Safeguarding Takatāpui/Rainbow People
of Faith in Aotearoa New Zealand
What does it mean to feel safe, welcomed and able to be yourself in a Christian faith community?
The 2025 Safe Faiths Survey is the first comprehensive research in Aotearoa New Zealand examining the experiences of Takatāpui/Rainbow Christians and their sense of safety within Christian faith communities.
The survey heard from 375 people across 13 Christian denominations, including 251 Takatāpui/Rainbow respondents and 124 allies. It explored not only physical safety, but also emotional, psychological and spiritual safety; the experience of being open about sexuality and gender identity; participation in church life; and the pathway to leadership and ordination.
The findings tell a complex story.
There are signs of progress, with almost a third of rainbow respondents saying their faith community has become safer over the past five years. But many continue to experience apprehension, fear, self-censorship and exclusion.
This research invites churches and Christian communities to listen carefully to these experiences and consider what it would take to create faith communities where Takatāpui/Rainbow people can belong, participate and flourish.
3 in 4
Takatāpui/Rainbow Christians surveyed do not feel safe enough to be completely themselves in their faith community.
Only 25.1% said they could completely be themselves.
At the same time:
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39.8% said they withhold some of themselves from most people.
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38.2% feel apprehensive when attending.
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22.7% feel scared to be themselves.
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12.7% don't feel they can share who they are with anyone.
“I just want to turn up and sing some songs and leave without being constantly on guard.”
Safety is more than physical safety.
One of the clearest findings is the difference between how different forms of safety are experienced.
72% said their physical safety was taken seriously or very seriously.
72% said their sexual safety was taken seriously or very seriously.
But this fell to:
55% for spiritual safety
51% for psychological safety
49% for emotional safety
The findings suggest that safety in faith communities needs to be understood more broadly than protection from physical or sexual harm. Emotional, psychological and spiritual wellbeing also matter.
Being “out” doesn't always mean being safe
The survey found that respondents were more likely to feel safe being open about their sexuality or gender identity with family and friends than within Christian communities.
Safe to be “out” to everyone:
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72.5% — immediate family
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60.2% — friends
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46.6% — work
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31.5% — local church/faith community
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15.1% — wider Christian/faith community
Even more concerning, 21.5% said there was a faith community space where they had previously been out but where they no longer felt safe to be so. This compares with 7.2% socially and 6.4% at work.
For some rainbow Christians, church is one of the places where they feel least able to be fully themselves.
Safety is not experienced equally.
The research found significant differences in reported safety according to gender identity.
38.5% of trans and non-binary respondents said they felt scared to be themselves in their faith community.
Compared with:
11.9% of cisgender respondents.
Trans and non-binary respondents were therefore 3.2 times more likely to report feeling scared to be themselves.
The differences were particularly stark for non-binary respondents.
Only 8.6% of non-binary respondents said they could completely be themselves in their faith community, compared with 44.4% of men.
Trans and non-binary Christians report significantly lower levels of safety within faith communities.
Leadership matters
The research shows a strong relationship between the actions and attitudes of faith leaders and whether rainbow Christians feel safe.
The three strongest indicators of feeling safe were:
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74.5%- I'm not worried about what might be said in the sermon.
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72.9% - I'm not worried about whether the leadership accept me.
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72.5% - I can be open about my sexuality and/or gender identity with the faith team/leadership.
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71.7% identified receiving a warm welcome when they enter as important to feeling safe.
This suggests that leadership has a significant role to play in creating environments where rainbow Christians can feel secure enough to participate fully.
What would make the greatest difference?
Respondents were asked what would make the greatest difference to their feeling of safety.
The strongest response was:
33.5% - Gender diverse and sexually diverse members being able to participate in all aspects of faith community life, including leadership.
This was followed by:
31.1% - Knowing that leaders affirm same-sex relationships and marriage.
Other significant responses included:
24.3% — positively recognising LGBTQIA+ people in sermons
21.9% — having an inclusive statement on the faith community website
21.1% — knowing there are other LGBTQIA+ members in the community
21.1% — leaders conducting same-sex marriages
21.1% — leadership receiving rainbow competency training
The message from respondents is clear: welcome needs to be more than words.
People want to participate, contribute and lead.
When silence isn't safety.
More than one in five respondents — 22.3% — said there was none of the listed activity happening in their faith community to help them feel safe.
The qualitative responses highlighted an important distinction between private affirmation and visible, systemic safety.
One respondent said: “Silence is not safety.”
Another described the frustration of having affirming people within their church who were unwilling or unable to make that support visible.
This is an important theme to highlight because the research isn't simply asking whether individual Christians are personally accepting. It asks whether people can know that they are safe within the structures and leadership of their faith community.
A call to leadership
The research also explored what happens when Takatāpui/Rainbow Christians consider leadership or ordination.
Of those who had felt a call to ordination or leadership:
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30.3% felt safe or very safe exploring that call.
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31.9% felt unsafe or very unsafe.
When asked about the ordination/leadership pathway itself:
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23.8% rated it safe or very safe.
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30.0% rated it unsafe or very unsafe.
The qualitative responses included experiences of people stepping down from leadership after disclosing their sexuality or gender identity, and people finding that an individual parish could be safe while the wider denomination remained unsafe.
“The individual parish/worship space is safe but the wider diocese is not.”
Things are changing, but not for everyone
The survey also asked respondents whether things had changed over the previous five years.
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32% said things had become safer.
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27.3% said there had been no difference.
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19% said things had become less safe.
This is important context.
The findings do not suggest that nothing has changed. Some respondents have experienced meaningful progress and found affirming communities.
But others continue to experience exclusion, or feel that things have become less safe.
Progress is happening. But it isn't being experienced everywhere.
Read the Safe Faiths research.
The Safe Faiths research brings together the experiences of Takatāpui/Rainbow Christians and the perspectives of their allies to better understand safety, belonging and inclusion within Christian faith communities in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Report 1 -Takatāpui and Rainbow Christians
Safety of Takatāpui/Rainbow Christians in Aotearoa New Zealand
This report centres the experiences of 251 Takatāpui/Rainbow Christians who shared their experiences of safety, belonging, participation and leadership within faith communities.
Report 2 -
Allies
The companion Ally report considers the perspectives of people who identify as allies to Takatāpui/Rainbow Christians.
Together, the two reports provide an opportunity to consider both the experiences of rainbow Christians themselves and how those experiences are perceived by people who support them within Christian communities.
The feedback from the research team identifies the Ally report as particularly valuable because it reveals a perception gap between rainbow respondents and allies — including, for example, allies reporting fear at around 3% compared with 22.7% among rainbow respondents
About the research
Why Safe Faiths?
The Safe Faiths Survey was created because there was little quantitative research examining whether Takatāpui/Rainbow people of faith feel safe attending their church or faith community in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The survey was developed over two years and underwent community ethics review. Two chaplains were also available to respondents during the survey period. The research replicates the 2021 UK Safeguarding LGBT+ Christians survey conducted by the Ozanne Foundation and partner organisations, adapted for the Aotearoa New Zealand context.
The survey opened on 30 September 2024 and closed on 10 February 2025. Of 550 total responses, 375 were considered valid.
The research was peer reviewed prior to publication.
Who took part?
Of the 375 valid responses:
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251 - Takatāpui and Rainbow respondents
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124 - Allies
The 251 rainbow respondents included people from across 13 Christian denominations.
Among rainbow respondents:
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47.8% identified as women
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27.9% as men
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13.9% as non-binary
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30.7% identified as disabled
The sample was predominantly Pākehā/New Zealand European (75%), with Māori respondents comprising 4.1%. The research team has explicitly identified the need for further engagement with Māori and Polynesian communities and further analysis of the intersection of culture, colonisation, theology and sexuality.
I think it is important to include this acknowledgement on the website rather than hiding it in the methodology. It demonstrates research integrity.