By Dawne Moon, Professor of Social and Cultural Sciences , Marquette University; and Theresa Tobin, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Marquette University

Kai found Jesus as a teenager. A person of White and Hawaiian descent, Kai now goes by gender-neutral pronouns and identifies as “māhū,” the traditional Hawaiian term for someone in-between masculine and feminine. But when they first became Christian, the high-schooler identified as gay, and was committed to celibacy.

Kaim a pseudonym to protect their privacym embraced their church’s “welcoming but not affirming” teachings about LGBTQ+ people, agreeing that same-sex intimacy was incompatible with being Christian. It felt good to be sacrificing for the Lord, Kai recalls. But they eventually realized they were harming themself.

“I f

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