The quiet struggle: being LGBTQ in family and faith spaces

Growing up in a conservative religious home, especially in communities where faith is tightly woven into the fabric of daily life, can be both beautiful and suffocating.

For many LGBTQ individuals, family and faith are supposed to be sources of safety — yet they often become sources of fear.

The pressure starts young. In homes where traditional roles are expected, boys are taught to be strong, dominant, providers. Girls are often confined to modesty, obedience, and a future that revolves around marriage and motherhood. Those who fall outside of these boxes - whether because they are too soft, too bold, too different, or simply themselves – learn early on that acceptance comes with conditions.

For LGBTQ individuals, the burden is heavier still. You are told that who you are is unnatural, sinful, even deserving of punishment. In spaces like mosques, churches, temples, or family gatherings, the air can be thick with quiet judgment and loud condemnation. It is in these very spaces - meant to nurture - that many LGBTQ people learn to hide, to shrink, to question whether they are worthy of love at all.

The assassination of Imam Muhsin Hendricks hits really hard for us in the LGBTQ community. Imam Hendricks was a remarkable person. His personal journey of finding peace and love in both his faith and sexuality should inspire us all. Imam Hendriks dedicated his life to showing up for our LGBTQ Muslim family - letting them know that they are loved and had a place in their faith.

He chose love in the face of unspeakable cruelly and hatred, knowing that it could cost him his life. The late Imam Hendricks dedicated his life to fighting against violence both physical and emotional. Beatings from religious leaders, taunts from peers, and silence from family - these all leave marks. But the harshest scars are often the ones we inflict on ourselves, internalizing the belief that who we are is something shameful.

Imam Hendriks’ life’s mission was based on a simple truth -there is nothing shameful about being LGBTQ. There is nothing unnatural about love, no matter who you love. There is nothing sinful about being honest about your identity. What is sinful, if anything, is the violence, the rejection, and the refusal to see someone’s humanity simply because they are different.

Faith and tradition do not have to be enemies of queerness. Imam Hendricks taught us this. He showed us that faith can be a place of liberation, not exclusion. That scripture can be revisited, understood through lenses of compassion, justice, and equality.

Religion does not have to belong only to conservative old men who use it to police our lives. It can also belong to those who want to use it to free, to uplift, to affirm.

To families reading this, especially those from religious and cultural communities, we ask you: what is the purpose of your faith if it does not teach you love? What is the meaning of your prayers if they do not lead you to compassion? When your LGBTQ child, sibling, or cousin comes to you - trembling, scared, desperate for acceptance - know that your response could either save their life or scar them forever. Choose love. To LGBTQ individuals who are struggling in silence, please know this: you are not alone.

There are others who have walked this path before you - who have faced rejection and found acceptance elsewhere, who have reclaimed their faith or walked away from it entirely, who have built families of choice when their own families shut them out. There is no one right way to exist as LGBTQ. Whether you want to stay rooted in faith, whether you want to step away from it, or whether you are still searching — you deserve peace, you deserve safety, you deserve love.

Seek out safe spaces, whether they are community groups, online platforms, or the embrace of friends who see you fully. And if you are feeling overwhelmed, please reach out -  to a counsellor, to a support group, to anyone who will listen. You are not a mistake. You are a gift.

Ultimately, our families, our faiths, and our societies will only become more compassionate when we choose to listen instead of judge, to embrace instead of exclude. The story of Imam Hendricks reminds us that there is room for all of us -queer, trans, religious, questioning - at the table of humanity. It’s time we all made that table bigger.

Keval Harie (he/him) is an activist, writer and qualified attorney, who has always sought to put South Africa’s constitution at the centre of his career, using it to find new ways to promote social justice and human rights across the country.  As executive director at The GALA Queer Archive, Harie is most excited about the opportunity in creating a visibility for queer life on the African continent and findings ways of celebrating the stories and lives LGBTQIA+ in the global South. In his spare time Harie is an avid baker and podcast junkie.

Gabriel Hoosain Khan (they/them) is a South African arts-based healer, facilitator, and researcher. They use creativity - art, drama, and writing - to support grassroots leadership, youth engagement, and social justice, focussing on themes such as gender, sexuality, hunger and poverty. Hoosain Khan co-founded the Creative Change Laboratory (CCoLAB), a space for art, healing, and resistance. They are currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Brighton, exploring how creativity can empower LGBTQIA+ communities.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. 

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