Support for LGBTIQA+ people of faith
Wellbeing for LGBTIQA+ people includes feeling supported, understood, and connected to community
For many LGBTIQA+ people, connections to faith, family and communities are deeply important for their sense of identity and belonging. There are LGBTIQA+ people in every faith, and there are LGBTIQA+ people with faith in every culture.
Our peer support services are available to LGBTIQA+ people from all communities, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds and faiths. At Switchboard, we are working toward more visibility and representation of LGBTIQA+ people of faith, including multicultural and multifaith LGBTIQA+ communities.
Visit our Statement of Faith
Visit our Anti-Racism page
LGBTIQA+ people should be able to comfortably and confidently practice any faith, spirituality or religion.
We also understand that faith is seldom separate from family and community. Faith, family and community are often intertwined and inseparable, as is being gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex, trans or gender diverse, queer or asexual and being a person of faith and/or spirituality.
We celebrate the many religious communities, faith leaders, and families who are queer, trans and gender diverse, as well as allies to the LGBTIQA+ community.
You can be a person of faith and LGBTIQA+
If you’re gay, lesbian, queer, trans or gender diverse, bisexual, asexual or non-binary and being asked to hide or change this you can talk to us
In many places around the world, there has been an increase in anti-LGBTIQA+ laws, and as a result many LGBTIQA+ communities continue to experience increasing levels of discrimination and violence.
This might be felt even more keenly if the discrimination and violence stems from, or connects to our important sources of belonging and identity such as faith, community, family and lived or living experiences. We acknowledge the importance of family and community in fostering a sense of belonging, and that there can be many different understandings and cultural expectations experienced by LGBTIQA+ people.
Our Rainbow Door service can offer support by helping to navigate what might best help you, your friend or family member, including if you or someone you know has been asked to change or hide their sexuality or gender identity.
Get in touch, even to just find out about what options or steps there are to seeking support.
Are you being asked to choose between your faith and your sexuality or gender identity?
For LGBTIQA+ people in particular, navigating sexuality and/or gender identity can be fraught with difficult questions. This is especially true if you’ve been told there’s something wrong, or not ok with being LGBTIQA+. It can also be against the law.
For young people there can be additional pressure and power over them from families or schools to change their LGBTIQA+ identity. This can include having their ability to connect with partners or communities withdrawn, monitored or denied.
Sometimes, navigating your sexuality and/or gender identity within your religion, faith, and spirituality can feel overwhelming. You may ask yourself:
Can I be gay and a person of faith?
Can I be Muslim and bisexual?
Can I be trans or gender diverse and Hindu or Christian?
Can I be Jewish and a lesbian?
Can I be queer and religious?
The answer is always yes.
Not everyone feels supported to be who they are, and we understand that safety will feel different for every person depending on their circumstances.
You may have experienced family members, teachers, faith leaders, medical practitioners, counsellors or people within your community attempt to tell you that being gay or trans is wrong. You may have been told that you’re not welcome in your church, mosque or synagogue, your sports club, community centre, healthcare provider or even your family home - unless you change who you are. Or told that this one part of you doesn’t belong in your culture and your community.
At Switchboard we understand that to have such an integral part of you be silenced, repressed or challenged can be deeply hurtful.
Alternatively, you also may have friends who see some of the hardships you may face and think the solution is for you to simply stop being a person of faith. They may not understand that this is a key part of who you are as a whole person, and that it’s wrong for anyone to ask you to give up parts of who you are, including members of the LGBTIQA+ community.
Growing up in a family, school, faith, ethnic and/or cultural community that tries to tell you that you can’t be gay or lesbian, or you can’t be bi, or you can’t be trans or gender diverse, or that there’s something wrong with being LGBTIQA+ can cause deep and lasting harm.
This can lead to feelings of shame or guilt, or to believe there’s something wrong with being queer or trans – and deep sadness that members of your family, ethnic and cultural communities, and/or faith communities might not accept all of who you are.
This is particularly difficult when religion, faith, cultural identity and cultural practices are deeply intertwined and integral to who you are.
Being LGBTIQA+ is completely natural
For some young LGBTIQA+ people, it might not feel safe at home to be who you are
If you are experiencing violence or being pressured to change or hide your sexuality or gender identity, you can call us for support.
If being you is feeling impossible call Rainbow Door or visit CHARLEE
Rainbow Door
Operating hours: every day 10am-5pm
Call: 1800 729 367
Text: 0480 017 246
Email: support@rainbowdoor.org.au
Visit: rainbowdoor.org.au
It’s harmful to be told you need to be fixed or changed
For many LGBTIQA+ people, the intersections between faith, sexuality and/or gender identity are integral to forming and understanding who they are as a person. To give any part of these up, or be asked to do so, even in therapeutic or medical spaces, is unhealthy and damaging.
Counselling, seeking support and prayer are often spaces of deep reflection, healing, and growth. But if these practices are used to suggest there is something wrong with being queer, trans and/or gender diverse, or that LGBTIQA+ individuals can be ‘fixed’ or ‘changed’, then they can cause deep and lasting harm.
These practices can be known as change (or conversion) and suppression practices.
Attempts to change or suppress a person’s sexuality or gender identity can be subtle, and you might not immediately realise this is happening.
Change and suppression practices come from incorrect ideas that there is something wrong with being queer or trans or gender diverse, and that a person can change or suppress who they are.
These practices can include:
being told you’re wrong or a mistake if you are LGBTIQA+
being pressured to be straight or pursue a straight relationship
be encouraged not to transition
being told you can’t be LGBTIQA+ and a person of faith
being threatened with negative consequences if you don’t change
being told you are able to be healed or fixed
having people pray that you will be healed from being LGBTIQA+
having a counsellor try to tell you to change who you are
being sent away to be healed, or to learn how to become straight or cisgender
Other places you can access support
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Brave
Support and advocacy for LGBTIQ people of faith and allies
VISIT: thebravenetwork.org
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AGMC
Support and information for community groups of multicultural and multifaith backgrounds
VISIT: agmc.org.au
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A brief guide to finding a psychologist
Finding a psychologist for LGBTIQA+ people
VIEW PDF: A Brief Guide to Finding a Psychologist
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APS Position Statement
Australian Psychological Society position statement on change and suppression practices
VIEW PDF: APS Position Statement
The law in Victoria
Watch this three-minute animation, which explains more about the law against these practices in Victoria
Trying to change a person’s sexuality or gender expression is against the law - even if it comes from within your family, or at school, or at community gatherings. It’s also against the law to try to make you hide your gender expression or not act on your sexuality.
The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act (2021) is a Victorian law that affirms that a person's sexual orientation or gender identity is not broken or in need of fixing. Acting in a manner that seeks to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity is against the law.
It is also illegal to advertise these practices, or to take someone out of the state (either to other places in Australia or overseas) for a change or suppression practice that causes injury.
For more information on this legislation, visit VEOHRC website.
LGBTIQA+ communities have a long and complicated history with religion. We wish to acknowledge survivors of change and suppression practices, people of colour, and people of minority/people of minority faith(s), who have so generously offered their time and lived experience to help shape Switchboard’s understanding and support of LGBTIQA+ people of faith. We acknowledge that many queer, trans and gender diverse people are deeply spiritual, and that many religions, faiths and beliefs have long been enriched by LGBTIQA+ people and communities.