Religious LGBTQ Youth

Both religious and secular spaces inhabited by queer religious youth, such as church spaces; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) “scene” spaces; and everyday spaces of home, education, and employment may be positioned apart from and at odds with one another. Indeed, the three categories—youth, religious, queer—do not normally sit side by side. Religion, sexuality, and youth would seem to strike many as contradictory, or would seem to inevitably represent sites of trouble and struggle, insomuch as widely held perceptions have often cast religion as automatically negative or harmful to the realization of LGBTQ identities.

In a particular time of vigorous debate on interfaith and secular stances on homosexuality, there has been interdisciplinary dialogues and even disconnects—on the place of religion in everyday contemporary intimate lives. ...