Sexuality is often talked about as
something deeply personal or private, shaped by inner feelings, hormones, and
individual experiences. But sociologists argue that sexuality is also a product
of social forces: religion, gender norms, family, community expectations, and
the cultural scripts that tell us what desires are “normal” and which ones must
be silenced. When I look back on my own sexual development, I can clearly see
how these social forces shaped, restricted, and ultimately delayed my understanding
of who I am. My sexuality did not form in a vacuum. It formed within a
conservative Mormon family, in a rigidly gendered religious world, and inside a
heterosexual marriage I felt obligated to enter. Only as an adult, after
trauma, self‑reflection, and leaving religion, did I begin to understand that I
am a nonbinary person who has always been attracted to women. My sexual
biography is not simply a story about desire; it is a story about
socialization, control, repression, and eventual liberation.
I was born and raised in the
Netherlands, but even before I entered the United States, my gender experience
was already atypical within the expectations around me. I grew up wanting to
dress like my brothers, act like them, and spend my days climbing trees,
getting dirty, and avoiding anything coded as “girly.” Sociology teaches that
gender is not just biological but social, it is learned through reinforcement,
expectations, and parenting (Sheff & Hammers, Privilege of Perversities).
My early discomfort with gender norms wasn’t recognized as legitimate. Instead,
it was treated as a phase or something that would go away. The Mormon faith my
family practiced added another layer of gendered expectation. In Mormon
culture, gender roles are extremely rigid: boys are taught to grow into
priesthood‑holding leaders, while girls are taught to become nurturing wives
and mothers. Even as a child, I already felt pressure to fit into this narrow
definition of womanhood, even though my body and identity never aligned with it.
I did not yet have language for feeling nonbinary, but I understood deeply that
being myself was not allowed.
Around age 14, I realized I liked
girls. This awareness came naturally, quietly, and without shame, until I told
my mother. Her immediate shutdown of my feelings (“Mormons are not gay”) taught
me two sociological lessons at once: my desires were unacceptable, and my
survival in the family depended on suppressing them. After this moment, I
buried my attraction to women so deeply that I genuinely forgot it for long
periods of time. Instead, I tried to “fix” myself through prayer, self‑denial,
and obedience to religious ideals. In class we learned about sexual scripts and
how society defines what counts as “normal,” such as in Greta Christina’s “Are
We Having Sex Now or What?” where she shows that society polices what
counts as “real sex.” My confession to my mom made her realize I was looking
outside of what my church counted as normal, and so my desires and thoughts
needed to be shut down immediately.
The Mormon Church, like many
institutions, exerts religious social control, influencing members’ sexuality
through teachings about purity, modesty, marriage, and eternal roles. I
internalized the message that any deviation from heterosexuality was sinful,
broken, or a sign of spiritual failure. I dated one boy briefly due to peer
pressure, but the attraction was never real. Looking back, my teenage years
show how powerful social institutions are in shaping sexual identity. I did not
reject my sexuality because it felt wrong, I rejected it because my community
taught me that my salvation depended on denying it.
After moving to the U.S. at
seventeen and attending college, I tried to blend in with my roommates and
community. I tried to go on dates with boys, but every experience felt
emotionally empty. Still, because Mormon teachings emphasized heterosexual
marriage as a divine commandment, I believed I had no choice. The boy who lived
across the street from my parents pursued me aggressively after I returned from
my Mormon mission. Saying no felt impossible. Mormon culture strongly
socializes women to prioritize marriage, to accept male pursuit, and to take on
emotional and spiritual responsibility for men. Marrying him was not a free
romantic choice, it was a sociologically conditioned response to my religious
upbringing, cultural expectations, and lack of support for my real identity.
Inside the marriage, my sexual
orientation became painfully clear through sexual dissociation. I never enjoyed
sex and wanted it less and less. My husband blamed me, saying I wasn’t
emotionally present. He cheated on me multiple times and insisted his infidelity
was my fault. This reflects two sociological themes: victim‑blaming in
patriarchal structures (Sheff & Hammers, The Privilege of Perversities),
and the expectation that wives exist to meet men’s needs (Greta Christina, Are
We Having Sex Now or What?). Because my marriage reflected the gendered power
imbalance I had been taught to accept, I believed for years that I was the
problem. Becoming a mother grounded my life in responsibility and caretaking.
Within Mormon gender ideology, motherhood is the highest calling for women, and
I internalized this role. I gave everything, emotionally, physically, and
financially, to keep the household functioning while my husband’s emotional
abuse intensified. During this period, I lost sight of who I was outside the
roles of “wife” and “mother.” My sexual identity remained repressed. Instead of
honoring my attraction to women, I blamed myself for not wanting my husband. I
interpreted my lack of attraction as personal inadequacy, not as evidence of my
lesbian orientation. This is a direct effect of compulsory heterosexuality and
religious conditioning.
Leaving my marriage and the Mormon
Church opened the door for self‑reflection. After the divorce, memories of my
early crushes on girls resurfaced. I noticed again the instinctive pull I had
always felt toward women, emotionally, aesthetically, romantically, and
sexually. I finally admitted to myself, and later to my daughters, that I had
always liked girls. They accepted me instantly, a stark contrast to the
reactions I’d grown up with. This part of my biography reflects identity
reconstruction, where individuals reshape the story of their life once
oppressive structures are removed (Robbins, Low & Query, A Qualitative
Exploration of the Coming Out Process for Asexual Individuals). Free from
religious pressure and heterosexual marriage, I could finally understand myself
clearly: I am a nonbinary person attracted to women. Looking back, I see how my
nationality, gender assignment, religion, and sexuality are intersected to
shape the constraints on my sexual identity. My discomfort with my body, especially
my chest, and my lifelong preference for masculine or androgynous clothing were
early signs of my nonbinary identity. For years, I suppressed my discomfort
because Mormon teachings framed gender as eternal and unchanging. Once I left
those teachings behind, I allowed myself to explore presentation: short hair,
piercings, tattoos, and clothing that felt like me. Using they/them pronouns at
work was a transformative moment. It allowed me to align my inner reality with
my public self. I am not a woman. I am not a man. I am me.
My daughters fully accept me, and
their support demonstrates how generational shifts in attitudes toward gender
and sexuality can create more affirming environments. However, my extended
family remains conservative and Mormon, and I expect little acceptance from
them. Their likely reactions mirror the experiences of others in my family,
like my nieces whose identities have been dismissed with phrases like “it’s
just a phase.” According to Sheff & Hammers in “The Privilege of
Perversities,” people in dominant social groups (white, straight, middle-class)
experience privilege in sexual minority spaces. Marginalized people face
stigma, exclusion, misrecognition, and misunderstanding. The fear of judgment,
especially around choosing a more fitting name, shows how social pressure
continues to shape even my adult choices. Even after escape, the old norms
echo. Robbins, Low & Query in “A Qualitative Exploration of the Coming Out
Process for Asexual Individuals,” found negative reactions such as disbelief
and dismissal were prominent reactions asexual individuals received. My mother
had dismissed me, and my extended family had dismissed some of my nieces who
had tried to come out as well. I noticed the patterns and knew I would most
likely never be fully accepted by my family.
My sexual identity, gender
identity, and sense of self were profoundly shaped by religion, family,
culture, and gender expectations. Mormonism taught me to deny my attraction to
women and forced me into heterosexuality. Gender norms taught me to perform femininity
even when it felt wrong. Marriage taught me to prioritize someone else’s needs
over my own. But leaving those structures taught me something even more
powerful: sexuality and gender are not fixed by others, they are discovered,
reclaimed, and lived. From a sociological perspective, my life story shows how
forces like religion, gender socialization, compulsory heterosexuality, and
family expectations can shape sexual development. But it also shows that
individuals can break free from those forces. Today, I live as myself: a
nonbinary person who loves women, a survivor who rebuilt their life, and
someone who finally understands that my sexuality was never broken, it was
simply hidden under layers of social control.
Sources:
Christina, G. (2002). Are we having sex now or what? In M. Stombler et al. (Eds.), Sex matters: The sexuality and society reader (pp. 5-8).
Robbins, N. K., Low, K. G., & Query, A. N. (2016). A qualitative exploration of the “coming out” process for asexual individuals. In M. Stombler et al. (Eds.), Sex matters: The sexuality and society reader (pp. 352-362).
Sheff,
E., & Hammers, C. (2011). The privilege of perversities: Race, class, and
education among sexual minorities. In M. Stombler et al. (Eds.), Sex
matters: The sexuality and society reader (pp. 402-415).
[Written for SOC 2750R class UVU Spring 2026]
