We asked readers of LGBTQ Nation to tell us their stories of “conversion” to self-acceptance as part of March 2026 Issue. Here are some of the responses we got.

Quite a few readers wrote to LGBTQ Nation to tell us their stories of learning to love themselves and their identities. One theme that emerged was religion.

Reader Cameron told LGBTQ Nation that he realized he wasn’t a cis, straight woman when he fell in love with his husband’s sister.

“Later, my pastor found out about me and convinced me that I was possessed,” he recounted. “Next thing I know, I’m in his office with several other people praying over me as they tried to exorcise the demon of homosexuality out of me.”

For Cameron, the path out of that world wasn’t just leaving his church, but also finding queer Christians who were happy to live their lives.

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“It wasn’t until years later that I met other gay Christians living their lives happy and content that I realized that even though I had walked away from the church,” he said. “I still carried that shame and didn’t feel I was good enough to be happy. I was still trying to fit in what the church said I should be. It was at that point that I broke through and realized that God made me just the way I am, and he loved me just the way I am.”

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Reader AJ Schaefer said that he had to physically move away from the religious household he grew up in to explore his own identity.

“Therapy helps too!” he told LGBTQ Nation. “I wouldn’t have been able to sort through all guilt/shame if it weren’t for therapy.”

“I no longer believe it’s a sin or wrong to be trans and I fully accept myself as I am today. I could never say that in the past.”

Reader Scotty said that he didn’t even realize he was gay until he was in a Bible study in his mid-20s, and it still took him years of therapy to overcome the homophobia he internalized.

I didn’t realize I was gay until I was almost 24, just out of the Navy. I realized it at a Bible study, we were studying CS Lewis’s “Four Loves”. When we were the chapter about romantic love, it dawned on me that I’d had these thoughts and feeling for men, not women. It was almost 7 years of resistance that followed. I never officially went through conversion therapy but read books that were supposed top “help”. When I got involved with my first man, at almost 31, I knew that I was gay. I spent about 4 months praying and wrestling with God before I really accepted the fact, and that God did not condemn me for being gay and had a peace about it.

When the condemning “Christians” came at me, I could stand there and say that God accepts me and you cannot take that away from me.

Reader David Chollar told LGBTQ Nation that he came from an evangelical Christian family, and that what changed for him was going to college in the 70s and 80s.

“I was curious and exposed to diversity, which was wonderful,” he said. “My family shunned, disconnected, or disowned me.”

He moved to New York City, which helped him learn that “I was not the problem.”

“My gay identity later had the most impact on my choosing to work in a helping profession. Being gay made me genuine and very compassionate.”

Reader Erin Fuller told LGBTQ Nation that she knew she was a girl since she was 5 years old and that she would tell “anyone” about it. This led to her parents abusing her.

“Their efforts of physical and psychological abuse worked for a time, and I lived with gender dysphoria for a great portion of my life,” she said. “I denied to myself who and what I was.”

She said that it was the internet – citing YouTube specifically – that helped her come to accept herself by seeing the videos of trans women.

Fuller eventually came out and started living her life as a woman, a process that included getting her ID updated, which led to her employer firing her, she said. So she sued and won, but she says she didn’t even get money to make up for her lost wages.

“I fought my employer until 2025 when the New York State Division of Human Rights informed me that, though I won my long-fought case, I won’t see a dime of the court-awarded judgment,” Fuller said. “Even with that deep loss, I am thankful that I am still Erin Fuller, she/her/hers.”

“Even with the current presidency and his administration, I will continue to be me. So hang on, be tough, we will get through this.”

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