Memoirs of impossible identities: Exploring biographical narratives of gay ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses

This article offers a critical examination of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ positionality on homosexuality. After making the case for engaging with memoir literature, the article analyses two narratives that depict the experiences of gay former Jehovah’s Witnesses: Paul Mendez’s Rainbow Milk (2020) and Daniel Allen Cox’s I Felt The End Before It Came (2023). The critical discussion of narratives and meta-narratives interrogate the social world behind the Witnesses, as well as the relationships between the enactment of their beliefs in relation to LGBTQ+ identities. The resultant thematic analysis explores the following issues: disfellowshipping, identity negotiation, sex work and education.