I’ve tried not to be both of these things, at different points in my life, but I can no more shut out a sense of relationship with God than I can deny my feelings towards the same sex.

I’d like to be able to say that this means I’m totally comfortable with both identities, and some of the time I am. If I’m honest, though, I still feel scared whenever I meet someone new who I know is a Christian. Coming out to them feels risky. Will they disapprove? Will they tell me that I’m going to hell? Will they worry that I’ll be a pernicious influence on their children?

Most Christians I know aren’t like that at all, and I feel glad to attend a very inclusive local church where I feel safe. But when you have had a religious upbringing that teaches you to see yourself as disappointing at best and dangerous at worst, it is really hard to hold your head up and feel proud as a gay person. I believe in my heart and soul that God loves me as I am – but I am still afraid of other Christians.

And it’s often hard to admit to my gay friends that I’m a Christian. All they see from the outside is a church that seems completely irrelevant to their lives, one that is quick to judge others while being criminally slow to act on its own murky history of discrimination and abuse.

“We’re not all like that,” I want to say, and sometimes do. But I don’t blame them for being so suspicious. I’m not ashamed of my belief in God, but I do wish I could feel more proud to come out as a Christian.

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