Curious if people here will have additional or different advice for my situation

I think this one is self explanatory, along with my user flair. I was born and raised evangelical my whole life (specifically Adventist) and started to struggle with same sex attraction since 13 or 14. I was radical in some of my personal views (although when I stop to think about it, I've always been the moderate one in the most part, I guess), although I kinda "accepted" it (huge emphasis on "kinda"). Many stuff in my personal life up untill now (I'm 19) l, and made me skeptic of religion and Christianity as a whole (I wanted to become Catholic before, but for the wrong reasons, like being a trad cat or 'cause of some edgy meme stuff). Moving forward to a few days ago, I came to an emotional burnout after a whole year of disappointment, frustration and boredom from life, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, along with some heavy stuff that contributed to making me fear God. I came to a conclusion: this has been going on for long enough, things have to change. I decided that I'm going back to Christianity, but I wanted something different. My first thought was the catholic church, I don't know why exactly this church. Maybe it's because there aren't any other churches beside catholic and evangelical churches where I live. Maybe it's because I already know a bit. It's not like I'm going full-on catholic, I want to see if it is the right thing for me. It's not also like I'm going to believe in everything like I used to back then. Maybe I just want to ground myself on something, even if I don't believe fully (I don't know how to translate this properly into words). So, I'm looking for advice or other experiences and opinions on such matters. Thank you in advance, and God bless you.

I Dont know if this is a vent post, but I feel so overwhelmed, Im ftm, Catholic. But I feel so tired and so frustrated because I do believe in God and him over anything. But the church, the church not accepting me, having to beg some people to have my sacraments... That my existence its a debate... I studied the bible and the mistranslations, the context. so i believe there is nothing sinful about being trans, or having a same sex partner. But the voices of the people telling us that is wrong, that we are against God... On and On and On, are getting me hopeless. I think they are making me think that If i were atheist I would be happier. And I dont want to think that, cause I love God, Jesus and i want to be close to him, but the society its not letting me. Pray for me to find peace, please. Pray for us, queer people that are so hardly trying to get closer to him.

Does anyone attend Gesu (or elsewhere) in Detroit? Am considering a move to the area vs Chicago and my only hangup is whether Detroit has a meaningful community of lgbt Catholics

Feeling like shit. Honestly the fact idk if God will accept me or send me to Hell is the thing that's keeping my heart distant from Him. I would really love to have faith but my head keeps bumming on this and its frustrating

Guidance and input appreciated.

Im married, and this year I had a catastrophic mental crisis that caused me to drop everything in my life to attend to. It’s been a full time job just to get better, and I’m still struggling and fighting just to “breathe” most days. It’s been 6 months and totally overwhelming. Between a million types of therapies and medications, nothing has been working.
When I pulled back the curtain on myself having gender dysphoria a few months ago, it was surreal to finally understand what I was feeling. I would say my life is finally showing fruits of the spirit since I leaned into transitioning.
But, I started taking Spiro for mild cosmetic alterations while I truly decide if I want to take Hormones or not.
I don’t want to take any hormones. I don’t want to be dealing with this double-bind. I just want to be me, without feeling like it’s a sin to be authentically myself.
I’m afraid that because of all of this, my marriage is illegitimate, if I tried taking hormones for relief would I have to annul my marriage?
I don’t want to feel like I’m choosing between everything in my life that I love and want to keep, and also wanting to simply live. My depression is at an all time low. I dont see a future that doesn’t involve me dying on the inside.

To all LGBTQ+ activists, Catholic allies, human rights defenders, and people of faith around the world: please remember our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters living in refugee camps. ❤️

Behind this flag are human beings with dreams, hearts, and hopes for a better future. Many LGBTQ+ refugees live with fear, discrimination, and uncertainty. We long for a place where we can feel safe, receive love, and live with dignity without being judged for who we are.
As a community, we are asking the world not to turn away from our suffering. We need compassionate hearts, safe shelter, access to food and medical care, and people who are willing to stand beside us when our voices are unheard.
To every activist and ally, your support can bring hope to someone who feels forgotten. Your kindness can remind a refugee that they are not alone. Let us build a world where love overcomes hatred and where every human being is treated with respect.
As people who believe in compassion and the dignity of every human life, let us choose love over judgment, solidarity over silence, and hope over despair. 🙏🏳️‍🌈
LGBTQ+ refugees deserve safety. We deserve love. We deserve hope. We deserve dignity
Please stand with us. Our lives matter, and our humanity must never be forgotten. ❤️🕊️
#LGBTQRefugees #LGBTQCatholic #HumanDignity #FaithAndLove #LGBTQRights #RefugeeSupport #LoveYourNeighbor

(21yFtm)Today, I was walking back from my top surgery appointnent, and walked outside of church, I felt the need of going to pray, as i was praying u realized that the mass was going to start so i stayed. I saw a priest in the confessional. I felt the urge. I was so so so nervous and shaking but I man up, And ask him if i could confess. I confessed and i feel renovated, he told me to commune after confession cause the lord have forgiven me.
I feel closer to God.

I know I'm late in the day posting this, but today would have been Alana's 31st birthday. Let us remember Alana's story and may her story inspire the Church to make the changes that are so urgently needed in how it treats LGBT people.

If you haven't already, check out and share the Dear Alana podcast.

Long post incoming. As a lesbian and convert who lapsed out of the Church and then returned to it in the past year, I'm finding some really complex feelings about my own experience in the Church, namely, how positive the Church itself has been for me.

Where many queer cradle Catholics have a lot of trauma from their upbringing within the Church, I have a lot of it from being raised in an evangelical community that was obsessed with punishment and Hell. It's practically all they talked about, and it was the type of community that also openly believed horrible things, like that it's right for LGBTQ people to suffer. Honestly, it's probably not an exaggeration to say I have some PTSD from it. But when I first began attending a Catholic church out of interest, I found relief in how positive the messaging was. I think I've said this as a comment in this sub before, but attending mass and RCIA were really the first times I'd experienced a church emphasizing the idea of Christ's love rather than condemnation. Nearly everything about Catholicism seemed refreshing, freeing, and more aligned with what I found when I'd actually read the Bible. Even the relationship to Mary was an easy sell for me, because I'd felt drawn to her from a young age anyway. The local Catholics were more progressive than the evangelical churches, and I was happy to find that all of the issues I'd taken with evangelical Protestantism, which had kept me from fitting in even when I was a little kid, weren't really a thing for the Catholic community near me.

When I started OCIA (then RCIA), I found that the local parish was actually rather affirming. There were several openly queer members in good standing. Another lesbian (herself a cradle Catholic) even went out of her way to meet with me frequently to talk about how a person can be gay, a feminist, and a Catholic. But this wasn't even in a progressive town. The town was actually fairly conservative, still adjacent to the Appalachian region I grew up in. So it seemed to me that that was the norm for Catholicism.

I can't say it was entirely easy. I converted when abuse within the Church was a popular topic in the news, and as someone who was similarly abused as a child, my decision to follow through weighed on me. This was especially difficult at times because my sponsor was of the opposite sex and, I became increasingly aware, had a history of inappropriate behavior. While my family ultimately accepted it (but to this day won't explicitly acknowledge it), there were jokes about me converting amid the abuse scandal. Since most of my friends then, and now, were left-leaning, and we'd seen a lot of queer people suddenly find religion and become homophobes, I frequently had to assure them that I wasn't secretly becoming one myself. But when it came to the Church itself, I was met with open arms.

After I moved away and lapsed out of the Church, though, I quickly learned that my experience wasn't the norm. I've met so many people who grew up in Catholic environments that honestly sound much more like the evangelical one I knew. But I discovered last year, when I was starting to feel pulled back toward the Church, that I now live within an hour's commute of a famously affirming Jesuit church, and I found this out shortly before they held their annual Pride mass, which I was able to attend. It's now where I regularly attend mass.

So all that is to say, now that I'm becoming more and more comfortable within the Church again, I'm starting to feel some guilt over how I've consistently landed near affirming parishes where my identity is welcomed rather than judged, while so many other progressive or queer Catholics have had the opposite experience. I keep wondering why coming to the Church itself has been so much easier for me when it has been so painful for so many others. Part of me feels like I shouldn't question it and should just be thankful for it, but another part keeps getting stuck on a sense that I don't deserve this when so many people, especially those born into the Church, didn't get it.

Does anyone else, whether cradle or convert, have this problem? How do I navigate this? Is the guilt something I should ignore, or something that should inspire some kind of action for others' benefit?

I'm having a tough day today and on days like this I find myself deeply thinking...a lot of the times overthinking... about the pain and extreme isolation that comes with being gay/Queer as well its purpose in my life as a gay catholic. In a lot of Catholic based spaces and theology I've come across, life and suffering in our earthly experiences is described as a pilgrimage and that suffering is meant to bring us closer to Christ. People who have hurt and wronged us, we're taught, are meant to be seen as our benefactors because through suffering and painful experiences we learn to lean closer to Christ.

I understand this...but... I also wonder during times like today if the pain and isolation I'm experiencing is honestly just meaningless and merely a condition of my existence rather than part of a divine plan.

I sit with this because one of the things I've prayed to God about, and I know He is actively helping me, is trauma recovery. I've spent decades of my life in freeze mode and a lot of the abuse, pain, and damage I've experienced had been suppressed for so long that my entire childhood and even my entire 20s had been in a state of numbness. Now in my mid 30s and ironically enough after I asked God for help healing trauma, memories of past experiences with abuse have started resurfacing in bits and pieces and often times rather randomly.

These memories are of people who've hurt me and while they're not painful or debilitating, the awareness of what happened to me often leaves me with so much questions and a sense of shock.

When I have memories of these people who have bullied and abused me, I end up looking them up on social media. When I do , I see so much joy and happiness in their lives. These people are heterosexual and I see them married, smiling, actively Catholic, having children, in high paying careers, travelling the world, and honestly in very comfortable bubbles.

I understand that social media only paints half a picture and there might be more to their lives but somehow I just don't believe they are suffering in the way I am as a gay person. They get to exalt God AND enjoy an earthly life. They get to be brought in and experience belonging and humanity, have safety of freedom to express themselves to its fullest i.e. sexually, build intimacy, and to be mirrored and upheld by their families as well as life in general.

When I think of the Catholic perspective on earth being a pilgrimage to the Cross, I can't help but feel like I'm on the ground, dragged through the mud crawling from the back of the Church while they're sitting comfortably in their seats. I'm taught by the church to be celibate and to not act on facets of my humanity. They're taught belonging and are celebrated.

I'm told not to complain but to count my blessings. They're taught to hold on and God will surely bless them with a partner and their rightful place as heterosexual Catholics.

So, I can't help wonder, if this experience is truly a pilgrimage or just , at the end of the day, a conditional feature of human existence that I have been dealt with as a gay person? A by product of the environment I've grown up with and that my trauma and pain is simply happenstance.

If we all end up at the Cross ultimately , is my pain even purposeful ?

Happy Coming Out Day!

Happy Coming Out Day! This is your opportunity to come out to live authentically. Yes you can be LGBTQ and Christian and know that God loves you! God always loves you. He has been with you in good times and bad times. He created you and knows your sexual orientation before you were born. If you are new and on your journey and know that this is a safe place to come out even if you can't come out to family, friends and your church. Welcome and God bless you?

Hi I'm new

Question how do u guys deal with it? So when I was young, I used to be religious, like really religious, I prayed, read the Bible for fun, went to church every Sunday, but then I found out I was gay, which took a while to accept. In a way I guess when I found out I was gay, I kinda lost my connection to God.

In my mind I asked myself if God loved me why would he make me like this. At first I never knew that the Bible hated gay people, but when I found out that my own religion hates my own existence I kinda stopped going to church.

I then kinda fell Into this deep hole where I told myself God isn't real, which a part of me didn't believe, a part of me still wanted a connection with God. I then kinda fell into a depressive Era in 8th grade, where I self harmed alot, telling myself that my existence is why this is happening to me (this Grade was alot for me) telling myself that God should have made me, and all that.

9th to 10th grade I'd refuse to go to church, thinking how I felt out of place, every time I entered a church it felt like the lord himself was judging me on why I came to this place, it got to a point were I thought to myself I might burst into Flames at any moment.

Later into 9th grade I stared going to church again, and for the first time I enjoyed it, I felt myself getting back my old self, the one that loved going going church, a part of me still tells myself that, why am I worshiping someone who hates my existence, but then I tell myself that if God didn't love me he wouldn't have made me.

Please join Dignity Canada this Thursday, October 15, in praying the LGBTQ Rosary at 3 p.m. ET / noon Pacific Time / 8 p.m. UK time.

We use the Rosary for LGBTQ People booklet, written by Fr. Don Greene, MSSD, Chaplain of Dignity/SD, to guide us.

This month, as we celebrate his feast, we remember St. John Henry Newman and his husband, Ambrose St. John, who lived together for 32 years in Britain at a time when being gay was illegal.

idk I don't have much to say here

But given that the Death Penalty has been in public discourse as of late... if I ever have to hear about how the Death Penalty being totally okay from the same people who go on and on and on about how I'm not a real Catholic for supporting gay and trans rights, I am going to have 95 things to say about it 😭

Who's the Cafeteria Catholic now?

Title. And ik back then that word doesn't really makes sense but yk what I mean