ABSTRACT Since the achievement of marriage equality, culture wars focused on religion have intensified and the political spotlight has turned more sharply towards transgender and other gender-diverse people. Grounded in the experience of Australia’s first out transgender priest, this article explores these developments by focusing on the marginalisation of transgender and queer people of faith in queer activism and mainstream Australian churches during and after the Australian marriage-equality plebiscite. The normative cisgender assumptions underpinning the ‘yes’ campaign reflected the continuing marginalisation of queer people of faith in much secular LGBTIQ + advocacy and organising as well as the lack of progress in addressing gender-diverse people’s chief concerns. A political framework that gives agency to the voices and priorities of transgender and other queer people of faith is urgently needed to challenge the processes of othering and exclusion that predominate in right-wing populist and gender-critical quarters.