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Misogyny isn't always meted out by men. The messages I received from my mother were that women are only as good as they look, and they are manipulative and unpredictable. She once told me that the reason I didn't have a man was because I was too independent. She said men don't like independent women, and that I should learn how to play coy so I wouldn't overpower men. If our mothers are full of self-hatred or feel inferior to other women, are not comfortable with their own femininity, or "bend into" men, they can pass down their brokenness to us, their daughters.

Mary Beth Patton, a psychologist, counselor, and researcher of same-sex attraction who is on the board of Portland Fellowship, an Exodus International-affiliated ministry, so described what happens to women like me: "Women who deal with same-sex attraction often possess a history of dis-identification with their mothers, and therefore with their femininity. This leads to a longing for connection with the feminine that becomes sexualized in adolescence."

Girls disconnected from their mothers often begin to hate their emotions and all the other things that make them women. I don't necessarily mean those things that make us look feminine on the outside, but those internal characteristics that actually make us feminine beings. For example, I was always comfortable wearing dresses, getting my nails done, and wearing lots of jewelry, so I didn't see those as contemptible qualities in my mother. But when I saw her let herself be a victim of my father's verbal assaults, I vowed that I would never be like my mother. I'd never be under the control of a man, never be dependent on a man, never be weak or admit my vulnerability. Psychologists call such feelings of children toward their parents "defensive detachment." In not allowing my mother to influence me, I walled myself off, not just from anything negative she could have instilled in me, but also from anything good she could have imparted to me as a woman.

Of course, misogyny doesn't always lead to lesbianism. In my case it fostered same-sex attraction because it cut me off from men, from women, from God, and even from myself. I hated men. I hated women. I hated myself for being a woman. I had no more value for women than any women-hating man does, and yet no one was more surprised to discover that I, too, was a misogynist. And I've had to confess that sin to God. My detachment from men and women left me walled off from being able to receive anything good from either men or women.

The first time I noticed I was attracted to women was when I was in the sixth grade, but I didn't act on any of those feelings until well after I completed high school. I did have a number of boyfriends growing up, and I hate to admit that I was very promiscuous. With each relationship, I hoped that he would be "the one." I would have done almost anything to feel accepted, but each relationship ended either with my boyfriend cheating on me or with him telling me in one way or another that he wanted to move on. Each ending left me feeling less and less like I was able to please a man.

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February 2005, Vol. 49, No. 2