In putting together this collection, I have come to confront some of my own prejudices about faith. As someone who works closely with LGBT migrants, I am constantly reminded of religion’s contribution to the us-versus-them mentality that drives so much hatred and violence. In fact, barely a week goes by when I don’t read or hear about an incident of homo/transphobia tinged with religious self-righteousness or justified on scriptural grounds. My anxieties were only exacerbated when collating examples of such incidents for the introduction to this book. How can one view religion as anything but damaging, I wondered, when faced with this litany of hurtful words and deeds? Is the antidote to the intolerance poisoning our communities not a rejection of religion, or at the very least a radical restructuring of its institutions?

However, in having the privilege of hearing the narrators’ stories firsthand, I have come to think more deeply about religion’s place within social justice. While my concerns about the politicisation of religious discourses remain, I have become more open to the transformative potential of faith-based organising. As the LGBT Ministry demonstrates, progressive religious spaces can open up modes of support that are simply not possible within social movements or civil society organisations (although relatable forms of connection and comfort are certainly found in these spaces). This is because progressive religious spaces have the power to heal emotional scars inflicted by their conservative counterparts. The LGBT Ministry provides its members with more than just material or psychosocial care; it represents a spiritual welcome that has long been denied, often violently.

In engaging the narrators, I was struck by the way in which they recounted the pain of being rejected by faith communities. For some, the mere expression of their sexual orientation or gender identity was enough to bring about permanent exclusion from people they had known their whole lives. The message behind such a punishment is unambiguous: you are not one of us, and you do not belong here. The anguish this causes is palpable to anyone who reads the stories. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, very few of the narrators have rejected religion outright.