“How is homosexuality viewed among the Orthodox Jewish community in the U.S?” (Requested by Charles E Leggat)

In eighth grade, after over a year of being in the closet, my best friend, Jade*, came out to me.

*Not her real name

I’d had very little exposure to homosexuality up until that point. My parents had explained it to me once — they said that some men were attracted to other men and likewise with women, and some people did not like this and mistreated these people. My parents then let me come up with my own conclusion (I immediately decided that persecuting someone for their sexual attraction was silly), and we’d never really discussed it since.

“I have something important I’d like to tell you,” Jade told me before class.

Immediately, my mind went, She’s a lesbian.

Now, I’d never guessed this about her. I’d never really thought about it at all. Sexuality never really crossed my mind, whether that meant heterosexuality or homosexuality. Yet, the second Jade said this, my mind screamed, She’s a lesbian!

I don’t know if I’d known it subconsciously all along. Maybe it was just the first thing my mind went to whenever someone said, “I have something important I’d like to tell you.” Maybe it was a mixture of both. Regardless, when Jade typed im…