Larry Kirkwood (photo by Steven David)

THIS ISSUE > ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT > READ OUT

Larry Kirkwood always knew he was different. But he didn’t always know that his differences would someday lead to helping others.

Kirkwood, a Houston asset liquidator, recently finished writing a memoir, What Lies Within, which chronicles his difficult coming-out process. What makes his story different is that he was deeply tied to the Jehovah’s Witnesses denomination, causing enormous conflict.

The book is a result of years of process-therapy writing that Kirkwood says helped him come to terms with breaking free from the Jehovah’s Witnesses and coming to terms with his own sexuality. Kirkwood’s story is one of finding himself while being removed from the only relationships he had ever known.

“I knew I was different at a young age,” says Kirkwood, self-proclaimed former “100-percent diehard Witness.”

“One of the things Jehovah’s Witnesses always taught us was that we were different—the chosen people for Jehovah God. As I got older, I began to realize that I wasn’t different because of religion but also sexual orientation.”

Being part of the Jehovah’s Witness community meant constant control over his life, a control that Kirkwood says became restrictive.

“Jehovah’s Witnesses are a very controlling people in a very subversive way,” he says. “I write about them being a cult, because they control everything. They control what you do for a living. They control your income. They control your educational level. As a child, the only friends you ever have or get to know are other Witnesses. We were always kept separate from others. We never developed bonds with schoolmates.”

This isolation led to a period of intense depression during which Kirkwood found himself in a psychiatric facility, struggling with the conflict between Witnesses teachings and his own feelings inside.

“It was arranged for me to be married to a girl,” he says. “We were engaged for about six months when I realized that the more time I spent with her, that I didn’t even like her as a person. When I broke off that relationship, it was the death of my relationship with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Kirkwood lost privileges with the congregation. Later, when he came out, he says that the elders made the announcement, from the stage of the church, that he had been “disfellowshipped,” or excommunicated. Traditional Jehovah’s Witness teachings state that homosexuality is one of many “sinful tendencies and Satan’s efforts to distract us from obeying God.”

“They cut me off from the only lifestyle I had ever known,” Kirkwood says. “It really catapulted me. That’s when I left. I became dangerous to their ideology. If I saw another Witness in a restaurant, they wouldn’t even say hello to me.”

One comforting twist in Kirkwood’s story was that his father eventually gave him the acceptance he had craved.

“My dad and I had always had a close relationship,” he says. For about a year after I came out, our relationship was strained. It became so uncomfortable that I finally approached him and said that if I didn’t have the father I had always known, I didn’t want him there at all. It was a real breaking point in our relationship, and we became even closer.”

Although their relationship grew closer, another twist lay in store: Kirkwood’s father died of cancer on Christmas Day 1999. Before his death, however, his father agreed to write a chapter in Kirkwood’s book.

“There in the end, I took extended time off from work to take care of him,” Kirkwood says. “I knew I was writing a book, and I didn’t know how much time was left. I approached him and asked him if he’d like to be a part of my future.”

The result is a chapter that, together with the others, Kirkwood hopes will help others just like him.

“There are thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses still active, like me, who don’t realize that there is a life outside,” he says. “When I left, I was empty, alone, and I had a huge spiritual void and didn’t know how to fill it. I hope this book comes across that line I can no longer cross anymore and helps someone.”

In his continuing efforts to help, Kirkwood is the head of the Texas chapter of A Common Bond, a worldwide network support network for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Jehovah’s Witnesses. Kirkwood says that 40,000 Witnesses a year are disfellowshipped, according to numbers released by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. If one-tenth of them is gay or lesbian, Kirkwood says, that would mean that 4,000 people a year are in a similar situation.

“Eight years later, I am still coming to terms with things,” he says. “I am still learning. It’s a learning process that I hope I can help with.”

Kirkwood plans to release What Lies Within next year through the website for A Common Bond, www.gayxjw.org. He attended the Common Bond international conference last October with his partner, Anton Khristyuk. The pair, who met online when Khristyuk lived in Moscow, recently celebrated their first anniversary.

Brian Martinez reported on the bed-and-breakfast Angeles de Merida for our December issue.