This session explores the connection between religious trauma and deconversion for survivors of sexual abuse and LGBTQ+ individuals. Living within and then leaving a traumatizing religious environment can lead to profound spiritual crisis, struggles with gender and sexual identity, and radically transformed narratives about the self, family and community. Drawing on in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ young adults in the US, queer adults from evangelical backgrounds in the Netherlands, and women survivors of clerical sexual abuse in Chile, these papers provide a nuanced examination of the process of deconversion. What mental health challenges – and opportunities – do survivors of religious trauma have to navigate? What resources do survivors of trauma draw on to find resilience and alternative sources of spiritual support? Seen through the lens of queer theory and theology, how can deconversion – perhaps more aptly called deformation, or un-formation – support flourishing?
Religious Trauma & Deconversion
Queer individuals raised in evangelical environments often face challenges reconciling their sexual or gender identity with their religious beliefs. Evangelical churches, influenced by fundamentalist views, typically reject ‘practicing’ LGBTQ+ individuals. While some promote ‘unconditional love,’ this acceptance is often limited, particularly regarding same-sex relationships. This qualitative study explores the deconversion experiences of queer individuals from evangelical backgrounds in the Netherlands through in-depth interviews with 10 participants. It examines how they navigate the dual challenges of leaving their evangelical environment, confronting religious trauma and embracing their queer identities. This paper investigates how they reclaim agency, challenge traditional religious narratives, and construct new, inclusive identities. This paper aims to fill gaps in existing literature on religious disaffiliation, highlighting the intersection of queer identity, deconversion, and personal empowerment, while providing insights into the mental and physical health implications of leaving one’s faith.
This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study of women survivors of clerical sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Chile, exploring their struggles with faith in the aftermath of trauma. The first section addresses the survivors' crisis of belief, examining how sexual abuse shatters their trust in Church authorities, doctrines, symbols, and rituals. It investigates how survivors reconstruct their images of God, seek alternative spiritual sources, and develop new rituals aimed at healing and meaning-making. The second section shifts focus to the ecclesiological and communitarian dimensions of survival, critiquing clericalism and its patriarchal structures. It explores how these women form new communities of solidarity within, in the margins, or outside the Church. The paper emphasizes the spiritual resilience of these women in creating spaces of belonging and communal support, in the aftermath of experiences of violence, exclusion, and marginalization within the Catholic community.
How do our various social identities shape our religious formation—and deformation? This paper examines the intersections between gender and sexual identity, religious faith, and feelings. Through an analysis of over twenty in-depth interviews conducted with LGBTQI+ college students and recent alum, a striking theme emerged: those who narrated struggles with their faith reported higher levels of self-acceptance and well-being, and retained some form of spirituality. Conversely, those who did not report struggle reported lower levels of well-being and lower levels of spirituality. Placing interview data in conversation with queer theologies and affect theories, this paper argues that, and examines how, formation towards flourishing calls for embracing unformation, and its attendant bad feelings—how intrasubjective formation calls for encouraging and supporting disidentification and desubjectivation, and considers what that looks like in terms of spiritual and religious identity.