Tag: religion

asexuality, faith, interview, queer

Get to know a-spectrum Christians: Justin Ancheta

jennadewitt

As aromantic- and/or asexual-spectrum Christians and Jesus-adjacent people, it can be hard to believe that we are not alone. There are few examples of us in queer Christian spaces speaking about our experiences, not to mention the broader queer or Christian/faith worlds in general. I want to do my part to change that with this website and connect you with more a-spectrum Christian and Christian-ish people across the internet. This summer, I’m hosting a short Q&A series.

Justin Ancheta

 1. Hi! We’re so glad you’re here. Can you introduce yourself to the Invisible Cake Society with your name, pronouns, any identity labels you feel like sharing? 

My name is Justin Ancheta—I’m a cis male, my pronouns are he/they, and I identify as invisibly disabled through my stutter. My ace identities range from grey-asexual to aceflux, but I most often use demisexual and biromantic, so I consider myself Bi+ too. For political convenience, I just use the term Bi+ and Ace.

I’m a Filipino-Canadian second-generation immigrant, which means that I’m a diasporic child of Filipino immigrants.

I’m also neurodivergent, having been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and adult ADHD.

From all of that, I wish “liminal” could be used as an identity label. For all of the identities and communities I’ve listed, I always feel like—regardless of the community in which I’m told I belong—I’m always in a state of quasi-belonging. I’m not really Filipino because I’m culturally so far from my family, nor am I really Canadian, because I’m not white. Because of the nature of how I experience stuttering, I can sometimes pass for being fluent, and sometimes I can’t. My own Christianity has evolved into a state where I’m firmly outside of a lot of the norms and structures I grew up with, yet I still feel myself drawn to a belief in Jesus. I’m not a pure Gold Star Asexual, but I’m not allo either. I’m too much outside allonormativity to be “conventionally” queer, but too much outside cisheteronormativity to be conventionally straight. Being Bi+ for me adds another layer to my sense of being stuck in an in-between zone, not being one or the other, not being A or B. At times it’s a source of pride, a sense of defiance and rebellion against restrictive binary relationship and sexual norms. At other times, it leads to the frustration of never truly feeling safe in knowing where I belong.

2. What do you like to spend your time doing, online or in person, creatively and/or professionally? 

Because of my ADHD, I’ve ended up with a lot of obsessions, which I often rotate through. But in general, I’m really passionate about literature and writing in all of its forms. Recent books that I’ve finished are Birds, Art, Life by Kyo McLear and Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud. I currently write poetry as well as hybrid and lyric creative non-fiction (CNF); my CNF work on asexuality has been published in AZE Journal and QT Literary Magazine. I also have pieces published in carte-blanche, and the Tahoma Literary Review, and my prose poetry has just been published in PRISM International. I also have a piece on stuttering that’s forthcoming in The Fiddlehead’s Disability issue for Summer 2026. My current project is a memoir-in-essays about my journey with disability, racialization, and queerness.

I’m also really passionate about the tarot; for about five years now, I’ve been a professional tarot reader. I was first introduced to the tarot through a group of friends I can only describe as a witchy Christian coven. The subtlety, ambiguity, and elusiveness of the images in even a bog-standard Rider-Waite-Smith deck was a challenge I found intimidating, pushing my brain to think about and question my inner self in ways I hadn’t before. But at the time I had developed an intense interest in Jungian psychology and Christian mysticism, and the tarot spoke to all of that, plus the ambiguity and elusiveness of my own relationship to sex and gender. I’ve always been fascinated in looking at the tarot through an ace lens, which is why I wrote a whole blog series covering the entirety of the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (all 78 cards!) from a marginalized asexual perspective. I’m currently in the process of revising and adapting that series into another book.

I also have an interest in technology and all of the technical, political, and social discussions around it; before the AI-fueled memory crisis I loved to collect and upgrade old laptop computers.

I enjoy using metaphors from my interests in my writing—my first published piece in QT Literary Magazine was a playful expression of my demisexual identity through the imagery of the “pairing mode” commonly used in Bluetooth headphones and speakers.

3. When did you hear about aromanticism and asexuality, and when did you realize they described you? 

It’s hard for me to answer that, as I can’t point to a central “A-HA!” moment to show when I suddenly realized I was ace. It came about over the course of roughly a year in late 2018 to early 2019, when I started talking to my childhood friend about their experience of asexuality. I did a lot of online “Are you Asexual?” quizzes, and read a lot of pop culture blog posts on asexuality. I kept on running into this brick wall where it felt like so much of the asexual experience resonated with me, and yet my own relationship with sex and sexual attraction left me feeling like I wasn’t “ace” enough to claim that identity. A big turning point for me was when I discovered that asexuality isn’t just one specific monolithic identity but an umbrella, including multiple different identities encompassing a gradient of sexually relating to no one or almost no one. When I discovered that there was a microlabel that fit so well my own experience of sexuality—Biromantic Demisexual—it felt relieving. It’s like I could understand myself so much more, and that I wasn’t alone in feeling what I was feeling.

I still remember sitting in a packed café one Friday evening, discovering the Biromantic Demisexual flag and ordering one of what would be many pins and buttons to adorn my bags. It felt like an act of completion. I felt whole in a way that I hadn’t for a very long time.

This is why the discourse around ace exclusionism and the Gold Star Asexual personally affects me. According to exclusionists, I don’t belong in this community, and everything that I’ve described above was fiction. And on top of that was my experience of the discourse around Ashabi’s 2026 intersectional ace flag, which sent me a clear message that multiply marginalized and racialized ace people like me don’t deserve representation in ace community spaces and are wrong to want that.

It makes the idea of feeling ace pride at times feel hollow and insincere. Yet, I still feel a strong sense of pride in my own asexual journey and in my asexual self.

4. What’s your faith background and how would you describe your relationship with religion/spirituality/faith today? 

My faith background was Roman Catholic, though later in life I’d grow to experiment with an Evangelical Fundamentalist Baptist Church, the Anglican Church, and the United Church of Canada. From a very early age, I knew I diverged wildly from the Catholic Church’s stances on critical issues like queer inclusion and abortion (despite a brief transition through right-leaning Centrism in high school). Yet the majesty and deep history of Catholic worship, the candles and the “smells and bells”, as some say, is something I spiritually feel drawn to, again and again. There’s a meditative, mystical, and introspective quality to it that I find healing and nourishing. Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV have done a lot to convince me that positive social change within the Catholic Church is possible, but in the face of the climate change, the rise of technofascism, and white supremacy, more concrete change can’t come quickly enough.

Right now, my relationship to my Christianity is…fraught. It’s difficult to go online, not just on social media, and see Christians at large reacting with almost bloodthirsty glee to the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, or seeing them cheer on the actions of ICE, the murders of Black people by the police, or the genocide in Gaza…and that’s on top of the typical queerphobia and acephobia that one has sadly come to expect from Christians and Christianity in general.

It all makes me wonder about what I’m doing. Why I’d tie myself to a religious community that has seemingly embraced violent white supremacy in all of its naked hatred, and zeal for inflicting as much death and suffering on others. Why I’d be part of a community who would rush to the defence of the current US president and his circle over the Epstein Files, while coming down with equal speed and ruthlessness on trans people, or people arrested by ICE for dubious reasons.

The discussion and popularization of the concept of “toxic empathy” articulated in books popular among conservative Christians leaves me feeling like I’m living in the Upside Down, a bizarro world where empathy, compassion, tolerance, grace, and forgiveness are now cardinal sins, while bigotry, hatred, and lying are now cardinal virtues, and the mere act of trans people existing is a mortal sin of the highest possible order. I’ve caught myself wondering if this is what Christianity has always been all along, and that I’m just the odd-ball outlier. I want to believe this isn’t true. I want to believe we can be something more, that we can be a powerful force for both justice and healing.

And yet amidst all of my despair, I see Christ as an example of choosing love, a philosophy that bell hooks and Kai Cheng Thom have written about, to which I was introduced by one close friend: To choose love. To choose the path of humility, empathy, grace, and a desire for dialogue and understanding over anger and othering. To accept that we can make mistakes and learn from them. Of showing up as best we can for ourselves, the people we love, and others around us.

For me, two things can be true: The utter monstrousness of what much of Christianity has done and has become now, and the beauty and inspiration I feel from a Christian faith pushing us to stand up for the marginalized and the downtrodden. That tension can compel one to be more introspective and self-critical, qualities which I think are so important in our increasingly self-centred world.

5. How has your a-spec identity influenced your personal faith?

On a deep level, I’ve always viewed my ace identity in much the same way as my Christianity—something that subverts power and rebels against the restrictive, oppressive norms that prevent us from living our authentic lives in healthy and sustainable ways. So I think in a lot of ways, they’ve informed and supported each other in a virtuous circle. In both asexuality and Christianity, I see a striving for liberation and a better future. I see a desire to decentre that which strips human beings of their dignity, reducing them to items to be consumed. I see a desire to be part of something greater than oneself, and a desire to keep choosing empathy, grace, and compassion for others.  

6. How has your a-spec identity affected your relationship with religious or spiritual communities? 

It both has and it hasn’t; I haven’t fully outed myself at the church were I work at, mainly because it hasn’t really come up in a relevant way, and because I know that as an affirming church in an affirming denomination, I don’t feel that pressure which comes with being at a place where the entirety of my authentic self is not accepted.

At the same time, it has been a wonderful experience to be connected to Matt Nightingale’s contemplative spirituality group, to be in community with like-minded people and those whose life journeys have matched my own. Being in spaces like that, and being exposed to the writing and work of people like Cheri DiNovo have helped heal my relationship to Christian community.

7. How has your faith affected your relationship with the a-spec or larger LGBTQIA+ community? 

I’ve had people in my ace community alongside queer people in my personal life see fit to lecture me repeatedly on Christian privilege and Christian supremacy, as if it’s something that I’ve never heard of and haven’t been thinking of on a daily basis. I’ve experienced conversations with those same ace and queer people—people who I once trusted to take my words, intentions, and actions in good faith—talk to me as if all they’ve ever seen in me is yet another overprivileged older cis male Christian oppressor.

I understand where that comes from. There’s no denying the history of trauma that Christianity and toxic masculinity has inflicted and continues to inflict on queer and marginalized people. That trauma in turn can pose significant barriers to healthy communication with others when disagreements or misunderstandings arise. (Something Sarah Schulman explains very well in her book Conflict is not Abuse.) I try to extend as much grace as I can to such people, and try to be personally accountable when I recognize instances of my own complicity in the harm Christianity causes. But it doesn’t change the fact that it personally hurts me. Slowly, I’ve been learning to make peace with how others have chosen to see me. If anything, it’s been a wonderful lesson from the universe in learning to walk away from people, relationships, and spaces where I’m not wanted.

8. Does your a-spec identity impact your gender identity? Or vice versa?

Being a-spec certainly opened the doors for me to think of my gender identity in ways I wouldn’t if I’d been conscious of my self only as an allo heterosexual. Learning to think of my sexuality in more expansive ways led me to think of my gender identity in more expansive ways too. Choosing to use they/them pronouns was a subtle but big step for me in that regard.

9. What should all a-spec Christians know?

Take care of the ones you love, but take care of your selves, first and foremost; you can’t show up for your community if you’re not showing up for yourself. Protect your boundaries, be quick to show grace, and be patient with your own anger. And always, always choose love.

10. What do you want the larger affirming LGBTQIA+ and ally Christian community to know about a-spec Christians? 

We’re not your enemies. Our queer communities can only gain through more inclusion, of intersectional people, people across the aromantic and asexual spectrum, and of people across the spectrum of faith, religion, and spirituality. At an unprecedented time when our communities are facing more and more attacks and erasure from white supremacy and capitalism, we need to focus on building solidarity and unity against a global upsurge in right-wing fascism and bigotry. We’re far past the stage of Niemöller-inspired appeals to speak up for distant marginalized groups under siege now, fearing for a future targeting us: Book bannings, and the regression of women’s rights means they’re already coming for all of us, right now.

The queer community and progressives can’t waste time indulging our collective addiction to lateral aggression (see Frances Lee’s 2017 essay “Excommunicate me from the Church of Social Justice”, which hits just as hard now as it did almost a decade ago). We deserve better.

11. At Invisible Cake Society, we highlight experiences that have been erased or seem invisible to those outside of them. What’s your favorite way to be visible? 

By far my favourite way to be visible is through my lyric essay writing. The medium of the lyric essay gives me so much latitude to play with writing in how I can express my asexual and intersectional experiences. I wrote a hermit crab essay about the obligatory “Am I broken?” inner dialogue on my asexuality (which almost every ace or aro person seems to go through) in the form of a software bug report. I have a piece in AZE Journal expressing the timeline of my asexual journey as a set of progressive software release notes. It’s just plain fun.

12. Do you have a favorite example of a-spec representation (whether explicitly stated or not) in media, books, public figures, theater, etc.? What about them resonated with you? 

I would say it would be my own representation in my published lyric essay writing, but I don’t want to be narcissistic! In popular media, I found myself most resonating with Florence Simmons from Sex Education Season 2. Her conversation with Jean Milburn was the inspiration for a workshop I facilitated on asexuality, which was one of the most magical and transformative queer experiences I’d ever had.

It’s unfortunate that the show never followed up on either her character or that conversation (not to mention Steve saying “I think I’m demisexual” on a placard in the Season 2 finale), and instead gave us the tragedy of O in Season 4. But the less I say about that, the better.

13. Anything else you want readers to know?

Intersectionality and solidarity will save us. Simply more queer or ace or aro representation will not save us if we can’t back that up with a community and a social movement that challenges how society still upholds white supremacy, cisheteronormativity, amatonormativity, monosexism, and compulsory sexuality. Simply wanting more representation isn’t enough. We need to strive for an end to ableism, racism, classism, saneism, and neuroableism. We need intersectionality and solidarity.

14. Where can they follow your work online? 

A quick list of all of my published work including my Asexuality and the Tarot series can be found either on Linktree or on Carrd; plus there’s my work-in-progress website at justinanchetawriter.com.

My latest prose poem, “A Letter to the Elevator Technician who Rescued Us, June 6, 2024” was just released in Issue 64.2 of PRISM International, and my lyric essay “Because I wanted to fly higher than where my voice could take me” is coming out in the Summer 2026 disability issue of The Fiddlehead.

In addition to all of that, people can follow me on what used to be my tarot-centric Instagram account (@rampancy) and they can subject themselves to my rantings on BlueSky (jancheta25.bsky.social).

aromanticism, asexuality, faith, interview, queer

Get to know a-spectrum Christians: Ell Huang

jennadewitt

As aromantic- and/or asexual-spectrum Christians and Jesus-adjacent people, it can be hard to believe that we are not alone. There are few examples of us in queer Christian spaces speaking about our experiences, not to mention the broader queer or Christian/faith worlds in general. I want to do my part to change that with this website and connect you with more a-spectrum Christian and Christian-ish people across the internet. This summer, I’m hosting a short Q&A series to introduce us to you.

Ell Huang

1. Hi! We’re so glad you’re here. Can you introduce yourself to the Invisible Cake Society with your name, pronouns, and any identity labels you feel like sharing? 

Hello! I’m Ell Huang (she/they). I’m apothisexual (sex averse) asexual and aromantic. 

If I were to get more particular, my desires can be summed up as hetero-queerplatonic (I’m interested in an opposite gender platonic life partner) and demi-sensual (emotional bond needed first, craves physical touch but not sexual).

Gender is a matter of curiosity for me right now.

I am also second generation immigrant Taiwanese American and autistic.

2. What do you like to spend your time doing, online or in person, creatively and/or professionally? 

I LOVE engaging deeply with art such as books and movies. I love being in deep conversation about all sorts of ways stories are in conversation with one another, especially the fantasy, fairytale/folklore, Gothic, and horror genres. I also love writing, directing skits, and making videos. 

3. When did you hear about aromanticism and asexuality, and when did you realize they described you? 

The internet was helpful in connecting me to that language. In high school, I secretly was beginning to suspect “asexual” described me, but I didn’t confirm until my later years in college. Partially because, I figured, I was either “really good at purity” or the soulmate God made me to be with (that is, someone I would feel this attraction for) was someone I’d meet later as an adult. I also think I quietly identified as aromantic first because I felt I didn’t even have to think about sex until later…and then it switched. 

Asexuality became easier to identify with, while it became more prominently existential-crisis-inducing to realize I did not feel romantic attraction either. 

Very extraordinarily well-meaning friends would tell me “being asexual doesn’t mean you have to be aromantic!” but the scary thing was…I was also aromantic. I am both aromantic and asexual, and for my personal experiences, the Venn diagram comparing the two experiences is a circle. 

4. What’s your faith background and how would you describe your relationship with religion/spirituality/faith today? 

I’ll call myself agnostic because I’m being honest, and I’ll call myself religious because I’m being honest.

I grew up evangelical but left that behind. Today, I resonate a lot with liberation theology. I also have a lot of reverence for what I learn from my Catholic friends. In all honesty, “agnostic” is also an accurate descriptor for how I feel some days, though it’s loose. I still choose to believe in a loving Creator and an afterlife to hope for reunion with loved ones and a second chance at life, especially for those gone too soon, and all I can do is hope.

I also believe in ghosts and spirits. We can’t be the only ones “right” about that.

5. How has your a-spec identity influenced your personal faith? 

The older I get, the more my asexuality feels like it’s changed my perspective on life and the faith in it. While I didn’t care for sex + romance growing up anyway, there was still this mysterious, elusive hope for it as something to be revealed in the future. There was this pretty, romanticized Tumblr graphic I still remember influencing me for years: “Imagine a guy so focused on God that the only reason he looked up to notice you was because he heard God say, ‘That’s her.'” See, there was once a time that felt so sweet and amazing to hear, to be romanticized like that, to be the answer to someone’s prayers like that, to be hyped up so positively behind your back like that! 

Now, I think it’s dumb as rocks, and rather insulting to everyone involved: me, whoever that guy is, and God. 

Rather, now I have moments that I’m grateful and in awe of friendships and their capacity to grow throughout life, but I also have moments where I still struggle with existential crises and platonic heartbreak and grief. There have been moments I’ve felt “called to celibacy” (genuinely), which I think aligned with a call to authenticity for myself; and other moments I’ve mistakenly thought it was my “calling” to save people from pain at the expense of myself, perhaps making the mistake of thinking it was on me as an asexual/aromantic with “the extra time,” to self-sacrifice like Jesus. (Is there an Ace Savior Complex? Just thought of that now. Might have to think more about that). 

In honesty, it feels complex now. Because I desire more platonic physical touch and a queerplatonic partner, I no longer feel “called to celibacy” now, even though I believe it was true and helpful for a time then. So I’m in the process of deconstructing that.

The other side of it, though: I don’t see Jesus in a romantic light. We repeat countless metaphors for trying to capture a relationship with the Divine, and the romantic ones never really made sense to me personally because in that case, you’d be mad to find out he loves others. A romantic relationship metaphor feels too reductive and exclusive, not to mention derailing from the type of impact Jesus’s human life on earth was dedicated to. A parenting, teaching, mentor, ancestral, or queerplatonic friendship makes sense to me as a way to see Jesus without feeling cheated that, yes, Jesus loves other people too.

6. How has your a-spec identity affected your relationship with religious or spiritual communities? 

Ooooh this is a complex one as well. I’ve had different experiences. The evangelical community is actually discriminatory toward asexuals once you’re in your 20s. People have this misconception that “the church accepts you the most!” and “asexuals are the puritans oppressing everyone!” but it’s only that we camouflage within purity culture in the beginning.

The flip side is harsh: all the shame of purity culture happens to us later, and possibly for the rest of our lives for some, for not experiencing sexual attraction. I have actually even been set up without my knowledge or consent with a stranger once, and a family member responded, “Why did I have to raise you” when I said no.

On the other hand, many of my closest friends are at the intersection of queer and religious(/adjacent), and I’ve been told my coming out has helped others come out as well. 

In being able to de-center heteronormativity and amatonormativity, we’ve been able to breathe in much deeper platonic friendships and share the existential crises of life together. It’s been liberating to make friends wayyyy past the purity culture panic. And that “being way past this” doesn’t mean having sex, for me. That just means deconstructing the obsession with policing or prescribing (heteronormative) sex, and getting over these arbitrary rules of gender binary and gender separation that keep us from practicing empathy with one another to full capacity.

I also remember coming out to my pastor in our small progressive Asian American church (made up of outcasts, mostly second- or 1.5-generation immigrant young adults who got kicked out of evangelical immigrant churches). It was one of the best conversations I could have asked for, the way he immediately embraced this knowledge, respected my privacy, apologized for amatonormativity in the church once he noticed it, and actively took it upon himself to make language in church more inclusive of asexuality and platonic love.

7. How has your faith affected your relationship with the a-spec or larger LGBTQIA+ community? 

Once again, complex! I don’t prioritize this struggle, but I have definitely been vehemently judged or misunderstood by other queer folks as inherently a traitor to the community just for also being personally religious. I’ve once been physically cornered and urged to renounce my belief in an afterlife to prove my leftism (an absurd type of situation I’d thought evangelicals only made up!). Ironically, this took place less than 24 hours after being physically cornered in a conservative place and urged to promise I would just say yes to the next man interested in me. One after the other, I was told it was just so unheard of and wrong for me to not have sex; then I was told it was so wrong for me to believe in heaven.

I don’t believe in hell, but I don’t think it’s fair to force people to renounce belief in heaven or reunion for those they lost either. I definitely understand where a lot of the rage comes from, I mean, fuck MAGA (and I know, it’s much older than that). But it’s also hard because I feel infantilized at times for believing in anything. I look foolish, head in the clouds, “clinging to childhood” for hoping in heaven. I’m still put in this position all over again, to choose between believing God loves me (does He? do They?) and choosing authenticity in who I am as a queer person. 

It’s genuinely a tightrope to walk knowing and respecting people’s triggers, prioritizing people’s safety, and still being honest if it comes up that, yeah, I do believe in something, but no, it doesn’t involve divine punishment or religious exclusivity. Not everyone wants to associate with queer religious folks, and I have to respect the space because I know people want common ground in relationships, but at the same time I don’t like when people are just sitting there making themselves angry at the existence of me and demanding the end of all religion when I’m just lighting my incense saying a prayer in my room. I don’t like it any more than people just sitting there making themselves angry at the existence of my asexual queerplatonic life and demanding I still promise to submit to sex eventually. It’s white supremacist in itself too, to call for an end to all different people’s relationship to spirituality and the divine.

On the other hand! Again, you’d be amazed at how much queerness and faith intersect in my life. It was the active hospitality of queer Christians, in multiple instances spanning over ten years of my life, that embodied the hospitality of Christ to me and restored my faith. 

Every time someone has somehow restored my faith, it was a queer person. Every single time I was in need, and someone gave me a safe place to stay, it was a queer person. 

8. Does your a-spec identity impact your gender identity? Or vice versa?

I used to think not, but lately? Gender is curious for me. I think my asexuality has helped reframe a lot: when I usually want masculinity in my life, it’s not because I want sex with it, but because I want to wear it, embody it, express it myself. When I want masculine friends in my life, part of that is because I want different friends in general anyway, but another part of it might be because I want positive versions of masculinity in my life as I explore it. I think what I seek in a queerplatonic relationship is a brother figure for this reason, to bring out the genderqueer or masculine side of me in a supportive safe space with a friend. Not everyone gets that, though; it’s very different from the way people even on the ace spectrum describe sexual or romantic attraction to men. Even as I say this, I’m still exploring it, so I know that could change.

As far as my socialized gender goes, growing up I was steeped in the idea that girls were romantic and boys were sexual, and un-curious folks might brush off one aspect of my identity as “that’s just being a woman.” 

But a) I remain both asexual and aromantic in adulthood as a grown woman, and b) women are sexual too; they’re just shamed or endangered for it any time they express it. 

The lack of safe spaces to explore didn’t make me asexual; it just made it harder to find out I was asexual. On the flip side, if I were born and socialized as a boy, it might have also been hard to find out about asexuality because compulsory sexuality so forcefully defines what it means to be a man. This might parallel the flip side of what purity culture does for asexual Christians, the camouflage and then the vulnerability.

9. What should all a-spec Christians know?

You’re not the same as purity culture, you’re not lacking in passion just because it looks different, and authenticity is never the problem. Authenticity to who you are is never contradictory to the life God made you to have. You did not just “abort” a planned soulmate by coming out as a-spec. You did not miss out on love for saying no. You can pursue love of any kind, forge relationships of any kind, and the “right person” or “right people” would never be anyone who thrives off of your suffering/stifling for life. You also don’t have to self-sacrifice. You are whole, with a whole life, too. 

We are not holier than anyone else. But neither are we any less whole.

10. What do you want the larger affirming LGBTQIA and ally Christian community to know about a-spec Christians? 

One way to support a-spec Christians: I’d like us to recognize and catch singlism when we hear it. For example, notice when small groups are created to try to foster deeper fellowships, and “singles” is automatically associated with younger age demographics, while “married” is associated with mature adulthood. Or when we hear sayings like “some are single for a season, some are single for a reason!” which implies singleness as either a test or a punishment, either way a negative temporary pending status to ideally relieve. Or when our automatic response to a single adult is to pray for them to end their singleness quickly. 

Another thing to know: no, I actually would not thrive in a nunnery. And there is something weird about assuming that just because I am aroace and Christian, I must by default be selfless and self-sacrificing, in a way not expected of straight people. It’s an echo of the Side A/Side B “Are gay and intersex people called to celibacy” debates all over again. 

But this goes hand in hand with how celibacy/singleness itself does deserve a lot more respect as a valid, informed, personal human choice too. People also don’t owe anyone sex in order to be a fully realized mature human being. Some people genuinely would thrive in a nunnery, and they deserve better than just being someone’s “puritanical” virgin joke punchline. 

These identities are not the same, and all must be separated from purity culture. But the way we treat each of them is all connected in the larger conversation on deconstructing amatonormativity.

11. At Invisible Cake Society, we highlight experiences that have been erased or seem invisible to those outside of them. What’s your favorite way to show your a-spectrum Pride? 

I wear a black ring on my middle finger every day! I also like to show queer art and flags in the background of my videos sometimes.

12. Do you have a favorite example of a-spec representation (whether explicitly stated or not) in media, books, public figures, theater, etc.? What about them resonated with you? 

Canon: Thơ (from the short film Thơ directed by Heather Muriel Nguyễn) incredibly resonated with me. She makes her sex averseness clear to her romantic partner, that it’s more like doing someone else’s dirty dishes, but is slowly still pressured into “doing someone else’s dishes” on demand anyway, if she’s going to achieve romantic intimacy. I really felt compelled by the short’s use of dreamlike visual metaphor, vibrant colorful lighting, and tense music to creatively emphasize how such an experience of feeling expected to “earn” love by pushing through trauma would feel like. I resonated with her experience of educating others (flipping the script where she was once “educated” on “universal” things) and slowly finding that still not everyone who initially seems to accept asexuality actually respects it. Been there. And I resonated with her breaking free. 

Heather’s film Thơ can be watched here: https://youtu.be/fg3p0kxWD4o?si=OtoZ7HZAlG-lj4i6

Headcanon: Wednesday Addams (Wednesday, but also The Addams Family + The Addams Family Values). Come on, what an ace icon! I love that she is in direct contrast with her doting, most passionately entangled loving parents, and they all as a family fiercely love and accept each other so unapologetically. Wednesday also shows her care for others differently and I really appreciate that she does not have to change that. In the show Wednesday, she is set up like most stone-cold protagonists to “learn how to love,” but then subverts expectations with platonic examples every time (while shutting down the boy who insists she can’t say no to him). In fact, in Season 1 when her arc involves letting herself cry (where she once thought it was weakness), one of the rare times she does show the most intense tearful emotion for someone else is not for anything romantic but when she’s rescuing Thing from the brink of death. 

For me, when I get insecure about whether my asexuality or aromanticism is just naivete, “innocence,” or “fear of intimacy,” I look at how Wednesday doesn’t give a fuck. She embodies “It’s badass to know what you want and who you are.” And she also embodies all this while protecting her very enthusiastically allosexual parents and queer friends too. 

13. Anything else you want readers to know?

Demisexuality isn’t purity culture either! Though I’d be so fascinated and curious to hear how demisexual Christians in particular have deconstructed purity. It’s different from my own apothisexual experience, and just would be cool to learn from!

Along those lines though: I feel like there’s a strange micro-expectation of all asexuals to turn out demisexual “if you just meet the right person,” and it’s important to know that that’s not everyone, nor is it as simple as that. And representation of one experience doesn’t cancel out others. Like with the Addams family, we can be very different but all valid!

Also: people can stop commenting, “but you don’t have to be aromantic!” lol I know. But I simply am. 

14. Where can they follow your work online? 

I started The Creator’s Apprentice, my semi-spiritual, film-inspired blog, as a huge movie lover and as someone who sees God in the strange and unusual. I was frustrated with how surface-level or dismissive of real issues so many evangelical Christian blogs were, and I wanted to create an alternative where faith was not threatened by good art but often shown to be enhanced or deepened by it. Gradually, the cinema-inspired reflections have become more about relating fantasy/horror to my asexuality/aromanticism, though I am still also open about my faith in them.

Ell Huang
Ell Huang
asexuality, faith, interview, queer

Get to know a-spectrum Christians: Kristen Tallau

jennadewitt

As aromantic- and/or asexual-spectrum Christians and Jesus-adjacent people, it can be hard to believe that we are not alone. There are few examples of us in queer Christian spaces speaking about our experiences, not to mention the broader queer or Christian/faith worlds in general. I want to do my part to change that with this website and connect you with more a-spectrum Christian and Christian-ish people across the internet. This summer, I’m hosting a short Q&A series to introduce them to you.

Kristen Tallau
  1. Hi! We’re so glad you’re here. Can you introduce yourself to the Invisible Cake Society with your name, pronouns, any identity labels you feel like sharing?
    Hello! Thanks for having me! I’m Kristen, pronouns are she/her/hers. I identify as asexual, biromantic, and sapphic, which is basically a fancy way of saying I’m not sexually attracted to anyone, but I am romantically attracted to anyone, and chances are it’ll be a woman.
  2. What do you like to spend your time doing, online or in person, creatively and/or professionally?
    Well, my day job tends to be crazy at times. I work as a video engineer in the corporate conference world, so my days can be anywhere from 4 to 18 hours long. When I have a day off or time to myself, I love baking, especially bread. (Yes, I have watched every series of Great British Bake Off, multiple times! And bread week is always my favourite!) I also enjoy reading, mostly sci fi and adventure for fiction, and I’ve recently started getting back into playing Switch.
    So if anyone has some game recs, I’d love to hear!
  3. When did you hear about aromanticism and asexuality, and when did you realize they described you?
    It was during Pride month of 2018. I was seeing posts from friends about it, and it was the first time I had been seeing people posting about the LGBTQIA+ community with the IA added. The I was easy enough to guess, but I was curious about the A. So, I googled it. And I started reading all these stories from people describing asexuality and their experiences with it, and I realised I was reading about my experience too. Took awhile longer to realise the biromantic and sapphic labels, but finally having something to describe what I had (not) experienced my whole life was so wonderful.
  4. What’s your faith background and how would you describe your relationship with religion/spirituality/faith today?
    I grew up Independent Baptist. Like not quite Duggar-level fundamentalist, but not super far off, either. I had friends who were IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles). It got better when my family started attending a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) church when I was at university. It got even better after I left the SBC. I still follow Jesus, and I would still say I’m a Christian, but it’s the Jesus of the gospels (rather than white Republican Jesus) who loves and welcomes queer people, rather than shutting them out. My faith is still evolving, but it’s still there.
  5. How has your a-spec identity influenced your personal faith?
    It’s made it more inclusive. Realising my own queerness after 30 years of believing being queer is a sin forced me to reexamine a lot of other parts of my faith and expand it to include a wider spectrum of people.
  6. How has your a-spec identity affected your relationship with religious or spiritual communities?
    To be honest, it’s made me more cautious. Being primarily from super fundie spaces means people will misunderstand you, mishear you, and think they know exactly what you’re talking about, and basically anything that ends in the term “sexuality” is generally frowned upon. I was telling a friend at a former church about an interaction I’d had on AVEN’s website, and suddenly one of the elders of the church had run up to the table and interjected with, “You know there won’t be homosexuals in heaven, right? You know that, right?” And then just as quickly ran off. Like, dude, what? Now I wait for people within a church or religious space to prove themselves first before even telling them about my orientation.
  7. How has your faith affected your relationship with the a-spec or larger LGBTQIA+ community?
    If I’m going to truly say that everyone is made imago Dei, that is, in the image of God, that includes all the diversity and variation we see. And that includes the not: the not sexually attracted, the not romantically attracted, the not gender affiliated. It does not make any of us less-than. I see Jesus speaking positively about the queer people of his time, and teaching that sex and marriage will not be a thing in the kingdom. Inclusion means including those for whom something may not apply.
  8. Does your a-spec identity impact your gender identity? Or vice versa?
    Not really. I identify as female, and always have. Realising my asexuality didn’t affect that. Maybe it will in the future, but I have other things to dwell on for now.
  9. What should all a-spec Christians know?
    We are not broken. We are not partial human beings because we aren’t attracted to others in ways they might expect. For my fellow millennial a-specs who are also purity culture survivors, this is especially important.
  10. What do you want the larger affirming LGBTQIA+ and ally Christian community to know about a-spec Christians?
    Our faith is not contingent on our identity, and vice versa. And while so many churches use marriage as an illustration of the “Christian walk,” there are so many more ways to be inclusive of those of us who may not ever marry. Community is the support everyone needs; it just shows up differently for us.
  11. At Invisible Cake Society, we highlight experiences that have been erased or seem invisible to those outside of them. What’s your favorite way to show your a-spectrum Pride?
    I’m a hobbyist baker, so I lean into the cake and garlic bread tropes a lot. Bread actually is my favourite thing to bake, so it makes it easy. It doesn’t necessarily lead to conversations about being a-spec, but when it does, it’s a fun conversation, and either way, you have something to snack on with friends! And who doesn’t love that?
  12. Do you have a favorite example of a-spec representation (whether explicitly stated or not) in media, books, public figures, theater, etc.? What about them resonated with you?
    One is Elsa, from Frozen. Also I high-key relate to her wanting to be alone once everything goes to hell, but that’s beside the point. She’s not your typical Disney princess, looking for her Prince Charming. She’s dealing with learning how she’s not actually broken by being different from others. She’s telling off her sister, Anna, for being boy crazy (I relate to that SO hard), and Elsa is more concerned with doing what she needed to do to be queen rather than finding her own person.

    Another is Dr. Spencer Reid, from Criminal Minds. Granted, I haven’t watched the entire series (it’s so dark!), so I’m not sure if he’s ever presented as actually a-spec, but it does seem to be his thing, even though he does have partners here and there. As someone who’s asexual but also biromantic, it’s great to me to see someone for whom that distinction also seems to exist.
  13. Anything else you want readers to know?
    Trust people when they say they’re aspec. Ask questions to learn. Just like anyone who says they’re gay/trans/etc., please believe us when we say what we are. Trust us. We know.
  14. Where can they follow your work online?
    I’m a cohost on the Where Do We Go From Here? podcast, on the No Hard Feelings segment once a month. Personally, I’m mostly active on Threads and Instagram, where my handle on both is @krtall. I also have a baking Insta @aceofbakes24 where it’s just photos of my baking.
aromanticism, asexuality, essays, interview

Get to know a-spectrum Christians: Beks Roen

jennadewitt

As aromantic- and/or asexual-spectrum Christians and Jesus-adjacent people, it can be hard to believe that we are not alone. There are few examples of us in queer Christian spaces speaking about our experiences, not to mention the broader queer or Christian/faith worlds in general. I want to do my part to change that with this website and connect you with more a-spectrum Christian and Christian-ish people across the internet. This summer, I’m hosting a short Q&A series to introduce them to you.

Beks Roan

Today we have aroace actor and writer Beks Roen!

  1. Hi! We’re so glad you’re here. Can you introduce yourself to the Invisible Cake Society with your name, pronouns, any identity labels you feel like sharing?

Thanks for having me! I’m Beks Roen, they/he. I go by Beks and Roen interchangeably, and am transmasculine, non-binary and aroace!

  1. What do you like to spend your time doing, online or in person, creatively and/or professionally?

For recharge time, I love reading, seeing theatre (especially outdoor Shakespeare), hosting friends for dinner, and watching DropoutTV with loved ones. Professionally, I love writing, acting, and anything stage combat: whether I’m performing, choreographing, or teaching.

  1. When did you hear about aromanticism and asexuality, and when did you realize they described you?

I think I first heard about asexuality and aromanticism during the pandemic shutdown. I’d only just met a couple folks who taught me about polyamory and genderqueerness a year before, so I went right back to them after some googling and talked through it. I remember reading some PDF of “examples of shared/common ace experiences” and going, “oh. Wait. This explains a lot. Oh no how am I gonna handle this?? Uhhhh, call friends!”

  1. What’s your faith background and how would you describe your relationship with religion/spirituality/faith today?

My dad is a United Methodist pastor, so I grew up moving every couple of years and having a real rough time with parsonage housing. But my parents never pushed church. If I had homework or a Sunday matinee, it was okay for me to do my work first and not go to church. I’m forever grateful for their grace. I still use UMC language, but I’d describe myself as more “spiritual not religious.” I find incredible, powerful, transformational spirituality in theatre, which has a ton of structural and functional overlap with institutional religion. Theatre and writing are my spiritual disciplines because creativity and co-imagination are such powerful ways to participate with the divine, however you label it.

  1. How has your a-spec identity influenced your personal faith?

I don’t think it has. Realizing I’m aroace didn’t change my relationship to faith. I see aspec ideals showing up in my faith: I’ve become very community-focused, and am grounding more and more faith in people. I meditate, tap, pray, and do yoga every day, which have been super supportive spiritual practices for me (especially doing yoga every evening with my mom). As I’ve accepted myself and allowed for more ambiguity, I’ve encountered more and more unexpected blessings. Timelines, support, new friends; aligning in ways I couldn’t control, but am intensely grateful for.

  1. How has your a-spec identity affected your relationship with religious or spiritual communities?

My family has been incredibly supportive, which I constantly celebrate. Most of the time, though I get the blank stare of confusion more often than not, folks have been open to listening and hearing. Even in the Midwest, whether it be church or theatre, I encounter more curiosity than animosity. I’m sure a part of that open response has to do with my white privilege. It’s a lot of 101 conversations, to the point where I made a Google Doc with links to all the educators I learned from (Angela Chen, Yasmin Benoit, Ashabi at Ace in Grace, Cody Daigle-Orians at Ace Dad Advice, etc.). I’ve found a lot of support in theatre spaces, with the occasional pushback. Case in point, I’ve been hired to play an aroace Romeo at Advice to the Players this summer (July 31-August 9, 2026)! The director and team and several audience members have been incredibly supportive and excited to follow this adventure. Out of all the conversations I’ve had about it over the past year, only two people have been outright aphobic about it. Most are curious and excited to see what happens!

  1. How has your faith affected your relationship with the a-spec or larger LGBTQIA+ community?

I see the anti-Blackness in the ace community and my heart breaks. We can do better. We should do better. For white Christian aces: Jesus calls us to do better. Jesus’ top two commandments were about love. We are to love each other, not slam a neighbor for supporting the community.

  1. Does your a-spec identity impact your gender identity? Or vice versa?

I found asexuality first, which domino-ed into aromanticism and gender discovery. I used to be really focused on trying to figure this out. Where the delineation was. Trying to define each container of each label I wear. But as I continue reading more from aspec folks like Ashabi (Ace in Grace), Angela Chen, Cody Daigle-Orians and others, the more I’ve relaxed and realized that for me, I can let it be a gradient. Where a variety of things are present, but there’s no clear lines between each.

  1. What should all a-spec Christians know?

You’re loved. You’re not alone.

  1. What do you want the larger affirming LGBTQIA and ally Christian community to know about a-spec Christians?

Faith and aspec identity are not mutually exclusive. And LGBTQ+ rights and aspec identity are not mutually exclusive. We’re here, queer, biblically accurate.

  1. At Invisible Cake Society, we highlight experiences that have been erased or seem invisible to those outside of them. What’s your favorite way to be visible?

Theatre!! I literally started my own production company, Roguish Goblin Stories, to produce shows that highlight the trans/aspec Shakespeare resonances that feel obvious to me, and produce original adventures that center trans and aspec leads. My writing absolutely supports this as well, but the physical impact of co-experiencing an aspec character’s journey in person deepens the connection way beyond my writing alone. When I produced my first original production, Boy-ish, I had multiple conversations with audience members afterwards about the two main characters: one was aroace, the other was non-binary. The show had basically nothing to do with their labels, but it still opened people’s horizons up and made the trans and aspec audience members feel seen for the first time in their lives. That’s why I write, and produce what I write in person whenever possible: to remind people that they’re loved and not alone.

  1. Do you have a favorite example of a-spec representation (whether explicitly stated or not) in media, books, public figures, theater, etc.? What about them resonated with you?

Honestly, as much as I see aspec resonances over and over again in Shakespeare and other classics (Romeo, Mercutio, Orpheus, Hamlet, Benedick and Beatrice, Jacques, Coriolanus, etc.) I also see aspec love between Sam Gamgee and Frodo from Lord of the Rings. Their love is so deeply, beautifully queerplatonic. Their dedication to each other. Right from the start: Frodo’s panic when Sam tries to swim after him as the Fellowship fractures, even though Sam can’t swim. Sam’s line on Mount Doom always makes me weep: “I can’t carry the Ring, but I can carry you.” We need more relationships like Frodo and Sam in media, which is a huge part of why I became a writer.

13. Anything else you want readers to know?

I’d love to see more people, aspec or not, celebrating Soul Ace Day and supporting Black aspec folks. There’s a chat with the founders here that I found really helpful. We’re in life together, folks. You’re loved. You’re not alone.

14. Where can we follow your work online?

Beks demonstrates their craft
allyship, asexuality, faith, queer

The point of all this

jennadewitt

I want to be absolutely clear: The end goal is no more nonaffirming churches. Not a “diversity of thought” that’s just rewriting purity codes. Not a “range of opinions” with a variety of ways to exclude and dehumanize and tolerate “separate but equal.” Not a bare minimum. Not an “I love you but.”

Whether these churches accept correct, just, God-honoring theology or simply fade into history as factories of shame and harm and fake-nice, the collective liberation vision does not include nonaffirming theologies. Affirming theology *is* correct theology. We have beat around the bush long enough.

The mainline squandered opportunity after opportunity to draw that line, and we’re seeing the fruit of that, but we’re also seeing the fruit of the risk, the courage, the willingness to say NO to fence-riding and big-tent and “inclusive of all, the marginalized and the powers behind marginalization.”

In Christ, gender is not a factor for whether a marriage is holy, for whether sex is sinful, for whether someone is qualified to lead, serve, parent, teach, adopt, or write, for when passion is lust or love is healthy. That doesn’t mean we abandon discernment, but that gender isn’t relevant to it.

We are uncompromising in that. Lesbian, gay, bi/pan/+, trans/nonbinary/genderqueer, intersex, asexual/aromantic/agender, and all other kinds of queerness are not just permitted but *required* for the full reflection of the image of God and the accurate representation of the Kingdom come on earth.

Churches that factor in gender to who is permitted to do what are not only harmful, even deadly, for a small subset of the population. That is too minimizing. They are lacking in faithfulness. They are missing out on our gifts and our presence, but they are also missing out on the real, true God.

Conviction isn’t the enemy. Just like how becoming affirming isn’t “throwing out sexual ethics” or “there are no rules” or “rewriting history/the Bible,” it also isn’t an accommodation we’re asking for, a way to boost your Good Person points, or a secondary issue. It’s accurate, correct, right.

Have the courage to say so. Have the willingness to exclude the intolerant beliefs and opinions while honoring the need to listen, learn, grow, influence, and teach. It’s not about excluding individuals; it’s about setting our doctrinal truth, our policies, our reason for being.

Conservatives will panic: “See, the crazy liberals want to erase us! They want to eradicate us! They discriminate against us! The intolerant left!” Yes. I do. I want to erase the possibility that any queer kid grows up thinking God hates, Jesus is ashamed, or the Spirit would take away their joy.

I want to eradicate queer death, suffering, rejection, and homelessness. I do discriminate against bigotry and hate and fear-peddling propaganda lies. I want the world to stop tolerating violence, inequality, and terror in the name of “religious freedom,” “thought diversity,” and “broad umbrellas.”

We refuse anything less as the destination. The future is one where every church is practicing and preaching the truth, the life, the freedom, and the blessing that is only reflected with full queer welcome, inclusion, affirmation, belonging, and leadership at every level.

faith, queer, resources

Queer Christian History

jennadewitt

We have a long, complicated history as a queer Christian community. It’s crucial that we preserve, learn, and grow from that history with each generation that follows so we know who we are, that we are not a new trend, and that “tradition” is in the eye of the historian. We are proud to have a deep, rich history of faithful love and justice work, standing strong in our God-given identities. LGBTQIA+ Christians have always been here. Our stories were just erased. Make the invisible visible again in remembering them:

The LGBTQ+ Religious Archives Network

The LGBTQ Religious Archives Network (LGBTQ-RAN) is an innovative venture in preserving history and encouraging scholarly study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) religious movements around the world. LGBTQ-RAN has a two-fold basic purpose.

Second, LGBTQ-RAN provides an electronic information clearinghouse for these archival collections and other historical data about LGBTQ religious history for the use of historians, researchers and other interested persons.

First, it assists LGBTQ religious leaders and groups in determining how best to preserve their records and papers in appropriate repositories.

Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion

The Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion (CLGS) was established at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California and opened its doors in the fall of 2000.

CLGS Archives Project

Whosoever Magazine

Since 1996, Whosoever has existed to publish resources, primarily in the form of curated content, for those who seek a deeper understanding of the truly loving God, whose unconditional love is experienced as boundless grace.

Queer Saints Project

The Queer Saints Project began as a collaboration between the artist, Jason Tseng, and Judson Memorial Church, a historic church located in New York City’s West Village neighborhood. In 2018, Judson commissioned Tseng to create icons of LGBTQIA+ ancestors, to celebrate their inherent divinity, honor their contributions, and reclaim them as queer saints. The goal is to raise awareness and funds for the LGBTQIA+ community using these transcendent images that glorify and celebrate the miracle that is queerness.

The LGBTQ History Project

QSpirit: LGBTQ Saints, Queer Saints

Kittredge Cherry provides profiles and a saints day calendar that ask “What if” in queering the Bible and Christian history, as well as recognizing modern-day and historical queer people of faith in ways the church has largely ignored. Dare to imagine, explore, question, and enjoy beyond the normative and cisheteropatriarchical-assumed stories we’ve been taught.

Making Gay History: Rev. Carolyn Mobley-Bowie

Growing up in the segregated South, Rev. Carolyn Mobley-Bowie knew the challenge of finding an accepting place in the world—a challenge that only grew when her attraction to women came into conflict with her devotion to God. The predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church offered refuge.

OutHistory: Religion and Homosexuality in the United States, by John D’Emilio and His Students

An essay by historian John D’Emilio “On Teaching Religion and Homosexuality in the U.S.,” and six chronologies on religion and homosexuality in the United States. First published on OutHistory in 2014.

Associated Press: A brief and incomplete, but helpful, overview of mainline denominations’ shifts on LGBTQIA+ inclusion in ordination, leadership, and marriage.

This timeline highlights key milestones and flashpoints within the UMC, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Church of Christ, as well as in civic life.

By affirming denomination

Your experience may vary, but overall, these denominations have come to a broadly LGBTQIA+ affirming stance and hold socially progressive theology.

Metropolitan Community Church

When We All Get to Heaven

When We All Get to Heaven is a documentary project that tells the story of one of the first gay-positive churches, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, and how it faced the personal, social, and political trials of the AIDS epidemic, including the deaths of 500 of its members.

The Classical Ideas Podcast: EP 197: We Who Must Die Demand a Miracle and MCC San Francisco w/Dr. Lynne Gerber

Dr. Lynne Gerber (she/her/hers) is an independent scholar. She is the author of Seeking the Straight and Narrow: Weight Loss and Sexual-Reorientation in Evangelical America (Chicago, 2011). She is currently working on a history of religion and HIV/AIDS in San Francisco.

Queercore podcast: The Radical Priest: Rev Troy Perry (Season 4; Ep 8)

He’s preaching revolution! In this episode, Reverend Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, joins us to chart his unlikely journey from Southern Baptist roots to gay‐affirming ministry and queer liberation. He recalls founding MCC in his living room in 1968, officiating groundbreaking same-sex marriages, and fighting for dignity when society told him faith and queerness could never co-exist.

There were fires—literal and metaphorical—that threatened his church, courtroom battles, and protests in the street. Through it all, he held onto something radical: that God loves us all, fully and without apology. Tune in to witness faith as resistance and prophecy as sanctuary.

United Methodist LGBTQIA+ History

Affirmation was founded in 1972 and went on to establish Reconciling Ministries. Affirmation was the first group to include Transgender people and was the first to provide direct support to LGBTQ+ people in Uganda and Kenya.

As the Church embraces a more inclusive and hopeful future, the Center exists to intentionally collect, preserve, and share the stories of Queer individuals whose voices, ministries, and faith have long been marginalized. Through this work, the LGBTQ+ UMC Heritage Board is tasked with ensuring LGBTQ+ people and their legacy in the Church can move forward unapologetically to be seen, celebrated, and empowered in the fullness of who they are.

Dedicated page for profiles of notable clergy and lay people, oral histories, online exhibits, and digital archive collections from the UMC.

Episcopal LGBTQIA+ History

  • TransEpiscopal – TransEpiscopal is a group of transgender, nonbinary, and allied Episcopalians dedicated to fostering the full embrace of trans and nonbinary people, and our loved ones within the Episcopal Church and to inspiring faith-based advocacy for trans and nonbinary justice in the wider world.
  • LGBTQIA+ Episcopal History – Faithful Episcopalians have been working toward a greater understanding and radical inclusion of all of God’s children for nearly a half-century.

United Church of Christ LGBTQIA+ History

  • Open and Affirming Coalition – Beginning in 1969, the United Church of Christ has advocated for the LGBT community. From the campaign to decriminalize same-sex relationships to support for marriage equality, the UCC has made a difference in the lives of LGBT citizens and their families. The issues have changed over the decades, but the basic commitment to full inclusion and human rights remains the same.

Presbyterian Church USA LGBTQIA+ History

  • Timeline of LGBTQIA+ History – The Presbyterian Historical Society has created a timeline of LGBTQIA+ related history in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The stories included show how church members’ perspectives as well as the language used to speak about sexuality shifted throughout decades of advocacy work by LGBTQIA+ Presbyterians and allies.

ELCA (Lutheran) LGBTQIA+ History

Brethren and Mennonite Council LGBTQIA+ History

  • Oral history project at the Center for Queer Studies – Amy Short, in her work on the BMC Elder History Project, has been busy collecting stories, primarily from older BMC individuals, but also from some younger ones as well. Currently she has over 40 hours of taped interviews that will be preserved for their archives, with some utilized for trainings or simply shared as a celebration of their strength and variety as a community.
  • “Repent of the Sins of Homophobia”: The Rise of Queer Mennonite Leaders by Rachel Waltner Goossen

United Church of Canada

Quakers in Britain

Other notable groups in LGBTQIA+ Christian History:

Many more to come! If you have more queer Christian history/archival sites to suggest, please submit them via DMs on Bsky, Threads, Instagram, Substack, Discord, or Facebook (all under @ jennadewitt), or send me an email at jennadewitt (at) gmail (dot) com.

essays, faith, queer

Your life is not a hero trial

jennadewitt

And God isn’t interested in creating obstacles for you to earn heaven points.

photo of man walking on rope tree
Photo by Stephanie Ecate on Unsplash

“Everything within me wants [romantic and sexual] love, but as queer Christians, we have to trust that if God is denying us what we desire and making us suffer, then it’s for the best!”

OR perhaps you can trust that not only does God create you with good and holy desires but you weren’t meant to reject them. God is not interested in crafting tests for you so that you can prove you’re worthy. Trust God enough to see the evidence around you that you can call goodness good and not wait around for a secret mystical reveal that you can earn more holiness, prosperity, heavenly treasure, or a bigger payoff through a morality obstacle course divinely designed to trip you up.

The mythology of gods who make games of people’s lives out of boredom or demand tests to prove loyalty and worthiness are not our stories. That’s not Christianity rightly practiced, even if that’s Christianity traditionally practiced. We can stop doing this. The world has enough loneliness and suffering as it is. God has bigger stuff going on than toying with you or creating hero trials.

Collective liberation theology is the antidote to this. You do not have to manufacture pain for yourself. If you are denying healthy, natural, freeing love in favor of imposed suffering, there is nothing of God in that. We have too much to do here to be distracted by “how far is too far” rules.

God does not create you with an orientation or gender you are supposed to spend all your time, energy, resources, etc. changing or suppressing or creating elaborate rules for. Our time, energy, resources, and more are so precious and limited. Just be who you are and get to work for justice and good. The needs and crises around us are too great.

We have far too much pain in the world already that we are the God-given answer to. We are the solution, not burdened with creating more fake problems. When we’re busy over here debating whose romantic and sexual relationships are valid or who gets to be their gender, we can’t fulfill our calling.

I don’t understand those seeing hunger, loneliness, homelessness, fear, addiction, despair, prejudice, injustice, and more and then going, “You know what we need? MORE of this! God must have a plan to redeem it if we just trust and obey gender roles! That’s where our money and energy and time should go! More sex rules, exclusion, and rigid gender boxes!”

Collective liberation means affirming theology isn’t about “selfishness,” etc. It’s about getting all of this legalistic shit out of the way so we can be free to focus on the real work. Let people live, love, transition, marry, and be how they were made. The real stuff is too urgent.

If your “values” and “beliefs” are about creating gender-based rules and sexual morality codes and labeling it a “calling” to suffer through for the sake of holiness than creating more peace, hope, joy, and love in the world, change your values and reset your priorities. We have too many actual, practical problems we must act on. We can’t waste our lives policing our thoughts and behaviors and relationships to keep them from trying to align in integrity with our God-given identities. Not to mention other people’s relationships and bodies that don’t affect us! Every minute spent on trying to adhere to a norm we can never fit and creating more suffering to be one day rewarded for our heroic self-denial is a minute that could have been spent on alleviating the actual suffering in the world, including our own very real problems and the fallout of others’ queerphobia.

Biblical celibacy is part of biblical sexuality: It isn’t about which genders get married or have sex. Biblical celibacy and biblical sexuality are when you aren’t distracted from the real calling of loving others by rule-following, drama, angst, self-imposed or church-imposed misery, loneliness, temptation-resisting tests, and all the other manufactured fears and obstacles. These keep us focused on ourselves and our own purity so that we never get to the part where we get free, where we dismantle injustice, where we oppose and defeat patriarchy, White supremacy, queerphobia, ableism, systemic poverty, xenophobia, and all other evils.

You have to do what is more effective and efficient for the real work of bringing justice and flourishing, on earth as it is in heaven. Be celibate if that’s what is freeing you to do the work in authenticity, in wholeness, without distraction (like it is for me!). Have sex if that’s what frees you to do the work in authenticity, in wholeness, without distraction. Living your values should empower you to do justice and love mercy, not burden you with morality hand-wringing and pearl-clutching. Follow the fruit of the Spirit in your life toward liberation for all. That will have you focused more on bringing love, hope, and flourishing to the world than looking at your own behaviors and purity performance to pass a vague and cruel divine test.

Our God is not abusive or cruel or bored or dangling a carrot while hitting us with a stick. God is not a drill sergeant or a prosperity promiser or a manipulator or a lab rat maze designer or a puppet master. God doesn’t work like a capitalist or a merit badge system or a game show host or a trickster con man.

God IS Love. That love is demonstrated, unashamed, and unearned. It is not deception or a hustle or a scheme. It doesn’t create problems for the sake of a trust exercise or set contradictory expectations to raise life’s difficulty level. Love doesn’t hide at the finish line after a lifetime of gold stars and perfect grades and queerness-control performance reviews. Ours is the God of vibrant life, of integrity and of constancy, a God of Creation and joy, of overflowing goodness and hope and peace, a God of gentleness and patience, of faithfulness and kindness, of the self-control that comes with empathy and generosity. The truth sets us free, and with that freedom, we can tear down obstacles like holy hustle tests, purity culture, gender roles, unnecessary distractions, and systems of oppression. With collective liberation, we can focus on spreading love and flourishing throughout all the world.

asexuality, essays, faith

Asexuality and the gospel of liberation

jennadewitt

It makes sense why queer Christian theology is often heavily sexually centered, given our history, but the best queer theologians balance it with ace inclusion. Not just as a footnote, but as a core goal. The point is ending amatonormativity and gaining collective liberation, which takes all of us—of every gender, orientation, relationship style, race, ability, culture, and more. Rightfully practiced, Christianity—with the words of Jesus at the center—drives us forward to this goal.

Jesus is as clear of an aromantic asexual Christian role model as we could ever ask for! Embracing found family and breaking gender and class binaries are foundational to his life. There’s just no way to read the gospels and come away with a factual interpretation that centers amatonormativity. That doesn’t stop the global church (now or historically), of course, because institutions and patriarchal power structures are best served by amatonormativity and all that comes with it.

When women are free to earn their own money, when singles are equal to married people, when everyone has the same rights and respect regardless of gender or orientation or relationship status or race or disability, we can liberate ourselves from the oppression that power structures are built on. That’s gospel, as Christlike as it gets, but it’s the exact opposite of what those in power want because it would require true humility, servant leadership, the Beatitudes, sacrifice, and loving others as themselves. It would be for the benefit of all, including themselves, but there’s nothing that scares them more than the risk and exposure of vulnerability.

I truly believe the only way forward is shame resilience, tolerance of vulnerability, finding belonging within, and developing healthy, boundaried empathy that leads to freedom beyond anything gatekeeping or virtue signals or scarcity can achieve. That’s work each of us can do, whether by reading books by Brene Brown, Aundi Kolber, and Matthias Roberts; or doing therapy one on one or as a part of a couple or in a group; or listening to podcasts, lectures, or wise friends and leaders who can guide us there.

When we liberate our minds and hearts, we are free to see others who are unimaginably different than us as a gift to the Body of Christ. We aren’t threatened or defensive because we honor what other identities and perspectives can bring that we can’t.

With the fruit of the Spirit as our guide, we lead from a common goal that all will be free: asexual and allosexual, aromantic and alloromantic, queer and allocishet, and more. Single or partnered, parents and childfree, living alone or with others, sexually celibate or abstinent or solo or partnered or open or any combination. Everyone.

But we can’t get there while asexuality (and aromanticism and our respective spectrums) remain erased and invisible in the church. We are vital to the liberation of Christ. We queer queer theology. We challenge norms in ways that rewriting gender rules alone can’t. We defy expectations and push beyond affirming marriage or ordination or any one label or issue in our unique ways, as all letters do if given proper consideration. But for asexuality, it isn’t as simple as churches might think. We are going to ask more than a flag at Pride or a language change, but a mentality shift that will require surrender of structures and norms and old visions and false realities.

But don’t fear. It’s the surrender of flight, falling into the ways of Jesus and finding ourselves held by the wings of love the whole time. That is, if only we have the courage to listen to asexuals, end amatonormativity, and become something so much better: the family of God.

Ornament on a Christmas tree that says Be Proud of Who You Are
Ornament on a Christmas tree that says Be Proud of Who You Are

asexuality, essays, faith

Shame boxes and liberation

jennadewitt

You’re going to hear me say a phrase a lot: “Sexual liberation includes the choice not to have sex.” What do I mean?

Sex-negative purity culture and celibacy-shaming culture are part of the same harmful system with moving goalposts. Both force sex on us.

The fight is not purity culture vs. hookup culture. The fight is true sexual liberation and self-agency against mandates controlling our bodies. No one can tell you you have to have sex in order to be good, normal, healthy, or mature. Not in marriage, not in singleness.

If sex positivity ends when “no” is said too often, expressed too confidently, or extends to a certain age before it’s “not normal! Humans NEED sex!”, that’s not sex positivity. It’s still a form of purity culture with a different set of rules you’re forced to play by. Other people’s standards.

Purity culture isn’t about abstaining from sex. It’s about putting strict rules on when you *must* have it. Secular culture simply removes the marriage element. There’s something “wrong” with you if you’re a “sad virgin” at 21, they say. “He just needs to get laid.” “What a frigid bitch.” etc.

If you don’t have sex, whether in marriage or out of it, you’re a freak. Doctors want to find out why you’re sick. Therapists worry about you and think if you just tried dating or hooking up, you’d find healing. Friends don’t trust you because surely you have to have something wrong with you.

No, maybe family doesn’t kick you out, but they sure as hell pity you and look down on you and shame you. You’re a joke. You’re a political jab. You’re a concern. The GOP wants to make you an example of all the things wrong with this country. “Your body, my choice” they scream now.

trigger warning: SA

You have to worry about getting pregnant even if you don’t want to have sex ever because telling men that leads to them thinking it’s a challenge. We call it corrective rape. Correcting what’s wrong with us.

Meanwhile conversion therapy plays out for us every day because we’re considered mentally or physically ill if we don’t have sex by (16? 18? 22? 30? 45?). No one has to make a “Side X” or “nonaffirming” camp for asexuality because it’s the air we breathe. It’s everyone around us.

Even those who consider themselves affirming of us think of it as a niche, for “those people.” Good for them, but for NORMAL people, you know, real humans need sex. Real adults mature into wanting sex. Real liberated people say “yes.” The consent is for us to feel morally, culturally pure about it, not for you to actually refuse over and over. And certainly not forever. Eventually, you’re “supposed to” want it.

But maybe you don’t. Whether by orientation or interest or opinion or lack of suitable options.

I’m not at risk of being excommunicated for staying celibate and single by church policy. I’m at risk of being excommunicated from society by refusing to let men use my body for things I don’t want just so I can meet some developmental norm or perceived biological need (of theirs, of course) or hit a milestone or rite of passage to prove I’m not “weird” or “broken” or making others uncomfortable.

Is it better than being kicked out of a home as a teen? Sure. Am I still fighting every day to get people to see the harm of amatonormativity and allonormativity? Now and always.

Liberation and bodily autonomy.

If that’s what you’re for, you are united with us in the same fight against purity culture. If this feels like a threat to you, consider liberating yourself and those around you from the shame boxes altogether. Both the purity culture box and the not-sexual-enough shame box.

Collective liberation is for all of us to have the freedom to determine our own choices, about our bodies and identities and lives. It’s shaping the kind of society we want to live in. We have to think bigger than judging people for the sex they have or haven’t had. That’s not enough. Liberation respects, trusts, and honors each of us living as our whole selves authentically true to our needs and what is freedom to us.

allyship, faith, queer, resources

Worship resources for affirming churches

jennadewitt

Explore the links on this page for liturgies, devotionals, worship services, naming rites, marriage ceremonies, prayers, songs, Bible commentaries, and more.

A Sanctified Art

Word Made Queer

Our Bible

Enfleshed

A Place in God’s Heart, A Place at Christ’s Table published by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force

Illustrated Ministry graphics

Many Voices

Common Word

Sam Lundquist

Out in Scripture reflections on the HRC

Creating Sanctuary UK – Prayers and reflections guide

Parity

Music

Worship resources created by denominational LGBTQIA+ advocacy organizations but open to all churches:

See the Queer Christian resources list for more!