Earlier this month, the conservative evangelical “King’s Army” spewed homophobia at Londoners and I was transported back to being a closeted queer teenager.
Hearing those same sentiments at a young age was what made me realize my childhood church was not a safe space and my so-called “siblings in Christ” were not safe people.
Leslie Lopez
Born into a Mormon family that later converted to Christianity, religion played a major role in my upbringing. At the age of 10, my family and I began attending a small evangelical church where we would sing, pray and listen to preaching for hours on end.
In the beginning, I enjoyed being a part of this community. There were other kids who looked like me, spoke Spanish like me and were my age. I developed friendships with many of them I was certain would last a lifetime.
That all changed when I began to pay attention to the messages our pastors shared. Their homophobic and intolerant teachings — often centered around the “clobber passages” like Leviticus 18:22 — were received with head nods from the very people I thought I knew and trusted. On one occasion, I remember our congregation praying for a supposedly sick visitor. It was only after the service that I found out he was not ill but had been brought by his mother who discovered he was gay.
For several years after that I simply kept my head down. I sang a little softer, prayed a little harder and pretended those sermons were not chipping away at me. I kept up the charade until I left for college and promised myself I never would set foot in another church again — an experience I now know was not unique to me.
“It always felt like I could either be a lesbian or believe in God, but being forced to choose made me feel incomplete.”
In the United States, 43% of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 say they are religiously unaffiliated and, for a while, this included me. As the Bible my grandmother gave me collected dust in a box under my dorm room bed, my newfound community of other queer and trans college students grew. Over boba tea and ice cream, we shared about how we came to know we were queer and the coming out process. Hearing that religion had played a role in the consequences that followed made me want to further separate myself from that part of my life, despite the lingering pain doing so caused me.
My therapist was one of the first people who helped me see the connection between the religious trauma I had experienced and the internalized homophobia I felt. Up until that point it always felt like I could either be a lesbian or believe in God, but being forced to choose made me feel incomplete. Together, we embarked on a year-long journey of recalling the harmful teachings I had absorbed before allowing myself to consider that maybe my seemingly contradicting identities could coexist.
During this time I found myself reading books about the impacts of purity culture — a Christian subculture that promotes sexual abstinence, rigid gender roles and bodily shame under the guise of being more worthy of and to God — and listening to podcasts that tackled white supremacy in church spaces. By witnessing others question ideologies that religious leaders had pushed onto us, I became more hopeful that maybe I wasn’t alone in trying to make sense of my faith and my sexuality.
One day while mindlessly scrolling social media, I saw a post by someone I followed. She never had talked about religion on her page, but she spoke openly about feeling joyful because of the existence of an LGBTQ-welcoming church based out of New York City that livestreamed its services. Curious and cautious, I found their YouTube page and decided to entertain the possibility that God had answered my prayers.
It has been well over three years since that moment and I haven’t looked back. Now, I join the 36% of LGBTQ Americans who identify with a Christian faith. Although calling myself a Christian continues to be its own struggle given the rise of white Christian nationalism, my relationship with God has only grown upon finding a community that practices more than just tolerance and acceptance.
At a time of increased hostility toward queer and trans folks and immigrants, now is the time for progressive faith leaders to practice being actively affirming.
“Now is the time for progressive faith leaders to practice being actively affirming.”
If you are new to this, if you want to create change in your faith community, consider starting a dialogue with your congregation about LGBTQ inclusion outside Pride month, publicly vocalizing your support on platforms and creating equitable leadership opportunities so diverse voices can be heard.
On a larger scale, think about what it looks like to proclaim your beliefs by meeting people at this moment. Are you able to provide sanctuary to LGBTQ people seeking asylum while awaiting the arduous and lengthy immigration process? Can you prioritize building long-term partnerships with local organizations that center queer and trans folks? Can we count on you to put your body on the line like other clergy have when the time comes?
If someone had told my younger self I would feel welcomed in a church as an adult, I would’ve likely misunderstood that to mean I had to hide a part of myself. I’m grateful that is not the case and hope others like me — queer and trans, Black and brown folks — can continue to find comfort and community in faith spaces that will loudly and unapologetically love us back.
Leslie Lopez is a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice and the Every Page Foundation based out of Chicago,