FAQ

Let’s explore some of our commonly asked questions…

  • YOS’s pending director is Erin Phelps. She organizes our blog and podcast content, as well as our community! Erin also has a volunteer community leadership team which serves to assist her in community matters.

  • In short, we are congruent yet distinct. Our YOS content centers on women and is for women who are sexual minorities in the Church. As a new website and community, we are becoming a space that, in time, will offer retreats, book clubs, and other community offerings similarly to YOB.

  • In 2024, the leadership of Your Other Brothers decided to pursue a new nonprofit journey with YOS – two communities working together while also maintaining distinctness. Your Other Family (YOF) is our single pending nonprofit organization that encompasses both YOS and YOB.

  • We are not yet a government-recognized nonprofit ministry, though we are pending to become one. We’ll alert our supporters and the general public when we receive this approval! Gifts presently given are not yet tax-deductible, but may be retroactively made so upon our approval.

  • The word “reclaim” has a couple of different meanings, but in this case it means that we want to redeem these areas of our experiences. For decades, conversations centering the intersection of faith, sexuality, and femininity have been led by groups of men. Books, sermons, and other resources are often geared toward a male audience, whether or not the resource itself is explicitly meant to be for a male audience. Materials and conferences meant for teenage girls (written/led by men and women) since the 80s have been focused on modesty and purity in a way that has brought shame and guilt for existing in a female body, regardless of sexual orientation. Throughout history, Christian women have continually led, contributed, and faithfully served inside and beyond the walls of the church. Even within Christian women’s circles, these resources are often geared towards heterosexual women in heterosexual marriages. In our YOS community, we as SSA/queer women are telling our stories and uplifting other women’s stories in our community. Within our own community, there is diversity in vocation and perspective. We hope that you will lend us a listening ear, even if our story is not yours.

Our Organization

  • Each of our leadership, contributors, members, and supporters is free to identify however they wish. We don’t police terminology. On our blogs and podcasts, we may use identifiers like "gay," “queer,” "SSA," and “sexual minority” interchangeably. You may disagree with someone’s preferred identifier with sexuality, but our leadership and members share a common historic belief on God's design for sex and marriage.

  • "Side A" people are followers of Jesus, attracted to the same sex, who uphold an affirming sexual, marriage ethic. "Side B" people are followers of Jesus, attracted to the same sex, who uphold a historic sexual, marriage ethic. Both “Side A” and “Side B” believers are generally comfortable using LGBT+ language to describe their experience of sexual orientation. Some women in YOS identify as "Side B,” though others opt not to identify with LGBT+ language. We are not a “Side A” community. To explore “the four sides,” check out this helpful resource.

  • Similar to the YOBBERS of YOB, a YOSSER is a woman who supports our content and participates in community membership. Check out our membership inquiry page to learn more and perhaps become a YOSSER!

Terminology

  • We never chose to be attracted to the same sex, though we do recognize our ownership in how we respond, just as all people of all sexualities must do. We do not believe homosexual attraction or temptation is sinful, believing God's design for sex to be enjoyed within male-female marriage.

  • We don’t hate gay people (many of us identify as gay!), and we’re not here to judge anyone outside our community. We’re not here to protest or blast affirming interpretations of Scripture, though we may disagree. We're just here to tell our stories and provide refuge for anyone else navigating a traditional belief on marriage and sexuality, however they identify.

  • Kinda. As Christ followers, we believe in the call to lay down our lives for Christ as He did for us — all of ourselves, our sexual identities included (Galatians 2:20). Though far from popular with the culture, we deny ourselves in one way and embrace what we believe to be a better way with a better story — His way, His story. Following Jesus was never promised to be easy (John 16:33), but we've taken heart and grown emboldened by finding fellow brothers (and sisters) on this journey. You could say we'd have never found ourselves without first denying ourselves.

Our Beliefs

  • We are a multi-denominational community, our contributors hailing from diverse faith traditions. As a core spiritual unifier, our leadership aligns with the Apostles' Creed.

  • The vast majority of our contributors experience varying degrees of same-sex attraction, some opting for LGBT+ terminology and others not. Occasionally we feature contributors who are exclusively opposite-sex attracted.

  • We receive an abundance of requests to participate in our blog and appreciate the enthusiasm! As of now, we only accept blogging submissions from within our community membership.

  • We moderate all comments from visitors, so it may just take a day or two for your comment to become visible. Once you're established yourself as a responsible commenter, your comments should be approved automatically. Anyone may comment on our site, regardless of your beliefs, provided that comments are respectful. We will not accept comments with profanity or attacks on community members. Disagreements will surely arise but are acceptable with civil discourse. Any sexually suggestive, explicit, or otherwise triggering comments will also not be accepted. You are welcome to share vulnerably in response to our own vulnerable stories, but please share responsibly, not naming any particular apps, websites, specific types of pornography, that may be triggering for other readers. If you think your comment might go “too far,” it’s probably best not to post it. We reserve the right to edit or delete any comment, and if necessary, blacklist repeated offenders from further commenting.

Our Content

  • We welcome you to subscribe to our quarterly newsletter, along with praying regularly for our ministry. We truly value your prayer support! Financially, you may submit a one-time or recurring gift by visiting our general giving page. If you’re interested in YOB membership, we have a separate giving page for our members. Just shoot us a membership inquiry! We’re especially eager to build a support network of regular monthly giving as we build our new ministry.

  • Our board of directors for Your Other Family sets a budget and determines where all funds go. Beyond site and equipment costs, a large portion of our funds go toward Erin’s and Tom’s employment with YOS and YOB, respectively.

Our Community

  • Currently we do not organize local support groups, although our growing Patreon community has organically connected with one another in various pockets of America and even abroad.

  • Our community holds space for women-only in YOS, men-only in YOB, and overlapping spaces in YOF. We encourage our members to partake in our community offerings as much as you feel led to do so!

  • Absolutely! We welcome straight people who are good fits for our community. As with all of our other YOS and YOB members, we vet all prospective members for spiritual and relational alignment with our values. Shoot us a membership inquiry if you wish to join our community!

Supporting Us

Still have some questions?

We’re glad you’re here, and we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us!