Watchtower 2015). The practice of disfellowshipping therefore makes it an impossible task for LGBTQ+ Jehovah’s Witnesses to seek identity reconciliation between their sexual or gender identities and their religious ones. To date, there is only one academic journal article that focuses exclusively on gay and lesbian Jehovah’s Witnesses (Lalich and McLaren 2010). Lalich and McLaren’s analysed self-published narratives on the Internet from former Jehovah’s Witnesses who identify as gay and lesbian. Their work examines 24 pre-existing personal narratives posted online. In other literature, references to LGBTQ+ identities in the lives of former Jehovah’s Witnesses are found in studies that focussed on separate issues or broader studies of non-normative sexuality and Christianity; for example: LGBTQ+ individuals with a Christian upbringing (Levy and Reeves 2011), African-American lesbian and queer women responding to Christian-based homophobia (Miller and Stack 2014). The simple reason for this dearth in academic literature is thus: in doctrinal terms, there is no possibility for identity reconciliation between LGBTQ+ and religious identities for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Baptised individuals who display “sexual immorality” are invasively interrogated by the elders through judicial committees[endnoteRef:7] before being forced to disassociate or being disfellowshipped. Such intrusive interrogation and policing of sexuality is documented in ex-member accounts, including the explicit examples discussed below. [7: Knox writes ‘When people join the Watch Tower Society, they must adhere to its teachings, which means subjecting themselves to the theocratic rule of God himself and to judicial committees that claim the right to function as a literal government’ (2018, 33) Also on judicial committees, see Chryssides (2016, 264), ] Accordingly, while non-normative gender and sexuality has been explored as identity issues and a divisive issue across a range of religious traditions, there remains both a lacuna and an obvious barrier in relation to exploring LGBTQ+ experiences of Jehovah’s Witnesses: technically, one cannot be LGBTQ+ and a Jehovah’s Witness. Lalich and McLaren make this point explicitly, “It is important to note that there is no such thing as an active gay or lesbian JW. An active Witness must be either heterosexual or a celibate homosexual who is working toward heterosexuality in thought, feeling, and action” (2010, 1311). Literature from the Watchtower also confirms this position: “…but no one who continues to practice homosexuality can be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses” (The Watchtower 1993, 175). Therefore, the only documented experiences we have from non-heterosexual Jehovah’s Witnesses comes from former members – those who have left, or been forced to leave.[endnoteRef:8] [8: Igor Pietkiewicz expresses the same barrier in his own research on Jehovah's Witness culture, “Unfortunately, no gay or lesbian JWs could be recruited for this study to explore challenges experienced with the anti-homosexual sentiment in this religious community” (2014, 161). ] In order to contribute to this under-studied area, this article will explore how memoir narratives provide a window to the world of something hidden and unseen. For this article, I offer a critical analysis of extracts from two ex-Jehovah’s Witness gay men: Rainbow Milk and I Felt The End Before It Came. Below, I make the case for using memoir as sources of theological experience, followed by an outline of a short synopsis of each text. There are four significant themes that form the basis of the critical analysis of these texts in terms of theology and sexuality: [1] disassociation/disfellowshipping, [2] negotiating identity, [3] sex work and the anti-education stance of the Witnesses. Before this, however, I offer a few comments about academic research on and by former Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Apostasy” [endnoteRef:9] and the Academy: Gate-Keeping and Gate-Crashing [9: The term apostasy relates to the abandonment or renunciation of religious beliefs and practices. The term has rarely been used by ‘apostates’ themselves, but rather by organisations who designate ex-members as ‘others’ in a pejorative and negative way. The term has negative connotations that stigmatises an individual (Ransom, 2022). However, some apostates are reclaiming the term, in similar ways to how ‘queer’ has moved from being a slur to being reclaimed by the community. ] There is a history of reduction and resistance to accounts from “apostates”. Ex-member testimony has often been discredited among scholars of religion. For example, James Beckford discards such accounts, stating that “they could not serve simply as factual resources” (1985, 144). Brian Wilson suggests that apostates are in need of self-justification, so they reconstruct their own pasts to justify former versions of themselves, including the invention of atrocity stories (1990). In a later publication, Wilson goes further by stating, “Neither the objective sociological reader nor the court of law can readily regard the apostate as a creditable or reliable source of evidence. He must always be seen as one whose personal history predisposes him to bias (1994, 4). The trend continues. Lonnie Kliever asserts, “that the apostate should not be accepted uncritically by the mass media, the scholarly community, the legal system, or governmental agencies as a reliable source of information about new religious movements. The apostate must always be regarded as an individual who is predisposed to render a biased account of the religious beliefs and practices of his or her former religious associations and activities.” (1995). George Chryssides has been a leading scholar on the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He makes the following claim, “it is difficult to assess their veracity, since exmembers frequently collude or misremember and become influenced by the anticult organizations and the media” (2022, 138).[endnoteRef:10] This dismissal of ex-members accounts does not express the more nuanced and reflective position he articulated in an interview five years earlier: [10: See Chryssides (2021) for discussion on the debate around cult and anticult. ] There are other scholars like Lonnie Cliver and Brian Wilson who have said their testimony is totally invalid, we should disregard it totally. It’s worthless. Now I don’t go along with that, either. Because, I think, particularly when you read written ex-members accounts, ok they’re biased, but we’re always taught to evaluate our sources so it’s important to see why they’re saying what they do; what it is that might be true; what sounds plausible. You triangulate your information […] fact and fiction tend to kind-of blend into each other. […] So that’s a future project, reading up on the fiction/faction narrative and seeing what one can get out of it (Chryssides and Fallon, 2017)The discrediting of ex-member testimony is a form of gaslighting. It is a replica of the strategy used within (and perhaps therefore borrowed from) the organisation itself. The simple aim is to segregate and discredit ex-member views and voices, as the organization would claim those outside of “the Truth” are controlled by Satan. Academic studies note how access to members of the community is problematic when the researcher is a former member and deemed an apostate (Hughes 2006). In his biography, Daniel Allen Cox exposes this strategy in congregations, “Apostates are evil and cannot be trusted to tell their stories, so the congregation never hears their side.” (2023, 34). He states further, “That’s exactly what the Watch Tower Society does to members who leave or try to: declare invalid whatever life they can build on the outside, declare them of deserving of death at Armageddon, declare them already dead” (2023, 171).Moreover, the charge of bias can be levelled in reciprocal ways - at insider accounts as well as ex-member accounts. Equally, researchers claiming impartiality and neutrality who have spent time with the religious community and leadership can also reproduce bias, unconsciously or even consciously, by dint of the debt of gratitude to the communities in which they were welcomed and have researched alongside. There is the potential for ‘neutral’ researchers to have been groomed, as they rely on creating constructive relationships and connections with the organization, without which they are unable to do their work.Stephen Gregg and Lynne Scholefield (2015) offer helpful distinctions between reported religion, represented religion and living religion which I follow here. These distinctions are useful to counter critiques that silence or reduce the voices of those with living experiences, and that are useful to determine the criticality offered by scholarship working in these areas. They write how reported religion is “neatly packaged” (2015, 8), such as one would find on the JW.org website of resources. They call for careful critique of represented religion, when hearing first hand from religious people may result in rehearsed answers that do not tell the whole truth about the tradition (2018, 9). Rather than provide a reported religion perspective offered by the organisation itself that only allows carefully constructed versions of the religion, I therefore place value on living religion, through first-person research by experienced researchers that flings the doors and windows wide open to allow us to navigate the space and draw our own conclusions. Ex-member accounts, therefore, have much to contribute in terms of exposing dynamics from lived experiences. I agree with Aled Thomas, who states “Careful examination of ex-member testimonies creates the possibility for scholars to gain pieces of knowledge […] that may not have previously been available in the public domain. As such, the study of ex-member narratives can be rewarding to both the scholar’s work and the wider knowledge on new religious movements” (2017). This muting or silencing of ex-member accounts are strategies that are anti-critical. Kristen Schilt cites resistance and reduction as strategies used by some academic gatekeepers: resistance: “the attempt to erect boundaries against an emerging area of inquiry”; reduction: “the attempt to dismiss scholarship” (2018, 39). In counter-resisting such gatekeeping, I amplify Deryn Guest’s notion of gate-crashing, where the established norms and restrictions on research in religious studies are disrupted “with all the force of several gate-crashers at a party from which they had long been excluded” (2010, 10). The emergence of scholarship from former Jehovah’s Witness members affords rich critical insights that are unobtainable without their experiences. Jehovah’s Witnesses value education related to the organisation (for example, training in construction skills to maintain Kingdom Halls, language skills to translate teachings and literature, digital skills to operate online spaces), but they have a strong discouragement of anything beyond mandatory education, including higher education. Consequently, the place of Witnesses in the academy is rare. Indeed, Carrie Ingersoll-Wood affirms how “critical thinking is encouraged only to a certain point, and it should never be directed toward the organization itself” (2022, 325). In Ingersoll-Wood’s research on the lack of formative educational opportunities or encouragement in JWs, she reflects on her own experiences:As I sit down to write this paper, I feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility to get this ‘right’. With so little academic research written in the first-person by former Jehovah’s Witnesses, as a woman and an academic, I feel the pressure to ensure that my narration along with reporting the findings in this study does not detract from the research” (2022, 313).Similarly, Heather Ransom et al.’s work on ostracization and the cumulative impact of disfellowshipping is underscored by the richness of first-person experiences (2021, 2022). There is a clear methodological advantage to those undertaking empirical research as and with former Jehovah’s Witnesses, such as Ingersoll-Wood and Ransom, in that participants in the study are not required to explain in-group language or terminology or concepts from ‘the Society’. Moreover, rather than aim for the never-attainable notion of neutrality, we should work towards scholarship and reflexivity that is critically informed that serves to enlarge the picture. Notwithstanding, in terms of my own positionality, I have never identified as a Jehovah’s Witness. While some see this as a removal of potential bias and emotional investment in the work, I actually see it as a hindrance to documenting living religious experiences in full. Familiarity with Jehovah’s Witness theology and terminology from a textbook is quite different to those who have lived experiences of the practices and enactments of these beliefs. To address this perceived disjoin, I engage fully with the life story narratives offered in the texts, triangulated against doctrine and teachings from the Watchtower, and prioritizing academic scholarship on the Jehovah’s Witnesses broadly speaking. Making the Case for Memoir Memoir accounts have a problematic reception, dismissed as trustworthy accounts specifically by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Generically, though, sociological debates around biography also focus on subjectivity that challenge its legitimacy as a source for reflection (Dhunpath 2000). In biographical accounts, the notion of subjectivity arises and needs to be tackled. Steph Lawler argues how individuals cannot simply fabricate life stories at will, as such narratives “produced by individual social actors would make no sense if they did not accord, however obliquely, with broader social narratives” (2002, 251). The case for placing value on memoir narratives must be made. Ann Oakley asserts that biographers’ “subjectivity must contribute to the product” (2010, 426). As first-person narratives, biographical texts depict the author/ity of lived experiences, even though these are entirely individualized. Narratives of life experience are undeniably re-constructed fragments of the wider life course, and subsequently organized into readable accounts. Yet it is this process of recalling, writing, editing and organisation that forms one’s identity. Lawler puts this clearly, “so identity is not something foundational and essential, but something produced though the narratives people use to explain and understand their lives” (2014, 30). Indeed, “the social world is always storied” states Lawler (2014, 33).In Telling Sexual Stories, Ken Plummer articulates the pattern found in narratives that contain coming out stories, as he asserts,It tells initially of a frustrated, thwarted and stigmatised desire for someone of one’s own sex – of a love that dare not speak its name; it stumbles around childhood longing and youthful secrets; it interrogates itself, seeking ‘causes’ and ‘histories’ that might bring ‘motives’ and ‘memories’ into focus; it finds a crisis, a turning point, an epiphany; and then it enters a new world – a new identity, born again, metamorphosis, coming out (1995, 52)For former Jehovah’s Witnesses who narrate their life stories relating to their non-normative sexuality and their religious experiences, biography and memoir is a process and tool which permits them to literally write themselves into existence. Rubby Dhunpath expresses how “narration is a displacement of an inner reality to an outer reality” (2000, 547), and therefore in the context of this article, the experiences of biographers identifying as gay offer crucial insights into understanding the dynamics of homonegativity in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Biographies provide a space to engage in the messy work of identity construction, renegotiation and reconciliation that was denied to them when they were part of the inner religious group. However, while individual experiences are constructs, they nevertheless have meaningful ramifications in the context of the lives of other former Jehovah’s Witnesses. As Ken Plummer maintains, “for narratives to flourish there must be a community to hear; that for communities to hear, there must be stories which weave together their history, their identity, their politics” (1995, 87). Subjective truths are part of a collective story as these memoirs evoke emotive responses, including empathy and compassion. I argue that for those navigating faith identity and non-normative gender and sexualities, ex-member accounts, biographies and memoirs are compelling sources of support and can contribute to survival for those navigating their faith and sexuality, as well as affirm their exit from a conservative religious group. Oakley agrees, observing how “All biographers must in some sense be their subjects’ advocates, if only in the sense that they must regard the story of this particular life as one worth telling, either for its own intrinsic interest or because of its external impact.” (2010, 430). Moreover, given the concerns about ex-member narratives conveyed above, I agree with Duhnpath, that “the life history approach is probably the only authentic means of understanding how motives and practices reflect the intimate intersection of institutional and individual experience in the postmodern world” (2000, 544). Without the stories from ex-members, our insights into the experiences of LGBTQ+ Jehovah’s Witnesses can only be myopic. In seeking to enlarge the vision and adding to the small body of research on Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuality, I engage in critical dialogue with excerpts from two narrative texts. I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer Ex-Jehovah's Witness by Daniel Allen Cox (2023) and Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez (2020) offer two examples of Jehovah’s Witnesses who disassociate (in the case of Daniel Allen Cox), and are disfellowshipped (Jesse, in Mendez) because of their gay identities. Allen Cox (2023) draws on his experience growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness in Canada, exiting the religion through his disassociation in light of his own sexuality, and navigating the familial ties, breakages and tensions that remain where because of disassociation, or engage on superficial levels with him. The text is truly queer, as the author details explicit sexual experiences, including sex work and pornography. Unlike the memoir account, Rainbow Milk is semi-autobiographical fiction that navigates the intersections between the religious organization, sexuality and blackness. Given that biographical accounts are problematic in terms of memory, the fictionalization of Mendez’s semi-autobiographical account does not detract from the important themes the texts presents, that are congruent with the experiences of other LGBTQ+ ex-members. The plot opens with accounts from a Jamaican family who are part of the Windrush generation. Exposing the racist episodes experienced in the 1950s, the protagonist’s grandfather observes “We leave the Garden of Eden for the Land of Milk and Honey and find Sodom and Gomorrah” (2020, 23). The allusion to the biblical text Genesis 19 is not accidental, as it is a text traditionally weaponized against LGBTQ+ people, as God burns down the towns as a response to wickedness of men demanding to have sex with male visitors.[endnoteRef:11] This biblical passage provides a significant context to the accounts of homophobia and homonegativity depicted from the family and Jehovah’s Witness community of the protagonist, Jesse.[endnoteRef:12] We first encounter adult Jesse on his way to meet a client, as he engages in sex work. The graphic sexual scenes include descriptions of rimming, oral sex and penetration. Yet, the chapter following this takes us back to Jesse’s previous home and community life as a model Jehovah’s Witness before he is disfellowshipped. [11: The text therefore speaks against God’s anger at the men’s attempt at raping the visitors, rather than same-sex desire. For further discussion see Greenough, 2021.] [12: Readers familiar with Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (1985) may be aware of the echoes between the protagonists’ names - Jess and Jesse. Winterson tells a coming-of-age story about her protagonist Jess, a lesbian growing up in an English Pentecostal community. ] Disfellowshipping and DisassociationFor suspected transgressions of sexual immorality, Jehovah’s Witness elders lead an intervention known as a judicial committee. This is the case in both biographies. In I Felt the End Before It Came, Allen Cox describes the fact that his took place on the telephone as an anomaly:“I assured the elder of my proclivity for and deepening knowledge of all things homo, but before I could delve into the glories of queer sex he cut me off and gave me two formal options: disfellowshipping or disassociation. Either way I would be forced to choose between sucking dick or swallowing the firehose of the word of God” (2023, 12).Allen Cox choose to disassociate in order to attempt to retain some familial ties, and he wrote to the Kingdom Hall to express this. In Rainbow Milk, Mendez narrates a very intrusive episode where his protagonist, Jesse, in quizzed about a recent evening spent in the company of a friend from the congregation, Fraser, where they drank and smoked. During the evening, Jesse had suggested to Fraser that they get a flat together, “I’d be like your girlfriend or summat, I’d look after you” (2020, 80). Upon leaving, Jesse was spotted by “a sister”[endnoteRef:13] from the congregation, who gave him a lift home and later informed his mum and stepfather, who then contacted the elders about his “bad associations” (2020, 83). It seems Fraser had told the elders about Jesse’s suggestion. On the arrival of the elders, Jesse is distracted as before they sit, they “pulled up the fronts of their trousers near the pockets and lowered themselves down. Jesse’s eyes immediately dropped down to their crotches before he could think to not look” (2020, 91). Jesse initially tries to protect the identity of Fraser, giving a different name before being caught out. The tension of the inquisition is underpinned by Jesse’s mother who rants about how bad he is. Jesse tells the elders, “My so-called mother doesn’t care about my well-being at all” (2020, 97). The elders continue, “[Fraser] said that he left because you made homosexual overtures towards him […] He said, quote, that you leaned into him, and you told him that you could be like his girlfriend, and that you would look after him” (2020, 99). They ask Jesse to read: [13: The use of terms ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ between members is characteristic of Christian communities that aim to give a perception of a family unit and closeness. ] ‘But to persons defiled and faithless nothing is clean, but both their minds and consequences are defiled. They publicly declare they know God, but they disown him by their works, because they are detestable and disobedient and not approved for good work of any sort’. ‘This is why you’ve been disfellowshipped,’ Brother Grimes said, shutting his Bible with a thud (2020, 100). Mendez narrates how the congregation will be informed and none will be allowed to make contact or know the reasons for his disfellowshipping: “He could have been an unrepentant thief, a sex offender, a fraudster, a drug addict” (2020, 101). He remarks on the implications on this, “Disfellowshipped. Witnesses avoided people who’d been disfellowshipped as if they had leprosy or AIDS” (2020, 101). Similarly, in I Felt the End Before It Came, Allen Cox recalls, “Others, if I ran into them in public, averted their eyes and otherwise pretended I didn’t exist” (2023, 40). Shunning follows disfellowshipping for unrepentant Jehovah’s Witnesses (FAQ, 2023).[endnoteRef:14] In his biography, Allen Cox labels shunning as “a tool of the patriarchy” (2023, 34), signposting the regulation of gendered and queer bodies. He reports how shunning was confusing to him, and it made him resolute to live life more queerly, “The exceptions to shunning were a relief, but they were also confusing. I suppose that’s when I decided to live a life that would force people to act more definitively on the matter of shunning me” (2023, 43).[endnoteRef:15] In Rainbow Milk, Jesse describes a lift offered to him by Brother Woodall, “They didn’t say a word to each other; and when Jesse, fighting back tears, tried to say thank you, Brother Woodall turned his head away. Jesse got out the car and stood grieving on the pavement as Brother Woodall drove away” (2020, 102). [14: “If, however, a baptized Witness makes a practice of breaking the Bible’s moral code and does not repent, he or she will be shunned or disfellowshipped. The Bible clearly states: “Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”—1 Corinthians 5:13” (The Watchtower, 2023). ] [15: The technicality of baptism is an important one to determine whether a member should be shunned. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not practice infant baptism, but older children are encouraged to get baptised (see Holden 2002, 59) . In Rainbow Milk, Fraser who also transgressed rules by drinking and smoking with Jesse was not baptized, whereas Jesse was. ] Indeed, grief is an appropriate term that has been used by psychological researchers assessing the impact of this ostracism that equates to a social death. “Grieving the Living: The Social Death of Former Jehovah’s Witnesses” is the title of Ransom et al.’s (2022) assessment of the cumulative psychological impact of shunning and disfellowshipping. The authors offer some distinctions, in that there were stronger negatives effects on those who were disfellowshipped (such as Jesse) versus those who left of their own volition (such as Allen Cox). In Allen Cox’s case, although his disassociation was ‘voluntary’, his hand was forced, or he would have been disfellowshipped. For Jehovah’s Witnesses, the entire social world is connected by their sense of religious identity. One of the participants in Ransom et al.’s study says “’who was I?’ and ‘who was I when I wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness?- I was nobody…I felt invisible’” (2022, 2468). Shunning therefore disrupts the life course and brings about social, intellectual, psychological and financial challenges for those who have been raised in an insular environment (Ransom et al., 2022). How does one survive in a world one has been told to reject? The strategy of shunning is coercive, as members are aware of this potential penalty if they were to contemplate leaving, as Ransom et al. claim, “leaving religiously exclusive groups has been suggested to be associated with diminished health and well-being, while anticipated ostracism and identity loss have been identified as significant barriers to exit” (2022, 2460). Jesse was kicked out of his familial home by his step-father, Graham, and moves to London. Allen Cox moves to New York. Atkins and Laing remark how “Cities have long been discussed by scholars as spaces of sexual opportunity” (2012, 622) and it is in these settings that the queer sexual content comes alive in both texts.Negotiating Identity Isolation from the social group in which one has been raised raises important identity questions for those who exit. Unlike other religious traditions where members can negotiate their sexual and religious identities (for example, Yip 2002), the impossibility of remaining Jehovah’s Witness and LGBTQ+ is striking: “I spent eighteen years in a group that taught me to hate myself. You cannot be queer and a Jehovah’s Witness – it is one or the other” (Allen Cox 2023, 158). Allen Cox talks of cognitive dissonance, as he says, “This kind of cognitive dissonance – of living in multiple realities at once – is very common among Jehovah’s Witnesses” (2023, 68). He continues, noting the incoherence of identity is inherent to all Witnesses:To be a Jehovah’s Witness is to be a living paradox. You must remain no part of this world yet interact with everyone in it […] The rules are nonsensical, and to accommodate them, you must partition your mind at a moment’s notice. Over the years, you subdivide it infinitely. You learn to live the loopholes. Somehow, to disbelieve is crazier than to believe. Part of doing this work means a permanent state of living undercover: both hiding your religious zeal in public and pretending at the meetings that you follow the rules perfectly (2023, 98-99).The strive for a perfect performance of a good Jehovah’s Witness is illustrated in two narratives used in Lalich and McLaren’s study. Andrew states, “So, I played the little good boy because I thought that was what God wanted and required” (2010, 1315) and Matt describes himself as “being a super-Witness” (2010, 1315). In Rainbow Milk, Jesse is described as “the darling boy of the congregation […] He manned the roving mics. Gave important talks on the platform, encouraging and admonishing the congregation, spiritually. Was considered to be a Brother of high standing” (2020, 64). This is contrasted with his sexual thoughts described by arousal and erection in response to the soft voice of Brother Woodall in the Kingdom Hall (2020, 16). Upon his exit from the organisation Jesse reflects upon his black identity. Jesse’s colleague says he’s ”a black boy trying to be a white boy trying to be a black boy” (2020, 102). The narrator reflects that Jesse “had thought of himself as a blond white boy all his life. He’d never thought of himself as a black boy, or compared himself to other black people” (2020, 103). This is put poignantly as Jesse enters Brother Woodall’s dirty van for a lift, “being a white man, Brother Woodall’s filth was cleaner than Jesse’s squeaky-clean black” (2020, 102). A further powerful episode narrated is Jesse’s attempt to remove his blackness during his childhood following his experiences of racism at school:He came home, stared at himself in the mirror until he was full of anger and hate, put the hot tap on until it ran scalding and set to scratching off the black; the face-cloth wouldn’t work, nor would his nails, so he stole a Brillo pad from under the kitchen sink and rubbed and rubbed until the foam went pink, but that made his skin sore, red raw. It healed back to black (2020, 147). Much later in the book, Mendez reveals how race is understood theologically by borrowing from James Baldwin in Giovanni’s Room (1956, Penguin), “It’s because you’ve been taught that God is a white man, and that white men are the earthly embodiment of God. You’ve been taught to worship white men and to hold everything that they represent, everything they own, as the dearest, most important, most sacred thing in your life” (2020, 225-226).Members who are forced to exit face an abrupt change of life course that results in emotional, psychological, physical and economic vulnerabilities. The reaction to rejection from both protagonists is to engage in queer world-making through exploration of their own sexuality. In Rainbow Milk, Jesse changes his appearance wearing tight low jeans, and no underwear (2020, 23), he is promiscuous, experiments with drug taking and engages in sex work. In I Felt the End, Allen Cox too engages in sexual activities including porn and sex work. In the immediate period of exiting the Witnesses, there remains a lingering aspect of being on borrowed time on earth, alongside the realisation that engaging in behaviours that had previously been prohibited makes no difference as death at Armageddon is certain anyway. Lalich and McLaren (2010) highlight how a sudden engagement in sexual acts, previously thought of as immoral is necessary as part of a maturation process but also damaging to previous beliefs. Moving away from the organisation results in a rejection of previous strict dogmas and behaviour regulation. Ransom et al. describe a process of “depersonalisation” (2022, 2470) “immediate relief of no longer being held accountable for life choices” (2022, 2471) and “engaging in self-destructive behaviour” (2022, 2471). Similarly, Hookway and Habibis describe “post-membership freedom and hedonism” (2015, 852). Yet this is no utopia. The feelings of release are also accompanied by self-condemnation, a loss of self-esteem, guilt, insecurity and “a sense of existential meaninglessness” (Hookway and Habibis 2015, 825). Such emotional fluctuation can result in a desire to return to the stability of the religious community, as Jesse communicates how he wrestles with this later in Rainbow Milk. Yet, reconciliation and return is impossible for the gay ex-member, as the narrator makes clear, “He had censored himself, punished himself boxed in emotions that can’t just have been sinful, being so strong and apparent in one so young, but must have been natural, there since birth; he’d held himself back and still been disfellowshipped” (2023, 209-210). Sex work and EducationI saw my chance to become one of the villainous archetypes depicted in Witness literature and took it. If I knew I was going to die at Armageddon anyway, what did I have to lose? And I was a pretty slutty boy to begin with. Maybe I’d also internalized the idea that if being queer had mostly propelled me out of the Witnesses, this porny hypermanifestation of that queerness was sure to complete the job. The Witnesses consider sex work such a grave sin that those practising it should be rescued, condemned, or both – the conditions under which it occurs deserve no investigation (Allen Cox 2023, 200).The polarities around sex work have been rehearsed within sociological literature. Smith and Laing observe how theoretical, philosophical and political debates talk sex work are usually concerned with the sale of sex by women to men. Discourses oscillate around polarities such as “oppression and liberation, violence and pleasure, and victimhood and agency” (2012, 517). West and de Villiers (1993) offer three depictions of male sex workers as desperate, homosexual, and dangerous. For West and de Villiers, desperation reflects economic need; homosexuality provides the motivation as a means to explore sexual identities; and dangerous is where crimes such as theft occur against the client. This latter category is not congruent with either biography, but the first two – desperation and homosexuality - offer fruitful points of reflection. However, I prefer to use the term ‘the quest for economic stability’ for desperation and ‘queer awakenings’ for homosexuality. While the quest for economic stability can be attributed to the new settings Allen Cox and Jesse find themselves in, neither cite this explicitly as a reason for the sex work (though it is clearly implicit in the case of Jesse who is struggling to make ends meet in temporary accommodation). Queer awakenings is certainly attributed to their motivations. In I Felt the End, Allen Cox borrows from Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore when he reveals “‘I’d chosen to be a hooker so I didn’t have to have a career” (2023, 192). In Rainbow Milk, Jesse’s housemate, and later partner, Owen, reflects on Jesse’s motivations as an attempt at undoing and disassociating himself from Witness doctrine (2023, 239). In both texts the protagonists articulate aspirations of being a writer. For both, this was a task that could wait until their youth and good looks expired. In Rainbow Milk, Jesse states, “the idea of becoming a writer seemed fine, up to and not including the fact that he was a slim, young black man with a pretty face that should not be wasted at a desk. Writing could wait until he was old and had something to write about” (2020, 154-155). The depictions of sex work contribute to the hardcore sexual episodes entirely congruent to queer fiction. Sex work is illustrative of survival, whether or not both protagonists seemingly enjoy their sexual freedom away from the restriction of home life and the Jehovah’s Witness community. Lalich and McLaren’s study demonstrate the act of survival for LGBTQ+ ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses in their study: They all found ways to reclaim their previously reviled ego identities; to reject an omnipotent and disapproving god figure; to survive the loss of their families, friends, church, and traditions; and to create lives for themselves in the outside world, where homosexuality is accepted only provisionally, if at all. Furthermore, many of them managed to make these changes when they were essentially homeless, penniless teenagers. And even for those who left the church as adults, most had only a high school diploma, due to WTS’s longstanding opposition to higher education (2010: 1327) Kerwin Kaye reflects on his research with street male sex workers and reveals that “Notably absent from these stories are instances of being humiliated, or of being forced to do something in order to survive which makes them appear weak and vulnerable” (2007, 66) Yet in these biographies, the negative consequences that emerge from risk taking and sex work do appear in both stories. Jesse discloses fear around HIV infection from a forceful client, describing a “wound in his rectum that in healing had probably sealed in the transmission of a deadly disease” (2010, 188). Allen Cox writes how “When I tell myself I wasn’t being taken advantage of when doing porn, I’m not being honest” (2023, 206), as he describes exploitation and touching from some of the porn photographers that did not form part of the original agreement. The connection between sex work and education is telling in both narratives. Both protagonists strongly articulate their resentment for the stance against pursuing education, and without qualifications or training, economic survival becomes even more challenging. As discussed earlier, Ingersoll-Wood argues how intrinsic aspirations are not encouraged in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, only extrinsic goals that are set by, and benefit the organisation (2022). In I Felt the End, Allen Cox speaks of the “anti-education cult” (2023, 111) of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whereas in Rainbow Milk, Sister Charles makes the views of the congregation quite clear to Jesse as she explains “Nuh bodda go college when you kyan preach di good news of God Kindam from ‘ouse to ‘ouse’” (2023, 106). Jesse has ‘A’ grades in a number of subjects, yet he details how his mother plucked the results envelope out of his hands, scrunched it up and threw it back at him (2020, 163). Jesse later says to Owen, “You got a proper education. You spent years learning all that. I just had the Bible” (2020, 194), and later, “Nowhere in the Bible did it say that God’s people should not better themselves academically or arm themselves with secular knowledge” (2020, 207). Both novels narrate the cumulative and negative impact of the erasure and prohibition of gay identities among Jehovah’s Witnesses, where individuals details their struggle to fully realise their sexuality because of their previous religious teaching and background. The limiting of education within the organisation means that positive identity formation is controlled, as Ingersoll-Wood notes, By limiting education, individuals will continue to identify strongly with the group, safeguarding its existence. Unfortunately, a consequence of limiting autonomy in individuals is the inevitable destruction of intrinsic goal setting. Witness Children who are raised in an environment that puts them at odds with their vision of themselves are at an increased risk of displaying need-thwarting behaviors, behaviors motivated by one’s sense of guilt, obligation, or perceived threats to one’s ego […] In other words, when an individual’s need for relatedness is thwarted at a young age, they may try to compensate by attempting to attain a sense of self or worth by pursuing image-oriented goals or through the accumulation of money or material possessions (2002, 327). The long-term detrimental effects of supressing one’s identity ensures conformity to the homogenous group identity. Yet, the two protagonists of these memoirs demonstrate how they have learned through their religious background that they are imperfect and their identities are invalid.ConclusionAs LGBTQ+ Jehovah’s Witnesses can technically not exist, this article has contributed to the small, but emerging body of work that recovers the cumulative impact of homonegative discourse, strict regulation of behaviour and the consequences of being expulsed from the group. The two books that provided the content analysis for this article, Rainbow Milk (2020) and I Felt the End Before It Came (2023), narrate not only the ‘coming out’ stories of the protagonists, but out the harmful and damaging homophobic practices that exist under the protection of religious character. Stories that are concerned with challenging dynamics around religious traditions are often deemed controversial or sensitive. Plummer helpfully reminds us that “censorship is usually the tale told from the prohibitionist’s story. What is needed are readers’ stories” (1995, 155). One of the authors of these texts, Allen Cox, points to dearth of literature narrating ex-Jehovah’s Witness experiences, and the purpose and impact of these texts. He states, “Every apostate must build their own library of contraband texts to slip into their coat. In many cases, the texts will not exist and the apostate will have to write them” (2023, 117). Memoirs lift silence on denied and prohibited experiences. The Jehovah’s Witnesses as an under-researched group generally and little has been documented on LGBTQ+ identities within and upon exiting the organisation specifically. Approaches to understand LGBTQ+ lived experience within the Jehovah’s Witnesses is limited. Accordingly, an assessment of authors’ memoirs had provided useful tools to identify, assess and critique the key issues relating to gay identities and the social world of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is particularly useful given the closed nature of the Jehovah’s Witness community, as memoir gives voice to one’s experiences when exiting such closed groups. Moreover, the stories themselves have powerful intersectional potency in terms of content that speaks back to key issues around sexualities broadly, including identity negotiation, religious upbringing, the emotional and psychological impact of exiting conservative traditions, and the role of education for economic survival. Finally, attending to previously muted or silenced voices serves to challenge existing conventions and assumptions that have been made when researching closed groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. [d] EndnotesReferences:Atkins, M., & Laing, M. (2012). Walking the beat and doing business: Exploring spaces of male sex work and public sex. Sexualities, 15:5–6, 622—643. Beckford, J. A. (1985). 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