Episode 7: Hideo Growing Up Moonie

In this final episode Hideo shares his reasons for leaving the Unification and all he lost—and gained—when he left.
 
 
TRANSCRIPT
Hideo Higashibaba [00:00:01] Thanks for listening to Growing Up Moonie. Just a heads up for our listeners, this episode includes mention of mental health crisis, rape, family abuse, death, hospitalization, homophobia, and child abuse. Please take care of yourself as you listen. And now the final episode of Growing Up Moonie.
News Announcer [00:00:21] A decade ago, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon was accused of controlling the minds of young people creating so-called Moonies.
News Announcer [00:00:28] So called Moonies, followers of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, head of the Unification Church, who became well-known in the early 80s for his mass wedding ceremonies.
Interpreter [00:00:36] Do you pledge to establish an eternal family with which God can be happy.
Crowd [00:00:44] Yes!
Interpreter [00:00:45] It. We are talking about absolute fidelity here. If anybody deviates from this. God. You may be about to go.
News Announcer [00:00:55] But the church has a different plan for the second generation.
2nd Gen [00:00:58] I felt like we weren't equipped for the world. You know we aren't just like this bubble.
2nd Gen [00:01:03] To me it sounds culty. I know it's what brought our parents to church but it's not what you see in the church.
2nd Gen [00:01:08] Even if I'm not doing everything that they want me to do or I don't believe everything that they believe we still have this like line that connects us.
Hideo Higashibaba [00:01:20] My name is Hideo Higashi Baba. I am queer, brown and transgender. I like reading, watching TV, swimming, and hiking, and hanging out with my dog Stanley. And oh yeah I grew up in a cult. This is Growing Up Moonie, stories of people who grew up in the Unification Church, Also known as the Moonies. And for this last episode I wanted to tell my story.
Hideo Higashibaba [00:01:48] For the most part before I left, I was a really good Moonie. When I was 18 I told my parents I wanted an arranged marriage just like they got. I read the sacred texts, I didn't date or smoke or drink. I got good grades and honored my father and mother. At church, I was taught the Divine Principle the sacred teachings of the church. I learned that the source of all sin was sex that I had to save my virginity for my husband. In my heart I knew what the founder Sun Myung Moon told us about the world was right and it was my job to protect myself from anything that would contradict that.
Hideo Higashibaba [00:02:30] I am my parent's third child out of four. There are my two older sisters than me than my younger sister. Before I was born my father Shinichi prayed and prayed for a boy but all he got was another kid with a vagina. He doesn't know that I'm transgender. I'm pretty sure he would not be happy to find out.
Hideo Higashibaba [00:02:51] My parents had four children in six years, and from the moment we were born we were told we were special. Unlike my classmates, their parents, the people we saw out in the world, we didn't have Original Sin and that meant we were better than everyone else. It also meant that we had to be better. Better behaved, better in school, more modest, discreet, and generous. We were literally born to save the world from Satan, to reunite humanity with God. And we could not f**k that up.
Hideo Higashibaba [00:03:27] But there's something else. I grew up in an abusive family. My mom Andrea would fly into rages and yell at us until she was hoarse. She also hit us. My dad Shinichi did too. You might not know that much about abusive or co-dependent family structures; in my family, we were raised to take care of Andrea. Our needs came second. No matter how much she yelled at us or hit us. Our job was to make sure she felt OK. How we felt didn't matter. As a kid I tried not to cry when she hit me but it wasn't because I was tough. It was because I didn't want to ma