Run , Forrest ! Run ! <| sep |> I ' m lesbian and I really don ' t care for ' gender norms '. I was raised CatholicBaptist and was taught very young to love everyone as much and as equally as possible . I was taught forgiveness and charity . As I grew older , I started to go to Mass and I realized that Christianity didn ' t follow Jesus ' s preachings at all . The Church , and most other churches , put women in the lowest regard . Women were literally incubators , manipulated into a little box . I didn ' t want to have to hide my love for women , nor my dislike for male intimacy . I went to China to study Mandarin . Eventually I went to a Buddhist temple where I saw Sleeping Buddha Mountain and I fucking saw The Buddha . Right there , a mountain that looked like Buddha . I felt the peace resounding off of the temple , the people , the animals . These people didn ' t give a s if you were Christian , gay , or dumb . They just cared about love , harmony , and general goodness . Yes , Buddhism has its problems I researched religion after religion after realizing I wasn ' t ' a good fit for Christianity ', got with a Buddhist Christian who was raised Pagan and still practiced paganism because she believed in both . For her Buddhism is a way of life , ChristianPaganism is a belief . It taught me that I could believe whatever I wanted , it might all be gibberish anyway . I guess I converted to some sort of theist religion . I ' m very spiritual , but it isn ' t really God based . I believe in a higher power that created the universe and just watches what happens . If he loves us or not is irrelevant , and I don ' t know what happens when we die . TLDR Being gay , reading the Bible , going to church , going to a Buddhist temple , and being engaged to a lesbian Buddhist taught me that I can believe whatever I want . I ' m now a ' theist ' who made up my own crackpot religion that has 1 follower so far .