In evangelical spaces, conversations about LGBT+ people tend to narrow quickly to one issue: gay sex. When someone says, “I am queer,” we too often assume they are making a statement about sexual behavior or erotic desire. For most LGBT+ people, such an interpretation feels insensitive – even dehumanizing.
It can get worse. In some churches, identifying as queer automatically disqualifies someone from being seen as a Christian. If a person says they are both a believer and queer, suspicion rises. Church discipline may follow. Sadly, a rising number of queer believers are being pushed out of fellowship.
This is particularly tragic when believers have made profound sacrifices. We know queer people who have left sexually intimate relationships and adopted a traditional biblical ethic after coming to Christ. Their attractions remain, but they have surrendered their sexuality under the Lordship of Christ.
They still identify as queer – but it has little to do with sexual behavior.
They have given up sex to follow Jesus.
Yet a growing number of evangelical leaders engage such believers as though they remain unrepentant. Even knowing the costly decisions they have made, some leaders treat the continued use of the word “queer” as proof of ongoing immorality.
So, the question is worth asking: could “queer” identity be something we need to understand more carefully?
If we want to understand why identity language matters, we must move beyond presumption and suspicion. We must see people beyond behavior they have already repented of. Doing so will not compromise biblical conviction; it will deepen pastoral wisdom. It will equip leaders to build trust and more effectively nurture faith identity in every LGBT+ heart.
The Early Sense of Difference
A striking number of LGBT+ teens and adults report that they felt “different” long before sexual awakening. Long before dating. Long before puberty. Long before they had any inkling of a sexual desire. And long before they had any language for sexuality.
Nearly a universal experience, most LGBT+ people felt different at an early age.
For some, that difference showed up in childhood interests, hobbies, stylistic preferences, or mannerisms that did not align with cultural expectations. For others, it was more subtle — a quiet awareness of not fitting in, of being uncomfortable with or distressed by the scripts handed to them about who they were supposed to become.
At such an early age, it was not about sex acts — nor sexual desire. It was about belonging — or lack of it. Many queer people recall being mistreated for traits unrelated to sexuality. Teased for expressing their personality or gifts. Corrected for personal preferences. Called names for not fitting in with peers. These early experiences often predate any awareness of sexuality.
When someone later uses the word “queer,” they are often naming a lifelong narrative of difference. Just to stress once more: a narrative that has nothing to do with sex.
Identity as the Sum of Experience
All of us unconsciously construct identity from accumulated lived experiences. Being a parent, a veteran, an immigrant, a pastor’s kid, an athlete — none of these identities reduce to behavior. They holistically encompass relationships, memories, wounds, victories, callings, and growth. As a human reality, why would it be any different for sexual and gender minorities?
For many LGBT+ people, being queer arises from early experiences of feeling different and being treated differently. Finding identity at the moment of coming out to oneself is just a word to help a person understand who they are (or make sense of feeling different).
In the life histories and memories of LGBT+ people, we routinely learn of common experiences that include:
- Feeling different than other kids
- Difficulty or discomfort integrating with peers
- Having difference get labeled with name-calling
- Feeling unseen, unheard, or misunderstood
- Being traumatized by teasing or bullying
- Fearing threats to emotional or physical safety
- Experiencing discomfort with natal or biological sex
- Being mocked or accused of being delusional
- Questioning across multiple development stages
- Feeling isolation, loneliness or even depression
- Suffering anxiety, loss of hope, or even suicidality
- Gaining self-understanding as time passes
- Fearing the risk of coming out (or being outed by others)
- Attempting to deny, change, or pray the gay away
- Facing the risk (or the cost) of rejection by family or friends
- Carrying anxiety about basic privileges being taken away
- Encountering judgment and condemnation in faith settings
- Finding the courage to finally speak honestly (come out)
- Reclaiming dignity and self-worth
- Finding comfort and relief from community and belonging
- Releasing shame and healing from suicidal ideation
- Realizing newfound peace at no longer needing to hide
Let’s just pause for a moment. What we just learned is not a small thing. It’s potentially a life-killing thing. If a child survives all this and still has a will to live and a hope to find purpose for their future, we should thank God and be the first to offer care.
When someone says, “I am queer,” they are often naming an entire history — not describing a sex act. While same-sex attraction is part of being gay, identifying as queer communicates something broader: a life story about one’s resilient efforts to survive, thrive, and reclaim dignity stolen by marginalization.
Considering this, asking someone to abandon the word “queer” can inadvertently pressure them to deny their lived reality. While that is not usually the intent, this is what queer believers perceive. If they are “no longer gay,” what are they supposed to say instead? It leads queer people to fear they are being asked to declare they are straight. That would be a lie for most LGBT+ people.
It often is framed as a biblical call to “stop identifying by your sin.” Herein lies the tension: it is us, as Christians, who hear the word “queer” and translate it as “sexual immorality.” Queer people keep attempting to share with us “who” they are, and we keep twisting their identity into immoral behavior.
Our impulsive reaction to a single word causes so much criticism, correction, consequences, and unnecessary pain. It all leads me to wonder if it is not “us” (leaders) who have the identity crisis.
In this present day, too many pastors dismiss the faith identity it takes for celibate queer believers to obey scripture and surrender their sexuality to Jesus. Instead of nourishing faith identity further, we chop it to pieces.
All over a word. Is it really worth all this damage?
More Than Behavior
I think of Matthew 23:24 when Jesus rebukes religious leaders who “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” Many leaders today ask LGBT+ people to abandon “queer” and replace it with “same-sex attraction” or “SSA.” Not only is this a clinical and unconventional term for most LGBT+ people, it reduces being queer to sinful behavior and attractions.
We simultaneously tell queer believers to see their identity beyond sexuality and then demand they use terminology that only has to do with sexuality. There is hypocrisy in such a demand. And as we have seen, being queer is about more than behavior.
Reducing LGBT+ identity to sexual behavior misses at least five crucial realities:
- Emotional well-being: Individuals who lacked safe peer connection during formative years often carry deep relational wounds. Community and chosen family become essential for their emotional and spiritual health.
- Community belonging: Queer identity includes shared history, culture, art, and solidarity shaped by collective struggle. This “identity” does not disappear when someone comes to Christ.
- Psychological integration: Naming one’s identity often ends years of internal fragmentation and secrecy. For many, it reduces anxiety, depression, and even suicidality. It also brings peace as one can freely express natural gifts and talents and thrive in their personhood.
- Spiritual wrestling: For believers, being queer may represent years of prayer, theological searching, tears, and surrender. Arriving at a traditional conviction is not east and it does not erase their journey – nor does it solve all uncertainties.
- Resilient surviving: Experiences of stigma and exclusion leave real marks. Coming to Christ doesn’t just make all of this history go away.
None of these realities reduce to sex acts. They describe unique struggles faced by most sexual and gender minorities. No wonder such experiences become part of how they understand themselves.
Everything we just learned applies to gender minorities. With one exception: they face greater marginalization and additional challenges in finding a safe faith community to worship and lean into Jesus. Open mocking of trans people is an ever-present risk.
The Problem with Reduction
When churches respond to LGBT+ people as though their identity statements are merely declarations of sexual behavior, it is dehumanizing. Imagine if every time someone said, “I’m married,” listeners fixated only on their sexual activity rather than their personhood. The reduction distorts reality and hurts people.
I know a pastor whose father left their family when he was young. Despite other men serving as father figures, it did not quell the pain in his heart. As a young adult, he was reborn into Christ. Over his years as a pastor, many believers have told him: “Knowing your Heavenly Father means you don’t need an earthly father.” It stings every time because his loss still hurts.
A Broader Christian Reflection
Scripture consistently portrays people as whole persons whose stories matter — and their humanity cannot be reduced merely to behaviors or temptations.
Christians who retain queer identity language are often expressing:
- A lifelong experience of difference
- A search for honesty and safety
- A refusal to live fragmented and hidden
- A desire for dignity and connectedness
- A longing to be seen, heard, and understood
- A freedom to experience personhood without condemnation
Understanding this does not require agreement on every theological point. It requires listening. I would rather nourish a faith that does exist than chop it to pieces. As church leaders, maybe we need to trade a “teacher-teller” posture for a “listener-learner” posture. Maybe, just maybe, there is something we can learn if we listen longer and ask more honoring questions when engaging queer believers.
Conclusion: Resolving the Identity Crisis
If most LGBT+ individuals report that their sense of difference predates sexual awakening, then it stands to reason that identity language carries meaning beyond attraction alone. It reflects biography, not just biology. It speaks to belonging, not just behavior.
To engage this conversation faithfully, evangelical communities may need to ask a deeper question: What is this person really trying to say about their life, their pain, their resilience, their faith, their hopes, and their unmet needs?
Being queer isn’t an identity crisis to solve. And queer celibate believers who hold to a traditional biblical sexual ethic are not placing sexuality above their identity in Jesus. If that were true, they would not be pursuing holy living! They are denying the flesh in a sacrificial way that demonstrates new life in Christ.
Demanding* that people use “SSA” does not make anyone more holy.
As I close, a quick story. One of my queer friends shared that he still wrestles over biblical theology even after experiencing faith deconstruction. Jakob has watched several queer friends with a traditional belief be removed from service roles – and even church membership – for merely using the term queer.
As Jakob’s friends live out a costly celibacy, it is never enough. Their church leaders still consider them to be unrepentant. Exasperated, he lamented: “With that kind of welcome, what are my prospects? I’ll pass.”
How we treat LGBT+ people who have already come to Christ will determine how effective we can be in reaching more LGBT+ people with the gospel. We must be more thoughtful in listening to people tell their story. When a sibling in Christ says, “I am queer,” they may be saying far more than we have been willing to hear.
* Post Note: Some LGBT+ people come to Christ and feel called to drop queer identity. For those who feel called to use SSA, they should be honored. I am not criticizing believers who comfortably use SSA language. I celebrate that they have come to Christ!
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