I’m a lesbian and my dad is a protestant pastor. However, this is not a piece about the damages of a religious upbringing to queer children, where he does not accept me for who I am. This is about my dad’s profession’s influence on me without my dad or religion being the problem.

He was the most relaxed when I came out on the phone. After our call, he sent me resources to shut up those who argue that “the Bible says homosexuality is a sin”. We have great conversations about how modern Christianity should treat queer people respectfully and why he once fought a colleague over their decision to not baptise a lesbian couple’s child.

While I am lucky, other queer people might have had significantly worse experiences with religion and religious family members. But in this case, the outside world’s expectations are the culprit.

Try to think of outdated stereotypes about a pastor’s daughters. I grew up with them. Some were applied because I was a girl, though most of them my brother got, too.

In a tiny German village with nothing going on, a pastor is like a celebrity, as odd as it sounds. I learned from a young age that people took an interest in us, so I better behave well in public. Primary school teachers and the other kids’ parents alike wouldn’t tire of making it a point that we were the pastor’s children.

During my childhood, the favourite joke of seemingly everyone was: “Your favourite hobby is praying then?” “No, I like playing football,” I would reply.

Whenever we had friends over for the first time, this is what they would report back to their parents: “They don’t even have crosses hung up in each room and they don’t pray all the time.” I sometimes wanted to put a sign outside our door, reading: “We’re a normal family.”

Older boys, who had religious education with my dad, would ask if I needed my dad’s permission for everything. Did I know if it’s a sin to drink Red Bull?

In the streets, some boys liked calling me out for being my dad’s daughter. I often felt like people reduced me to something I was in their mind based on my his occupation.

At 19, when I had just come out to myself and a handful of people, I ran into former classmates from primary school at a party in my town. One of them gave me a compliment and his friends were quick to join our chat with innovative jokes like “Did you forget she’s the pastor’s daughter? You’ll burn your fingers on her!” “Would we have to ask your dad for permission?” “So, you’re not having sex before marriage, right?”

Did I want to come out to anyone that night? Certainly not. Everyone who grew up in a place where everybody knows everybody will know that gossip spreads as fast as a bushfire.

I sometimes felt like I wasn’t in control of what people thought of me. They had put a label on me and although I did everything to shed it, running around in tomboy clothes, playing football and being the opposite of the girl they expected me to be, it would still stick to me like glue.

Am I confidently out in my town now after almost six years since I moved away at 19? Only to my close bubble of family and friends. Outside that, I usually don’t think about being open about this part of me at all.

Some people back home don’t recognise me anymore with short hair and my appearance that screams ‘gay’ even to those with no connection to the queer community. At first, I hated my occasional incognito status, but now I love it.

What if I was more open back home? If I occasionally dropped having a girlfriend in chats with people I haven’t seen in years? Would there be gossip? After the preconceptions put on me throughout my childhood, I’m reluctant to lose that control of what people say and think about me again as the pastor’s lesbian daughter.

But I think they have lost interest. There are new people to chat about and some of those who love to gossip are gone themselves now. The protestant pastor’s daughter being a lesbian likely won’t matter anymore. I’ll try to walk those streets at home holding hands with my girlfriend, being confidently queer and truly myself.

And in the unlikely case of someone whipping out a Bible to start giving their unasked-for opinion on my private life, my dad surely equipped me with resources for different translations.