“Take off the Chains and Have Room to Think:” Constructing Identity Within Conflicting Religious and Sexual Frameworks

This study explored how Sexual Minority students at a conservative religious university interpret and navigate conflict between sexual and religious identities. A constructivist-interpretivist epistemology guided the use of Consensual Qualitative Research, with 14 in-depth, semi-structured interviews analyzed through iterative team coding. Analysis generated three domains: (1) Identity Conflict: Disrupted Meaning, (2) Limits on Narrative Flexibility, and (3) Reconciliation: Rebuilding Coherence. Participants linked ruptures in narrative coherence to institutional doctrine, cultural norms, and moments of interpretive collapse. Most participants endorsed some level of suicidality when identity tensions exceeded the interpretive capacity of available narratives. Constraints on narrative integration included institutional enforcement (at the church and university level), relational pressures, and limited access to affirming resources. Strategies for rebuilding coherence varied, but included individual reinterpretation of spiritual beliefs (with less emphasis on religiosity for most participants), supportive relational dialogue, and increased tolerance for ambiguity. Participants described reconciliation not as the elimination of tension but as increased narrative viability across domains of belief, identity, and belonging. Findings advance constructivist theory by documenting how identity is actively reauthored in contexts where narrative flexibility and meaning-making are institutionally constrained.