🏳️‍🌈 Coming Out After Religious Trauma

A guide for navigating identity, safety, and self-trust

Why It's Different for Survivors of High-Control Religion

Coming out is never easy. But for those raised in high-control religious environments, it can feel like stepping off a cliff — into rejection, hellfire threats, or total isolation.
You may have been taught that being queer was a sin, a sickness, or a test.
You may still hear those voices in your head — even if you no longer believe them.

This guide is here to help you move at your pace.
You don’t owe anyone a performance of pride.
You deserve safety, softness, and space.

💡 Before You Come Out

  • Ask yourself: Who am I coming out for?
    If it’s for you, beautiful. If it’s for them, pause.

  • Assess your safety:
    Can this person handle this information with care? Could they jeopardize your housing, job, or emotional stability?

  • Find your people first:
    Before coming out to unsupportive family or friends, build a network of affirming folks (online or in person) who get it.

  • Prepare for complicated emotions:
    Relief, grief, euphoria, fear — all of it is valid. Trauma recovery isn’t linear, and neither is coming out.

🔧 Tips and Tools

  • Write it out first.
    Draft a letter, voice note, or message before speaking it aloud. Sometimes seeing it written helps clarify your feelings.

  • Use phrases that feel true to you.

    “This is something I’ve known for a while but didn’t feel safe saying.”
    “I’m learning to love who I really am — not who I was told to be.”
    “I don’t have all the answers yet. I’m okay with that.”

  • Make space for anger.
    You may feel betrayed by your past. You might mourn the time you lost hiding or hating yourself. That rage is holy. Don’t stuff it down.

  • Let go of the myth that healing means ‘being okay with everything.’
    You can still have boundaries with family. You can still cut off people who choose hate over love.

🧠 Trauma-Aware Affirmations

  • “I am not a sin. I am a full human being.”

  • “Their discomfort is not my responsibility.”

  • “My safety matters more than their approval.”

  • “I don’t need to be ‘healed.’ I need to be held.”

  • “I get to define what wholeness means to me.”

📚 Further Support

  • 🔗 Books

    • Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

    • The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs

    • Gay Girl, Good God by Jackie Hill Perry – only to critically examine internalized homophobia

    • Unashamed by Amber Cantorna (queer daughter of a Focus on the Family executive)

    • Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell (includes LGBTQ stories)

  • 🔗 Online Communities

    • r/LGBTLateBloomers (Reddit)

    • Queer Exvangelical / Post-Christian Facebook groups

    • @QueerTheology on Instagram

    • The Trevor Project (support & hotline): thetrevorproject.org

  • 🔗 Therapist Directories