TRAVIS STEWARD

Travis grew up in the small farming community of Tremonton, UT.  His parents both had had previous marriages and children before he was born, making him the eighth of ten kids total between them.

“As a kid you don’t know how families are supposed to be, you just are there trying to find your place and figure it out as you go along,” he says.  Still, he knew his family definitely didn’t fit the mold of the strong LDS community in Tremonton.  Though his parents and stepparents had their own challenges, Travis shares that he knew and felt love amid the chaos and uncertainty that plagued his young, anxious heart.

Long before he realized that he was same sex attracted, he knew that he was different from the other boys in school, including his five older brothers.  “For some reason I couldn’t relate very well to them and was confused by much of what they said and did,” he says.  Most of his interests, thoughts, and ideas were different from what he saw around him.  “I often felt that I had to keep them quiet out of fear of judgment or criticism. I will spare the details, but I felt that I had experienced more than my fair share of tragedy by the time I had finished high school.”

Around age 12 or 13, he began to experience a very strong interest in certain boys on the little league football team.  It wasn’t anything sexual or romantic, he had no clue what those feelings were yet, but says, “I wanted to be around them and have their attention and found them to be beautiful to look at.”  

Like most teens headed into puberty, it can be a very anxious and worrisome time.  Travis began to pick up on the conversations, expectations, and judgments that freely flow in any junior high or middle school.  “I began to hear the negative comments and see first-hand the bullying of another boy a year older than me for being gay, though that was not the term used 50 years ago. I suspected that I was experiencing the same attractions that this boy felt, and I could see how terrible it would be if anyone were ever to know or even suspect the same about me.”

This began a very long and painful journey into hiding, performing, and self-loathing over the next 40 years.
After graduating high school, Travis became active in the church after rooming with two recently returned missionaries. They inspired him. “They were very disciplined, and this example and the rules and organization of the church was very appealing to my desire for something more predictable and stable.”  Travis adopted these mannerisms to lead what appeared to be a good and honorable way of life.

He also became more aware of the harshness and disgust towards homosexuality expressed by adults around him, and the notion that this type of sexuality was a choice.  Travis wrestled with learning he must be choosing his sexuality while simultaneously abhorring it.  He recalls his mission to Chile as a respite from most of this worry.  “I felt free from the shame and anxiety associated with anyone finding out or suspecting.” The feelings of confusion, shame and fear quickly returned when he returned from his mission, and while at BYU and working at the Missionary Training Center.  He felt condemnation everywhere--from his faith community, his church leaders, and from God.

Looking back, Travis recalls it was the ease of friendship and safety with girls that contributed to his awkwardness approaching physical affection with them. “Though I was homosexual, I will say that I had always planned to marry and have a family and looked forward to that next part of life.  The thought that I couldn’t or shouldn’t had never crossed my mind.”   He had always felt an interest in girls, but it more so revolved around their humor, intelligence, and common interests than in their beauty or bodies.  In fact, he judged other guys who seemed to be obsessed with flirting, making out, and sexual inuendo, feeling he was above that type of inappropriate behavior.  “I was fortunate to find someone like Margaret who was kind and patient as we dated and gave me ample space to learn and grow as I awkwardly navigated that first kiss.” 

He knew what the societal expectations were for dating, engagement, and marriage should look like—especially in an LDS culture. Travis has been asked why he didn’t tell Margaret he was gay before they were married. “The truth is, I did not believe that I was gay, myself. I assumed that I was being tempted or that I was confused or just inexperienced.” It was a different world back in the early 1980’s, and the idea of hiding in a marriage or marrying to fix it never crossed his mind.  “I knew I loved her, and she was my very best friend, and I had no doubt that we would have a wonderful marriage.”

By the time they married in August of 1985, Travis was already deeply entrenched in hustling for self-worth. He felt terrible and ashamed of this secret he was hiding, and service became a drug of choice. He explains, “I felt that I could hide from my own worries if I could worry about somebody else’s.” He became a natural fit for and was often asked to serve in leadership capacities at church almost constantly for the next 30 years. Their family has an inside joke that Travis never thought there was ever a problem with their six kids in sacrament meetings, because he never sat with them! After serving in the stake presidency for nearly 12 years, Travis and Margaret were asked to serve as mission leaders in 2004. He was 41 at the time and their kids ranged in age from 4-18. Travis says, “The mission was one of the most joyous and fulfilling experiences of my life. I hope that something wonderful came from it for others as well.”

Immediately after returning from the mission, Travis was called as bishop of their home ward. He served faithfully for five more years—giving everything he had while continuing to carry a part of himself in silence. Spiritual growth came hand in hand with spiritual pressure, and the more he was trusted, the more he felt he had to lose.

When his time as bishop ended, Travis entered what he calls “the first real period where I couldn’t just bury myself in a calling to hide from it all.” Without the structure and distraction of leadership, the internal conflict became harder to ignore. “I think God had finally had enough of watching this turmoil play out, and it was time to look at it.”

For months, he experienced persistent, intrusive thoughts about telling Margaret about his same-sex attraction. Then one Sunday morning, without planning or warning, the words came out. He simply couldn’t hold them back any longer.  “Fortunately for me,” he says, “Margaret was able to hold such a revelation—backed up by 40 years of shame and pain—with so much love and compassion, it was never a question about not continuing in our marriage.”

But Travis was blindsided by what followed. Rather than the relief, finally getting this secret off his shoulders ushered in a slow, rising tide of grief and pain. He frantically tried to get back to that place of manageable denial. Until that moment, he had managed to compartmentalize his homosexuality—as a trial, a temptation, a weakness to be conquered. Having said it out loud it could only be compartmentalized as reality. “I felt I had lost the biggest battle of my life and now that it settled over me, the reality was very nearly too much for me to bear.”

The next couple of years were a blur of sleepless nights and hours of therapy. Central to Travis’ secrecy was the fear that with coming out now, he’d lose everything—his marriage, his career, his callings, and friends, and looking back on his journey – nearly everything he worried could happen if people found out he was gay, did. “I had a lifetime of reasons to be afraid of the fallout that I anticipated would come with coming out. I was still not prepared for the devastating blows of prejudice and discrimination in losing my career, important relationships, and all the rest of the privileges that came with being perceived as a straight man.”

Travis remembers thinking he’d probably struggle for a few months and then be over it all and feeling better. Travis says. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know then it would take years to find some footing as a gay man.”  Over the past few years, he’s both participated in and helped lead support groups for gay men in Utah and beyond, both online and in person. Along the way, he’s come to see how human nature tends to complicate healing. “It’s difficult—and terrifying—to share your deepest, darkest truth with the people you love while worrying they might stop loving you because of it.”

But on the far side of that long-anticipated loss, Travis was surprised by something else. “I wasn’t prepared for the peace that exists without shame.” These days, he tries to value the journey without fixating too much on the destination. And after all the fear and silence, he’s found that being queer wasn’t the hard part. “The hardest part has been dealing with what other people think being gay must mean for and about me. Those meanings are hard to shake, but I manage okay now.” The same goes for his marriage. “We’ve had nearly 40 wonderful years together,” he says. “We’re happy—until we let other people’s opinions about mixed-orientation marriages get into our heads.”  To Travis, it’s bewildering that so many feel entitled to weigh in.

He is determined to be himself. “I have a wonderful family. I have gay kids and family members, and it’s no big deal in our home.  But as a man in a so-called mixed-orientation marriage, I’m too gay for the church, and not gay enough for the LGBTQ community. I’m in the 'lost boy zone,' feeling illegitimate on both sides.” That liminal space taught him something about compassion. "I’ve become a safe-space guy in the trenches. That’s my niche. To be the person I needed. To tell others: you’re going to be alright.”

To Margaret Steward’s story, click here

JESSICA ANGUS

Jessica Angus (she/her) has had many lives in her 32 years: missionary, ranch hand, electrical engineering student, circuit board designer, ramen shop manager, educator, tutor, and tabletop game master. She is also a transgender woman—a journey she has approached through years of careful reflection, private exploration, and spiritual inquiry.

Growing up in Colorado, Jess was the third of four children and born and raised as the only boy in a family of girls. “When I was still a kid—I was ‘the boy,’ the only son,” she says. “Part of me feels like I took that from my parents, but I also found some joy in that when I came out.” While her sisters were close, she often felt left out. “Girls didn’t want to do ‘boy stuff’,” she remembers. But now they all get along well.  “I love them—we communicate quite a bit.”

Her extended family is massive—her mom is one of ten siblings, and her dad is one of four. “Family reunions were huge,” Jessica says. “We’d do them all the time—my grandpa sold a business and would throw these big reunions every four years.” Jess was able to grow up knowing her extended family, some of whom have now become her closest friends.

As early as 10 years old, Jess began experiencing dysphoria, though she didn’t yet have the language for it. She’d sneak onto her my parents’ laptops, getting on the paint app and “draw on boobs” to her image, she laughs. By 12 or 14, her parents had discovered some of this behavior and labeled it “a sin” or “a fetish.” From that point on, Jessica tried to suppress everything, but it didn’t work. Rather, it only led to a path of depression—high functioning at first, then lower.

Her adolescence and young adulthood were marked by guilt and a sense of being spiritually flawed. “For 15 years, I thought what I was doing was bad—so I’d apologize to God, but always ended up slipping back into it,” she recalls. “I would buy feminine clothes on Amazon in secret. Feel guilty. Throw them in the trash. Repent. Repeat.”

College offered independence and a turning point. Jessica attended BYU and served a mission in southern Brazil—a pivotal experience. “It was the best experience of what it feels like to serve—how it feels when close to Heavenly Father,” she says. Her mission proved to be hugely important in her own journey, helping her recognize answers to questions.

The part of Brazil Jess was sent to was considered “the Texas of Brazil”—same climate, similar culture. All were religious but many didn’t attend. Jess recalls how they’d fly their state flag above the Brazilian one because they had tried to secede. “Think knives on hip, rancher, cowboy types,” Jess laughs.

She returned to BYU after her mission, where her depression increased. Five years into an electrical engineering degree, her grades slipped and attendance dropped. Eventually, her poor attendance record led to the university asking her to take a leave to address her mental health. She says the ask was beneficial because she was wasting money paying for semesters but not getting anything done. “It gave me the added kick to take care of my mental health—and led to my whole journey.”

Jessica stayed in Provo, drawn in by the eclectic local culture ad cheap rent. She began working a variety of jobs: sales rep, para-educator, IT support, hardware test engineer, professional tutor. Eventually, she took a job as a service manager at Asa Ramen. “They proclaim we’re ‘the best ramen shop in Utah’—I’d say we’re at least top five,” she laughs. Because she was eating there all the time, she decided to work there to eat for free. As a people person, she loves that she has a job that allows much human interaction.

Between shifts, Jessica programs video games and plays Dungeons and Dragons twice a week, where she’s a game master for one session. She also runs a tabletop RPG campaign where players try to build a new civilization. Of this hobby, Jess explains, “Tabletop role play games give options to create journeys for others to participate in. It’s collaborative storytelling—I think it’s awesome.”

Coming out and into her own was a slow process. As she got treatment for depression, she decided to examine where her feelings were coming from—were her inclinations to dress as a girl a sin or something else? As she’d wear the clothes she preferred, she says she was constantly praying to Heavenly Father, “Is this baby step ok? Am I good?” And as all felt ok, she’d check in at the next step.

She came out to her siblings starting at 25, then to her parents at 27. At first, she framed it as cross-dressing. She had posted a photo on Instagram of herself in a dress—ostensibly for a teaching challenge: “If you get this many people to go to prom, I’ll wear a dress.” But the reaction was intense. When she first came out, Jess’ dad said, “My son is dead,” and walked away from the phone, followed by her mom who said, “I don’t know what to say. I just don’t know…”

The call ended in devastation. “I thought, I don’t have parents anymore, this is terrible, because I wore a dress and was happy about it.” But later that same day, her parents called back. They’d gone to visit one of Jessica’s more understanding sisters, who encouraged them to express love and support. “They told me they were sorry and that I was still loved,” she said. “They expressed confusion, admitted they didn’t know how to work around it—but wanted me to know I was loved.”

That moment mattered. “Even if they’re not the most supportive in my journey, they’re still supportive of me and love me,” Jessica says. Her dad says, “I don’t know if I fully understand,” but he always asks, “Are you happy?” Jess says she feels that’s the most important question they ask of her—instead of imposing a path.

She began HRT in 2020. At first, she thought she’d be androgynous—purposefully cause a bit of chaos and confusion: “Are you a guy? A girl? But the further I went, the happier I felt—I wanted to go all the way to being female.”

Her favorite outfit now? Jess proudly laughs: Jorts and a baggy ACDC shirt. Pair of sandals.

Jessica now finds strength in a diverse network of friends and cousins, many of whom have stepped away from the church but continue to model love and morality. She says she’s been able to grow a lot through these relationships and says, “While many have left the Church, they have strengthened my belief in things the Church teaches—especially Christ.”

When Jessica legally changed her name, her friend group threw her a gender reveal party.

She’s also found spiritual grounding in her local ward. Her bishop supports her attendance in Relief Society and has tried to advocate for her amid evolving church policies. “He listens to my pains, worries—tries to find loopholes I can get through,” she said. “He says we’re going to try to ask for an exception and as there is still no guidance on how to do so, we’ll stick with status quo until we get a result.”

The Church’s recent policy on transgender members felt like a blow. “It was kind of a punch to the face,” she says. “Instead of making trans people feel invited, it tries to make other members feel protected from trans people. It wasn’t to make sure trans people aren’t discriminated against—but how to keep trans people in line.” She says the thing she’s always loved most about Christ and His gospel was how he “sat among sinners even though people thought it was impure for Him to teach them. It’s a Christlike activity to be with people we may not understand.”

For Jessica, the response revealed a deeper problem. “I feel anything made to make people not ask questions is alienating,” she said. “A lot of friends left the Church over new info for which they felt betrayed. I feel like we shouldn’t be hiding stuff and past things that were taught.” She says one of the worst wards she ever participated in was one where everyone tried to pretend they were perfect, where they’d talk about the law of Christ and say, “Isn’t it good we’re all doing this?” But she reflects how that ward felt like one in which no one could be honest or grow in their struggles.

Even so, she remains. “All the more reason I should stay—as long as I’m present and still seen, people in my local congregation will get to see, learn, grow.” 

Recently, she completed a course on self-actualization that helped her reframe her relationship to church participation. “At first, maybe I was proud of being brave for being there for people who need to know a trans person’s experience,” she says. “But I stopped and reexamined—and went back to knowing I’m here for me, for Christ. Being there for others is a bonus.”

What keeps Jess grounded is a return to the core teachings of the gospel. “A lot of fluff has been added to things—but fluff changes,” she said. “During the priesthood ban… people came up with excuses, ‘doctrine’ why. At the end, all of it was not real. All excuses weren’t the case. But one part was always the case—the love of Christ, the gospel, coming to salvation through taking His name,” she continues. “All the covenants of sacrament, baptism. I cut the fluff and go back to the core of the gospel. For everything else—I seek out God myself.”

She adds with a smile: “I can have my own fluff—the fluff God wants for me.

BEN HIGINBOTHAM

Ben Higinbotham (they/them) is gay and transmasculine non-binary. Ben says, “If I explained my personal version of non-binary to someone, I’d say, ‘If masculinity was a fork and femininity was a spoon, I’d be a spork.” Ben also sometimes has to explain their sexual orientation, saying, “When people ask what it means for me to be gay as a non-binary person, I say that I guess I’m half gay for girls and half straight for girls.” One thing Ben wants to emphasize is that being gay and/or trans is not a choice or contagious.

Ben remembers being about four years old and pretending to be Peter Pan in preschool. "I liked the way he looked, that he could fly, have adventures, that he helped people, and that kind of thing," they recall. Ben had a crush on a girl in the class and would ride around on a tricycle (because they couldn’t actually fly, and that was obviously the next best option), pretending to save her from pirates. "I thought that maybe if I rolled my socks down instead of folding them, to make them look poofy like the people’s socks in Sleeping Beauty, she might think of me as a handsome prince. It didn’t work.” 

Growing up socialized as a girl, Ben didn’t have language for what they were experiencing. But Ben often escaped into imaginative play where they could be their favorite characters like Peter Pan, Robin Hood, Simba, Harry Potter, but never the Disney princesses. Things like bows and arrows, sword fighting, and playing with bugs were great, but pretty dresses were kind of the worst. 

Ben was born and raised in Orem, Utah, in a large family that was always active in the LDS church. But from a young age, they felt a disconnect between their inner sense of self and what they were told was expected of them. As a young kid, they didn’t know what the word ‘gay’ meant, and had never heard terms like ‘transgender’ or ‘non-binary.’ Nobody was pressuring them to be queer - if anything, there was pressure to not be queer. And yet, those feelings were all naturally, instinctively there. "I didn’t have the words to describe it. But I did get the sense that it wasn’t normal, and that I wasn’t supposed to talk about it."

Ben’s first memory of queer-related shame came early: a kid in kindergarten asked if they were gay and instructed them to look at their fingernails - palm up if you were gay, palm down if not. "I had no idea what 'gay' even meant, but I figured from the kid’s tone that it was bad," Ben says.

Still, they instinctively volunteered to take on the male roles in school performances. "I always wanted to do the guy part - it was what felt the most natural." In elementary school, they were part of a Spanish immersion program. Each year, there was a cultural dance performance for each grade. There were always more girls than boys, and whenever the opportunity came up, Ben would volunteer to take on a male role. Once, a mother of their dance partner came up to them afterward and said, "I’m so honored my daughter was able to dance with you." Looking back, Ben thinks that mom was likely an ally.

In their teens and twenties, the internal turmoil deepened, but they tried not to let it show. "I was always the teacher’s pet, the (mostly) straight-A student at school, and always had the right answers at church.” They developed romantic crushes on girls, but hid the feelings. They were afraid of rejection if anyone - especially those friends - ever found out. “I thought, 'this is a trial I can handle by myself. I don’t want to burden anybody - I’m the one who’s broken, so it’s my job to carry all of the discomfort.’" Ben thought they were alone. "I thought being queer was super rare. I didn’t think a girl would ever like me back." Friendships were hard. When they had crushes on friends, they assumed those friends didn’t care as deeply in return. They had no outlet for the "spiraling thoughts" in their head. "I couldn’t talk to anyone about what I was feeling, so the thoughts often spiraled out of control. Being in the closet was very emotionally unhealthy for me." 

During this time, Ben still didn’t totally have some of the words to describe what they were experiencing. One hard part of being in the closet was not being able to talk to anyone who could help make things make sense. They knew about the acronym LGBT, and tried to figure out which letter fit them best. The ‘T’ was particularly confusing, because they knew they sort of felt like a boy, but at the same time, also didn’t totally feel like a man. 

Ben says that for years, they likened their queerness to a Horcrux from Harry Potter. Harry had a little piece of Voldemort basically injected into his soul. “I thought my queerness was kind of like that - a little piece of Satan injected into my soul. I figured that it wasn’t actually a part of me, it was something separate, and that when I died, it would go away - as long as I never accepted it as a real part of myself.” 

Ben served a three-month mission in Nauvoo as a young performing missionary, followed by an 18-month Spanish-speaking mission in San Jose, CA. Ben reflects, "I thought a mission would cure me of being queer. I figured I’d come home, get married, and live a 'normal' LDS life." But nothing changed. "As a missionary, I realized almost immediately that my same-sex attraction wasn’t going away." The first person Ben came out to was their Nauvoo mission president. The mission president reassured them: "You’re not doing anything wrong." Ben felt better but still didn’t have language or clarity to help mitigate their emotions.

After their mission, they came out to their kind and definitely well-meaning bishop, who referred them to therapy. "I basically voluntarily went looking for conversion therapy - I thought it might help me live the life I was supposed to live," says Ben. “Thankfully, the therapy that I got probably didn’t actually count as conversion therapy, at least for the most part.” The therapy didn’t change their orientation or gender identity, but it did help them understand themselves better. "It wasn’t what I originally thought it would be, thankfully."

At BYU Provo, Ben studied music composition and audio in the commercial music program. They played clarinet in university ensembles, and toured internationally with those groups through Europe and Asia. They were also a temple worker for a time. Ben says, "I realized a lot of older sister temple workers had short hair. I’d always wanted short hair but was afraid people would think I was gay." Seeing those women helped Ben realize that getting a short haircut would probably be okay. Eventually, they got the short haircut and never looked back. "Someone told me I’d look good with short hair - I got it cut, and never plan on going back."

The pandemic gave Ben time to reflect. When in-person church started back up again, they connected with a non-binary friend who became a safe person to talk to. For the first time, they had someone who truly understood. This was the first time that Ben had heard the term ‘non-binary,’ and they realized that finally there was a term that accurately described what they were experiencing. All of this helped Ben to finally feel comfortable enough to come out publicly. Still, talking about gender identity felt harder and kind of more taboo than talking about being gay. 

That friendship led to an unexpected romantic relationship with the friend’s sister. The relationship was something Ben had never planned to pursue. Ben says, "I had always told myself that I couldn’t be in a queer relationship. But itkind of just happened naturally. We’d ‘hang out’ one-on-one, and for a while I wouldn’t admit that it was a date. But eventually we realized that we were in a relationship." They didn’t tell many people. The relationship ended nearly three years ago, but it was meaningful. "The thing that I’d been taught my whole life was bad didn’t feel evil. It felt right. I was learning and growing as a person."

Through that experience and hearing stories of other queer people, Ben began to shift their view of gospel living. "I don’t think the gospel is about your orientation or gender identity. It’s about being a good person - and that’s not dependent on those things." They began to lean into the scripture, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” In considering their future, Ben figures, "If it’s bringing good fruit, it’s probably good." Now, most of the shame surrounding their queer identity is gone. Ben feels that God has been healing them - not from their queerness, but from the darkness and shame and fear. 

Last year, Ben signed up for the Gather Conference. When asked for their name and pronouns, they used "Ben" and "they/them" for the first time. Ben smiles, "It felt good. It felt like me." They had long admired the name Ben, a tribute to their baby brother who passed away 30 minutes after birth. "I tended to imagine my angel baby brother as a good, caring, kind, calming person. After a while, I realized that the way I imagined him was actually my own ideal self. I also like that in Latin, the root ‘ben’ means ‘good.’ That’s who I want to be."

They prayed and went to the temple repeatedly, asking if changing their name and pronouns was the right decision. "I figured God would give an answer in both mind and heart," Ben says - “and I believe that He has, repeatedly.” In the celestial room one day, after praying about the name and pronoun change, they saw two people who they knew - one named Ben, and another who had always tried extra hard to use the right pronouns. "It felt like a confirmation."

Ben changed their name and pronouns, started wearing a tie to church, and decided to be even more open about their identity. All the while, they’d check in during prayer, asking their Heavenly Father if what they were doing was the right thing. The answers always felt affirming, understanding, and loving.

When Ben told their bishop about the name and pronoun change, the bishop was respectful and kind. Though Ben did lose their temple recommend and can’t serve in certain callings because of current church policy around social transitioning, they’ve been embraced in their YSA ward and now serve on the FHE committee. "I’m just trying to be a normal person, so people can see that trans people aren’t scary - we’re just people, and we’re here."

One of the most spiritual moments of Ben’s life came years earlier, on a trip to Israel. At the Garden Tomb, they’d hoped to get a photo of them in front of the empty tomb, but were rushed out by another group’s leader. Frustrated, Ben walked away. "I thought, 'God’s good at turning bad experiences into good ones - maybe He can do that for me here.' I decided to identify what I was feeling, and realized that I was feeling pushed aside. Then this strong, clear prompting came: ‘I would never push you aside’." It wasn’t until years later that Ben connected that message to their identity. "Even though I’m queer, God won’t push me aside. Even when well-meaning members think that’s the best way to live the gospel - that’s not God. That’s people." 

Ben lives with their family and their beloved yorkie, Woofard Woodwoof (Woofie). They still play their clarinet in an orchestra as well as bagpipes, and they work at a printing shop. A couple of their siblings are also queer - a trans sister and a gay brother. Ben, their gay brother Matt, and their mother Barbara have all shared their stories on the Listen, Learn & Love podcast. Now Ben is excited to share their story with Lift+Love. They’re hopeful that their story will help others feel less alone. "It’s scary sometimes, but I’m trying to be visible, so that maybe someone else in the ward or community will see me and think, ‘Ben’s cool, not scary. Maybe other gay or trans people aren’t scary either’."

Through all of this, Ben is very grateful for a Savior who understands all of it, because He felt it along with us - and comes to us and loves us, right where we are, even in the hardest times.

You can hear more from Ben at the 2025 Gather Conference www.gather-conference.com

BRAXTON ROGELIO

**content warning: suicide attempt is mentioned**

Braxton Rogelio (he/him) has spent his life pursuing the arts while asking big questions—which has led him to embrace his identity as the proud transmasculine, gay man he is today.

Now 39, Braxton lives in Mesa, Arizona, not far from where he was born and raised. A passionate writer since the age of 13, he’s currently working on a memoir with the support of his uncle, who is a Utah-based author, screenwriter, and director. Their bond is built on a shared love for exploring possibilities. “He’s such a sweet, funny personality,” Braxton said. “We’re so similar—we’re always asking what if, and what else.”

Braxton’s life is rich with passions. He loves anime, karaoke, travel, and his beloved cat, Bear—a tabby-Siamese mix he describes as a “gorgeous boy and absolute love bug.” He proudly embraces his Latino roots through his dad’s Portuguese and Spanish heritage. And when it comes to music, his playlist features favorites like David Archuleta, John Mayer, and Selena.

Music, in fact, quite literally saved Braxton’s life.

A few years ago, after leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and facing pressure to return, Braxton found himself in a dark place. Depression overwhelmed him. “I had been told, 'You need to come back to church,' and it just got really bad,” he says. One night, feeling hopeless, he attempted to take his own life.

As he sat alone, still suffering yet having survived the attempt, a song shuffled onto his phone: David Archuleta’s “To Be With You.” He says, “Hearing David’s song—it saved my life.”

Later, Braxton had the chance to tell David Archuleta exactly that. At a Christmas concert at the House of Blues in San Diego, he met David, shared his story, and received a hug in return. “I was so grateful,” he said. “I gave him a gift—a few things he had said he liked on Instagram—and it was great to talk to him."

Last Mother’s Day marked another turning point: Braxton came out publicly as trans. While he had long stepped away from church activity, the day offered a bittersweet illustration of the complicated ties between faith, family, and identity.

His mother, still active in the church, asked him to attend services with her. Braxton agreed, despite his deep discomfort. "I was already in tears but thought, 'I'll suck it up for my mother.'" During the meeting, young children were handing out flowers to mothers. Braxton, who does not identify as a mother, was encouraged by his mom to accept one. "I thought, ‘this is so weird’," he said.

Later, attending a Relief Society meeting only deepened his feelings of isolation as Braxton had fully embraced his identity. “Ever since I was five or six years old, I knew something was going on,” he said. “I even told my brother when we were little kids, 'Hey, I'm your brother’."

Coming out to his family brought a range of responses. His younger brother, two years his junior, was the first person he told. “He wasn’t surprised,” Braxton said. “He said, 'You've always identified that way. As long as you're happy.'"

His sister, who is three years older, and his father were also supportive. His father’s response was simple and unconditional: "No matter what, I'll always love you."

Today, Braxton enjoys close relationships with his father and stepmother—whom he affectionately calls "Mama"—as well as with his brother and his brother’s family. "Everyone lives in Arizona,” he said. "My dad and Mama have lived in the same house for 25 years. My brother and his wife and five kids live just down the street."

While most of his family offers love and acceptance, there have been painful exceptions. But Braxton focuses on the love that surrounds him. “I have a good support system and love them very much,” he said.

Braxton’s journey of self-discovery has also included navigating relationships. Over the years, he’s experienced three failed engagements. Each time, he realized he couldn't move forward without first fully understanding and accepting himself. “It had to do with me, not them,” he reflected. “I couldn’t help them the way they deserved, not with everything going on inside me.”

Today, Braxton also identifies as demisexual or asexual, and finds belonging within the ace community. Trying to live authentically hasn’t been without its challenges. Braxton has faced harsh words, including being told he was “evil” or “being seduced by Satan.” But he stands firm in who he is and trying to be. “With everything going on in the world, don't be afraid,” he says. “Embrace yourself. You shouldn't feel ashamed. You deserve to be yourself.”

Looking ahead, Braxton says, “I hope to be a man married to another man,” he said. He feels a strong connection to his Latino heritage and hopes to build a life that honors all parts of his identity. He’s also working toward greater mental health support, planning to join a group therapy program through AZ for Change, an organization supporting LGBTQ+ individuals.

Music continues to be a source of healing and joy. Braxton eagerly looks forward to attending upcoming David Archuleta concerts—including two in southern California this week. “I'm excited to meet up with some friends there,” he said.

In the meantime, he continues writing, learning to play the piano from his mother, and pursuing his dream of publishing his memoir—which he hopes will prove a testament to a life defined not by fear or conformity, but by authenticity, resilience, and love.

AMBERLY BEAN

content warning - sexual assault

Every month, Amberly Bean, 30, leads the Lift and Love youth support group on Zoom. She opens each session of new attendees with the same introductory joke, “I identify as lesbian but I’m married to a man but we’re not going to get into that tonight, it’s a long story.” Amberly and her husband Kendall have known each other since childhood. In fact, he was the name she’d throw out every time her middle school friends talked about the boys they liked, feeling he was a “safe crush because nothing would ever happen.” She laughs that, “Even when Kendall would hear that, there were no moves made—which felt really safe for me.”

After serving her mission and attending college, Amberly now lives with Kendall once again in Idaho Falls, ID, where she was raised in a devout and loving Latter-day Saint family. The oldest of three children, from the outside, her upbringing looked textbook—kind and faithful parents, an active church life, a close-knit community. But Amberly always knew there was something about her that was different.

She had come out to a close group of friends in her teens. But nearing the end of her high school years, the inner tension she felt with her faith reached its peak. “It was all or nothing,” she believed, rationalizing she could either be a lesbian or a member of the Church. There was no in-between. While she continued to attend church with her family, she said mentally, “for all intents and purposes, I was out.” During her senior year, Amberly experienced a tough break-up with a girl that felt like it was destroying her. She finally felt it was time to come out to her family and all her friends who cared about her.

Grateful to no longer hide so much of herself with her mom, whom she had always felt close with, she remembers her reaction as being as supportive as she could be at the time. Her mom’s words made her intentions clear: “I’ll love you no matter what you do, you’ll always be a part of our family. Nothing will change. But I know the Book of Mormon and gospel is where you’ll find guidance.” Determined to prove her wrong, Amberly asked herself, “How can any part of this faith guide me when it doesn’t even believe I exist?” But two weeks later after finishing the whole book, Amberly’s heart was moved in a way she didn’t expect. “I felt God with me. I didn’t know what would happen with my dating life or my future, but I knew I could figure things out if I had the gospel.”

That conviction led Amberly to prepare for a mission, in the second wave of 19-year-old sister missionaries. She was honest with her local leaders about past relationships with women, which initially led to the direction to wait a year before serving. The delay devastated Amberly, who felt unsure whether a straight person would have been given the same edict. But a week later, she was asked to meet with her stake president again, assuming there had been a logistical error.

Instead, her stake president shared an experience he’d had in the celestial room of the temple, where he distinctly envisioned her kneeling in a small room (which she recognized as her personal oasis where she spent time journaling, playing guitar, etc.). He felt she was ready to serve, and needed to go right away. Her mission papers were submitted that night.

That was the first time Amberly says she felt a confirmation that there is a lot of misunderstanding with how the church deals with queer members and their “sins and transgressions” and “what Heavenly Father actually feels about His queer children.” She says, “It was a big milestone moment for me.” She felt a very strong impression from above that her queerness is a gift. She does not believe her Heavenly Parents sent their kids down and said, “You guys get to be queer because it’s a trial and hard, so good luck.” Instead she has felt, “this is too pure of a thing to be bad.”

Serving in 2014, Amberly felt a deep desire to tell her story, but at the time, there were few visible LGBTQ+ Church members speaking openly—let alone affirmatively—about their identity and faith. She was worried that her news getting out on the mission “might not be kosher” while she was away from home sleeping in bedrooms with girls. She shared her story with one of her companions who then took it upon herself to tell someone else which started whispers around the mission which, later in her mission, resulted in Amberly getting emergency transferred under the pretense that she was gay and had a crush on the companion. Amberly said, “That’s hilarious. The first part is true, but this has been the hardest companionship I’ve had. Even trying to like her as a friend was hard.”

By the time she returned home, Amberly was emotionally exhausted and unsure how to navigate church life again. Once again, she took a break. Dating girls at BYU–Idaho was difficult, but something she ended up doing. Then came another heartbreak. A woman she’d believed she would spend her life with ended things, saying she was bisexual and thought she could make a relationship with a man work—something she didn’t think Amberly could do.

Feeling conflicted and reminded of painful past feelings, Amberly committed to being the best celibate member she could be. She tried dating men, but after coming out to one—her only serious attempt—he sexually assaulted her under the false belief that it was his duty to “fix her.”

The experience was traumatic and left Amberly certain she would never date a man again. The aftermath was confusing as she initially sought the support of leadership but instead felt blame. But transferring her records to a YSA branch back home in Idaho Falls was a turning point. This branch president was operating off of a reliance on the spirit about Amberly’s past romantic relationships with women. Through this branch president, Amberly found healing and increased trust for leadership, and men in general.

Amberly slowly rebuilt her sense of safety and belonging in the Church. She got her temple recommend back and committed to being “the best celibate lesbian ever,” convinced it was the only faithful path for someone like her.

Then Kendall, her “safe crush” who she’d known since elementary school, re-entered the picture. Amberly ran into Kendall’s mom and joked again about any of the handful of her boys being marriage potential. Amberly retorted, “I’d marry any of your boys.” Her number was passed along, and Kendall reached out during a spring break visit home. When she suggested hanging out, he declined and said instead that he’d love to take her on a date. Their first date lasted hours—they couldn’t stop talking. “It was the first time I actually liked a boy for real,” she says. “And it freaked me out.”

She laughs as she reflects that, “As Mormon dating goes, after two weeks, he said, he didn’t want to date anyone else. You?” Two weeks in, Kendall asked Amberly to be his girlfriend. She knew she had to “ruin it and tell him,” and feared the impending break-up. “I’m a lesbian,” she said over the phone. “I’ve only dated women.” Kendall didn’t miss a beat. “Do you still like me?” he asked. Upon her affirmative reply, he said, “Then I don’t see a problem if you don’t.”

Kendall’s steady support has become a hallmark of their relationship. They started dating in March of 2017 and married that August, though they’d known each other forever. Kendall finished his studies in physics at the University of Utah, while Amberly moved to Utah with him to work.

Now, nearly eight years later, they are raising two children—a five-year-old son and a toddler daughter—and building a life grounded in honesty, humor, and mutual respect. “It hasn’t always been a walk in the park,” Amberly admits. “We’ve done counseling. But in the past few years, it HAS been a walk in the park.”

“Kendall is pretty chill and secure,” says Amberly. “He sees this as just a part of who I am. He doesn’t need a ton of outside support, though we’ve connected with other mixed-orientation couples. We talk enough to be each other’s support.”

The couple used to be involved with Northstar but now mostly affiliate with their Lift & Love community, where Amberly loves leading her monthly groups with Kelly Cook. “We usually have four or five kids show up, sometimes more. We chat, do icebreakers, let them go for it and they talk. I love it. It’s something I would have loved to have as a youth in the church.” She says, “Out of the queer kids who attend, they’re mostly still active in the Church, trying to navigate that. Their hope and optimism is contagious.”

Post-COVID and postpartum, four years ago, Amberly felt she wanted to be more authentic about her identity in their “very small, very Mormon community.” Coming out in her current ward was a process. For some time, she’d hidden behind her role as Kendall’s wife, struggling to feel like her authentic self. “I felt like a shell,” she says. “It festered.” She knew something had to shift.

“I told Kendall I needed to come out,” she says. “And he said, ‘Then let’s figure out the best way to do that for you.” With his support and the encouragement of a few trusted friends in her ward, including a YW president she served with who promised solidarity, Amberly began telling her story.

The result? “Not much changed,” she says. Her bishop came over to chat, and it was a good experience. She felt well supported. She says, “Even though I’m not talking all the time about how gay I am, it hardly comes up actually… But if it does in context, I feel the freedom to say something. I can be authentic.” She continues, “People in church don’t realize—coming out in church is not so I can talk about being gay, but so I can feel my friends know me. This is a big part of me.”

She wants her kids to grow up seeing the full range of possibilities, and will talk to them about it someday. “I want them to see that you can be queer and have a happy, fulfilled life in the Church. And I want them to see that people outside the Church can be happy too.” Amberly believes more people need to see both sides of the coin.

AMY GADBERRY

Amy Gadberry, 29, has spent much of her life navigating the complexities of her identity, faith, and mental health. Recently, the West Jordan, UT resident has come to fully embrace her identity as a cisgender bisexual woman, a realization that has profoundly shaped her ability to finally feel self-acceptance. Newlywed life has also brought a new form of happiness, as Amy and her wife Emily Tucker, just celebrated six months of marriage. But while her path has ultimately led her to a life she once only dreamed was possible, not much of Amy’s path to this point has been straightforward. 

Though she recognized an attraction to men while growing up, Amy never had a strong desire to be with one. Even before meeting Emily, she envisioned a future married to a woman, a realization that initially caused her significant internal conflict. She grappled with whether to identify as lesbian or bisexual, feeling that the latter label carried a stigma within the LGBTQ+ community. At times, she questioned whether she was “queer enough” or had the same right to celebrate her relationship with pride. However, as she has come to embrace her marriage and the love she shares with Emily, these concerns have faded. She now feels that what matters most is the life they’re building together, and she could not be more grateful.

Having first become aware of her attraction to girls around the age of 12, Amy’s discovery came with a mix of shame and confusion. She noticed that the romantic feelings she experienced were different from those of her friends, which led her to suppress them for years. During middle and high school, she dated boys casually and occasionally even had boyfriends, but she says she never developed those deep romantic connections. College did not bring much more clarity, as Amy struggled to find a relationship that truly resonated. Eventually, she realized that her sexuality was something she needed to confront rather than continue to hide.

Raised in Maryland, Amy grew up in a deeply religious household where the church played a significant role in her life. Despite her concerns about how her faith community would respond to her coming out, she found unexpected kindness and support. At 22, after coming out to her therapist—who was the first person she ever confided in about her sexuality—Amy made the courageous decision to share her truth publicly through an Instagram post. To her surprise, she received an outpouring of love, even from those within her church.

Though they needed a little time to adjust once she started dating women, Amy’s parents have remained a steadfast source of love and encouragement since. Despite the initial acceptance she received, Amy ultimately found it difficult to reconcile her faith with her sexuality. In her early 20s, she attended church less frequently and eventually stopped going altogether at 23 or 24, except for supporting the occasional family event. Though she’s never harbored anger toward the church, Amy has experienced deep sadness over what she perceives as an impossible choice between her faith and the ability to pursue the kind of love she has since found.

A pivotal moment came when she attended a fireside where a well-known LGBTQ+ advocate within the church shared his story. His account of a beautiful life with his partner that ended when he decided to reconnect with the church struck a chord with Amy. She sat in the audience crying, and questioning why he had to choose between a life with his loving partner and a beautiful church community. She says, “It didn’t make sense to me, and ultimately was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I didn’t want to choose between the two but if I had to, I decided to choose love and companionship over the church. Since, it’s been a journey figuring out what I believe.” 

Amy says she has managed to take the church teachings of her upbringing that resonated with her and keep them close to her heart. She maintains that she bears no angry feelings toward any church members, and that “a lot of people in my inner circle are still active members and good people who I know are uplifted by the church. It’s just not something I can continue forward with, and I’m ok with that.” She still maintains a strong belief in a God who loves and cares for all of us. And she genuinely believes, “God is so happy for me and all the children who are finding joy in this lifetime. That’s something the church taught me—that we are designed for joy.” 

Joy has not always been easy to come by for Amy, though even her dark moments have cemented that there’s always been a higher power who cares about and speaks to her. Amy’s journey has been deeply intertwined with mental health struggles. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder and having struggled with an eating disorder, Amy has spent years navigating treatment, including multiple stays in residential centers. Her sexuality and faith crisis contributed to her struggles with suicidal ideation, leading to some of the darkest moments of her life. However, through therapy, support from loved ones, and inner resilience, Amy has persevered and found her way forward.

In February 2022, Amy entered her final residential treatment program, where she worked extensively on self-acceptance and coping strategies. She emerged from treatment in May of that year with a renewed sense of self-worth. That summer, she moved out of her BYU housing in Provo, eager for a fresh start. It was then that she met Emily. Their love story began on a dating app, where Amy was immediately struck by Emily, saying “She was one of the prettiest girls I’d ever seen.” After matching, they quickly hit it off, leading to a dinner date the next evening.

Their conversation flowed effortlessly, and Amy knew she had met someone special. Emily had never dated a woman before, and she was in the process of reconciling her lesbian identity and deciding whether she belonged in the church. Their connection deepened as they navigated their days together, making it official within just a few weeks. They dated for two years before marrying in October 2024.

Reflecting on their relationship, Amy describes it as the best two and a half years of her life. She says, “I never imagined a life for myself where I’d feel as happy and fulfilled and as good as I do now. I credit a lot of it to therapy and treatment, and also to the fact that Emily and I are a good match, which is a testament to the validity of what LGBTQ+ love and relationships can be. I felt I couldn’t ask for anything better, or imagine myself with anyone else. When you know, you know.” Amy describes the sentiment of their first weeks together, saying, “I knew she was my person and would be forever. She felt the same. It’s a reminder this love is not wrong, no matter what people say and what views they have. We know it’s the right thing for us. The life we’re creating together is the best life either of us could have ever asked for. It’s pure joy, and I’m so grateful every day for it.

Both Amy and Emily are fortunate to have families that fully embrace their relationship. Amy says her in-laws are among the most loving and accepting people she has ever met, treating her with the same warmth as they show any other family member. Though her own father initially struggled, he ultimately supported her wholeheartedly, walking her down the aisle at her her wedding, and fully embracing Emily as part of the family.

Amy attributes much of her inner strength to her mother, Tricia Gadberry. From the moment Amy first came out to her mother, while sobbing over the phone, Tricia has remained a pillar of support. Amy appreciates how she listens without judgment and provides a safe space for Amy to process her emotions. To this day, Amy considers her mother to be one of the most important people in her life, and a source of love and guidance she will always cherish.

Currently pursuing a graduate degree in school counseling, Amy plans to graduate in August and is actively searching for a job. She appreciates how her mother-in-law is helping the process by leveraging her connections in the education system. Emily also works with kids as a behavior analyst. Amy’s ultimate goal as a counselor is to be a safe and supportive figure for LGBTQ+ students, particularly those who may feel isolated or unaccepted. She is especially passionate about advocating for transgender students, and ensuring they receive respect and validation despite discriminatory policies that may exist within school systems. She says, “My heart goes out to all trans students now navigating this legislation and the hatred they’re experiencing… I want them to feel like they can talk to me about anything that goes on and that their existence is valid.” 

Beyond their activism and careers, Amy and Emily lead a fulfilling life filled with travel, outdoor adventures, and quality time with their beloved pets, Bella (a dog) and Leo (a cat). While they love their roles as aunts to nieces and a nephew, they feel their fur babies may be the only babies they raise. At home, they love to watch reality TV and when the weather cooperates outside, Amy enjoys teaching Emily tennis. In turn, Emily has been teaching Amy canyoneering and water sports.

This October, the couple plans to celebrate their one-year anniversary with a trip to the Netherlands, the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. They are currently feeling out the possibility of living abroad in the future. In the meantime, during what has felt like dark days for many in Utah, Amy is buoyed in knowing that so many allies are out alongside them there fighting and wanting the best for their LGBTQ+ loved ones and others. Amy says, “The only way I can get through it is to find the parts of hope that come with it. Seeing others fight gives me hope. There will always be people who care, even if you don’t know them personally.”

MADDIE FOX

Every February is Bald Eagle Month in Utah, and Maddie Fox (she/her), takes full advantage of the season.  A self-described amateur wildlife photographer, Maddie, 35, sets out early on one February Saturday a year to photograph her favorite creature. While she’s also garnered a frame-worthy collection of bison, elk, wild horses, and black bears, there’s something about the way the bald eagles soar overhead as they migrate south looking for food—so free and unencumbered—that captivates her. 

The proximity of her West Jordan home to the mountains affords Maddie opportunities to enjoy other outdoor activities like hiking and rock hounding for minerals and gems in the state in which she was born and raised. But as of late, she has been less than enthralled with recent Utah legislation that affects the trans community she is a part of. She says, “Transgender people just want to go about living our lives. We are who we are, the same people we always were—we’re just trying to match our external to who our internal selves tell us we are.” In a state that has now passed some hostile policies including the recent bathroom bills and legislation preventing PRIDE flags from schools and public buildings, Maddie continues, “I wish people knew that I am not the threat politicians say I am. I’m kind, loving, and just want to have the best quality of life I can being my true authentic self.”

For Maddie, her authentic self has felt “different” for as long as she can remember. Growing up, she didn’t know what it all necessarily meant, but she always felt something was unique about her. While she was assigned male at birth and grew up playing sports like basketball and baseball alongside her two younger brothers, Maddie typically felt more drawn to feminine things until a sense of shame would inevitably set in. Maddie grew up in the church, and later loved serving a mission to Ireland, but saw when she returned home after two years, her feminine feelings had not gone away as she’d presumed they would. This time, she got into a therapist who helped her work through various thoughts. After some time spent building up trust, based on all Maddie shared, she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. 

While Maddie had experimented with wearing women’s clothing intermittently throughout her life, she started officially socially transitioning about a decade ago, at age 25. Six months ago, she began hormone replacement therapy, which she says has greatly helped with her gender dysphoria and increased her ability to feel authentic and “much more happy.”

With the recent shift in transgender policies instituted by the LDS faith, “and even before then,” Maddie says she has experienced a faith awakening. Last August’s policy shift has made activities and second hour meetings too difficult for her to attend. Now, she says, “With the policies, I just kind of go for a sense of community, but I don’t know where my faith journey will lead. I am still blessed to have a knowledge of my Heavenly Parents and their love for me.” Maddie says her family is coming to terms with her transition and she is grateful to feel their unconditional love. 

Besides working at a university as a testing proctor and enjoying outdoor activities, Maddie stays busy watching college sports – with football being a favorite. She also belongs to a few support groups for trans individuals that she attends as her work schedule allows. Maddie takes comfort in hearing others’ similar stories and seeing how they live her lives. “I see what I can take from them and apply it to my own.” Maddie also identifies as lesbian ad has dated a little. She says, “Being trans and lesbian can be difficult here in Utah. I hope one day I can find someone I can date and settle down with and have a relationship.”

As the temperature rises nationwide when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues, Maddie says, “I wish that whether it’s church or state or federal that they would get input from transgender individuals who have lived experience instead of listening to the fearmongers.” Maddie prefers a gentler way, much like the nature of Jesus as portrayed in her favorite TV show, “The Chosen.” She says, “How Jesus is portrayed in The Chosen is how I see my Savior. That’s how I imagine He would be.”

JOSH HADDEN

content warning - suicide ideation and the death of a parent are mentioned

Josh grew up feeling a bit different. He loved playing with girls' toys and even asked for a My Little Pony Dream Castle when he was four-years-old. His favorite colors were pink and purple, and he tended to get along better with girls than the other boys his age. This went on until around seven-years-old when Josh started to learn what the word “gay” meant, and then subsequently started to try and hide those parts of himself. He spent years trying to convince himself that he was not gay and that if he tried hard enough, he could hide this part of himself from everyone. In fact, Josh decided being gay would be something he would need to spend his life hiding, managing and changing. The frustration of that journey has only been alleviated in the past few years as finally, at age 26, Josh has come to trust that he was intentionally created as he is by loving Heavenly Parents.

Throughout high school, Josh tried to ignore his feelings and pray for his orientation to change. In college at BYU-Idaho where he studied communications, he knew he was gay but continued in his efforts to find that one special woman who would magically capture his eye and his heart--the woman with whom he could make everything work. He recalls, “Over years of dating, I managed to get a fair amount of girls to like me, but after never being able to like them back, I just felt like I was toying with people’s emotions and hurting people.” Josh decided it was time for dating to take a backseat. 

The following years, Josh experienced extreme loneliness. It’s an uncomfortable thing for him to acknowledge now, but he remembers praying he could just disappear. “Some might call it being passively suicidal, but for me, I just didn’t want to exist. I didn’t have a lot of hope for my future as I had no intention to date or marry a man and forfeit the covenant path for myself. But dating women felt so uncomfortable and I just felt so alone,” Josh reflects.

He continued in this tumultuous pattern of managing his conflicting desires to not be alone and to stay active in his faith while ignoring his strong desires to be with a man. “It was a life in conflict,” Josh says. In 2021, he realized he was in really bad shape when his father passed away from Covid. Josh had learned in marriage and family classes about the emotional process of grief and that studies had shown that the most intense pain people typically experience in life is the death of a child, parent or spouse, followed by divorce. Josh says, “I realized at that time that I was experiencing more emotional pain everyday as a gay member of the Church than what I felt in the peak of my grief over my dad’s passing. There’s a note in my phone where I journaled my thoughts on how everyone was being so kind and supportive, yet I was wrestling something so much bigger and more long term--something I had so many more questions about. And I was fighting that silent battle with no support.” Josh recounts how he’d been raised to understand that doctrinally, he knew how he could fit into the kingdom as a son who’d lost his father, but he had huge questions about whether his Heavenly Father could love him and have a place for him as a gay man. At this point, Josh realized something was seriously wrong and it was time for him to start opening up to others.

At the time, he had only told a few close friends on a case-by-case basis about his attractions. He never discussed it with his dad before his passing, but had one conversation in high school with his mom about it. He recalls there was a “silent acknowledgement, but it died there and was not discussed again.” However, after Josh’s dad passed away, he says his family “got more real” about things and he was able to revisit the conversation with his mom, who he says has since proved to be “a rockstar.”

Over the years, being gay became the subject for many of Josh’s prayers. For years, he prayed that it would be taken away and that he could be happily straight and fit into God’s kingdom the way he had been taught. After some time and realizing that his orientation would not change, he changed his prayer to ask God to just find one woman that he could be attracted to and be happy with. Then again, after many seasons of prayers unanswered, Josh decided that maybe he was praying for the wrong thing and changed direction. He started praying that if he would never successfully date or marry, that he could just have a best-friend. Someone to rely on and be close with in life. This prayer also proved unsuccessful, so he made another pivot. Josh changed his prayer to accept that he may be alone in this life, and his prayer was that in his life of solitude, that God would help him feel peace, contentment, and happiness where he was. Yet, Josh still felt painfully lonely.

After finishing school in Idaho, Josh did what many LDS singles do and moved to Utah. There, he hit a low point, and his years of unanswered prayers seemed to pile up. He experienced more intense loneliness after his move to Utah and nothing seemed to change. For a long time, Josh had dealt with his loneliness in dating by keeping close friendships, but during this new chapter of his life in Utah, that support wasn’t coming. He did everything he could think to do in making new friends and made it a serious matter of prayer, yet nothing seemed to change. After months of that intensified loneliness, Josh came to remember that old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. It was at this time that Josh identified that the one thing he had not yet tried was dating a guy.

Deciding to dip his toes in, just to see how it felt, Josh offered up a prayer, “Stop me, God, if this is wrong.” But Josh quickly found a guy he liked, went out a few times, had a good time, and felt utter confusion because nothing about dating this guy felt wrong to his spirit. His excitement over these new possibilities weighed against a lingering sense of despair for his future. After one of his dates, Josh prayed, “God, how did I get here? You know that for so long I prayed for Plan A, B, C… to happen and now I’m on Plan F.” But now, Josh also felt ready to listen. After pouring out his heart in prayer,the answer he received was, “Josh, I know. I know your heart and your mind. And I have been there every step of the way, yet this is where I have allowed you to be. And this is ok.” Josh says his mind at the time added a “for now” to the end of that prayer, rationalizing that all this was still to prepare him for marrying a woman. That was a year ago, in March of 2024, and the messages Josh has received since have been consistently the same. Every time he starts to feel unsure about his future, he feels God reassuring him, “You’re so afraid about leaving me, but I’m not worried about that. I have other children who don’t want to be with me,and I know how that feels. But Josh, you are not one of them. This will be ok in ways you may not yet understand.”

With that assurance, Josh proceeded in dating guys. He ended up moving from Orem to Lehi last summer, where he said his social life really changed for the better. He moved closer to some old friends he’d met while serving as an FSY counselor, and has been able to make many more friends since. Surrounded by friends, he’s been able to stay active in his ward where he serves as executive secretary alongside a friendly bishop who’s aware of his situation. After a few months of improved peace both in friendships, and in this new chapter of dating men, Josh decided it was time to prioritize coming out to his family. The youngest of seven kids, Josh remains close to his siblings and mom, most of whom live in Arizona. When he finally felt it was time to come out to his siblings, he realized that might be tough to do in person at a big family event, so he opted to share his news via text:

I’m sorry if this text message is a little uncomfortable or badly timed but I wanted to take a step towards living more honestly and let you know that I’m gay. I’ve kind of always known and I’ve been talking to Mom about it for years and just figured I should probably let my family know. 

In no way am I planning on changing my relationship with God or the church but I just wanted to let you know. I’m the same old Josh I’ve always been.

I would totally love to talk about this with you some time either on the phone or in person! I would’ve told you sooner if we lived closer or had more time to talk privately.   I’m always happy to talk about it and answer any questions you might have.

And this doesn’t need to be a secret either, feel free to talk about it openly with anyone you’d like. I’m telling the other siblings, too.

Anyways, I love you, and I hope you can still love me.

Josh received all positive responses, with his brothers acknowledging that his road must have been tough, while assuring him they were proud of him. He laughs that his sisters are supportive as well and like to keep in touch and ask for dating updates.

Recently, as another step towards peace for himself, Josh decided to come out publicly in a post on social media. He says the responses were overwhelmingly positive and that he feels much more at peace in his life now, having nothing to hide. 

That increased peace has led him to try online dating and join Hinge. He’s enjoyed Hinge with its increased specifics on profiles as he’s remained selective in trying to find a man who is friendly toward the church (which is admittedly hard to do). Josh recognizes he’s experienced a lot less antagonism than some do, as his family, friends, and leaders have allowed him to be true to himself. He can see how things might be different if this hadn’t been his experience. 

Josh recently returned from a night out and was telling his mom how his date was newer in his coming out journey and that his family had not responded well. Josh asked his mom what contributed to her having been so kind and supportive. She responded that it just took time. By the time he was ready to fully come out, she’d spent lots of time reading the stories of people who knew they were gay and their journeys. She felt she saw patterns of people who tried to pray it away, then tried to plead and bargain with God, and then tried to date members of the opposite sex with hopes of getting married in the temple. She’d read how these people tried every avenue but were met with defeat after defeat. And eventually, she’d seen how they typically did best when they came to the point where there was nothing left to do but be themselves. She observed that sometimes, your entire life as a gay person is a secret until you’re out, with those around you never seeing your silent struggles for years. Because of these witnesses,

and the very lived experience of her son, Josh, she says, “I feel more at peace just accepting people where they are.”

As for Josh, he currently loves his hybrid remote job and coworkers, working for an elementary education company in Orem. An avid outdoorsman, he enjoys adventurous hobbies like hiking, swimming, running, cliff jumping, backpacking and camping. For Josh, a perfect date might include a short nature walk around the pond and getting ice cream. He is looking forward to a summer full of adventures and hopefully some fun dates in the future. 

Jennifer Thomas

Born as a biological male and raised in the conservative milieu of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Jennifer Thomas spent much of her early life navigating a path dictated by strict cultural and religious expectations. In her late 60s now, and having been married for over 45 years to Mary Ann Andersen with whom she’s raised four children, Jennifer’s life has been predicated with duty, love, and a quiet yearning for authenticity. But behind the familiar roles of husband, father, and devoted church member lingered a deeply personal struggle—a battle to reconcile the masculine identity imposed by society with a more gentle, unacknowledged feminine soul.

From an early age, Jennifer was drawn to what many would label as “feminine.” In a world where boys were not expected to be curious about the styles and hobbies reserved for girls, she found herself captivated by women’s fashion magazines and the allure of makeup and hairstyles. Yet in an environment where exploration of one’s gender identity was discouraged, if not outright condemned, she learned quickly that expressing even a hint of her proclivities was equivalent to admitting to a profound brokenness. For years, she suppressed this part of herself. But as she grew into the expected roles of dutiful spouse, father, and eventually as a respected leader serving as bishop and later in a stake presidency—Jennifer’s dissonance persisted. The man known as Dave Andersen carried a secret internal world, where the desire to express a feminine identity was a source of intense guilt.

It was during a period of solo travel that Jennifer (as Dave) wandered into a second-hand store and purchased a pair of high heels and a few pieces of women’s clothing—a small act of defiance. In the seclusion of a hotel room, Dave (who interchanges names and pronouns) dressed as a woman. But the exhilaration was short-lived, replaced swiftly by a torrent of guilt and shame. Soon after, he revealed his secret to his wife Mary Ann, a revelation that pre-internet, took her by complete surprise. She assumed the revelation indicated that he was gay—and also made it very clear she was not attracted to women. Dave conceded and discarded his hidden stash of feminine clothing. For over 20 years, the conversation was shelved. 

Throughout the intervening decades, Dave’s internal struggle deepened. Despite outward success in his software career and the accolades of leadership within the church, the man behind the title wrestled continuously with the guilt of having surrendered to the feminine inclinations he could no longer silence completely. He sought therapy from a psychologist who specialized in gender issues, and who explained that his experiences were not a pathology but rather a natural variation of human identity—a perspective that, though liberating in theory, was too difficult for Dave to accept at the time so he quit therapy. As bishop, he confided his grappling with gender dysphoria to his stake president, who assured him all bishops have something with which they struggle.

Over time, however, the framework of Dave’s early, more rigid beliefs began to crumble under the weight of new insights as he and Mary Ann encountered a stage of reflective, critical engagement with their faith and its teachings. They began to explore church history through gospel topic essays that revealed a more complex and sometimes contradictory narrative than the one they had previously been taught. This awakening paved the way for Dave to confront many other longstanding positions. He says, “Though I had spent my entire adult life believing and teaching that homosexuality was ultimately a sinful choice and that it was contagious (as the Church had forcefully taught in earlier times), my wife and I felt a need to reexamine those beliefs.” In his discovery, the realization that the feminine aspects of his identity were not a flaw to be cured but an essential part of his human experience began to take root.

More than two decades after that initial, painful confession, Dave once again opened up about his transgender feelings to Mary Ann. He explained that his inner experience had never truly dissipated, and recounted the recurring cycle of secret dressing, the inevitable purges, and the intense internal battles waged between the desire for authenticity and the fear of societal and ecclesiastical rejection. Though taken aback by the revelation, this time Mary Ann, who had evolved in her own beliefs about the LGBTQ+ community and come to understand that gender identity is separate from sexual orientation, was more open to her husband’s revelation. Though it was still not an easy thing for her. But her reassurance that she still loved him and valued the qualities that made him who he was became a turning point in their marriage and in his journey toward self-acceptance.

Mary Ann wondered if Dave might approach a time in which he’d fully transition. Of that reasonable fear, Dave said, “While nobody can know for sure that feelings will never change, the passage of time has led to both of us being more confident that, in my particular case, full-time transition is neither needed nor desired.  Even so, we understand that for many transgender individuals, full-time transition appears as the only viable path for relief from debilitating gender dysphoria.” The couple extends compassion to all who “travel this often-challenging path.” 

Emboldened by Mary Ann’s support, Dave began to more fully embrace the identity of Jennifer.  But at first, her reticence to be seen as Jennifer in town included well-plotted escapades. For instance, Mary Ann would sometimes drive Jennifer (hunkered down in the backseat of the car under a blanket) past their adult son’s family’s house a mile away, whereafter Mary Ann would get out of the car at a secluded park and run home, while Jennifer continued into town to run errands. Nowadays, both Dave and Jennifer are roles their family embraces openly. In 2020, when Dave and Mary Ann individually met face-to-face with each of their adult children to share some important news, the kids anticipated they might hear of a divorce or cancer diagnosis. But of being introduced to Jennifer, their daughter said, “You couldn’t have picked a better year to tell us this, because nothing surprises us anymore.” The kids were all very loving in their responses, though it’s certainly been a process as some have expressed they were worried about losing the dad they once knew. There have been a lot of questions, including curious ones asked by the grandkids who have met Jennifer. Some even eagerly anticipate Jennifer being the one they will see when visiting.

Of her dad’s revelation, daughter Aubrey says, “It was a very big shock for sure. Wrapping my head around it was difficult; it was an emotional roller coaster. But in that moment, I knew that I still loved my dad very much… I was not going to disown him for being his true self. I couldn’t imagine what he had been through, with all the years of torment and feeling broken because he couldn’t be his authentic self. I could sense the relief and freedom he felt once he told me about his journey and how he’s been able to accept himself.” Another daughter, Melinda, credits her parents’ own example throughout life of leading with curiosity and love rather than with fear and defensiveness as instrumental to their acceptance of their dad’s news. She says, “It was so meaningful to witness all of us prioritize that when learning about my dad's journey - that you don't have to fully relate to or understand someone's own journey to love and support them; that maintaining safety and support among family members matters more than a perfect comprehension of someone's life path.”  

In the equally supportive environment of local transgender groups, such as the Rose City group, Jennifer has found a community of kindred spirits who understand her experience. She recalls with vivid clarity the first time she walked into a restaurant dressed as a woman—nervous, yet buoyed by the welcoming smiles and greetings of others there facing similar struggles. Mary Ann often accompanies her to these dinners, where she enjoys meeting the other spouses and partners and “has no qualms about being out in public with me when I’m presenting as Jennifer.” 

Living in Forest Grove, Oregon—a place celebrated for its open, accepting community—Jennifer has also become an active participant in local civic life. Serving on several boards and commissions, she’s open about her dual presentation, sometimes appearing as Dave and at other times as Jennifer. She says the response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive. In a gesture of recognition of her unique identity, the mayor even presented her with two separate name placards in acknowledgment of her contributions and affirmed her authenticity. A school board member, impressed by her forthrightness, invited her to join a budget committee. Such affirmations contrast starkly with some of the institutional barriers Jennifer has encountered within the church space.

Determined to foster a greater understanding of transgender realities among church leaders, Jennifer eventually began the delicate process of coming out within her local congregation. Initially, she met with the bishop and the stake president to explain her experience—not as an act of repentance, but as a candid disclosure of her truth. In August 2021, with cautious support, she addressed her ward during a sacrament meeting, affirming her identity as part of the LGBTQ+ community. The response was mixed; some members expressed gratitude for her vulnerability, while others remained silent or visibly uncomfortable. For nearly a year thereafter, she continued to attend church services in “male mode” as Dave, until the growing dissonance between her internal self and her public persona became unbearable. In July 2022, after much prayer and reflection, she made the courageous decision to attend church services as Jennifer, explaining that worshiping in her authentic self allowed her to experience a deeper, more complete connection with God. That first Sunday as Jennifer came with a blend of hope and trepidation—while the bishop greeted her with warmth and several sisters offered genuine support, many in the congregation were hesitant, unsure how to reconcile this new facet of the person they thought they knew.

Soon after, however, institutional boundaries reasserted themselves. The stake president and bishop, who had initially shown support, determined that presenting as Jennifer at church was crossing handbook-stipulated lines. Membership restrictions were imposed, including the cancellation of her temple recommend and she was barred from holding certain callings and participation in priesthood ordinances. These limitations were a difficult reminder of the church’s ongoing struggle to accommodate transgender members. Despite these setbacks, Jennifer’s local congregation continued to offer small gestures of acceptance—occasional invitations to offer prayers in sacrament meeting, with her female name announced as a subtle nod of respect. After the policies announced in August 2024 banning transgender individuals from attending second hour meetings if presenting contrary to their gender assigned at birth, Jennifer and Mary Ann have decided to attend church elsewhere at a more welcoming church in their town where Jennifer is welcomed and has been invited to share her story.

Outside of church, Jennifer’s life has flourished in unexpected ways. In her community in Forest Grove, she maintains a balanced schedule that honors both sides of her identity. Typically, Sundays and Wednesdays are dedicated to living as Jennifer—on Sundays, she attends church in her true form, and on Wednesdays, she and Mary Ann often go out to dinner with friends. She says, “For most of my adult life at church, I would contemplate, ‘Am I being a good person or not?’ One way I would determine that is if I had caved into feminine inclinations. But now, to show up as, ‘Here I am, God – it’s me, Jennifer. I‘m not hiding anything anymore…’ I feel amazing, whole, complete, and the closest to God than I’ve ever felt before. So I don’t like to worship as Dave anymore. I prefer worshipping as Jennifer now.” But on other days, she presents as Dave, a nod to the past that still informs her understanding of herself. Even in retirement, after a long career as a software engineer at Intel—a role in which she was known as much for her innovative spirit as for her playful, entrepreneurial flair—Jennifer continues to seek out new spaces for self-expression.

Through thoughtful posts on social media where she contributes to Facebook groups (as Dave in Richard Ostler’s Ministering Resources group and as Jennifer in the Transactive LDS Support group), and in writing reflective articles—such as the one she published in Exponent 2 recounting her transformative experience of worshiping as Jennifer, she invites others to reconsider their own assumptions about gender, authenticity, and the nature of spiritual connection. She also reflects how recent policies have pushed so many friends in the transgender space out of the LDS faith. 

With the recent administration coming into power, Jennifer recounts how the trans community is largely reeling from multiple shocks in quick succession. She says, “It’s more important than ever to maintain a sense of community. These are very difficult, tumultuous, trying times. It’s been even more than we anticipated and worse than we imagined, and it’s happening so fast.” Jennifer also reflects, “As horrible as what’s happening right now at a national level, sadly, there’s a case that the Mormon church got there first and did it worse, with the August 18, 2024 trans policy. While the government won’t let us serve in the military or acknowledge we exist, the church essentially declared us a danger and threat to youth and children. I can’t even be in a Relief Society classroom with cisgender women.” Jennifer is confident a lot of members still don’t even know about the recent LDS church policy affecting the trans community.

In sharing her journey, Jennifer hopes to show that there is beauty in the fluidity of identity—that the interplay between the masculine and the feminine need not be a source of shame, but rather a celebration of the full spectrum of the human experience. Whether known as Dave or recognized as Jennifer, she hopes the essence of who she is remains unchanged: a person of depth, courage, and grace committed to living truthfully in a world that often demands conformity. She hopes her lived experience serves as a quiet revolution—a daily act of defiance against a legacy of repression, and a hopeful step toward a future where every individual is free to be their authentic self.

Want to learn more? You’ll find Mary Ann’s story here

KATELYN OLIVER

Growing up in Washington State, Katelyn Oliver enjoyed a childhood filled with adventure and exploration. Her hometown of Snohomish is bigger now than it used to be, and Katelyn loved living so close to the beach mountains, desert, and Canada. Youth trips often involved hiking and camping, and weekend family time included jaunts to the San Juan Islands off the Washington peninsula. While there was always a lot to see and do near home, Katelyn’s parents’ Christmas gifts to their four kids were often travel experiences. These trips included visits to Europe, Washington D.C., Arkansas, Utah and Hawaii, and fostered an openness to different cultures and perspectives. “I never felt like I was living in a bubble. For us, it was important to meet different people and have that exposure.” Katelyn says she was “a double minority in Washington – gay and a member of the church.” But growing up in a diverse community with friends of all denominations and persuasions, Katelyn never felt the need to tell others they needed to join her church. “We all thought of each other as good people, and had a lot of fun together.”

Now a 23-year-old student at Utah Valley University studying social work and minoring in Brazilian Portuguese, Katelyn says she realized she had crushes on girls from a young age but lacked the vocabulary to express it. A moment of clarity came when she visited her uncle in California and met his partner. Around the age of 10 at the time, she recalls, "I saw them give a kiss goodbye and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s crazy’!" Her father later pulled her into the subway and explained, "So, your uncle is gay…" At that moment, Katelyn had the thought, "Oh, that’s me!" This was a conversation she now understands her parents had been prepared for, suspecting that she might eventually reveal something to them about her own gender or orientation.

As she navigated middle school, Katelyn struggled with the gender binaries that seemed to divide the boys from girls when it came to hanging out, and she always preferred to cut her hair short as a kid. She often expressed disdain at home for losing friends over these things. Navigating her identity within the church she loved could also be complicated, although church was still her favorite place, with most of her closest friends being members of her ward and stake. Katelyn frequently felt a sense of anxiety when approaching her bishop interviews, particularly when asked about supporting any groups or ideologies contrary to church doctrine, because of her strong desire to be honest, which has remained an important value of hers. When she was 15, she brought up a hypothetical, “What if someone was having these kinds of feelings…” to her bishop, a close family friend. He reassured her that, "If you don’t act on it, you’re okay – it’s not a sin. Just having an attraction is okay." This validation lifted a weight off Katelyn’s shoulders, but she continued to keep her feelings private for some time.

The challenges of being openly queer in a church setting quickly became evident at a youth girls’camp when a friend confided with others that she was questioning her sexuality. Another camper overheard and reported it to a leader, leading to the girl being sent home early. Katelyn was deeply upset, and expressed to her mom when she went home from camp that this was why people left the church—that leaders had been so unkind, they basically sent the girl away. "I was so mad because of course, I’m gay and had known." Katelyn’s mom responded, "If it was you, Katelyn, how would you want us to react?" Katelyn replied that she wouldn’t want her parents to change a thing because she was still the same person she’d always been. Later that night, Katelyn texted her mother, asking her to come into her room. "I told her first. I just said, 'I like girls’.” Katelyn’s dad then came in and they both reacted well, having had experience with her uncle. While supportive, the Olivers initially assumed Katelyn was bisexual. It wasn’t until later that she clarified, "No, I’m not bi. It’s 100%." This revelation to her parents and siblings led to months of conversations within her family, with periods of talking about it and then not so much until Katelyn turned 18 and started to tell her close friends. It became refreshing when she finally reached out to a few queer teens from her stake with whom she could really open up. “I started hanging out with queer people for the first time, and got my first playlist of queer music. They were like, ‘You haven’t listened to Girl in Red or Fletcher?’ It was so fun to be around people like me in this one area and be able to talk without a filter.” Katelyn also was able to get together with Ben Schilaty who was from her same stake, and she appreciated the seasoned advice from someone who had been on a mission and experienced similar things.

Deciding to serve a mission herself was one thing Katelyn had always wanted to do, though the reality of it was fraught with anxiety as she wasn’t exactly sure how she would navigate her feelings and be herself. A missionary during COVID, Katelyn was called to the Brazil Brasilia mission but began her service in the Fort Collins, CO mission (serving in Nebraska for six months) due to visa delays. Adjusting to missionary life while grappling with her identity was challenging. "I felt so disconnected and alone," she admits. With encouragement, she confided in her sister training leader (who told her she had never met a gay person before) and later her companion, who responded with tears and unconditional support. "I’m here to take care of you, on your side, here to protect you," her companion replied. Katelyn learned that companion’s best friend back home was also gay, and she had sensed Katelyn had something to share. That reassurance changed everything, and gave Katelyn an easier workaround when there were parts of lessons she didn’t feel comfortable teaching. "It made being able to teach people so much easier – to have someone on my side willing to adjust things with me." After opening up to her companion and making adjustments with how they shared their messages, Katelyn felt she could really feel the spirit when she talked about the Savior.

When she finally arrived in Brazil, Katelyn’s transition proved difficult. Isolated as one of only five American missionaries at the time, she struggled with the language barrier. "For four months, I couldn’t understand them, and they couldn’t understand me." Once she became fluent, things improved, but her relationship with her third mission president became strained. Unlike her two previous mission leaders who she describes as “wonderfully loving” and who had felt prompted about Katelyn’s need to be paired up with someone who would be friendly to a queer person, the new leader had a rigid, numbers-driven approach and a general resistance to anyone nonconforming. In their final interview, he questioned her about cutting her hair and then told her, "I know you’re gay, but if you don’t go home and marry a man in the next six months, you will lose your inheritance in the kingdom of God and destroy your family." He then handed her a certificate and sent her home. Returning from her mission left Katelyn with conflicting emotions. "The mission played a part in where I’m currently at – it showed me what I truly believe. I believe in Jesus Christ. We can never be Him, but He can make us the best version of us we can be. That doesn’t mean I have to deny myself or every part of me that makes me me.” Katelyn also says, “I believe that families are together forever, not that they 'can be’." However, she describes her relationship with the church as iffy. "For me, the LDS church isn’t the biggest focus when it comes to my relationship with God. I’m open to seeing where the future takes me."

Now at UVU, Katelyn is building a life in a way that aligns with her authentic self. She works at the university’s outdoor adventure center, leading camping and skiing trips, and enjoys spending time with her girlfriend. Twice a month, they attend gatherings with other queer Latter-day Saints. "They’re not 100% church-centered, but a good 'how are you doing' check-in. We are there to support each other," she says. Katelyn continues to reflect on her experiences and what they mean for her personal and spiritual development. "There’s a lot of fear in the community about stepping away or questioning," she says. "But I’ve learned that it’s okay to change your path. It’s okay to take breaks and explore what truly brings you peace." Her advice for others navigating similar experiences is simple: "Don’t be so hard on yourself. Regardless of what happens, you’re always capable of changing your course. If you feel you want to try something new, or step away, it doesn’t mean you’ll never come back. You can always change your life. There doesn’t have to be this weight of 'Oh no, if I do this, the consequences if I’m wrong are too grave.' Just be willing to go after the things you want and be kinder to yourself."

VIENNA BOYES

23-year-old artist, musician, and filmmaker Vienna Boyes grew up in a Southern California home most would call a breeding ground for creativity. Every corner of her childhood was infused with art, music, and the permission to dream. “That was how we were taught to cope, express ourselves, aspire,” she says of her family’s ethos. Creativity wasn’t just encouraged—it was the language her family used to make sense of the world. 

Each now an artist of their own variety, Vienna and her four older brothers were also brought up in a “super religious” household. Her dad (who works in fashion) has been in a bishopric much of Vienna’s life; and since the family’s move almost a decade ago to Provo, UT, now serves as bishop of a BYU student ward. Vienna’s mother (a painter) was her Young Women’s president both in San Clemente, CA and then again in Provo as soon as they moved during Vienna’s high school years. Vienna says she’s “always felt very sensitive to energy, divinity, and the presence of love in the world. Growing up in a religious family, that aligned well with me and was easy to take in.” 

At the same time, Vienna realized she was gay at 12 years old. Looking back, she remembers experiences as young as first grade where she was drawn to girls and developed early crushes. From a young age, Vienna also observed an older brother experiencing extreme anxiety, mental health problems, and seizures so intense he had to start online school. This brother soon after came out as gay. When young Vienna heard his story, she quietly realized that was her story, too.

“Watching my family navigate that was fascinating, because there hadn’t been anyone else in our family to come out as gay,” says Vienna. Witnessing the difficulties her brother encountered with his mental health and eventually leaving the church also terrified Vienna as to what might happen if she eventually came out, as the only daughter in the family and caboose to a tribe of brothers who “adored me and put me on a pedestal like this life was made for me.” Vienna told her mom about her attractions at age 13, but then dropped it, unsure of what life would look like if she didn’t fulfill expectations or have a husband.

Throughout middle and high school, Vienna knew being gay “was part of my life but I also ran from it so much. I dated a boy for a year, because I was so in love with my best (girl) friend.”  

Vienna decided to go on a mission after high school. Prior, she had watched her mother become a huge ally for her brother, and loved how she spoke of the queer community. At the same time, internally, Vienna was experiencing anxiety, stress, and panic attacks almost weekly, realizing there was a significant something going on she couldn’t run from anymore. She started going to therapy, hoping to avoid going down a path of extreme mental health duress. Quietly, she navigated the juxtaposition of her identity with her religious upbringing in emotional prayers in which she realized she never felt her orientation was a sin or evil part of her; but she carried so much confusion as to whether the shame she felt was doctrine or society-induced. “I felt so broken at the time.” 

Once Vienna realized it was physically damaging her body to not be authentic, she decided to come out to her older brother, and then to a few of her closest friends. She says, “Once I started coming out to people, I felt this thing I’m experiencing and person I am is light and goodness, and my intentions are pure. The way it feels in my soul is beautiful and true to myself.”

Then, Vienna went on a mission. Houston, Texas showed her a whole new world, and an unexpected part of the journey was how many openly gay people she’d encounter. While door knocking one day, one woman said she’d “never convert,” but invited Vienna and her companion over for dinner out of kindness, saying all people deserved to be treated like humans. At that dinner, Vienna got to know someone who’d become very important in her life. K* was queer, married to an ex-Mormon, seemed to already know everything about the church, and taught Vienna lessons she deeply valued, one being, “It’s more important to be honest than kind. Being honest is being kind.” During one interaction, K spoke about being gay, and seeing Vienna’s reaction, pointedly told her how there’s a beauty and joy in humanity in being yourself, and that you can find true joy even outside a religion. This was a new concept for Vienna, but one that allowed a mind shift that would later prove important.

Vienna also experienced some difficult moments in relation to the LGBTQ+ experience on her mission. One of the friends she’d made in the ward (who was gay) tragically died by suicide. In mourning, Vienna told her mission president about it. His offhand reply, “Oh, that’s too bad” felt eye-opening to Vienna, especially as she knew that her mission president had heard she herself was queer. She no longer felt safe turning to him for guidance on personal matters. While Vienna learned much and especially met many people she loved on her mission, she says stepping off the plane felt like “stepping into a new life.” She felt, “I gave the God I grew up knowing everything I possibly could, and it felt like my way of showing I really did try my best to do this. But I knew now was the time to set myself free from all the expectations I realized were not for me.”

In the first six months after her mission, Vienna’s mental health became worse than it ever had before. She says, “I started going to therapy, worried about suicide and so many things… I’d never felt so hopeless or so much loathing for who I potentially was. I felt if I couldn’t live the life I was expected to live, I didn’t want to live.” But luckily, at the same time, Vienna was surrounded by the support of a group of powerful friends. “We are deeply interdependent. Being able to rely on them and witness how their responses when I came out to them were so beautiful and affirming and hopeful and loving took me out of so many difficult situations. Just being able to rely on them in that way--I am grateful.”

Returning to therapy with “some amazing therapists” helped Vienna navigate future decisions, and eventually she started feeling the right one for her mental health was to stop attending church and do a fresh restart of her life. The hopeless abyss of her past was replaced by a hopeful image of what her future could look like, as she began to see representation online and in real life of “happy beautiful lives and homes with two women.” She says, “Finding it was like breathing—I became addicted to it. THIS is what I want. I felt like the lights had been off in portions of my soul, and I got to turn on all the lights and look at myself. And I thought, ‘This resonates. This is what people are talking about when they talk about love.’ All I’d suppressed I now get to have if I claim the autonomy I deserve.”

After her mission, Vienna did date boys and girls to experiment, but she landed on girls. She says, “I dated a really rad girl for a long time who I’d met through mutual friends, and everything slowly healed for me.” In the past two years, she’s solely dated girls and has had several relationships in which each has taught her a vital something about herself or love in general. She is now dating someone special. 

While navigating her own journey, Vienna has also been co-directing and editing a feature documentary film called “Sanctuary,” about creating safe spaces for the LGBTQ+ community in society and religion. Interviewing various subjects who have likewise felt alienated by institutional intolerance proved a cathartic (and at times soul-crushing) experience for Vienna who has in real time been processing everything in her own life. “While doing that project, my other work, and dating girls, it’s felt like I’ve been running. Because everything was so exposed for the first time, tasting that feeling of freedom and authenticity unapologetically right next to excruciating grief – it felt like I was grieving, processing, healing.” But seeing the humanity in those she interviewed was “proof to me that love is boundless and belongs to every human – regardless of their background or anything. Every living thing belongs to it.”

In the process of meeting so many LGBTQ+ friends through PRIDE events, Vienna has developed a new perspective on living out loud. “To me, the queer community is so unbelievable, because to be proud of something society showers shame on and tells you not to be takes so much mindfulness and intention… On the other end of that, I experienced authenticity and joy, and the amount of love I feel in my body now.” 

Coming to this fulness has not been easy in all realms, as while her family loves her and remains a close unit, Vienna has had to navigate tough talks at times. “The most vulnerable of the conversations I’ve experienced are within family – because the worth and value I get is so much more tender and intimate; so if they were to say something horrible it’d be way worse.” One family member in particular said some things that devastated Vienna after she first came out to them. Thankfully, her mother entered the room shortly after and held her while she cried. But since, Vienna has had poignant sit-down conversations with the family member that have been tough, tricky and ultimately healing as Vienna has been able to finally feel she is seen for who she is and not as a broken soul. “I’ve sat and cried, begging for understanding more times than I can count. It’s part of the journey, but so worth it.” Vienna is touched that now, this individual will text Vienna’s girlfriend just to see if she needs anything, and have sit down relationship conversations with and treat them the same as anyone else. Vienna says, “All the pain, shame, hard conversations that happened with family, leaving the religion I  grew up with... All of it was made worth it because of the feeling I get to experience and how I get to live now.”

Vienna’s friend group has remained “so unbelievable.” She says, “Even though most of them are in the church, they are so understanding and seek to be present with my experience even though it’s different than theirs. Maintaining relationships when you believe different things is extremely valuable and does nothing but strengthen friendships, despite the odds.” 

Art remains the centerpiece of Vienna’s life. Beyond her film work, she is in a band with nine of her best girl friends and they “play music constantly.” She says, “Music is my coping mechanism; it’s how I express emotion and navigate life. It’s the greatest blessing and tool in my life.” Their band, Girl Band the Band (aka Hardly Know Her) played in the Marriott Center and won BYU’s Battle of the Bands last year, and has booked other gigs throughout Utah. Vienna sings lead and plays guitar and bass, though she can play just about any instrument. The uniquely talented videographer and filmmaker also loves drawing, sculpting, and photography.  

Always finding the beauty and the beat in the pain, Vienna says these lyrics (from “Life is Hard” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros) best describe the soundtrack of her life right now…

Life is something to behold

But if the truth is to be told

Let us not leave out any part

Do not fear, it’s safe to say it hear…

Come celebrate, life is hard

All life is all we are

ADELLE GILES

Adelle Giles, 54, has a joyful laugh that emanates resilience. After a turbulent childhood and decades of navigating the complexities of relationships and identity within the LDS faith, only recently, she has found the peace and purpose she always felt she was lacking. She largely credits this to the guidance she felt along her journey pushing her toward her partner, Carmen. “Carmen is my true person in life… I want people to know this may not make sense to everyone, but it makes perfect sense to Heavenly Father and to us.” Adelle now identifies as bisexual and runs a Gathering group where she lives in Pocatello, Idaho. She attends church alongside Carmen in a welcoming ward. It’s a path she never allowed herself to pursue back in the 80s when she first had inklings about her attractions toward women. But she’s grateful for the bends and turns that have brought her here. 

Growing up in Everett, Washington, Adelle describes her upbringing as challenging. Her mother, who she refers to by her name Mary, ruled the household with a controlling, unyielding hand. “We had no room to grow or explore,” Adelle recalls. “Any thoughts that weren’t hers were unacceptable.” Her father, a firefighter who worked long hours, relied on Mary’s perspective to guide the family, leaving Adelle without the parental support she desperately craved.

The oldest of six children, Adelle bore the weight of responsibility in an often abusive home. She managed the household chores and shouldered the blame for anything left undone. While her siblings turned to her for guidance, Adelle’s own needs went largely unmet. She remembers turning to food for comfort, saying she “ate her feelings and developed a weight problem. I never felt good enough, wanted, or loved.” Despite this, Adelle found solace in her Young Women’s leaders at church, especially one who became a mother figure to her and recognized her talents and potential. “This leader was the first person to ever tell me I was pretty -- I was 16 years old.” The leader told the bishopric about the abuse going on under Mary’s rule, but Adelle says she was told, “Because it wasn’t sexual abuse, there was nothing they could do about it.” 

As a teenager, Adelle excelled in leadership roles within her Young Women’s classes and cherished the four years she spent at girls’ camp. She was one of the area’s best babysitters and competed with another local sitter to see who could get the most repeat customers. Adelle loved singing, acting, and drawing, and she enjoyed her first paycheck job working at Baskin Robbins. However, these moments of independence and creativity stood in stark contrast to the challenges she continued to face at home. 

Adelle was more than ready to leave the house and attend college and pursue a degree in education. It was the first time she felt free from her mother’s oppression. But her independence was short-lived. Although Adelle had graduated and was dating a boy she wanted to marry, Mary’s influence persisted, convincing Adelle to serve a mission shortly after her brother got his call, despite Adelle’s own doubts. “She wanted to be able to say two of her kids had served missions,” Adelle explains. “I wasn’t praying about it for myself—I was doing it for her.” Adelle caved to her mother’s demands to break up with her boyfriend and pack her bags for missionary service.

Her mission experience was challenging to say the least. Physical pain from back problems forced her to return home early, only to face false accusations from her mother that further isolated her. “She told the bishop I’d had sex with my boyfriend,” Adelle recalls. “The next Sunday at church, no one talked to me. It was like I had a big scarlet letter on my forehead.” Adelle’s grandmother confirmed Mary had been spreading lies about her. This betrayal marked a low point in Adelle’s life, leading to estrangement from her family and a period of homelessness. Besides her brother and father (who’ve both passed away), Adelle has maintained no contact with Mary or her four sisters.

While her childhood friends had always predicted she’d be the first one to marry and have lots of kids, things didn’t exactly go that way for Adelle, though it was her wish. In the years that followed her mission, Adelle found solace in teaching. She moved to Idaho and taught middle school science and special education, finding purpose in her work and joy in her students. She recalls often just “feeling happy to be alive,” and loved her church callings teaching gospel doctrine and playing the piano. But her personal life remained tumultuous. After years of praying for a husband, she met a man 26 years her senior, and married him after just two months of dating. One week into the marriage, she walked out of the house, disillusioned by the reality she had married a man who really just wanted a caretaker. “I remember sobbing under a tree and asking Heavenly Father, ‘Why this man’?” Adelle recalls. “And I felt the answer: ‘To teach you’.” The marriage was not the “happily ever after” Adelle had craved. Rather, it was fraught with emotional abuse similar to what she’d endured throughout her childhood, leaving Adelle with no choice but to pack up her bags after seven years and once again go out on her own and seek to rebuild.

It wasn’t until she turned 50 that Adelle began to piece together the puzzle of her identity. She moved to Twin Falls, Idaho, and after what she describes as a vision that made her future clear, she started looking into the idea of dating women—secretly at first, perusing dating sites online and unsure of how to reconcile her feelings with her faith. A turning point came in 2019 when Adelle revealed some of her own struggles with weight (at the time, she weighed 400 pounds), self-worth, and having been diagnosed with cancer in a Facebook chat for the “My 600 Lb Life” show. Producers from the Mel Robbins show saw her post and reached out and soon, she was flown out to New York by CBS to be on the show. “That trip saved my life,” she says. “I saw the sites of Manhattan, shared my story, and came back feeling like I could start again.” After she returned, Adelle finalized her divorce, lost weight, and overcame cancer, emerging with a renewed sense of purpose.

In late 2021, a spiritual prompting led her to pack her bags and move to Palmyra, New York, despite having no job or place to live. “I drove across the country and made it to New York with my last $100,” she says. “When I arrived, I woke up crying, and Heavenly Father told me everything would be alright.” Adelle encountered a woman that day who befriended her and offered her a place to stay. She soon found a job, but after six months, she felt prompted to return to Idaho. Though reluctant, she obeyed, trusting that all would work out.

Back in Idaho, Adelle’s life took another unexpected turn. She met Carmen, a woman from Texas who reached out via Facebook. Carmen asked about the “beautiful light in Adelle’s eyes.” She wanted to know how she could have what Adelle did. Adelle replied it was the gospel. Their friendship deepened, with nightly calls and messages about the church and so much more. When Adelle fell ill, Carmen packed up her life and moved to Idaho to care for her. “I knew we had feelings for each other,” Adelle says. “But I was afraid to admit it. Growing up, I’d been taught that those feelings were wrong.”

It was Adelle’s best friend Sara who gave her permission to embrace her truth. “She met Carmen and said, ‘Adelle, you can love her. She’s part of your wolfpack’.” With Sara’s encouragement, Adelle allowed herself to acknowledge she had fallen in love with Carmen. “She’s my person,” Adelle says. “I know Heavenly Father brought us together.” Adelle has also loved observing Carmen’s spiritual path, saying, “The gospel softened her, she’s the most wonderful person I’ve ever met.”

Today, Adelle and Carmen share a home and life filled with faith and love. Carmen, who was baptized in 2024, has become an integral part of Adelle’s faith practice and church community. Another gay couple (men) attend Adelle’s and Carmen’s ward and Gathering meetings, which has been helpful to building their sense of belonging. 

“We always include Heavenly Father in everything we talk about. She has so much to give; people at church flock around her. I’m very lucky. Not a lot of people in life get to meet their true partner.” Adelle continues, “She’s a provider, a protector, and the best person I’ve ever met. Heavenly Father knew I couldn’t be with a man anymore. Carmen has given me a sense of stability I’ve never had before.”

Adelle’s journey has been anything but conventional, but she sees it as divinely orchestrated. “Not all of us will marry the opposite sex or have children,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not living according to Heavenly Father’s plan. He loves all of us exactly as we are.” 

Moving forward, Adelle is excited to introduce Carmen to others as her partner. “We’re a team, a pair, a package deal,” she says. “Heavenly Father showed me who’s what waiting for me – whatever happens, I’m bringing Carmen along. We don’t know what will happen, but we know we’ll be together forever.”

CHANTELLE RYATT

Down under in Melbourne, Australia, Chantelle Ryatt enjoyed a warm holiday season with her wife, Jennadene, and their combined three children, ages 5, 7 and 8. Last year was one to celebrate as the two were married in a beautiful, beachside ceremony on September 21. Standing on a cliff face overlooking a surf beach with massive crashing waves below, the haze of clouds offered a gentle mist as they gathered with the celebrant and the two photographers. The day prior, Chantelle had told Jennadene nothing would make her happier than to have the confirmation they were doing the right thing and to have her mother there. The latter was a difficult order as Chantelle’s mom had passed in May 2020. Yet, as the two said their “I Do’s,” it was undeniable to all present – including their atheist photographer – that there was a special presence felt that no one could deny. As the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, Chantelle felt the presence of her mom, great grandmother, both her grandads and uncle rejoicing, so happy for this union. Chantelle says, “To my mom, family was everything. Knowing she was on the other side, knowing what eternal families look like and rejoicing, was a beautiful confirmation.” She continues, “My wife is the person my mom wanted me to be with to teach me what I needed to learn. To grow, to develop, and to feel loved—it’s been a journey.”

For both Chantelle and Jennadene, life certainly has weaved. Both experienced more traditional LDS domestic arrangements prior to meeting each other. Each grew up in the faith and Jennadene served a mission on Temple Square in SLC in 2014-2015. Each married men in the temple with whom they had children. While both her parents were converts, Chantelle’s homelife was very “church-centered,” and her father typically held leadership positions either as bishop or in stake presidencies. She says, “Our family was well known in the stake.” 

From a young age, Chantelle also knew that she was different from the other kids at church and that her life wouldn’t be as simple. She recalls feeling that, “Boys were cool, but girls were awesome.” The feeling of being out of place due to her attraction to girls, which she sensed at age four, became more prominent as she grew. She became terrified people would find out and she’d be shunned. Her very intuitive mother, however, sensed something was off, but didn’t know just how much struggle the conflicts of Chantelle’s sexuality and living the gospel created internally.  

As a young adult, Chantelle embraced opportunities to serve—first as a Young Women’s leader at age 18. She married at age 24 to a man she’d known since she was 14, and had further opportunities to serve in the ward Relief Society Presidency and ward Primary Presidency in her late 20s. Two years after the birth of her son, she was called to be the ward Young Women’s President. At the time, she loved her husband and was committed to him and the marriage, though she says the pairing wasn’t ideal due to factors outside of her orientation. “I thought with Heavenly Father, I could overcome my sexuality.” She had told her husband prior that she was queer, and eventually came out to her parents around age 26. True to form, her mother’s first reaction was of concern for Chantelle and included the words, “What are you doing about it?”, quickly followed by loving kindness. Chantelle explained how she had kept close to her Heavenly Father and relied on Him to guide her as to what she should do. The following Sunday, her mother told Chantelle, “I love you no matter what. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I’ll always support you.”

The year Chantelle’s son was born, motherhood, coupled with her “sexuality 
complications,” did not help her already troubled marriage. When she was 29, Chantelle’s mother passed away, which presented a shifting point. “My mum was my rock in a sense, who I turned to.” Chantelle experienced frequent bouts of depression about her sexuality which occurred about every three months, when fighting against who she was and what she desired became too much. She says, “My mum was so devout, her faith was so strong. She lived and breathed service and magnified all she did. I wanted to carry on her legacy, but could no longer lie to myself. I had to figure out what was going on. That year of grief on top of depression was not fun.”

Chantelle knew it was time to tell her husband she needed a separation to explore and see what her future would look like. He agreed, and what follows was, by Chantelle’s account, a very spiritual experience. Rather than setting out to date “just any woman,” she says she relied on the guidance of her Heavenly Father and her mother from beyond the veil to wait it out. After some time, she reignited her friendship with Jennadene, as the two had known each other since early YSA. Jennadene had recently come out as gay and had left her own marriage to a man. 

At first, they bonded over just having someone else to talk to who had experienced such a unique path in the church. They’d converse how there was no guidance for people like them in scripture, especially in the Book of Mormon. They each spent time pondering and praying about their future, and when Chantelle finally asked if this person she’d drawn close to was the person she should pursue, she received a very definitive “Yes!” 

They proceeded slowly, frequently checking in with each other to ensure they were both still feeling this was the right thing. Over their first year of dating, Chantelle says frequent spiritual experiences confirmed she was on the right path. Miracles ensued. As the financial dealings of her divorce became more complicated and it felt like she’d lost everything, she says, “Everything that was taken, Heavenly Father provided.” When she was forced to move out immediately, a family friend generously allowed Chantelle and her son to move in without paying rent until she found a job. Quickly she did, at a nearby primary school her son could attend, and she was soon able to pay rent. Money Chantelle was owed from years ago suddenly showed up and she was able to pay for food. She says blessings like these continued to appear, which she feels stemmed from continuing to pay tithing.

Every fortnight, when her son would visit his father, Chantelle would meet up with Jennadene, who’d been living in Adelaide 700 kilometers away. As the two began blending their families, they’d take their three kids to church in Chantelle’s home ward where members had watched her grow up, marry a man, experience a mental decline through her divorce and loss of her mother, and now, “To watch us two women go to church as a family unit… well, some took it well, and some not so much. But we’ve been able to weed out the people you don’t want around.”

The couple have appreciated the warm support of their bishop who meets with them often and welcomes their family unit in the ward family. He recently helped Chantelle seek the cancellation of her temple marriage to her ex, though her sealing to her son remains intact. With the help of her stake president, the cancellation was a process that only took a few weeks. All of this has occurred since Chantelle was disfellowshipped in 2022. When Chantelle was Young Women’s President in the ward and told she’d have to have a membership council for dating a woman, she expressed to the girls she served that she’d likely be released, and “lose everything she had.” She remembers telling the girls she’d loved watching grow up over the prior ten years the importance of building a relationship with their Heavenly Father so “He’s the one who’s guiding you.”

While they know there are some “fuddy duddies” who may not be comfortable with their presence at church, Chantelle and Jennadene say several more have made comments like “What a beautiful family” when they walk in. They often take opportunities to speak up in classes and share the examples of personal revelation they’ve experienced. Recently after sharing what it was like being the only queer members of the ward and the special presence of their wedding day “visitors,” they were touched when two older gentleman separately came up to them after to each offer a hug and words of gratitude that they had helped them feel the spirit and increased perspective that day. 

“The understanding I have gained has led to a relationship with Heavenly Father that has never been stronger,” says Chantelle. “Whenever someone’s faced with a unique path, whether it be addiction or not being a member or being homosexual, our very different experiences in the church mean we all receive inspiration that is personal to us. But the main message should be that it doesn’t matter whether queer members come to church or not, their life experiences are personal and it’s not our place to judge.” 

Chantelle credits her blended family as providing a loving environment for her son, step-son and step-daughter in which they are living the gospel, learning to pray, and to build their testimonies. “They wouldn’t have that environment if we weren’t a family unit… I know without a doubt, hand on my heart and I will swear to my grave, that I have been led on this path. I know Heavenly Father has guided me, and knowing how important eternal families are to my mom, I know she would not have guided me on this path only just to lead me astray.”

OAKLEY ROBERTS

“I have never expected God to actually answer the question I’ve been asking my whole life. I knew He could answer prayers, but this was something I thought was taboo for Him—a topic that was repulsive in the church. But He did.” These are the words that open a letter Oakley Roberts crafted to send to those who ask him about his experience as a gay member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Oakley, who is 21 and currently living in Payson, UT where he works as a caregiver, says he had sensed he was gay since 12 years old, but had spent his teen years living in denial. He grew up in a small town, going to church every week. But as each of his older three siblings drifted away from the church (with only one since returning), Oakley found it normal to ask questions and see things differently.

After his older brother moved out when he was just 10 years old, Oakley says he didn’t grow up around many men. His father was often busy with work and then moved out when his parents divorced when Oakley was 16. The guy friends he would make in school often seemed to move away or move on after a few months, so most of his friends in high school were girls. In his youth, Oakley always felt being gay was a punishment for something bad he’d done, and he hoped he’d be able to pray it away. But as he got older, he says his feelings only got stronger. He continued to try to convince himself he was bi and outwardly pass as straight; along the way, he dated a lot of girls. 

Reluctant to go on a mission for any other reason than to make his parents happy, Oakley figured he’d go to school first after high school graduation. He also wondered if it was time to start dating guys. But sitting in his room one night, he had a strong impression to serve a mission as soon as possible. The next day he told his mom of the prompting, and says it strengthened his resolve thereafter to believe in Christ.

Having grown up feeling uncomfortable around men, being around a bunch of elders felt awkward. Oakley always preferred to be around the sister missionaries, but while serving, he says the strongest relationship he grew was the one with his Savior. He never told anyone on his mission he was gay. In fact, in the Liberian (African) mission where he served, it was not acceptable to be gay, and LGBTQ+ citizens often suffered discrimination and received threats. However, Oakley enjoyed his mission and recalls only hearing a few homophobic comments. He says he never wrestled with God. During those two years, Oakley continued to convince himself he was bisexual and that when he returned, he would date lots of girls and hopefully marry one. But after returning and spending four months dating many “amazing women,” Oakley felt defeated. He gave up and decided to start dating men. 

Oakley says this initially felt like a wrong decision, that he’d be disappointing his family, himself and God. But then he met an amazing guy and kissed him and thought, “Holy crap.”  He continued to date guys, not because he was wanting to start a relationship but because he was more curious about what it was like to be “a gay, LDS person.” But instantly, he knew his feelings for men were so much stronger than any of his attempts to feel attracted toward girls. 

At this time, Oakley moved down to Southern Utah University to attend school, though reluctantly, with the distance he’d placed between himself and the one guy (he’d kissed) who seemed to understand what it felt like to be him. He says, “I struggled with the unknown. What should I do? Who am I? Why am I like this? Was it a mistake I made or a curse of sorts?” Oakley attempted to distract himself with friends, work, or school, but one night started to really worry as overwhelming thoughts took control. He says, “My mind couldn’t settle; I was feeling lost... I tried to call my friends, but they were busy and couldn’t hang out.” As Oakley started to go into a full-blown panic, he jumped into his car and drove up the canyon to distract himself. When it became hard to breathe, he pulled over. Oakley says, “I just sat there, mad at God. I yelled, ‘Why did you do this to me?! Can’t you just take this away’?!”

Suddenly, Oakley says it was as if God stopped his mind, and directed it toward his patriarchal blessing which spelled out the numerous attributes God gave him and how he was able to bless people around him by being empathetic, sensitive, and compassionate. He says, “I always felt a little different, but these feelings helped me to heal others.” Oakley says a question formed in his mind: “Do you want me to take all of these away?” Oakley thought, “My gifts? Never!” He says, “Then God connected everything. He was telling me that if I wanted Him to take away my attraction to men, I would then lose all those spiritual gifts; they were connected. These are what made me, me. I was filled with so much peace, knowing that I wasn’t a mistake; it wasn’t a sin I committed in the past or a curse. God made me in a way that I would be able to reach people around me that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to.”

Shortly after, Oakley came out for the first time to a trusted friend – a devout girl he was initially scared to confide in, unsure how she’d take it. But one day he got into the car and told her and loved how she was so affirming. Reassured that “even a religious friend would support (me),” Oakley called another close friend the next day, and that interaction also started with a buildup of stress but ended with relief. He then became comfortable telling all his friends, many of whom smoked, drank, had left the church and yet had always felt safe being around Oakley, as he tried to never exclude anyone. In return, he says it was easy for them to accept him for who he was. 

Oakley then felt ready to tell his parents. Previously, whenever his mom would text asking about his dating life, he’d typically blow it off by responding, “I’d tell you if I was.” But then he went home to meet his mom and stepdad for lunch and let them know, “I’m not really interested in women.” This was the first time he fully admitted that he was gay and not bi. Oakley then learned his mom already knew. When at first, she told him she knew of gay guys who married girls, this didn’t bother Oakley because he had told her of his intent to stay in the church. Meanwhile, his siblings immediately encouraged him to date and marry a man. A few months later when Oakley clarified he’d only be dating men, his mother’s response was, “I hope you know that whatever you decide, you feel you can bring anyone home and we’ll welcome then.” She continued that she trusted Oakley in his decision-making and only hoped for his happiness. This trust helped Oakley to feel more confident in his own ability to make good decisions. 

Later, Oakley told his stepmom he was gay and suggested she be the one to tell his dad. Since, he assumed his dad knows, although they have never discussed it. When Oakley came out to his ecclesiastical leader, he appreciated how the bishop expressed gratitude he’d trusted him with that information and encouraged him that wherever his path may lead, to just try to keep a close relationship with the Savior because “Christ will help you figure it out.”  Oakley has since had many positive experiences coming out to straight friends before meeting up with a recently returned missionary who introduced him to Gatherings. This led Oakley to a new community of LGBTQ+ friends. 

Oakley doesn’t believe that being gay is the most important thing about him, but that it is something with which God gifted him. He says, “I know that everyone has different experiences, answers, and beliefs. My answer might not be yours, but God is in control, and as we accept ourselves as His masterpieces rather than our mistakes, we can find peace and help others along their lives.” Oakley has continued to work on building his relationship with God while dating men. He says, “This might not make much sense to most people, but unless somewhere along the path I feel that this decision is distancing me from God, then I will continue.”

Oakley’s invitation to others to lean into journeys like his ends with these words he penned in his initial coming out story, “Thank you for reading. I hope this helps you get to know me a little better, and maybe it might help you find answers to your own questions. Ask God, and I know He will direct you to the truth.”

THE BARNARD-CROSLAND FAMILY

This is the story of two “Mormon” girls who were raised in “typical Mormon families.” Rachel was born the youngest of five kids and church was a constant growing up, no matter where they lived. After residing in Texas, Virginia, and Hong Kong, her family moved to Provo when Rachel was in the tenth grade. Upon finishing high school, she attended the University of Utah where she earned a communications degree, excited about the prospect of working in marketing and advertising. She got married during her junior year of college to a man. Feeling pretty clear that the gospel checklist was her road to happiness, Rachel “pursued the path she was supposed to without questioning,” and now says her mind never let her think anything else was an option.

Rachel now reflects on how many of her experiences as a youth and adult would clearly be considered “SSA,” but as her thoughts continued, she continued to push them off as distractions from the path, or temptations happening to her and not authentic feelings within her. Rachel stayed busy with her career, often working a “ton of hours” while pursuing building a family. When her son came along, the reality of her feelings towards women became even more apparent. In her late 20s, as she began to listen to podcasts and others’ stories of navigating a similar road, Rachel says her sense of denial minimized and she could make more sense of her reality. At first, she rationalized she was bi and could continue to make her marriage work, keeping her family intact. She didn’t have plans to share this part of her with anyone but the tension of the secret she’d been keeping for a long time felt very big, too big—and her husband was the first person she pulled in to share what she was realizing. “He was thankfully receptive and helpful, kind, and gentle through the process,” she says.

As time, went on Rachel continued to wade her way out of denial, accepting that she was gay. With this understanding, she evaluated what her path would look like. She realized growth for herself, her husband, and her son was going to be severely limited and that trying to stick it out would progressively lead to an unhealthy family life for all involved. She came to the devastating realization that was not the life she wanted for herself nor those around her. 

Michelle grew up in Provo, UT as the oldest of four kids. From a young age, church felt very important to her. “I took church and the gospel very seriously and had a core testimony that Heavenly Father was real, really knew me, and loved me no matter what.” Michelle went to as many as EFYs as she could, served on the seminary council, dated a lot of boys in high school, and then went to college where she fell in love with a roommate—a girl. While the crush was not reciprocated, Michelle said her feelings felt like an explosion, her past feelings for boys paling in comparison. “I felt I had been colorblind, and then put on those special glasses and could finally see the color that everyone else could see.”

Michelle also felt very confused, working overtime to process, as she’d been taught that these kinds of feelings were wrong. Yet she says her feelings for the girl felt wholesome, right and good. Contemplating her life vision to have a temple marriage and eternal family, Michelle decided to push those feelings aside and likewise pursue the prescribed path. She went on a mission to Nicaragua and came home with a goal to date and get married in the temple. That she did, meeting a man with whom she got along well, who made a lot of sense, and who wanted to marry her. Her feelings for him were nothing like the feelings she had had for her roommate, but she rationalized that there were more important things in marriage. After marrying, they quickly had four kids in five and a half years, keeping Michelle so busy she could distract herself from “the romantic and emotional lack she felt in her marriage, that had been there from the start.”

“I trudged forward with faith, trusting it would be fine. I filled my life with the next best thing—hobbies, service, staying active in the church, being the best mom I could be. It was exhausting, and wasn’t producing the fruit I was looking for or expecting, but I had faith it would come.” Michelle says it got to a point where it was seriously affecting her mental health and she knew she was not on a sustainable path. After much prayer, wrestling to know what to do, she came to know that the Heavenly Father she loved and felt close to was not only ok with who she was, but truly wanted her to be happy and fulfilled.

Rachel and Michelle first met in a Lift & Love online support group for women. Neither was there to try to meet someone romantically, but rather to process their experiences with like-minded individuals. The two discovered they’d both gone to Timpview High School (at different times, with their five-year age gap). They struck up a conversation and became friends. A couple months later, friends from the support group met up to go hiking in Utah, and Rachel happened to be in the area for a family trip, having traveled in from San Diego where she was living at the time. She was still going through the difficult path reckoning what she wanted to do with her future. Rachel says, “I was in love with Michelle as soon as I met her” and Michelle’s feelings were quick to follow.  After both women were divorced, Rachel moved to Daybreak, UT and the two began dating. After eight months, they got married and blended their families. Their combined five kids now range in age from 5 to 11. Both of the children’s fathers live nearby as well, and “the moms,” as their kids dub them, share 50/50 custody and maintain a good working relationship with their co-parents/former partners.

Rachel admits there’s a lot of grief that’s come with the decisions they’ve had to navigate and live with—including letting go of the families they’d always envisioned and worked for and only having their kids half the time now, but Rachel says, “Despite all, the good overshadows the hard and we know we still made the right choice.” Michelle concurs, “We can’t really wish things were different, but if we had had the chance to date as teens and been given the opportunity to have developmentally normal experiences, there would not have been so much collateral damage. All the people who have had to go through such hard things—it sometimes feels heavy and makes us angry. But our journeys are what they are, and we are who we are for what we’ve been through. I just wish others understood better that pressuring people to choose a marriage that doesn’t fit their orientation or telling them to be single and celibate their whole life can be so damaging, and not just for the individual.”

The Barnard-Crosland household loves their puppy Jojo and loves to ski, having recently outfitted the entire household in gear for the season. They also love watching the Great British Baking Show, and enjoy music, with Michelle playing the piano, guitar, and singing, and Rachel discovering new artists whose music she introduces Michelle to. While Rachel works at Adobe, Michelle works as a health clerk at an elementary school in Provo, aligning her schedule with the kids’ school schedules. The kids each call their new mom by her first name, and Rachel and Michelle have observed how the five kids were all quick to embrace the change and love each other through it, which they surmise is likely a byproduct of blending families while they were still young.

The family takes their kids to church each Sunday, and enjoys doing “regular LDS family stuff” like reading scriptures and praying together. There are restrictions to their membership due to the nature of their relationship as they walk this tightrope. They are unable to have official callings, but they feel their ward is doing an incredible job of making them feel included. Michelle is often asked to play prelude music, and they were asked to help plan the ward Christmas party by the committee chair. Rachel says, “We feel called to be there and show up as ourselves and participate where we can. We feel we’re doing what the Lord would have us do to build the kingdom and serve God’s children wherever we can, and especially to strengthen others in the LGBTQ+ space.” Michelle adds, “By showing up, we challenge biases and perceptions that become hard to hold onto when people have to deal with the fact we’re here, our type of family exists, and we want to belong and be a part of the body of Christ. We don’t feel conflict in our family dynamic and way of living and being disciples—we are just waiting for the church to catch up.”

When Michelle was going through the heartbreaking process of deciding to get divorced, she says her bishop remained neutral. “While he wasn’t supportive, he was not condemning. Rather, he listened, which was really amazing. He encouraged me to stay close to Heavenly Father and follow His guidance.” Michelle recalls growing up and learning to discern the feelings of right and wrong and how the Spirit prompts her. She knows that “icky, dark feeling” of sin and says, “This doesn’t feel like that. It feels like light, joy, peace, and goodness.” She feels people get stuff wrong about homosexuality. “I wish people could see that we’re just like them. How fulfilling, beautiful, and normal this marriage is. How Christlike our love for each other is. Being married to Rachel, so many things make sense and work now that didn’t before. Now I have my color glasses on and can see all the beauty of a loving, fulfilling marriage, when before it was colorblindness.”

LIV MENDOZA HAYNES

Liv Mendoza Haynes claims she fits the birth order stereotype. As the last of three kids, she was the much younger spoiled baby of the family who could convince her parents to cook an alternate meal if the initial wasn’t to her liking. But being raised in a Catholic home with high expectations, she adapted accordingly as she grew. Her mother was in and out of hospitals with illness, leaving Liv’s much older sister to care for her and her brother when they were not at Catholic school. Once Liv began to notice the family had financial struggles, she minimized her special requests.

Though Liv and her brother were born in America, they were raised in Tijuana, Mexico, where her father worked long shifts as a police officer, and her mother often left the kids to be babysat with a good friend who was a known drag queen. Liv remembers it being no big deal that the babysitter would have peers from his drag community stop by for wardrobe fittings while Liv was there. She was told it was no big deal for men to be gay, but her parents spoke negatively about women who were lesbian. Her father would also express distaste for women who joined the police force or who became “manly, lost their attractiveness, and didn’t know their place.” Liv was taught that one of the worst things she could do would be to be with a woman or to not be feminine.

 This presented a problem as, while Liv was extremely close to her mom and sister, she did not share their love for makeup, high heels, and feminine things. Liv preferred her daily jeans, t-shirt, and Converse. She developed her first technical crush on a boy in the first grade, but strategically chose a boy who was mean to her, knowing it would never work out although it would help disguise the way she felt about girls from an early age. As her mother’s health declined, Liv sensed she needed to not add to the family burden by disappointing them with her attractions. She shared her mother’s and sister’s strong personality and kept her friend group small, having the same small cluster of three or four friends throughout her school years.

In high school, Liv dated an LDS young man, but was his last girlfriend, and he is now married to a man. He would often joke with her about LDS myths. Around this same time, Liv’s ex’s brother decided to go on a mission[LM8] , and told Liv to keep an eye on his parents. While he was gone, he referred the missionaries to her door while she was baking a cake. One elder mentioned it was his companion’s birthday that Thursday and Liv said, “What do you want me to do about it? You can come back for food or water, but that’s it.” The elders left, and Liv followed a prompting to run after them and offer them cake at 2pm on Thursday—assuming they wouldn’t be able to come then. But they did, and Liv began taking lessons. One day, she invited a handful of missionaries over and made popcorn so they could all watch a Joseph Smith video, per her request. After they asked if she had any questions, and she asked why they hadn’t yet challenged her to be baptized? She sidestepped telling her parents until the following May, but was baptized that December. And yes, there was cake.

Throughout her teens and young adulthood, Liv noticed her feelings for women even more, and did have a relationship with a woman. When her mother felt it was time for her to have “the talk,” she handed Liv a VHS tape and told her if she had any questions, to ask her sister. But as the tape shared no tips about orientation, rather it was a childbirth video, Liv only walked away from that experience traumatized, thinking “I’m never going to have intimacy if it leads to that.” But it cemented the expectation in her mind that the expectation was for her to have a family. While in high school, Liv’s mom teased she had a “type” of guy she’d go on dates with (those into the arts and cooking who had more androgynous, scrawny body types). Around age 17, Liv started struggling with health conditions of her own, and found out she had a higher chance of getting cancer than becoming a mom. Doctors recommended she get a hysterectomy, with her unusual gynecological issues. Liv’s self-esteem plummeted, feeling a lack of worth as if she was “defective” if unable to have children. While always expected to achieve, the messaging she received was, “It doesn’t matter if you excel. At the end of the day, your expectation is to have a family. If you’re infertile, no guy will fall in love with you.”

These insecurities possibly propelled Liv into developing an unhealthy relationship with a man in Mexico City who “looked perfect on paper,” but over time revealed himself to be controlling (even ordering for her at restaurants) and ultimately, physically abusive. When he slapped her across the face at a party in front of their friends, Liv was stunned, and even more so that none of her friends they were with did or said anything about it. A casual friend nearby noticed it, and took Liv away from the scene to recover. Liv ended up going back to the boyfriend some time later, partly because of outside pressures she was receiving, including a man at church telling her no man would want her because she was broken goods. A few months later, the relationship turned even more physical, and after an especially violent attack, a friend thankfully found Liv in her apartment and took her to a hospital where she stayed for a couple days to recover. When she was released, her first thought was to go to the temple. While she felt less than worthy to go inside, she knew just being on the grounds might bring her peace. She felt like she couldn’t tell her parents about the abuse, thinking her father would cause harm to the guy and she didn’t want to bring them shame. Liv says, “Before that, I would have said, ‘I don’t know how strong, educated women let men do this.’ But then, I became the person I’d judged.”

On the temple grounds, Liv had a breakdown that led to a security guard helping her call a local bishop who led her to talk to a counselor from back home in Tijuana. She blurted out she needed to go on a mission, which she did at age 22—partly to get away from the abusive boyfriend and partly because she felt she had to serve (having been raised under the motto, “If you’re not living to serve, you don’t deserve to live.”) Ironically, Liv was called to serve her mission in Mexico City, near the temple where she had her breakdown as well as close to her ex, but she managed to avoid running into him. While her mission was healing, it also opened her eyes to just how much emotional and psychological support missionaries need.

Liv began to feel like two people—the Tijuana Liv, who was strong and powerful, and the Mexico City Liv—who wanted to date girls and was in some ways, more submissive. After completing her mission, Liv’s commitment level to the church was high, and she struggled for a couple years with whether sharing her feelings about girls would be best for her spiritual and emotional journey.

One night, Liv decided to confide in a friend with a trans brother, which turned out to be a good instinct. The friend knocked on Liv’s door with a Little Caesar pizza. When Liv opened it, she blurted out, “I’m attracted to women. I really like women a lot!” Without missing a beat, Liv’s friend replied, “Well, I like eating my pizza hot—can I come in?” Liv now says, “I don’t think people understand how comforting her response was. It was like, ‘Oh, I learned something about you—let’s talk.’ The best kind of reaction.” The two talked all night and Liv’s friend shared many resources. Liv says she wishes she could say “it was all bliss” after, but Liv spent the next nine years rediscovering herself and toggling with her identity. She finally settled on “queer,” as she was introduced to thousands on a well-known stage she shared with Sister Sharon Eubanks who asked her questions about her reality at BYU’s Women’s Conference several years ago. It was a moment that surprised many, and made Liv feel a sense of validation and acceptance after feeling like she’d grown up at constant intersections: “You’re not American enough, not Mexican enough, not a citizen, not feminine, you don’t like makeup.” 

Recognizing it’s not the preferred term of generations past, the term “queer” still works best for Liv as she says, “It helps me feel happy, and also respectful of the person I’m sharing this journey of life with.” That person happens to be her husband, Matthew, who she met six years ago while playing Two Truths and a Lie on an app. Matthew had just moved to Utah from Montana and was looking to make friends. He handled her Harry Potter banter with humor, and their first date was eating brownies together that Matthew had made. They haven’t spent a day without talking since, and Liv says Matthew is in every sense her best friend. Her prior attempt at online dating had ended quickly after she told a guy with whom she had good chemistry about her attractions and he in turn shared his wife had just left him for her ministering sister. Liv quipped, “Well, at least you have a type.” They went on a couple more dates until his demeanor started to remind her of her ex. A therapist then told Liv just to focus on making friends, which is when Matthew appeared.

When people criticize Liv for being in a relationship with a man just to comply to the church standards, Liv says, “Honestly, that hurts because that person doesn’t know my whole story. My relationship with my husband, as public as it may be, is still our relationship. It’s hard when people have preconceptions. The reality is I fell in love with Matthew. The only way our dating happened is I stopped looking at marriage as something on a checklist and more of an opportunity to be with someone who knows and loves me. We respect each other, and he met me knowing I was open to dating men, women, and anything in between. It’s my reality, my experience, and what works for us. Every day, I choose him, and he chooses me.”

Liv laughs that no, Matthew does not get nervous when she goes away for a weekend with her lesbian friends. “I feel that if my husband didn’t trust me to be alone with someone of the same gender, we have a bigger problem. It’s about integrity, faithfulness, and values.” Matthew was not as familiar with the LGBTQ+ community before Liv, but she laughs he now has several lesbian friends of his own. Liv does not recommend a mixed orientation marriage for everyone, and says it took her years to figure out what works for her. “We’ve both grown a lot from being together… It’s a mixed relationship in many degrees – culture, orientation, language. I’m social sciences, he's exact sciences. We have enough in common to have a path together – but enough diversity to learn from each other every day – which is key to our marriage. Plus, I get to learn random dinosaur names.”

After undergoing three IVF treatments, the two share their son Lucian as well as an angel baby in heaven, and are expecting a new baby they will call Elijah, due November 25th. Throughout their prenatal care, they’ve become aware this baby will be born with challenges, and being open about that has helped Liv cope and “be human.” She says, “As Christ had outbursts, I’m allowed to have moments where I say, ‘This sucks’.”

If life’s taught Liv anything, it’s that she can take moments to have her cake and eat it, too. Shortly after exiting the relationship wherein she experienced domestic violence, it was Liv’s birthday, and a friend asked what she wanted. Liv requested a certain cake from a certain bakery because it was her favorite. The friend brought the cake Liv requested to a restaurant to celebrate with friends. After the wait staff brought out the cake and everyone sang to Liv, she instructed the server to wrap up the cake. Baffled, the group questioned her decision not to share it. Liv replied, “It might sound selfish, but this gift is my cake and I’m taking it home.” She continues, “It might sound silly but it’s symbolic—we are conditioned that if you’re not constantly happy and thankful for the trials you’re going through, you’re not a good person. But the reality is you need to know your boundaries. I had to work for years to learn to find power in my voice and use it. These boundaries are the only way I’ve been able to stay alive. You can’t show gratitude if you’re not here. Where’s the progress if you’re not truly loving yourself? I’m not willing to risk not being my full self.”

JAVIER AGUILAR

Tomorrow, Javier Aguilar turns 24. He’ll celebrate in Allen, Texas where he is currently working for a light installation company while taking a break from his studies at BYU Provo. He’s a long way from Mexico City, where he was born and raised, but not too far from his parents who moved the family to Texas while he was on a mission. While within their physical proximity, emotionally, family life is a struggle for Javier, whose parents would rather deny the fact that he identifies as bisexual, with his leanings more toward men.

The oldest of five kids, Javier grew up in a well-known, “pioneer” family in the LDS faith in Mexico. His grandfather was a patriarch, sealer, and principal of the LDS church-owned school in their region. As a child, Javier often felt the spotlight on him, with other parents in their congregation saying things to their kids like, “Why can’t you be like Javier? He’s so nice, so obedient.” Overhearing this, Javier would think, “If you only knew.” 

His orientation was not at the forefront of his mind quite yet, but Javier certainly knew he wasn’t perfect. He says he was on autopilot mode with church—attending every Sunday with his family, and promising he was reading his scriptures, whether he managed to or not. He tried to always do what would best please his parents and his ancestry who prioritized strict obedience, discipline, and manners—there were no elbows allowed on the table at the Aguilar house. As the oldest kid, Javier knew he was to be the example.

Music was a large part of Javier’s upbringing, and he played the piano and other instruments. He was also involved in theater and the drama club. While his parents always encourage him to play sports, he says he “sucked at basketball but liked it.” He also liked school and tried hard, but claims he wasn’t always a great student.

Javier didn’t realize he was attracted to guys until high school. Before, it was more of a curiosity in which he’d find himself paying attention to those he found attractive. But he didn’t dare talk to his parents about it, as they had once told him if he ever saw someone who was gay, to move in the opposite direction and “keep yourself as far away as possible from this.” Helping him with a Primary talk once, his father even likened homosexuality to one of Moses’ plagues. It wasn’t until he was older that he got to know people in the LGBTQ+ community. But even when he met his first bi person, he didn’t get too close.

The time came for Javier to serve a mission. In his house, his father only half-jokingly would say, “You have two options. You either go on a mission, or I send you on a mission.” So of course, Javier went. It took him a little bit to acclimate, but he did love his mission. Today, he says if he had gotten an answer whether to serve for himself, it might have gone better faster. He spent the first half in Brazil and the second half in Mexico, due to the pandemic. Like many, Javier believed if he did his best on his mission, his attraction to guys would go away. But when he returned, that wasn’t the case – in fact, he found his feelings had only increased. 

A couple months after his return, Javier started a long-distance relationship with a girlfriend back in Mexico, trying to please his parents in Texas. At the same time, he started talking to a male friend from the mission and realized he was developing feelings for him. Worried he might out himself or another person, Javier tentatively got in touch with a missionary he’d heard about in Mexico City who was gay, hoping he could ask some questions somewhere, to someone who might get it. Even though they’d never met, they had a productive conversation, though that alone made Javier feel very guilty for going against his parent’s wishes to turn away from all things LGBTQ+. The missionary was helpful and happy to help and directed Javier to the Questions from the Closet podcast, which converted Javier “into becoming a podcast guy.” Javier says, “It was great to finally listen to stories of people who are part of the church but also living out their sexuality. The podcast answered some of my questions.”

Javier had made a friend on the mission who had come out for the first time ever to Javier. In turn, Javier came out to this young man while communicating online, realizing he might even have a crush on him. In response, Javier says, “He lost his mind, he was super happy and called me. This was the first time I was actually starting to accept it.” Shortly after, Javier would occasionally whisper to himself, “I’m bi; I’m part of the LGBTQ community.” His internalized homophobia caused it to take some time to get used to, but gradually he became less afraid. TV shows about LGBTQ+ characters and the movie Love Victor helped Javier feel less isolated. His plan was to only tell two friends ever, but over time he realized he wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret for the rest of his life. 

Soon, Javier found himself at BYU Idaho where he found a “cool group of friends who adopted me. They were Latinos, too, so they understood. I was able to come out and they were so supportive, even with having Latino backgrounds where machismo was often still a thing.” In Rexburg, Javier says, “I didn’t break the commandments, but I took a break from church.” After two semesters, he came back home with a new sense of confidence about who he was. He sensed he should tell his parents, but wasn’t sure how. Javier consulted with a close friend in Texas named Ben who was going through similar things. Javier’s depression peaked, and even when he was hanging out with friends, he felt so alone. One night, Javier went to a park where he says he “bawled my eyes out.” He put on his Air pods and walked around, “wanting to scream, to cry; I wanted everything and nothing at the same time.” Javier texted Ben and begged him to join him, risking the embarrassment of having his friend see him in that state just so he didn’t have to be alone. After arriving, Ben convinced Javier that not coming out to people was only going to continue to hurt Javier. Javier agreed and told his friend a date he’d come out to his parents, for accountability.

Having selected a day he’d be meeting his parents at the temple, Javier listened to music to prepare. But when he arrived, there were other ward members there so Javier requested he and his parents go off alone so he could tell them something. His mom expressed excitement, thinking he might be getting engaged (even though he wasn’t dating anyone). When Javier instead told them he liked boys and girls the same way, he saw their faces contort with anger, sadness, and deception. He calls it “a face I’d never seen before. I stopped talking; they didn’t say anything. My hands were sweating, I was shaking. Fortunately, the bishop came up and said, ‘Let’s go inside’.” 

For Javier, the session was a blur and when he returned home, his parents called him into their room. He shared more and invited them to read up on LGBTQ+ from the church website. They replied they would not be doing that and told him he had a disease he needed to be cured of. Javier concurred that him telling them was a way of admitting he wanted to be cured, but that he was innocent and hadn’t done anything to cause this. He says, “I couldn’t say anything; the things I said were used against me. I felt destroyed.” He went to his room and texted Ben to share how badly it had gone.

The next morning, Javier begrudgingly went to church but felt “so broken and sad.” He sat next to Ben, who gave him a side-hug that meant the world in support. He says, “I wanted to cry; I just wanted that hug so badly from someone who was supportive of me.” As time passed at home, things were not great whenever the topic of LGBTQ+ came up. Javier returned to school where he participated in a research project wherein he realized how many students in Rexburg vitally needed support after facing discrimination. Javier and his friend Emily started a support group, mostly to combat racism, but also LGBTQ+ bigotry. 

The next time he went home, Javier decided to come out to one of his brothers. He was met with confusion and surprise, although his brother tried to be supportive. Javier says, “It was nice to have one more person in my family know about it, though my parents got mad when they found out, saying, ‘You told us you wouldn’t tell anyone, especially your siblings’.” Around that time, Javier’s dad suffered from facial paralysis due to stress, and his mother blamed a portion of it on Javier, claiming it was due to his father’s worry Javier would force their family to not achieve exaltation. Javier has tried not to internalize this. He says he knows his parents love him, and he loves them.

Soon after, Javier heard about the inaugural Gathering and went to Utah with his friend. There, he says he “felt amazing. It was so great to be with people who understood and shared my values, beliefs, and experiences. I came away crying with happiness because of the good experience.” After attending a couple smaller Gathering events, Javier decided to get more involved in Rexburg by helping organize support gatherings. He got to know the person who leads the PRIDE parade in Rexburg, and found himself being asked to lead the walk. He recalls, “It was my first time being out at BYU, and my first PRIDE parade. I was excited but scared.” As the day approached, his anxiety increased but listening to the song “This is Me” from The Greatest Showman, Javier harnessed the strength of the line, “I am brave, I am bruised, this is who I’m meant to be, this is me.”

Indeed, Javier felt every bit himself as he realized how many he’d helped by coming out and sharing his story as he marched in front of hundreds of people at the event. “It was a surreal moment; it felt so good.” Javier ended up transferring to BYU Provo, where he met a friend from Mexico who concurred they needed to start doing Gatherings in Spanish. “All of this journey has required me to step outside my comfort zone to do things I never expected… Now I’m trying to help others in Spanish-speaking countries.”

Javier says things are still rough with his parents, but “as long as we don’t talk about it, we’re fine.” He maintains hope things might improve after hearing Charlie Bird on share on his podcast how it took him 20ish years to understand all this, so he could give his dad some time. Javier likewise figures he can give his own parents more time. Meanwhile, he finds joy with his “chosen family,” which consists of many friends who support him where he’s at. Javier says, “Sharing in the Lift & Love family stories is very important to me even though it might not be what you’d expect. Even though my family doesn’t support or accept this part of me, my chosen family is always there for me. Through my depression, they even got me ice cream. They’re always there.”

In Mexico, Javier shares that a cultural tradition is to call good friends “cousins” once you achieve a certain level of closeness, as if you’ve become family. He says, “I now understand why we’re called an LGBTQ+ community—it’s because we’re never alone’

TEGAN (Z) BLANCHARD

Tegan Zelano Blanchard has lived a lot of life in just 21 years. Tegan, or “Z” as he’s called by friends, is majoring in National Security studies with his foremost interest being in international relations. He hopes to work for the state department and go into diplomacy. But in this hot political climate, he’s quick to state, “I care much less about who’s in charge or how our national political system works, and much more about how to get clean water into under-resourced regions of South America, or how to get sex-education to rural communities that need it. I want my career to be focused on improving others’ quality of life.” He claims if he didn’t need to make money, he’d likely work for an NGO.

Tegan’s global awareness was certainly influenced by his parents, who both work in international business/relations themselves. He was raised bilingual (English and Spanish), and is the youngest of four kids–with his three older sisters all now married. Tegan spent the first nine years of his life in Utah, then moved to Costa Rica for a year, then back to Utah, then to Chula Vista, CA at age 11. When all his sisters had moved out and Tegan was a sophomore in high school, his parents felt strongly they needed to move to Ecuador for business opportunities. Despite this inspiration, it wouldn’t be until the summer before his senior year of high school that this prompting would come to fruition. His father had served a mission there, and the Blanchards started a series of businesses in Ecuador selling everything from carpet cleaning to dragon fruit, and sourcing chocolate and flowers. Their impression for the move felt divine, and after two years in Ecuador, Tegan’s parents were called to serve as bishop and still serve in that capacity.

But their kids all now live in Utah, with Tegan attending UVU with one of his sisters. He loves taking a sculpting class with her, and recently enjoyed going clubbing in Salt Lake with all his siblings. Having just returned from his mission in Argentina three months ago, Tegan is full of life and eager to enter this next chapter. While there were dark periods in his life, he now exudes optimism and purpose.

Ever since a young age, Tegan said he felt “an inherent, extreme closeness to God in a way that isn’t entirely normal.” Now defining God as Them/his Heavenly Parents, Tegan remembers playing on his bed at age five and talking to God as if They were right there with him. He also felt very aware of himself and the way he’s built. With a high propensity to love others, Tegan always loved love—from romcom movies to having at least three different crushes on girls in elementary school, when that seemed to be the thing to do. 

As puberty ensued, Tegan began to notice he felt something much more profound for people of his same sex. At age 12, he told his bishop he was attracted to boys. The bishop responded that it was probably just hormones, that things would change and he’d be fine. Tegan says, “Even though that was not a helpful response, I’m not angry at him at all. I couldn’t have expected him to react in the best of ways given the lack of experience he probably had.” Tegan felt he needed to tell his parents, who he says were not homophobic, but not necessarily educated on the topic either. He still spent about five years having moments of pacing outside their room to drum up the courage. During that process, he’d stare into their large mirror and think about how they saw some of him, but not all of him. 

The Blanchards lived in California in 2016, when President Obama legalized same-sex marriage. Tegan remembers that time as a hot debate in which he felt his church community was against him, while his school community was for him. “I thought, they’re debating me—I’m the topic of the debate,” he recalls. But he also tried to remain in a state of outward denial. Tegan says most of his queer friends grew up hearing hard things from relatives, and while he loves that his middle name is his great-grandfather’s and loves his extended family, he recalls a close relative telling him that gay marriage was an attack on the family. As a young child, he interpreted that to mean he was Satan’s attack on the family. But all things considered, Tegan said he had a happy, idealistic childhood with a loving family.

Having never experienced depression before, 2020 wrecked Tegan. When the pandemic hit, he was in a “difficult but growing” relationship with a girl, especially because they were both struggling deeply with their mental health. They ended up cutting it off just before his depression began to take hold. “I remember this was the first time in my life I felt absolutely no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel. I felt God less than any other part of my life. Though looking back, I can see just how intimately They were involved.” The Blanchards moved around a lot during this period—to five different homes just during the pandemic. Politically, Tegan felt an intense connection to the pains of marginalized groups he saw online. Feeling the impact of George Floyd’s death, he became involved in BLM, and he started experiencing a faith crisis, questioning the history of racist policies in the church, as well as limitations against women and LGBTQ+. “Something within me cried out so desperately for the pleas of these people. I can’t compare the experiences side by side; each is distinct with its own challenges. But my heart bled so deeply for people struggling to find a place, because I too had felt that pain of feeling like there was no place for me.”

In 2021, when he was 17, Tegan’s parents sat him down to listen to a podcast about sex “to make the topic less taboo.” At that point, Tegan finally decided five years of carrying his stress alone was too much. He’d had some practice, having come out to three or four friends prior, which helped prepare him to face his parents at the end of the podcast and say, “I’m going to throw you a curveball at you right now… I think I’m bisexual.” He says his parents replied with a huge embrace, tears, and “so much unadulterated love.” He was then able to open up and share what it had been like. His parents advised him to focus on girls, but he says moving forward, that advice didn’t prove to be helpful and the topic didn’t come up much again. Tegan’s sisters and brothers-in-law also responded with full support on video calls in which he told each of them, one by one. He’s not sure if they found it a surprise, as he says his interests had always been more artistic, and he recalls his cousin overhearing his parents talking about him at age eight and wondering if he might be gay because he was “very effeminate” as a kid—something Tegan at times was bullied for. When his cousin told him that, Tegan remembers breaking down sobbing and then trying to act more masculine from then on out. Though now, he’s comfortable saying he believes he was born gay,

The day Tegan and his parents decided to move to Ecuador was the same day his friends in California called saying school was canceled due to the global pandemic. But it wasn’t until June of 2021 that they landed in their new home country. The Blanchard’s initial residence in Ecuador was in a dangerous area and his mom was robbed at knife point while going to the gym. After so much transition, and now continued isolation with COVID-19, Tegan says this was the most overwhelming time in his life, grappling with his faith crisis, sexuality and the uncertainty of his living situation mixed with extreme limitations on his ability to socialize with people of his age. Yet, he endured.

In Ecuador, Tegan’s faith crisis culminated with the figurative breaking of the shelf. Harboring internalized homophobia made the cognitive dissonance worse, and church became a difficult place in which he felt so “othered” that there were times he’d stay outside the chapel, sobbing. Yet, watching queer-affirmitive media like Love, Simon and Heartstopper, reading queer novels, and hanging out with queer friends, made Tegan begin to feel less “othered.” He remembers countless nights on his knees praying desperately, not angry at God, but “so worn out feeling so much pain and hurt in the silence.”

That Thanksgiving, Tegan’s sisters all came to visit and held an intervention. They were worried about Tegan’s mental health because to them, “the light had gone out of [his] eyes.” He confirmed he didn’t want to take his life, but felt he had been in darkness with no hope for so long, that he had nothing to live for. Looping in their parents, Tegan’s dad eagerly agreed to support him pursuing therapy, and Tegan says meeting with life coach Jill Freestone (online) made all the difference. Tegan loved how her approach is affirmative both toward the church and the queer community, and in his first session, she centered their work on a more expansive view of God and Heavenly Mother, with which Tegan identified deeply. Tegan now says, “Learning about the Divine Feminine kept me alive spiritually at that time.”

After finding some healing, Tegan went to visit his sisters in Utah and felt “free” for the first time in two years – free to drive, to go out at night, to see people. For the first time, he made out with a girl and “kept his standards,” but did “just about everything fun one could do that’s still legal.” This time, when he went back to Ecuador, his parents had moved to an incredible house with a pool in a safer area, and he was able to design his bedroom with posters and LED lights, just the way he wanted. They could now go outside without getting robbed. Continuing to work with Jill, Tegan moved forward with his mission papers which he says felt “batsh!t crazy” amid his faith crisis; but he felt a desire to proceed in a tentative but trusting mindset. A 2022 talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks set him back and made him want to give up, but Tegan felt propelled by the wisdom in Jared Halverson’s words, “Don’t let a good faith crisis go to waste.” Following the hard talk, after more than a year of intense bitterness, Tegan hit the point of apathy and screamed at heaven, “I just don’t understand!” At that exact moment, his sister in another country texted him: “They love you.” Tegan screamed up again, “What am I supposed to do now?” He got another text from his sister: “So much.” Tegan says, “It was so precise and perfect in timing that I couldn’t see it as anything but divine. Although I didn’t receive a specific answer like I was hoping for, I felt that a knowledge of Their infinite love would be enough to keep moving forward.”

“Even in apathy, I thought, ‘If God loves me this much, I could go serve’,” says Tegan. His parents gave him autonomy to make his own choices, and supported him as he later was called to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Right before he left, Tegan again went to Utah for some fun with his sisters, and this time he kissed his first boy—which felt important to him, to affirm you can be queer and a faithful member. He says, “Part of it was a ‘take that’ to so many years of pain. I wanted to show I can be me and a disciple of Christ. A week later, I went through the temple and was endowed. There, I better was able to understand that God is much more expansive than we define Them to be. I still have so much left to learn.” 

Tegan says his experience in the Mexico MTC was brutal, but he loved every minute of his mission, where he grew close to his mission leaders and spent a lot of time serving in the office. As he prepared his farewell talk, he says he felt the first spark of the joy of the gospel in two years, something that he had deeply missed during the darkest moments of his depression and faith crisis. He realized he could focus on talking about Christ during his two year service. And that’s what he did. He says, “My faith crisis redefined my relationship with the Savior and got it to a place where I could really reach people… I learned how to more deeply love God, others, and myself and developed the divine gifts of empathy and charity. I recognize others have had hard experiences serving a mission and I weep with them and validate their pain. But for me, it was life-changing.”

Now having been home for three months, Tegan is “going on a ton of dates and learning so much about myself and how I was made, and more about God and the way I connect with Them.” Though he originally came out as bisexual, he is learning that attraction is more complicated than he anticipated and definitely leans towards men. Above all, however, he’s most interested in dating people willing to invest in a personal relationship with God, saying, “That has led me to my kind of people, those who are genuinely searching for a connection with the Divine. But if they’re in a potent faith crisis or on a different part of their faith journey than me, that’s still okay.” 

Tegan says he is wholeheartedly committed to “living the life and future God would have for [him], no matter what that is.” Though he doesn’t believe that necessarily means marriage to a woman in the temple is the only way. “If God says, ‘I want you to always stay close to me and marry a man that you love,’ or if God says, ‘Here’s the perfect woman for you’, so be it. I trust Them way more than I trust myself.” Tegan continues, “I had made certainty an idol of sorts; it had become my God as I sought after it looking for peace and comfort. It was only when it was taken away from me in those two years of intense darkness that I came to realize only God can give me lasting peace. It was God’s way of teaching me to make Them my God and idol. And I now know more than ever that my future is much brighter as I keep my Heavenly Parents as my focal point and closest confidants.”

TRENT CLARKSON

“If you’ve ever had a debate with the spirit, you know you can’t win.” That was Trent Clarkson’s experience while sitting in a car late one night with a friend at age 17. The difficulties of his life had come to a head. School and the social scene were not going the way he wanted, which had wrecked his mental health. Looking to escape, he asked a friend to go to a movie and out for a drive. While navigating the dark roads, Trent felt a strong impression he needed to tell his friend what was really going on, including the things he’d been pushing down and trying not to consciously recognize himself. He started slowly, at first only sharing the depths of his severe depression. But it kept coming to his mind—the “it” he’d never told anyone about yet. “Saying those words felt physically impossible,” says Trent, “but I turned to him and said I need to tell you something else—I’m gay. It was the first time I’d actually acknowledged that part of my life, the first time I accepted it.”

Looking back now, Trent calls that night lifechanging. He says owning this part of him “set me on track to figure out what was really going on in my life.” Life didn’t immediately become easier; in fact, things got worse. Trent remembers being alone in his bedroom grappling with intense confusion. Since his childhood growing up in a “lovely little town called Kanab, UT” near Cedar City, one of six children in a devout family who practiced daily prayer and scripture study and weekly LDS church attendance, Trent had felt an instilled knowledge of not only who God was but that He loved him and wanted to communicate with him from a very young age. “I knew He was there and would talk to me if necessary, which set me up well for later in life when things went awry.”

Yet one Sunday at age 17, Trent battled darkness and gloom while sitting on a pew in church with his family thinking about “existential things”—who he was, what was his purpose, why this was happening to him and that if this was his reality, what else might be different than all he had learned since childhood? “I wondered if there was a God, where was He, and why He wouldn’t talk to me anymore.” Trent says an indescribable feeling washed over him and he felt an immense sense of peace, love and comfort. Words came into his mind: “I know you, I see you, I love you.” Trent says it took all that he had to not sob on that pew. “I like to reflect on that experience. It only answered three of my 1,000 questions but it confirmed God is there, God knows me, and God does care about what’s happening to me.” It also taught Trent that it’s ok to have unanswered questions, and that some questions are more important than others.  

Over the next year, Trent was able to open up to more people—a few close friends, a trusted therapist. He accepted he was gay and came to the mindset that he didn’t have a problem with it because God didn’t have a problem with it. His senior year of high school was a little better, and soon it became time to put in his mission papers, something that had been impressed on his mind years before. But it took him a year to get the papers out, and his call to Independence, Missouri. A major history buff, Trent was thrilled to walk and talk through all the church history sites, but an upset occurred. In February 2020, Trent entered the Provo MTC where he stayed for three weeks and watched as the world crumbled with the pandemic. His second week in, they stopped admitting new missionaries and every day his MTC teachers would give updates that seemed unfathomable: “No NBA playoffs; no in person general Conference.” Trent was still headed to Missouri but the Frontrunner train he took to the airport suddenly stopped in Draper at 8am. There had been a huge earthquake (the one in which the SLC temple’s Moroni dropped his trumpet). Trent didn’t feel it on the train, but had to reroute to the MTC. Swept up in all the speculation at the time, he thought, “We’re going to the land of Zion, and with all the prophecies about earthquakes, plagues, locusts in Africa, I just wanted to get to Independence to be the first to meet Jesus.” The next day, he was given the all clear to go out. Five days later, lockdowns shut down most of the world. As a missionary, Trent wasn’t allowed to leave his apartment for the next four months besides P-day grocery runs, but he says, “I’m grateful for how it worked out. I’m a huge believer in the Lord’s timing.”

While Trent had reconciled being gay, he wasn’t quite sure how he’d navigate shelving it for two years. He was able to circumvent certain conversations and “pretend it’s not a thing,” but eventually realized, “God had other plans.” Two or three weeks in with his first trainer, an incredible person Trent learned a lot from, Trent felt an assurance from the spirit that he should tell his companion he was gay. He sat on it for a few days, then got the confirmation from above that the Lord would be ok, and the companion would be ok if he shared. Visibly shaking, Trent said, “I’m gay. I hope that’s not an issue.” Trent says the companion responded “as well as I could have hoped. I think it was a good experience for both of us.”

Throughout his mission, Trent would occasionally feel similar nudges that it would be ok to tell certain trusted people, and every time he did, he said it opened up some of the best experiences on his mission as he felt closer to those around him and better about himself as “the irreconcilable parts came together.” He emailed his mission president to let him know, and in return got the response, “If you need to talk to me, I’ve available, but I have no worries.” As missions are small communities, word spread, and Trent learned he wasn’t alone, estimating that about 10-15 other LGBTQ+ missionaries opened up in his zone over the next two years. Trent especially loved coming out to people who had little experience with the LGBTQ+ community. One day while doing their work on social media, a district leader next to Trent made a comment about a gay couple on a Facebook profile. Trent stopped and looked at him and said, “Elder, have you ever worked with LGBTQ individuals before?” The DL said, “I haven’t; have you?” Trent replied, “Yeah, I deal with that quite frequently. I’m gay.” The district leader immediately and profusely apologized. Trent replied, “Don’t worry, Elder, it’s understandable—not having worked with LGBTQ individuals before. Mind if we can talk about it?” Trent then shared his story and explained what life was like for him. He loved sharing that, “Even though I experience same sex attraction, I love the church and am on a mission.” Trent says he grew to treasure the connections that came from learning of others’ experiences with God and life as they exchanged stories.

Trent worried about returning home after his mission. He’d liked having his life put on pause, focusing instead on others’ lives. He knew when he returned, he’d have to deal with tough questions. Still, he filled out a “My Plan,” a tool missionaries are given to map out their return plan to follow. He saw how a good part of that deals with “how I will stay active in the church and marry in the temple,” something he knew might not fit in God’s plan for him. “While much of the plan was helpful, it wasn’t specific for my needs, and I had to figure out a lot on my own—something I’ve learned to become comfortable with.” Trent didn’t feel like he could try to date women, but also felt, “If by some act of God some amazing young lady comes up, I’ll put nothing outside of God’s power.” Trent says he loves the framework the church gives, although since he’s returned from his mission, he says, “I haven’t been the most active. I don’t know where I’m going or doing, but I know that God lives and that Jesus Christ is the son of God. I have immense faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior… That gives me light when there’s no path. If nothing else, I know that’s true.” Trent says he also loves the Bible and Book of Mormon and has felt a lot less alone listening to the Questions from the Closet podcast over the years. He says he’s fine sitting in ambiguity.

At his first Thanksgiving back from his mission, Trent sent a coming out text on his family group chat, and everyone was supportive. “My younger siblings were a little confused at first, but they figured it out and moved on. Things have gone great ever since.” Of the pretty seamless transition, Trent says most of them had already known, though he says he’s a “pretty straight-passing gay guy; the straightest gay person I know.” A mechanical engineering student at Southern Utah University, Trent hopes to work with robotics, possibly in aerospace, a shared passion with his brother with whom he’d love to go into business. Trent currently does 3D printing and loves fishing, cooking, reading, and again, all things history—whether it be church history or American history. He works at a historical museum outside of Kanab where he loves to exchange stories with patrons all day. “It’s amazing to see what inspires people to be people.”

While he doesn’t consider himself a social person, claiming “I like to maybe have ten people in my vicinity,” Trent braved up and went to the first Gather conference last year—an experience that he loved and that inspired him to go back this year and to also start a Gather group at his college campus. He says SUU can be a difficult place to be as it’s “more traditional than Provo. Finding connection there with the church isn’t hard, finding connection with LGBTQ+ people is harder. Finding connection with both is almost impossible.” Trent felt “immensely grateful” when the Gather curriculum was released. Though only about five people currently gather in his group, Trent is excited to be part of the influence where people can strand in a room comfortably and hold both identities—as a person of faith and LGBTQ+.

“Doing this work that I feel called to do—I feel it as strongly as I felt called to go on a mission. I love knowing this is a work the Lord is very interested in doing. It’s encouraging to know progress is being made. As hard as things get sometimes, I think things are only getting better. We’re on the right track; we’re headed where God wants us to be.”

THOMAS AUSEUGA

content warning - suicide ideation

Thomas Auseuga was born and raised in Australia and currently lives in Brisbane; however, having spent the last three months in Utah has made him consider a permanent move to the states. “I think I’ve met more LGBTQ+ people in one month here than I have in five years in Australia.” Thomas brought a trademark jar of Vegemite with him to share with new friends, and it must have worked, as he bonded with many at September’s Gather conference in Provo. Thomas loved Gather, but said going to church the following Sunday, even in Utah, felt like a harsh reality that things aren’t quite where he wishes they were just yet. However, Thomas feels called to the space he’s in at the moment—being an openly gay, outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ+ community within the LDS church. But that doesn’t always make it easy.

Thomas grew up with his twin brother smack dab in the middle of eight children raised in a Polynesian/Australian family who was “very into the church.” Both of Thomas’ parents served missions, as did his mother’s second husband and grandma. “The gospel was the epicenter of our home,” says Thomas, despite religion and church attendance not being a popular choice for many of Thomas’ peers in Melbourne, and later Adelaide, after his mom moved the family there. Thomas was the smallest of his siblings and was picked on quite a bit at home. At school, he was teased for having an “effeminate, higher pitched voice” and was called “church boy,” which he says was “supposed to be a derogatory slur, I guess?” Thomas says at times he had a rough childhood in which he often felt isolated and lonely, but knew he had a family who loved him and was grateful they had the resources to get by. Thomas also recalls being called gay before he ever knew what the term meant.

Around age 11, Thomas began to feel “a connection to one of my mates. I wanted to be around him—a lot. Now, as an adult, I see that as my first crush.” But because the dialogue surrounding gay people in the early 2000s was so negative, Thomas internalized that all things gay were bad, and besides, he went to church every Sunday so, “Of course I couldn’t be gay.” Thomas’ shame around this plagued him to the extent he’d cry himself to sleep every night, “praying for Heavenly Father to take this away, or I’d prefer not to wake up in the morning. That was my habitual prayer. I definitely experienced suicidal ideation growing up.” But at the same time, Thomas would pray he’d be blessed with protection. Heeding a prompting, Thomas says he felt God’s hand in helping him reframe negative thoughts he battled at the time. When he was 15, he felt directed to tell his mom the feelings he’d been battling alone for three years.

“She told me she loved me, but my mom’s experience was limited with this, so she said, ‘You’re not gay, you just think you are because everyone calls you that’.” Thomas explains that a lot of her fears stemmed from her perspective on AIDS and the mistreatment of gay people, fearing discrimination and rejection. Offering her grace, Thomas says, “She tried her best with the knowledge she had.” Thomas also told his bishop at the time, who offered him a pamphlet, but didn’t say much to unpack the coming out discussion.

Four years later, at age 19, Thomas finally came out to his best friend. “He handled it pretty well, but needed a couple days to process. When he came back, he said, ‘I love you anyways, you’re my best friend; it doesn’t matter’.”  That opened a dialogue that taught Thomas that when he opened up to people and was authentically himself, it deepened their connection. By age 21, he’d come out to his three best friends and every bishop he’d had up until that point. He remembers feeling, “It was surreal that I could tell people, and they wouldn’t hate me or try to fix or change me. I could be myself with them and talk about it on a regular basis.”

At the time, Thomas was feeling stagnate living in Melbourne, in a dead-end part-time retail job and a YSA environment that left him feeling belittled and beaten down. After two years of this, he began to feel depressed, stuck, with no upward trajectory. Thomas had convinced himself he wasn’t smart enough to serve a mission like his siblings had. He was active in the church then, but “mostly just for the social scene and food after.” He began to see a therapist his bishop had recommended, after referring to his being gay as “an addiction.” Luckily, the therapist was more experienced and created a beneficial, affirming environment for Thomas in which he could steer his own path whichever way he chose.

“At this point in time, I feel like I had hit rock bottom,” says Thomas. He wasn’t fully invested in the church but felt a constant pressure to date girls, and to serve a mission before that. “Finally, I said, Heavenly Father I don’t want to serve, but since you’re giving me promptings, I will. And from there, my desire to serve grew.” It took Thomas a year to get his papers submitted, and despite his plea bargain with God to not be called to the Philippines (after being told by his two siblings how hot and sweaty it was, along with a side order of food poisoning and other sicknesses they experienced), Thomas was called to the Philippines. “I lost 40 pounds, though, so I guess it was… a blessing?”

In reality, Thomas loved his mission and felt it changed his life. There, he grew the confidence in studying both the scriptures and a foreign language to the point of fluency. He helped support companions and other missionaries as their pseudo-therapist, and Thomas’ mission president likewise affirmed he should go into social work or therapy of some sort, a second witness to the spiritual nudge Thomas himself had been feeling. Covid-19 cut Thomas’ mission 12 weeks short. He came home in March of 2020, and got into his social work course six weeks later. He’s now in the second to last semester of his degree.

His mission helped Thomas to “understand how important the gospel is to me. I always want it to be a part of my life.” When he came home, at age 26, that meant trying to date girls to prepare for a temple marriage. Thomas drove 24 hours north from his family’s hometown of Adelaide to move to Brisbane to expand the dating pool, but began to see a trend that the more dates with women he went on, the more his mental health declined. “They were all lovely, nice, cute girls. I just wasn’t attracted to them.” One girl asked him out a couple times, and each time he’d drive over to pick her up, Thomas would find himself crying and on the verge of a panic attack. At the same time, he had a bisexual friend he’d developed feelings for, so he says, “I knew what attraction and romantic feelings felt like. So in contrast feeling nothing on dates with girls would just lead to a depression spiral afterward.” Thomas’ bisexual friend ended up marrying a woman, so this gave him the added confidence to do the same, and Thomas tried hard to make it work with one young lady. Three dates in, she friend zoned him. After two days of sadness over the effort he’d put in to try to make it work, Thomas finally prayed surmising he was now off the hook, he’d tried his best. The answer he got in return was that it was time to come out publicly.

Not wanting to be the victim of a hate crime, Thomas resisted this impression. But finally realizing it was best for his mental health to do so, Thomas prayed that the decision was right and wouldn’t be detrimental to him. One Sunday afternoon, he sat next to his best friend while he pressed post on Facebook, sharing words it took him 28 years to say out loud, to all. “After that, a weight lifted, and my life changed in a really good way.”

Thomas began to speak up about LGBTQ+ issues in his ward and circle of influence. At first, he had friends confess they’d never met a gay person before. He himself only knows a handful of openly gay, LDS Australians. Thomas says, “It’s been two years of helping to educate others. I feel very called to the work right now in this space.” Thomas described an experience at a recent YSA Q&A in which people could submit anonymous questions. Naturally, Thomas submitted questions focusing on LGBTQ+ inclusion. One person asked, “Why do we have to include gay people?” Thomas was impressed as others jumped in for him and said, “Why wouldn’t we? It’s Jesus’s church, and all are part of the family.” Thomas has also proposed to his stake president that they do an LGBTQ+-themed devotional across the board, not just for the YSA.

Thomas feels peace going to the temple and to church and feels lucky to have a support network in which he can be himself. He says, “I didn’t really lose friends when I came out. Those who don’t talk to me now—it’s more a reflection of them than me.” While he says he could decide to get offended or not talk about it around certain people, he prefers to share his personal experiences with love in hopes it educates and changes someone’s attitude towards the LGBTQ+ experience. “When you’re one of the only openly gay people in this space, that’s kind of the attitude you have to have.”

Although Thomas thought he’d be single forever, over the last few months, he’s opened up more to the idea of dating men. “After the Gather conference, I realized being single and celibate for the rest of my life could make me jaded and bitter toward God and the church. Instead, I could find someone to have a committed, loving relationship with. I could still go to church and be as active as I can with limitations. In terms of progression, I would become more Christlike by serving someone in a relationship – that’s where I’m at. I think God would be ok with that, too. My discipleship might look different than someone who is heterosexual, but my idea of God and my perception of Him has changed through an evolution of thoughts. He’s all loving, all merciful to all his children and especially those who are– he understands.”

Before coming out in 2022, Thomas experienced weekly rough spells at church in which he’d presume it would be his last week there. But now, he says he’s “striving to still have a relationship with God, staying close to the spirit while navigating being gay in the church. If there’s going to be a change in the church, it will be through the influence of LGBTQ+ people helping move it along. If I’m not talking about it, who will? I feel inclined to show up for the next generation, so the next 12-year-old experiencing same sex attraction isn’t crying himself to sleep at night, wishing he was dead.”

Thomas sees God in the details of it all and believes the gathering of Israel includes all God’s children, “especially those who feel oppressed and marginalized. I’ve heard it said that, ‘All of God’s children have a place at the table with Christ, and LGBTQ+ children have a special seat with their name reserved’.”