Homophobia And Yoga

I probably don’t have to tell you that I’ve been sharing my life online for 10 years….most of which has been yoga and wellness related. In doing so, I’ve (somehow) amassed an audience of 400k on Instagram. 

I mean, it’s likely that you already know this, right? Most of my readers come from Instagram anyway. 

Which means you probably also know that I shared my yoga journey online for 6 years before ever coming out publicly. 

I had about 200k followers when I came out online as dating my (now) wife. 

And guess what?

I lost 50k followers after coming out. 

I continue to lose about 1k followers anytime I post anything related to me and my wife. 

So, I had people cancel their retreat booking with me, because they “no longer felt comfortable” learning from me. 

Oh yeah, and I continue to get trolled every single day…..but only my posts that have anything to do with my sexual orientation. Even if that post is a simple picture of me and my wife just, you know….existing. 

Usually when I tell people about the public’s reaction to me coming out, they’re shocked. 

As was I. 

Why?

It’s no surprise that queerness isn’t globally accepted. Sure, I’m from a country where us gays are allowed to be legally married (ahem, but only since 2015). And yeah, I’m from a state that’s the bluest of blues. 

“No one cares that you’re married to a woman…it’s 2024!” Is something strangers write on my posts all the time. 

But the truth is, people do care. 

Again, not surprising when we’re considering the world at large. 

But it is surprising when we look at my existing audience, which is just about entirely made up of “yogis.” I use this term loosely, because realistically no one is a true yogi who’s practicing here in the modern world, but that’s a tangent for a different day. 

Yoga is meant to be about non-judgment, acceptance, and kindness. 

And love. Unconditional love. 

Sound familiar?

Sounds to me like the origin of most organized religions, no?

Kind of like how there are practices within yoga philosophy to dictate how we treat ourselves and others. You know, like the 10 commandments. 

But yoga isn’t religious! It’s a philosophy! It’s a practice!

Yoga is for e v e r y o n e.

Or so they say. 

My experience, on the other hand, has been very different. 

Homophobia And Yoga

I thought I was straight for 31 years. No, don’t worry, this isn’t a post that’s going to outline the origin of my coming out experience. Nor will it detail every experience I ever had with a woman before settling down with my life. 

The point is that as someone who thought I was straight for solid three decades, someone who “looked” straight (whatever that means), and someone who was treated like a straight person….I can pretty easily compare and contrast the way I’m now treated as a gay woman, compared to the majority of my adult life. 

I’d also like to add that while I’ve always loved the gays (c’mon how can you not), I was never the kind of ally that actually considered what it would be like to experience rejection from your peer groups, family, or society at large. 

If I thought about it, of course I’d think it was sad. And if someone pointed out their struggles to me, I’d listen empathetically. 

But naturally, as this wasn’t an issue that plagued me personally….I didn’t realize how prevalent it was, even in the world I was so deeply immersed in. 

I didn’t realize how language that I myself used to sell retreats, classes, or whatever other events I had going on might sound pretty glaringly….straight. 

I didn’t realize how some of the spiritual rumblings I’d stumble upon online were actually not much different than conversion therapy. 

They were just talking about balancing their energy, and the Divine Feminine. 

What’s wrong with that?

Purity Culture In Yoga

If I had a nickel for every time someone commented something in the vein of:

“You just need to balance your masculine and feminine energy in order to come back to the natural order of things.”

Anytime they saw content with me and my wife….

Well, I wouldn’t need to be blogging, selling courses, or slanging my own yoga app. 

Because I’d be rich. 

I actually laughed out loud the first time I read a comment like this on the first photo I ever posted with my wife (who was then my girlfriend), because I genuinely thought it was satire. 

People don’t actually believe this garbage, do they?

It’s been almost 5 years since I came out, and guess what? Comments like these never stopped. Which made me realize how non-satirical they actually were. 

Look, you kind of expect the Conservative religious folks to tell me how I need to find Jesus on images of me smooching a chick, right?

But you don’t expect the New Age ethereal yogis who believe in aliens, take psychedelics, and talk about love and fairies on a weekly basis to hold the same beliefs as Karen in the Midwest, do you?

It just doesn’t add up. 

This would turn into a full on thesis paper if I got into the pipeline of wellness to alt right people that happened during Covid. No one has time for that, and my arthritis won’t allow me to write for that long anyways. 

Also, there’s a ton of content online about this. You can look into it on your own. Svadhyaya, self study, ya know?

What I’ve noticed is that as the yoga industry continues to modernize and become more mainstream, it all but becomes synonymous with wellness. 

And the truth is, the wellness world has been built on purity culture for….decades. Because, of course, wellness is actually heavily influenced by diet culture even though it claims to be anything but. 

Okay, why the hell is diet culture important when we’re talking about yoga and homophobia?

I could be wrong, but I think that’s the origin of it all. At least on the wellness side of things. And hey, if you look at ancient yoga philosophy there’s also an element of purification, right?

Not just in the Niyamas and Yamas, but also in the sister science of yoga, Ayurveda. 

I have nothing against these practices. In fact, I love a good kitchari cleanse. 

However. 

Us humans have this tendency to take something beautiful, and run with it to the extreme. And in doing do….it’s not so beautiful anymore. In fact, it can become downright toxic. 

Think about it from the diet perspective. It’s common knowledge that eating a balanced, colorful diet of whole foods is best for literally everyone. This is how those foods have come to be labeled as “good,” “clean,” or “healthy.” 

Whereas processed foods are labeled as “bad,” “cheating,” or “unhealthy.”

There is some truth in these labels. Obviously, you don’t want to survive off of a balanced diet of Doritos and Oreos, do you? 

But the extremist will take it to the next level by demonizing those foods to the point of creating anxiety, fear, guilt, and shame if you happen to let that filthy product pass your pure little lips. 

Maybe you’re thinking this is a dumb example, because Oreos and Doritos simply are not good for you. Fine. 

How about all the girls who were terrified of adding a banana to their smoothies for years because of the sugar?

Or what about the moms in the 90s who were obsessed with low fat everything in the dairy department?

Real, whole foods are demonized just as much as the processed one as different food trends drift in and out of the zeitgeist. 

You might have noticed your favorite vegan influencers who made everything out of flaxseeds and sunshine, are now promoting a more carnivorous diet because of pRoTiEn…..

And because that’s literally what’s trendy right now. Meat is in, vegetables are out. 

Remember when keto was in and carbs were out?

It all cycles through, packaged up and labeled different. But still kind of the same, including all of the people who are making certain food groups out to be something to be feared and avoided at all costs. 

Extremists. 

The same thing happens with religion, where people either cherry pick the passages they want to fixate on because they support their personal beliefs- or, they take passages and run with them, making them out to be much more forceful than they actually are. 

Sometimes this extremism changes the meaning of those passages altogether. And oftentimes, it causes a sense of divide within the community itself. 

I’ve personally spent a ton of time in Muslim countries, for instance, and people always say how Isis isn’t true Islam, because it deviates so harshly from a core message of…..love, kindness, compassion. 

You get the idea. 

So, when it comes to the yoga world, it’s not surprising that there are people who have taken cleansing rituals from Ayurveda or yoga philosophy, and ran to the ends of the earth with them. 

Helloooo, I can relate. Remember when I thought fasting was the best thing in the world, but it was really just an eating disorder dressed in wellness clothing? Yeah. 

The harsh truth is that with purity culture comes a sense of entitlement and elitism. Sound familiar when you’re watching your favorite yogis on Instagram?

Let me guess, you’ve probably seen debates online about what it means to be a real yogi before?

Or maybe you’ve seen the discussions about what real yoga is?

In other words: my way of seeing and experiencing this practice is the only way to see and experience this practice in a true and meaningful way. 

When the reality is that while it’s important to acknowledge and understand the roots of this sacred practice in order to effectively teach it, yoga has also evolved alongside the modern world to be something far different than how it was originally intended. 

I mean, c’mon, way back in the day women weren’t even allowed to practice yoga. Let alone teach it! 

And now we live in a world where the majority of teachers are women. And white. 

Yoga’s Sneaky Conversion Therapy

There’s nothing I love more than debating a dogmatic thinker. Come at me. Like, please let me try to pop that little bubble keeping all of your beliefs safe in the confines of your own rules. 

This is why the trolls in my comments have actually been more fascinating to me, than hurtful. Don’t get me wrong, some days the words can cut deep….but most of the time it’s just teaching me a lot about human beliefs and behaviors. 

Pray the gay away

Is a phrase that most people would associate with Christianity or Catholicism. It’s also something most people might closely tie to conversion therapy methods, which are disturbingly still alive and well (yes, even in our country). 

What you might not think of is how this very idea is also closely tied to yoga, as well as other more open-ended “spiritual” beliefs. 

You know the LA woo woo types who say, “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.” 

The people who believe in energy and chakra, and treat Joe Dispensa like god. 

Yeah, them. 

Those are the same people who might believe that if I balanced my masculine and feminine energy, then I wouldn’t be so unnaturally attracted to women. 

No, a lot of these people won’t actually say something like “pray the gay away.” In fact, a lot of them don’t pray at all! 

They meditate, they balance their chakras, they do energy work, and reiki healing. 

Regardless of the words they use, their beliefs are the same:

Gayness is unnantural. 

And in the wellness world, we know that unnatural = bad.

In other words gayness is bad. 

In yoga and wellness we strive towards being as natural, balanced and pure as possible, don’t we?

I guess it makes sense how some people conclude that being attracted to the same sex indicates an imbalance of energy, which therefore needs to be changed immediately for our own good. 

Balance is king, afterall!

Who would’ve thought that loving our bodies and minds enough to want to keep them healthy and strong would be such a slippery slope to New Age conversion therapy rhetoric, right?

Again, I never would’ve noticed this before I came out. Even though it was still all around me then. 

It’s sneaky. It’s sly. Also, it’s unassuming the way it creeps up on you in a community that’s meant to be an embodiment of the LGBTQ ideal that love is love. 

But no. 

Sadly, it’s just another way for people to other anything that isn’t familiar in an attempt to feel safe. When the truth is that the purity culture from organized religion that so many of us Millennials have recognized to be wrong, has just been rebranded with a fluffy New Age twist to make it more palatable. 

If you take nothing away from this, I hope you can at least take away discernment. 

You don’t have to agree with me. 

You can see me as another gay person whining about inequality on the internet. Fine. 

But I hope you can take this information to look at the messaging you consume from these groups through a different filter. 

Can you notice the relationship between our beloved yoga world and that of extreme Catholics even though yoga isn’t religious?

I hope so. 

Because the proof is in the pudding as they say. 

You just have to look for it. 

xx, 

K