About

Amber Cantorna is an author, keynote speaker, musician, and leader in the movement of acceptance and inclusion for LGBTQ+ Christians.  With a passion for supporting LGBTQ+ people through their coming out process, she focuses especially those that come from conservative faith communities.

Amber is the home-schooled daughter of a 30-year executive at Focus on the Family and grew up entrenched in the values that the organization embodies while her conservative Christian parents worked hard to protect her from the outside world. But when Amber came out as gay at the age of 27, she shattered the perfect persona that her family strove to uphold. As a result, she lost everything, and her world forever changed.

Now, six years later, Amber is married the love of her life and dedicates her time to writing, speaking, and sharing her story in order to bring hope to other LGBTQ+ people of faith. Her memoir, Refocusing My Family: Coming Out, Being Cast Out, and Discovering the True Love of God is available everywhere books are sold. Her second book Unashamed: Coming Out as an LGBTQ Christian will release Spring 2019.

As Founder and President of Beyond, Amber is passionate about dissolving shame, fostering self acceptance, and generating messages of hope for LGBTQ+ people of faith. With compassion that comes from experience, Amber strives to help other LGBTQ+ people reconcile their faith with their sexuality. She also desires to create conversations for change among the families, friends, and loved ones of LGBTQ+ people in order to guide them towards a place of full acceptance and inclusion.

Amber’s variety of experience has led her to speak across the country at conferences, universities, churches, community groups, leadership gatherings, company organizations and more. Her musical talent has taken her around the world performing both as a solo artist as well as in musical groups and worship teams.

Amber has been featured on PBS and NPR as well as in The Denver Post, 5280 Magazine, Huffington Post, Out Front Colorado, Patheos, Believe Out Loud, and other writing mediums.

In her free time, Amber loves to hike and spend time in the mountains. Traveling is one of her favorite pastimes and she loves the thrill that comes with checking items off her Bucket List. She also enjoys puzzling with her wife, reading in front of the fire, and hearing other people’s stories over coffee