At my Catholic all-girls middle school, I liked to tell people I was Buddhist. It was my feeble attempt at preteen rebellion. I enjoyed interjecting, “Oh yeah? Well, I don’t believe Jesus was real because I’m Buddhist!”

That’s what friendships with queer and trans Christians have taught me: it is blessed indeed to want more, more of everything, more love and more gender and more faith and more life.

“Here was a community where race apparently didn’t matter, because we were all humans, made in the image of God. Where a pacifist, sensitive, caring Jesus was the primary male role model. I finally felt at home. I was promised complete acceptance and understanding, and all I had to give was… well, everything.”

On Easter Sunday, I didn’t go to a church, but I quietly praised God at brunch in community with friends and strangers and so many carbs and those tiny Cadbury chocolate eggs.

If we don’t abundantly love each other, we can’t have an abundant relationship with God. I must embrace an interpretation of my faith that requires unconditional love for queer people because any less would be to deny my own humanity and that of my community.

There’s a lot to say about religion and queerness and how the two can (or cannot) interact, which is why we put together this roundtable with 12 different perspectives. We hope you share your own thoughts and beliefs in the comment section.

“The summer after I turned thirteen, I decided that exactly two things needed to happen in order for my life to matter: I needed Rosie Collins to like me, and I needed my parents to send me to Bible Camp.”