It’s no secret that LGBTQ+ people aren’t often religious. Sure, there are exceptions, but you’re not unusual if you feel more welcome at Sunday drag brunches than church sermons.
This isn’t a coincidence, and it’s not a modern phenomenon, says Rick Grant-Coons, a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with Gay Therapy Center.
“Early monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam were committed to banishing any sexual behavior that wasn’t intended for procreation,” Grant-Coons says. Over the centuries, he adds, religious teachings connected LGBTQ+ individuals with an immoral existence and threatened an eternity of punishment in the afterlife.
If you’ve ever seen protestors outside a Pride parade, you know these teachings persist today, encouraging discrimination and rejection. And the impacts are devastating, says Brandon Aguillard, a Seattle-based therapist with Gay Therapy Center.
“While any faith tradition can cause harm when it enforces control through fear, rigid dogma, or rejection, LGBTQ+ individuals are particularly vulnerable in systems that marginalize or condemn them, especially when their community, family, or spiritual belonging is tied to that same system,” he explains.
So how do you know if you’ve experienced religious trauma, how might it show up in your life, and how can you heal? Read on for answers from our interviews with two Gay Therapy Center therapists, and a prominent advocate who overcame severe religious trauma.
The LGBTQ+ Experience in Faith Communities
As her holiness Lady Gaga says, we are born this way, but many religions (or sects of them) teach otherwise. “Sexual orientation and gender identity often begin to emerge in early adolescence, right around the same time that many people are forming a sense of purpose, identity, and connection to something greater than themselves,” Aguillard explains.
“When these deeply personal developments collide with teachings that label them as sinful or disordered, it creates a profound inner rupture.”
This can cause young people who feel safe and nurtured in their spiritual communities to slowly and painfully shift to feeling unsafe, ashamed, or even cast out. “That betrayal cuts especially deep when the very places that once offered belonging and unconditional love become spaces of silence, fear, or rejection,” Aguillard says.
We can experience religious trauma before we’re old enough to understand it. Grant-Coons was raised in a rural, religious community in the South, when schools still allowed corporal punishment. He remembers teachers going out of their way to slap him or paddle him with a wood stick for minor infractions like whistling in class — what he now views as excuses for “beating the gay out of me.”
Looking back, Grant-Coons says, “They humiliated and terrorized me into submission all in the name of their ‘loving’ god, who apparently violently hated effeminiate little boys.” At age 10, before he even understood death, he prayed to God before bed that he wouldn’t wake up.
Those exposed to rigid beliefs at a young age also might not realize there are other ways of being. Dr. Nasser Mohamed, now an LGBTQ+ activist and affirming physician in San Francisco, grew up in Qatar under a repressive religious dictatorship. There was no Internet or social media, they say, and the strict religious lifestyle permeated the entire culture. LGBTQ+ people could be punished by prison or death. This was their normal.
When they realized they didn’t fit the typical cis-het mold, they didn’t have language for it and felt lonely and isolated. As they began to understand their identity, they realized their religion perceived them as bad, doomed, and evil. They didn’t see it as traumatic at the time, but looking back, they view their religion (along with their government) as abusive and dehumanizing.
While they are now loud and proud, they are believed to be the first publicly gay Qatari, and they sought asylum in the United States. “The narrative that was fed to me chipped away at my spirituality and broke my spirit,” Mohamed recalls.
What is Religious Trauma?
These scarring experiences can create religious trauma; a complex form of trauma that happens when spiritual beliefs of religious beliefs cause deep psychological, emotional, or relational harm, Aguillard says.
“It doesn’t always involve a single traumatic event; sometimes it’s the slow erosion of self-worth, belonging, or safety over time, all within a framework meant to offer love and truth,” he adds. “Because religion so often shapes our identity, values, and sense of purpose, these wounds can run deep, especially when our authentic self is seen as sinful or wrong.”
After experiencing religious trauma, Grant-Coons now helps clients recognize its psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical harm in themselves. “It often arises from religious or spiritual environments with rigid doctrines that use fear, shame, or exclusion as tools for control,” he says, especially ones that inflict abuse, coercion, or severe control.
Recognizing that your religion sees love and acceptance for your identity as conditional — and in Mohamad’s case, when your government criminalizes it — can be a dark, painful process.
“When something you believe in and love, that you derive purpose from, that gives you hope, is the same thing telling you that you don’t belong and are inherently bad — it’s shattering,” Mohamad explains.
“It’s like being domestically abused by someone you really love. How can somebody or something I really love be painful at the same time? How do I reconcile love and abuse?”
There is no timetable for religious trauma, and the experience or the recognition of it can happen at any age. Aguillard is a former youth pastor who genuinely loved God, church, and its sense of belonging, and he says he didn’t recognize his own religious trauma for years.
He knew coming out meant risking everything: his job, home, community, and sense of purpose. But “even when those around me offered ‘support,’ it came with conditions: silence, secrecy, shame,” he recalls. Aguillard says it took nearly a decade to name his experience and recognize the impacts.
The Lasting Impacts of Abusive Religion
When religious people become aware of their LGBTQ+ identity, it’s common to feel tremendous internal conflict between following these religious teachings or living an authentic life, Grant-Coons says.
“These internal conflicts can lead to a variety of issues including self-rejection and self-hatred, mental health issues including depression and anxiety, and for far too many, suicide,” he adds.
The way it shows up in one’s life can be subtle and intense, Aguillard says, whether someone is still part of that faith community or has left. Some might experience complex PTSD, with symptoms of hypervigilance, shame, self-doubt, or emotional numbing. On the other hand, he says, others may struggle with perfectionism, chronic guilt, difficulty trusting themselves, or intense fear around sexuality or making “wrong” choices.
The pain of religious trauma goes far beyond no longer feeling unwelcome at religious services, and it doesn’t end when you stop attending services. “There can also be grief, for the loss of a spiritual identity, a community, or a version of God that once felt safe,” Aguillard explains. “Because these systems often reach so far into our nervous systems and sense of identity, the effects can linger long after someone has left the religion itself.”
For those who have come out and left religious communities, he adds, finding support can be challenging and lonely. “Often, LGBTQ+ individuals are isolated and terrified of the consequences for even considering living an open and self-loving life,” Grant-Coons says. “Many are young and fear family rejection and the very real risk of homelessness.”
The Healing Journey: Finding Supportive Care
Healing from religious trauma and related issues like internalized homophobia is possible, though it’s a process and it looks different for everyone. It’s also something to take seriously, Grant-Coons says: “Finding the right support can be a matter of life or death.”.
Even the step of simply naming your religious trauma can be incredibly freeing, Aguillard says. “It allows people to make sense of the confusion, disconnection, or shame they’ve been carrying, and to stop blaming themselves for symptoms that are actually protective responses to a painful system.”
One important tool can be therapy. Aguillard says. “Working with an LGBTQ therapist can offer a space where there’s no need to explain the nuances of queerness, societal shame, or identity-level rupture, because those are already lived realities.”
Even if the therapist isn’t LGBTQ+, “It can be deeply reparative to work with someone who not only validates your experience, but helps you understand how it impacted your nervous system, your relationships, and your core sense of self,” Aguillard explains. “Together, you can begin to unlearn what was never yours to carry.”
Grant-Coons adds that an affirming therapist doesn’t just help you identify and challenge harmful teachings; they can guide you through replacing them with more helpful understandings of yourself as a worthy and valuable human who deserves love and acceptance. Also vital for overcoming this trauma, he says, is finding affirming groups and communities.
For those in need of urgent support or resources, he recommends reaching out to organizations like The Trevor Project or Trans Lifeline.
Aguillard says a range of other modalities can be helpful in the healing process, including:
- Support groups
- Queer-affirming spiritual spaces
- Trauma-informed bodywork
- Reconnecting with nature
- Creativity and expressive arts
- Somatic therapy
- Mindfulness
- Seeking community that prioritizes belonging over dogma
While some people who walk away from religion never desire to return, it’s okay to find a different faith community if you miss a sense of belonging or connection to higher power. It will just look different. “For those who want and need a healthier relationship with religion and spirituality, finding more affirmative religious organizations can be very effective at achieving this goal,” Grant-Coons says.
Mohamed says one of the most helpful tools in overcoming their religious trauma has been reshaping and retelling their story. “I grew up in a religion where I was told what reality is, what’s an acceptable way to love and be loved and carry myself in the world,” they explain. “I’m no longer trying to rationalize how I’ll fit in this narrative; instead, I’m leaving this narrative, I’m telling a different story, one that is centered on humanity. I lean into my differences with empathy rather than shame and fear.”
They add that they can now see clearly that organized religion can be a tactic wielded for control, power, gatekeeping, and gaslighting. Now, they see all humans and all love as a holy miracle.
As Mohamed healed inner wounds, they experienced profound personal growth.
“I thought my world was ending when I left my religion, but my world was just expanding.”
“I thought my world was ending when I left my religion, but my world was just expanding,” they say. “I think I’m now a lot more empathetic and loving. My friends are so different and diverse, from all over the world, and I don’t see them as any less human. As my world opened up, it was really healing and liberating for me,” they say. By opening a medical practice that is unabashedly LGBTQ+ affirming and authentic, where patients of all walks of life feel seen and respected, they feel fully in alignment.
Recovering from religious trauma is not a one-and-done experience; it’s a complicated process that’s not always linear. Aguillard admits that he is still working on his healing, and that it isn’t easy. But it is most definitely worth it.
“When someone begins to untangle what they were taught from what they truly believe, it opens the door to reclaiming agency, identity, and even a new sense of spiritual connection; one that is rooted in self-trust rather than fear,” Aguillard concludes. “What matters most is rebuilding trust in your own inner compass, and remembering that spirituality, connection, and meaning are still available to you, even outside the walls of religion.”
