Exploring digital placemaking of queer religiosity: Digital spaces as enabling environments for queer religious practices

Abstract

In a predominantly heteronormative society, queer individuals continue to negotiate social spaces and cultures. In the Philippines, the LGBTS Christian Church is one of the few queer-affirming religious institutions that seek to defuse tensions between sexual and religious identities. Through digital and on-the-ground ethnography, we describe the digital practices and infrastructures that enable the church to create a space for queer religiosity. With limited physical spaces to practice queer religiosity, the LGBTS Christian Church uses online platforms to reclaim their place, enabling them to reconfigure their practices and advance their advocacy. This study uncovers a variety of affordances available to the church that are integrated into their practices and interactions within and outside their congregation. The study contributes to the intersection of queer life, religion, and digital media by examining queer religiosity on digital platforms of a queer-affirming church in the Philippines.