When faith and LGBTQ+ identity seem to no longer speak to each other

Reflections on the online meeting on "Faith and sexuality. Embracing the conflict between identity and spirituality", held by Gianluca Costa*, during the listening training course promoted by La Tenda di Gionata with the listening service “I trust you” on April 8, 2026.

There are meetings that do not serve to give ready-made answers. Rather, they serve to open up questions, to bring order into confused experiences, to give words to struggles that often remain locked inside. The online meeting on April 8, 2026 with Gianluca Costa, a doctor in psychological techniques with training in theology and biblical culture, was precisely this: a time of listening and training for those who accompany LGBTQ+ believers, their families and the Christian communities who try, with effort and sincerity, not to leave anyone alone.

It was the third and final date of online listening training course promoted by La Tenda di Gionata with the "I trust you" service, inside the Cornerstone Project 2 supported by the Otto per Mille of the Waldensian Church. After talking about the role of the volunteer and the importance of listening, this time the focus narrowed on a very delicate issue: what happens inside a person when their emotional or gender identity seems to come into conflict with faith?

Gianluca Costa started from afar, reconstructing in a simple way the historical path with which homosexuality has been interpreted over time. In the ancient world we looked above all at behavior, not at identity. With the Christian tradition, however, homosexuality has progressively been associated with sin. Then, with modernity, we moved from the category of sin to that of pathology. Only in 1973 did the American Psychiatric Association remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, while the full depathologization of egodystonic homosexuality came in 1987 (American Psychiatric Association, 1973; American Psychiatric Association, 1987).

This passage is not only historical. It has concrete consequences on people. Because if for centuries you are told that you are a sin, an illness, an error, a deviation, sooner or later those words enter in. They become an inner voice. They become fearful. They become ashamed.

From here Gianluca Costa introduced the model of minority stress, developed by Ilan Meyer, which helps to understand something crucial: many LGBTQ+ people are not hurting because they are LGBTQ+, but because they live in contexts marked by stigma, discrimination, rejection and internalized homophobia (Meyer, 2003). This is even more true when the person grows up in religious environments where faith and identity are presented as incompatible.

One of the strongest passages of the meeting was precisely this: the conflict does not arise simply from faith, but from a certain idea of ​​faith. From a reading that separates, judges, crushes. Many LGBTQ+ believing people don't want to choose between God and themselves. Yet they are often faced with this alternative: either your faith, or your identity. As if one part had to die so the other could live.

The task of those who accompany, Costa recalled, is not to take sides against one of the two parties. It's not a question of saying: "let go of faith" or "deny who you are". It would still be violence. Rather, it is a question of helping the person to look for a third path, where faith and identity can finally speak to each other, recognize each other, breathe together.

Coming out was also presented very delicately. It can be a factor of well-being and liberation, but only if it arises from a free, conscious and respectful choice of the person's time. No volunteer, no pastoral worker, no friend should push someone to "say it" if that person is not ready. Accompanying does not mean forcing. It means being close by, helping to evaluate risks, desires, fears, possibilities.

The same goes for families. when A son or daughter comes out, parents often have to let an image built up over time die: expectations, dreams, projections. they Don't always react well. Sometimes they break. sometimes They hurt. but they Too, if accompanied, can cross a path. they can Learn to see not a loss, but a truth that asks for love.

The most beautiful part of the meeting came at the end, with the evangelical image of the disciples of Emmaus. Two men walk sad, disappointed, full of collapsed ideas. Jesus does not immediately reproach them, he does not impose an explanation, he does not enter into their life "at arm's length". Walk with them. He listens to them. It helps them little by little to reread what happened. Only at the end their eyes are opened (Luke 24,13-35).

Perhaps accompanying LGBTQ+ believing people means precisely this: walking alongside, without pretending to fix everything immediately. Listening to their words, but also the pain underneath. Help them to recognize the prejudices received, the internalized fears, the false images of God. And then, with patience, open a new space.

Because perhaps the point is not to convince someone that faith and identity can coexist. The point is to help him discover it within his own story. A bit like happens at Emmaus: at a certain point your eyes open, and you realize that God was not on the other side of your life. He was there, along the way, even when everything seemed broken.

* Gianluca Costa is a doctor in psychological techniques, registered with the Order of Psychologists of the Sicily Region. He has training in transactional-analytic counseling and biblical culture and theology. He deals with mental health, well-being, prevention and training, carrying out professional activities also in collaboration with various third sector bodies.