BLAIRE OSTLER

As a ninth-generation descendant of Mormon pioneer stock, notable author and philosopher Blaire Ostler says, “For me, Mormonism is not just a religion, but part of my culture and identity--it’s almost an ethnicity. It’s how I think and see the world. I joke I couldn’t not be Mormon, even if I didn’t want to be—even my rejection of some parts of it is so Mormon.” Equally, Blaire is bisexual and intersex and identifies as queer, saying, “That’s also always been a part of me; it’s how I see the world and navigate life.” Her landmark book, Queer Mormon Theology (published in ’21 by By Common Consent Press), chronicles the juxtaposition of these unique traits that cast people like her in the margins of most circles. But while Blaire was told these two identities couldn’t coexist together, she absolutely knew both existed inside of her. “As one can imagine, having a conflicting view of self can tear at you.”

A self-described “military brat,” Blaire grew up attending LDS wards with anywhere from 15-600 congregants, in meetinghouses from Korea to California. Having this wide exposure to “church,” she saw how it means different things to different people. Outside of Utah, she saw the church as the built-in community you find wherever you go. It was about ensuring everyone has access to food, healthcare, language—basic needs. “That was more important than some of the cultural debris that gets mingled with the gospel. For us, the gospel was ‘Love your neighbor; take care of each other’.” She was also raised by a Catholic mother who converted to the LDS faith—somewhat of a universalist who held there is more than one way to find God. Blaire was given tools to deconstruct—a process that for her began around 14.

At this time, she was coming to grips with the fact that she was biologically queer with intersex characteristics, and also bisexual, experiencing sexual attraction and desire towards a diversity of genders. “It’s difficult to overstate how much it messes with your brain to be taught two conflicting messages about yourself as a Mormon woman, that: 1) your most important goal is to have a temple marriage and raise babies to go with you to the celestial kingdom, and 2) queer people destroy families, are promiscuous, die of AIDS, and corrupt society.” Blaire’s most difficult struggle was to get past this engrained dichotomy of being told “You’re supposed to do this,” but “As a queer person, you will fail at it.”

Blaire, who is now on the editorial board at Dialogue, wound up at BYU Provo where she met her husband of 20 years, Drew. After many moves and jobs, they now again call Provo, Utah home--the Y mountain just outside their doorstep. Blaire jokes her 20s were spent either pregnant, in an operating room, or a hospital–having and nursing babies, and having surgeries that would allow her to do so as an intersex person. “It was a decade of trying to be the ideal version of a Mormon woman in every imaginable capacity—from the way I looked, sounded, functioned, existed. It will burn you out—you can only do it for so long.” Blaire and Drew ultimately had three children, now ages 15, 13, and 10. 

In her words, she spent her 30s in a therapist’s office, trying to heal “from all the chaos of trying to fit a narrative that my body—my biology—was not made to create babies. It was a dangerous activity.” She says, “I was convinced I had to prove myself by doing these things, not even caring if I lived or died. That was obviously a low point.” After passing out on the operating room table after having her third child, Blaire chose to get sterilized for her own safety. Her 30s afforded her time to heal her body from the surgeries, her heart from the spiritual trauma, and her mind from the things she’d been told about her purpose. It was during that process that she decided to write her book.

Per Blaire’s educational background, philosophy plus religion equals theology. Via this contextual podium, Blaire ventured into a possibility space where she could be both queer and Mormon? “Queer” is an intentional word for Blaire, who both supports the reclaiming of the word as one with positive connotation (as demonstrated by Queer Nation since 1990), and recognizes how, in its blanket simplicity, it affords many the privacy and legitimacy they seek in a world that sometimes requires labels to consider and afford equitable rights. She also recognizes it as a word similar to “peculiar,” which has likewise been lauded in Mormon philosophy to be a good thing. Further, Blaire reclaims and esteems “Mormon” as a positive term, citing its inclusion in scripture. Her book provocatively explores the inherent coexistence of what it means to be queer, peculiar, and Mormon, and invites the reader to see things that are hidden in plain sight. 

Further propelling her quest to upend presuppositions is her role as a mother of three, with Blaire youngest also identifying as queer. “It’s interesting because as a queer parent, my daughter was essentially raised at a Pride parade. We assumed she was simply reflecting what she saw. But over time, it became apparent that this was her. I have a beautiful, queer, 10-year-old child.” But this made things different, regarding church. Blaire found herself becoming protective and concerned with what her Primary-aged daughter might be exposed to. “It’s one thing to roll the dice with yourself; it’s another to do it with your child.” Blaire’s family has taken a calculated approach to their church activity, choosing to support this activity or class or speaker, but perhaps not show up for those deemed riskier. “I didn’t want her to grow up being taught that she was anything other than a beautiful child of God—and strangely enough, she might be taught otherwise at church.” In this Ostler household (no close relation to Richard Ostler’s), there are a variety of faith transitions going on, and Blaire presumes each may land at different spots as they have varied perspectives on Mormonism, church, and God. But “at the end of the day, Mormonism means family. We all agree to take care of each other, and if we do that, then we did our job… This isn’t necessarily a rejection of the church, but a manifestation of our most sincerely held beliefs.” She explains it as the orthopraxy of her orthodoxy and acknowledges that while some may not understand, Blaire views her best perch as one that respects people where they are.

“The thing I learned from Mormonism and how I was raised is that life was about creating eternal families. At the end of the day, when the church is in conflict with my eternal family, I err on the side of family.” She continues, “The church was started by a man desperately trying to connect families and relationships through sealings. When I pick my family, I’m picking Mormonism, by not letting an institution come before my family. Strangely, some conflate the institution with their beliefs. I see the Church more as like a ship, and Mormonism is the people on the ship working together. But some on that ship (the institution) want to throw the queer people overboard, and if people are getting thrown off the boat, I’m going with them--the least of them. Guess who else did that? Jesus. He went with those who were cast out and left behind. The gospel is so much more than just a ship, even though a ship is useful.”

Blaire feels that even her presence causes some cognitive dissonance for others. “Because what I say is steeped in gospel and scriptures, sometimes people have a hard time coming to grips with it. It’s a view of the scriptures that most aren’t accustomed to.” But she honors religious plurality as found in universal concepts like the Golden Rule. “I feel like we need to take it to the next level in Mormonism and recognize when something on the ship isn’t working. We’re a religion of ‘Is this working?’ And if not, we honor change through ongoing revelation. The monolithic narrative of hetero supremacy isn’t working as so many family structures look different,” she says, addressing the single parent, divorced, widowed, polygamous, adoptive, and never married members now casting the nuclear or “traditional” family as a new minority. “We need to recognize our faith community as much bigger than we thought. We’ll be stronger for our diversity and inclusion. Imagine all the beautiful queer youth, queer missionaries, and rising young adults we’re losing because we looked at their queer gifts and said, ‘No, we don’t want your unique contributions.’ We are missing out.”

Referencing the body of Christ as found in Corinthians, Blaire explains, “We were never meant to be the same. Sometimes we look at our differences as a place of conflict rather than beauty and opportunity. If one’s good at writing and one good at building, wow, what a great opportunity that is to help each other! Is the body of Christ all hands or feet? No, we have different parts that work together cohesively. But we’re afraid, and sometimes we look the other way because we don’t want to see the parts of the body of Christ that are suffering. However, by recognizing suffering and mourning with those that mourn, we take the first step to making things better.” Acknowledging those deficiencies, like when the church changed its priesthood and temple exclusion policies and started the perpetual education fund to further restore equity, brings Blaire hope for further change. “Imagine the powerhouse the church could be if all members were ordained to the priesthood instead of half. Or if we didn’t push out 5%+ for being queer; imagine how much stronger we’d be. When we cut people off for insignificant differences like race, gender, or orientation, we’re undermining ourselves.” She recognizes this awareness is needed outside of the church, as well, especially now as people along the LGBTQIA+ spectrum face a litany of hostile legislation and infighting even in the secular community.

While she considers the gospel of Jesus Christ as her personal guiding faith practice, Blaire says she honors each individual’s ability to choose their own healthy path. “If a queer person is happier in a hetero marriage sealed in temple, or if another no longer affiliates with the church because it’s psychologically traumatizing, I support both. You have to go where your basic needs are being met, and you get to decide what that looks like—especially queer people. I have a hard time believing our Heavenly Parents don’t want our queer kids safe more than anything – I can’t imagine any loving parent thinking that, let alone a godly parent. We need to support each queer person wherever they land.” She has reframed her paradigm of God and now considers the concept of God to be a big heavenly family where all are connected. “God isn’t he, or she, God is they—God is all of us in one big eternal family… When we honor our families, we’re honoring God and the greater heavenly family we’re all a part of. Sometimes we think of God as a monster who wants to punish and harm us…I think we limit God’s compassion through our own imagination. I believe in a God that is more compassionate, loving, and benevolent than we could possibly imagine.” Blaire says as a parent herself, she views her role as “a heavenly parent in-training, trying my best to care for my children. Will I send them to a room, activity, or meeting that’s harming them and causing panic attacks? No, I’d rather say, ‘You are that you might have joy.’ This is what we’re doing as a family—prototyping a heavenly family. We stick together; we don’t kick people out on account of our differences.”

Of her faith practice, Blaire especially loves taking the sacrament as it symbolizes the “breaking of bread with my people, especially when we disagree. That’s when we need it the most.” She continues, “We’re all members of the body of Christ and this equates our commitment to each other and to adhering to His gospel.” Again, she is taken back to meeting the primal needs she identified in childhood: does everyone have food? Housing? Care? Health? “That is what Jesus did. Here, our basic needs are met.”

“In Primary, we are taught to love one another. Loving one another is how we find our way home,” says Blaire. “Our queer mantra is ‘Love wins.’ And I truly believe that. Love wins. Or in other words, charity never faileth.” 

**If you would like to learn more about the intersex population and what it means to identify as genderqueer, Blaire recommends the books Sex and Gender: Biology in a Social World by Anne Fausto-Sterling and Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People by Joan Roughgarden. Blaire’s book, Queer Mormon Theology, is available on Amazon and Audible.

LEVI'S STORY

We’d like to thank Dave and Kimi Martin for graciously sharing the precious life and story of their child, Levi, with us this week. Levi would have turned 18 on March 19th 2023.

*CONTENT warning: suicide*

Levi is our intersex, transgender, gay son who was assigned female at birth. While he was raised as a girl, we didn't know that his DNA was male. He had a condition called Swyer's Syndrome.

Levi's death by suicide had many reasons - a major one was his terror over how society treated transgender people. The recent actions of several states to ban transgender care for minors validates the fear he felt. Unless you have proximity, you have no understanding of how awful these bans are and how many precious lives will be lost.

Kimi and I share Levi's story, (he was too afraid to come out in his mortal life), in the hope that those without proximity to transgender people might gain understanding, and thus, compassion. Our call as humans is to learn to love better, not judge better.

Here is Levi’s story as given in his eulogy:

I want to tell you a story. A love story. And nothing to do with a Taylor Swift song about Romeo and Juliet, but about our son Levi. Like any good love story, it begins with love and in the middle, there is difficulty, hard times, and even tragedy. But like any good love story, it ends in love. With a love that doesn’t end but keeps growing and moving forward.

We hoped we were done after six kids. We were pretty sure. Not totally sure. Surely God would agree that six completed our family. We were tired, busy, and old (in our 40’s). However, the thought our family was not complete was constant, even though Kimi did her best to ignore it. We had to pray about it. And we did. And then we weren’t sure.  So we decided to move forward with faith.

Well into Kimi’s pregnancy, we had a very bad week and all got sick. Following the admonition of James, we sent for the elders, in this case our friend, Quinn Millington. to receive a blessing by the laying on of hands. He gave each family member a blessing. Then he began to bless Dave, and part way through the blessing, he fell silent, a silence that went on and on.  When he concluded the blessing, he explained that he had been overcome by a feeling, that it was almost like a massive wall or building that descended on him, that it was so large he couldn’t put it into words for a long, long time.

Quinn shared with us what he could at that time, and recently shared even more. He said, “There was a sense of deep gratitude and love that burned in my heart. I believe the Lord wanted to express His deep trust, gratitude and love for you and Kimi for your willingness to bring another of his precious children to earth. I also believe he wanted you to know of his deep love for Levi.” 

On March 19, 2005, in Montgomery, Alabama, this child was born. We named the child Emma. Because we didn’t know. Our son Garrett had older sisters and one younger sister, and he desperately wanted a brother. He and our newest bonded quickly.

The child was different from the first day. Most babies are loose, relaxed, uncoordinated, and need a lot of support. This baby was tense and triggered by stimuli. As early as the second day of life, he could tense up so thoroughly that holding him was like holding a stiff board. He showed early signs of anxiety, even as a newborn. If Kimi held him facing out while walking down the stairs, his little body would tense up until his arms were raised above his head. 

He was so loved. His siblings fought over who got to hold him. We weren’t sure he would ever learn to walk.

When Levi was eighteen months, we moved to Massachusetts. Our surroundings are information, and too much happens in them for us to take it all in. But this child seemed to take in far more than average. He would not wear jeans nor new clothes—everything had to be used, broken in, smooth. We later learned that one of Levi’s challenges was Sensory Modulation Disorder which basically means a condition in which non-painful stimuli such as types of touch or certain sounds or volume are perceived as abnormally irritating, unpleasant, or even painful.

We lived in a house with an in-ground pool, and he loved the pool, loved swimming, loved the feel of cool water against hot skin on a steamy summer day. He wrote these words at age 13: “Swimming, to me, is very peaceful. When you go fully submerged underwater, you feel warm and comforted from all the pressure around you. Most of the time it is very quiet underwater, if not completely silent, and you can make sounds that nobody can hear. Because I love music so much, I sing songs and vocalize songs from shows and movies and games. Whenever I get out of the pool, all that I want to do is go back into the peaceful water. It is almost like nothing exists.” As he grew older and his body began to change, he did not like swimming in front of other people—he was self-conscious and felt the eyes of other people on him.

He learned to read at a young age—not sight words and picture books. Kimi recognized that he was ready, she had taught his siblings to read, but with Levi’s independent nature, he didn’t want any help. She set him up on a computer program and he was reading within a matter of hours, prior to starting kindergarten. He learned to read deeply, and it became critical to how he processed the world. In fourth grade, he read Huckleberry Finn. In Sunday School, his teachers gave each child chances to read. He grew impatient with those who could not read big words, struggled to sound out words, measured their words awkwardly. His mind raced and chased ideas in circles and spirals. We could not name a topic on which he hadn’t researched and for which he had no opinion.

He took piano lessons from various teachers, and he gained a sound early mastery, but he came to hate performing. In time, he asked to be able to stop taking lessons even though he loved to play. His social anxiety made them too difficult. When he gave up piano lessons, he continued to teach himself piano on his own. Sometimes, we would leave the house and come back to find him playing beautifully on his own. We hated to announce our presence because he would stop—he did not perform.

Yet, for all his reluctance to perform and to be seen, in school and elsewhere, he was a constant chatterbox, and one with no filter. The words he inhaled from reading books and articles online had to find their outlet, and he spoke them without regard to the audience. In school, he talked constantly to whoever was seated next to him, and frequently, the two of them got into trouble. Further, even at the earliest ages, he challenged everyone on everything if he was convinced he was right. He pushed teachers with incisive questions, argued with points he believed to be false, almost never backed down.

In third and fourth grades, it was too much, and we home schooled him. Academically, he soared, and he was relieved without the social strain, but keeping pace with him and giving him social opportunities to develop generated new challenges in the family, and eventually, he returned to public school. Whether at home or at school, his grades were impeccable: straight A’s. But socially, everything was a strain. His constant chattering ultimately led to people shutting him down and out. It hurt, and he withdrew and became more suspicious of people.

And then, seventh grade.

We did not know, and we could not see the big picture. When you live with someone, changes creep up on you, and you amalgamate them into your understanding of a person without necessarily seeing how dramatically something has shifted. In seventh grade, he began to struggle to complete homework. He appeared uninterested and unmotivated even though the work was intellectually easy for him. One would not think that B’s would signify much—they typically don’t. But what did was the apparent lack of effort, the tendency to have assignments slide by with no recognition that finishing them was important.

What do we think now? Based on what we now know, what should be happening in puberty was not, and the disconnects in identity were probably starting to create foundational strains.

In Church, he remained talkative and challenging. One of his Sunday School teachers described him as “savagely smart” and “the smartest kid I’ve ever taught” (to the chagrin of his siblings whom this teacher also taught). This teacher emphasized that students must try to stay ahead of him, and he sometimes sent home subjects to research. He needn’t have bothered—our child had been researching everything all along, and Levi didn’t bother with these. 

In eighth grade, we were finally able to find him a therapist. After a few months, the therapist indicated that he might be a threat to himself. We had him admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and he enjoyed it—played Phase 10, talked openly, did outdoor activities. He came home with a series of medical appointments and diagnoses. He was ADHD, prone to severe depression and anxiety, capable of dissociation. He went back to school, took on medicine and therapies and disliked all of it. He spent much of his time in the counselor's office, completing school work there. Kimi also spent a lot of time there, working with the counselor to determine which classes could be dropped, and which needed to be continued to avoid a failing grade. 

He was convinced he would die young. He read up on all his diagnoses and added his own—he became convinced he was on the autism spectrum. Later, another doctor would diagnose him with borderline personality disorder.

One day, a friend’s mother called to tell us that he had been cutting and had drunk a small amount of nail polish remover. We explained to him that he had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital again. This time, the experience was a slog in a drab building with lots of boredom.

No, he told them, he wasn’t suicidal. Yes, the program was helping. No, he was not a threat to himself. No, he would never cut again. Yes, he would seek out therapy and ask for help and take his medicine and talk to his parents and do stress relief and exercise and meditate and journal and relax. Could he go home now and not come back? Of course.

His ninth-grade year started out well. Because of his poor grades in the spring, the school wanted to lower the rigor a bit, but he argued with the school to let him take honors classes, showing that he was impossibly bored in standard classes, and that he could manage honors classes. He wanted to handle it himself, seeking out the guidance counselor without letting Kimi know what he was doing. He had to argue hard and long for honors classes. He prevailed. And then, he didn’t or couldn’t keep pace. We did not understand. We wondered if it was lack of willpower, failure to manage mental illness, lack of desire. Meanwhile, his ever-bright brain burned hot, and he researched and researched, endlessly chasing ideas. There were no definitive answers to the questions he asked because there were always more questions beyond them. 

When he was in tenth grade and just as the pandemic was developing, a friend of ours had a son come out publicly as gay. This friend stepped away from Church leadership positions. On Sunday one day, this friend went to the pulpit and gave his witness of the love of God and the need to love all our brothers and sisters. He affirmed the dignity of LGBTQ+ people. As our friend walked away from the pulpit, our youngest looked at him with a huge smile and made two huge thumbs up. We should have known something. But changes creep on us. We fail to connect details to the narratives of our lives. Or we shape the details to fit the narrative we have formed.

“Emma” should have started having her period but hadn’t. So doctors resorted to hormone therapy to help trigger them. Sure enough, we found our youngest wasn’t taking the medicine. Kimi challenged him and insisted that the medicines had to be taken because failure to do so could be dangerous. The performative non-performer looked at Kimi and said, “Well, the thing is, ha ha, I’m trans.” Kimi was unmoved. “Throwing something like that at me isn’t going to change the fact that you have to take the medicine.” This time he was more serious, “Mom, really, I’m trans.”

Kimi accepted him. He didn’t want Dave to know. Dave had been a Latter-day Saint bishop and a member of stake presidencies. He followed rules and obeyed Church authority. 

Dave proved to be surprising. He accepted our youngest as he was, and he began to read and research. He was a Sunday School teacher, and soon he was giving lessons on what the Bible had to say about helping the marginalized.

A few months later, when developmental changes were still not happening, our youngest underwent a battery of tests, and soon, much greater information emerged. Through genetic testing, we gained an understanding we never had.

All of us are both profoundly similar to each other and all of life, and yet, we are also completely unique. This is a duality, and dualities exist everywhere. 

Our youngest had Swyer Syndrome. Swyer Syndrome describes a series of genetic mutations that cause an individual to express female anatomy, while the person is genetically male. In other words, our youngest had all the body parts associated with females except he wasn’t female.  He had XY chromosomes—if he were to die and have to be identified via DNA, a medical examiner would say he was male. In our youngest’s case, he was his own special brand of unique: doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital had never seen his particular mutation in the portfolio of Swyer cases they had dealt with. Ours was literally a sample size of 1.

Levi reacted by doing what he always did—he researched. In short order, he was more expert on intersex conditions than most medical professionals. Doctors would begin to discuss something with him at a simpler level, then say, “Wait. I forget that you are you,” and they would switch and begin to speak with him as a peer, as if he were a medical resident.

DNA is what makes us both unique and similar. It should not be a surprise that it is a duality of sorts, itself. In 1953, Dr. James Watson struggled to understand DNA’s shape until he had a dream in which he saw intertwining snakes with heads at opposite ends (other accounts indicate he also saw a double-sided staircase).

We asked our youngest how he identified himself, and he said that he was “intersex, leaning toward male, and gay.” We asked what name he should go by, and he originally selected “Twine.” We didn’t understand and thought it a curious choice. He never explained, and in short order, he came to dislike the name and would eventually discard it. Intersex individuals with Swyer often select the direction they wish to go, and many choose to honor the anatomical presentation and proceed with female-related hormone therapy. Our youngest did not feel female and did not believe he had ever been meant to be female. He began early steps toward transition.

We asked if he might wish to cut his hair, and he declined. We asked if he might wish to discard his dresses, and he said, “No, I might still wear them.” The duality was powerful and also almost entirely misunderstood by everyone.

When we are born, we begin to die. And most faiths view death as a birth into a new life. These, too, are dualities. When we felt that there must be another child, we accepted, as well, that we were birthing a child into both life and death.

On Sunday, December 18, 2022, we had finished preparing dinner and we called to our youngest, our only child at home. No response. Dave went to the basement. The door was closed tightly, and a note had been placed there. It began, “Don’t open Door. Call Police.” It was a small act of grace that preceded the pouring out of the years of pain and fears that he had experienced. He apologized and expressed his love. He feared turning eighteen and trying to navigate as an adult. He explained that he could not get himself to do anything and couldn’t see being able to do so. He couldn’t live as a woman but be a man; he couldn’t bear to come out even to some family members, though he knew he was loved. In his words, “I … can’t take living like a girl, being the way I am, yet I am too much of a coward to come out to my siblings, or to do anything to make my body match my mind more. I am terrified of how society treats transgender persons.” He made clear that the decision was his and no one was at fault; he indicated that the media and what he read or saw should not be blamed. His final sentences state that “This is not the fault of any of you. My brain is just faulty. I’m excited to finally be free.”

Ultimately, he signed his letter. His signature is clear, certain, and confident. For it, he used a name he had recently come up with and had asked his parents to use. Its origins are Hebrew, and in the same way that twine’s first dictionary definition is “a strong string of two or more strands twisted together,” his new name means, “united, joined, adhered to, joined together, or joined in harmony.”

We don’t know if he chose it deliberately, but Levi is the perfect name. 

We are here today to celebrate the life of Levi. He was spunky, sassy, feisty, and confident, until he wasn’t. He was funny, intelligent, quirky, argumentative, loving, stubborn, and kind, always.

We are here to mourn Levi. This is a tremendous loss in so many ways, not just for our family or for all those who knew him, but for the world. He had so much potential. His future contributions, whatever they would have been, are lost to us now.

We are here to acknowledge Levi’s pain. Being transgender in this world was too heavy a burden for him to bear. He suffered tremendously until he just couldn’t suffer any longer. We like to think of him as happy now, something that we haven’t seen in a very long time.

This story of Levi reminds me of sentiments expressed in a song from the musical, Wicked. These words have proven true in my life and I think in each life we connect with, especially with those that are different from us.

I’ve heard it said

That people come into our lives

For a reason

Bringing something we must learn

And we are led

To those who help us most to grow

If we let them

And we help them in return

I know I’m who I am today

Because I knew you

We will never meet again

In this lifetime

So let me say

So much of me

Is made of what I learned from you

You’ll be with me

Like a handprint on my heart

And now whatever way my story ends

I know you have re-written mine

By being my dear child

Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?

But because I knew you

I have been changed for good

Who can say

If I’ve been changed for the better?

I do believe I have been changed for the better

Because I knew you

I hope the world has been changed

For good

Now we are at the end of our story. But the ending goes on…

We are here to show our love for Levi, forever and always. And keep sharing that love so other racial, sexual orientation and gender minorities in our path will not endure the same pain Levi did.

Conveying to each of us a greater ability to love one another as they are and be less judgmental is Levi’s legacy.  Be free and live on in peace, Levi.