But what do you actually do?

I’ve been going to Gay Church for the last few months. That’s not a funny way of describing something that isn’t a church, by the way — it’s a literal, inclusive Anglican church. The kind where God and queer people are respected and celebrated. Through a difficult, chaotic period of my life St Nicholas’ has been a real source of strength and love.

It’s also where I got to meet my friend Freddie, who made a cute little TikTok showing how we combine the symbols of our faith with the symbols of who we are at St Nick’s. There were some lovely comments, but there was one that stuck in my head:

What does this church actually do to support the LGBTQIA+ community? Flags are cute but flags alone don’t do much.

I think it’s right that we ask this kind of question. Too often in pride month, we see organisations of all shapes and sizes slap a pride flag on their premises, or on their logo, and call it a day. Don’t get me wrong; it would be easier for St Nick’s to break out the flags in pride month, throw out some generic affirmations, and think we’re done. Heaven knows we’d have fewer broken windows, fewer defaced signs.

It’s easy to be cynical, too, at the concept of affirmation of LGBTQ people from faith groups. I grew up watching Louis Theroux deal with the Phelps family, of faith-based rejections of people like me leading to queer youth homelessness and suicide. I watched the man who confirmed me, the Archbishop of Westminster, fill my parents’ TV screen as he declared the introduction of same-sex marriage “a shambles”. My parents, in a well-meaning attempt to get me to re-engage with faith, told me how their own church was fine with gay people — as long as they didn’t talk about it.

Framed in all that context, understanding what a place that carries the Inclusive Church banner does is important. It takes the kind of place that often carries so much baggage for queer folks and it makes it a safe space. Trans people are baptised as their true selves. Queer couples aren’t just tolerated, they’re affirmed. They’re celebrated. We gripe about the chaos of getting gender-affirming care on the NHS over cups of tea with our curate. We cry in the pews when things aren’t going so well.

When we talk about scripture, our preachers remind us that being inclusive isn’t a job that’s ever truly done — that we can always be better at acceptance. We acknowledge the Church of England’s colonialist past. We consider that God probably transcends our understanding of gender. We’re told it’s not just okay to have doubts, it’s thoroughly Christian to have them.

We are never told that our existence goes against God. There are no microaggressions here; just reflections.

The answer to what we do for the community, then, is we take a thousand-year-old space and we queer it. We claim it for ourselves, we make it our own, and we open its doors to every queer person who needs to know that they’re loved. We help carry their burdens. We love our neighbours. We lend a helping hand however we can.

Being Christian isn’t dictating other people’s lives, or casting judgement on who people are; it’s love, compassion, and solidarity for those hardest done by in society. Those flags don’t do that work on their own, but they’re a damn good place to start.

No Good Content this time, but if you’re able, I’d like to encourage you to find a local LGBTQ+ organisation (here’s a solid list of them) and support queer artists and creators — share things you like, buy their creations, whatever’s right for you.

In the wake of the news out of America this week, I’d also encourage you to support abortion rights in the US if you’re able — there’s a list of resources from INeedAnA that can help you in that direction.