#Mormon LGBT

[lizardho]

I came out to my dad as bisexual at 14 and I was PANICKED because I had a crush on a guy in my Boy Scout troop and thought I was Going To Hell Forever and he was so kind and understanding of my distress, but he had NO idea what bisexuality was. He just said “yeah but you like girls too? This is normal. Everyone is like this.” And I love my dad and trust him with my life to this day and the idea that the concept of bisexuality had not occurred to him had not occurred to me so I put it off.

By 16 though I had a crush on like THREE boys. Three entire boys in my Boy Scout troop. I felt like my sin was slowly advancing, until like an untreated cancer it had become metastatic. I remember bawling my L’il limp-wristed sissy eyes out in his big rumbly truck on the way home from a scout meeting and him telling me that it was OK, that he still loved me if I was gay, but that he knew I wasn’t gay because I still had crushes on women and that meant I was straight. I didn’t quite know how to explain that those felt *~*different*~* and that I felt like I was losing a fight to evil inside me but I again felt comforted by his reassurances and his genuine fatherly love.

At 18 I was like “hey I’m realizing all my friends are going on missions. I don’t wanna do that. Idk how to say that and I don’t have a ‘good enough’ reason to not wanna go.” So I just put it off. Again, my parents were extremely supportive of the information I gave them (I blamed it on perpetually forgetting to start the paperwork.) and one day my mom texted me that she had done the paperwork for me! And that all I needed was to get a physical! So I did that (it was awkward af tbh, my hernia check was done by a trainee doctor and she spent like 3 minutes fishing around my inguinal canals before her attending rescued me) and was sent to Mexico City where I learned that in addition to dipshit himbos with strong hands and scruffy guys with artistic hearts I was REALLY into chubby Latin men with strong personalities who bullied me a little when I lived in Mexico.

I remember my first companion got annoyed with me during an argument and said we were just gonna wrestle and whoever won the wrestling match won the argument (I stg I am dead serious this happened.) I was like…SWEATING when he tore off his tie and threw his white button-down shirt onto the ground (I won btw, don’t ask me how).

I remember one of my companions with this really intense, almost manic energy telling me that he was gonna make sure I was safe in a new area I didn’t know very well. He cooked breakfast for me and we’d go shopping together on P-Days and in the mornings before breakfast he’d jog around and do pull-ups with his shirt off and I’d do anything but look at him because my face would break out in a sweat so intense he’d think I was crying and come over to see if I was OK and somehow make it worse. He let me play D&D with myself in the evenings even though it was against mission rules because he knew how lonely and stressed I was.

I remember one of my companions was a big chubby man with a loud voice and a great sense of humor. He was kind and direct when addressing conflicts with me, and always bragged about how he knew the secrets of women’s minds and it felt like he really did since it almost always boiled down to “Treat Them Like People and Love Them a Lot. Don’t Stop Being A Person For Them. Also Eat Them Out Sloppy Style.” Our P-Day activities sometimes felt like dates, and it seemed like he was more attentive to my emotional state than I was since he was always the first to suggest we slow down our Divinely Mandated, God-Ordained, Super Sacred Work and Wonder to get a snack or check out a Pawn Shop (I love Pawn Shops).

I remember another companion who asked me to bully him every time he did something against his goal of losing weight. It was like he gave me Carte Blanche to take out my crush on him by being a nuisance and I LOVED that. I remember having a breakdown one day after we’d spent the afternoon frantically cleaning our disgusting-barely-habitable mission house to make it look less vile that it was (not our fault imo?) and I started bawling and he pulled me into a hug and he smelled good and he told me he knew it wasn’t just the house and that I was mad at him for being a Huge Dickhead for about a week (true) and that he would work on it. (He’s also a huge chaser but that’s a separate thing.)

I remember one of my companions waking up early (and our schedule is already built for sleep deprivation) to make me a “birthday cake” from knock-off Nutella and bread. He used matches for candles and woke me up, lit the ‘candles,’ pulled them out, then smashed it in my face and took a bunch of pictures while I was still madrugada and disoriented as fuck. He had the same sense of humor as one of my HS crushes and I could push his buttons pretty easily which was so fun.

I came home from my mission and started back at BYU where I became actively and aggressively suicidal. I had a stalker the year I moved up there and my dad’s solution to that was to get me a gun. I know he wouldn’t have bought me a gun if he could have read my mind, but I had a loaded pistol under my bed during a trifecta faith/sexuality/gender crisis and that was not helpful. I remember that the day I decided to kill myself I figured I’d call the BYU CAPS and see if I could get into therapy because it felt like what I was “supposed to do” so I could check my suicide boxes. My therapist was the guy who’d helped me pick a major the year before and was this drop-dead gorgeous Hawaiian man who cried when I told him how I’d been feeling.

A few weeks into therapy I met another stunning man with soft eyes and a scruffy illegal-at-BYU beard he kept pushing his luck with. He was funny, kind, patient, married, and wouldn’t give me the time of day if he knew I was crushing on him. We were in my history of psych class, which was inarguably the worst psych class I have ever had, and we studied together for every assignment and test and I realized that my feelings for him and for all the men I’d already mentioned were in direct conflict with my faith and relationship with God. My already agonizing spiritual conflict became even more wretched and as a result of this plus some other tightly-packed experiences with Mormonisms bullshit, I left the church.

After leaving the church I decided to move back to AZ and transfer to ASU. My mom helped me get a dog since I think it had started to dawn on my family that my mental health was barely getting me through the day, and she knew that we both loved dogs. Madi made my last year at BYU livable while I got my shit together and transferred. In that last year, I went on a date with quite possibly the only semi-openly-out trans person on BYU campus. It was not a great date imo, I was not doing well, but the person I spoke with was fun and fascinating and talked to me about Gender Dysphoria and it really cemented my need to go. To leave and never come back to that fucking school.

I started at ASU a month after my last semester at BYU and within a very short time frame it felt like I was coming back together, like a puzzle magically putting itself together in an environment that wasn’t slowly draining that puzzle’s will to live.

On the 4th of July, the year I started at ASU, I saw a transition timeline photo of a gorgeous happy beautiful happy radiant happy woman and her former Mormon missionary self and I realized the light that was on in her eyes was the light that was off in mine. I looked into transitioning for 3 days, sleeping about 10 hours total during that time. I started talking to other trans people on Reddit (one of whom is now my beautiful fiancée @cintailed) and after about a month of making preparations to be disowned and kicked out, something I was not sure would happen but was ready to go through to Turn On The Lights, I came out to my family and it was amazing. I started HRT a month after that. I secretly dated some dorky guys for about a year while I applied to grad schools. I got into a great grad school for me and my needs. I got FFS. I did my trainings and classes. Me and my fiancée moved in together after some LDR shenanigans. We’ve lived together now for 4 years of basically marital bliss. We have a cat named Grandmother Esmeralda Weatherwax who bites the hell out of my feet about three times a day. My bi-cycle continues to be part of my life but now it’s not as scary. Baby gays in my life have started to look to me for advice. Idk how this all happened so fast. When the years, months, weeks, days, and hours seems to crawl by so slowly now they are rushing past me so fast it’s almost bewildering. Whereas before I felt like I was living on borrowed time, past my ‘expiration date,’ now it feels like I can Fucking Breathe. I’m training myself to slow down now and it feels worth it to Live In The Moment.

Idk why I wrote this. Idk why these thoughts only seem to come up on Sundays when I’m supposed to be writing my dissertation. Idk why I’m crying rn or why I feel so happy. I’m gonna post this shit then get on with my dissertation I guess. Read more Terry Pratchett and give yourselves the time you need. Get a pet. Talk to someone. Re-examine the events that brought you here. Be gayer. Love y’all 💕

[the-rad1o-demon]

So far, chances of KOSA being enacted is 31% according to the site linked below.

Let's get that fucker down to zero, guys!!

Stuff to help us do that is linked here!

The call scripts linked below were originally for Congressional representatives, but now that the bill is in committee consideration by Senate Commerce, you should call your Senators instead and you can use the scripts for them. Also, when calling your Democrat senators, make sure to add that Senator Blackburn explicitly stated in interview that it would be used to "protect children from the transgender." I think it's pretty clear that this is not meant to protect children. It's just going to harm children further, especially trans children.

(Article below with a video of the interview embedded.)

Please help stop this bill in its tracks. Reblog, donate, call your senators, and keep an eye on the bill's chances of being passed. We can't stop now. 31% is still kind of a big number. We need to shrink those chances by a lot more.

[loveerran]

Sometimes people wonder why I continue to have anything to do with the LDS church, let alone be an active member.

At least one reason is that our Heavenly Parents keep sending queer kids to LDS homes, and those queer kids need someone to tell them they are fully known, deeply loved and eternally valued members of our Heavenly Family. Without exception.

[thecrowscandle]

"The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor...Jesus never commanded me to love my religion."

—Barbara Brown Taylor

[the-rockinahard-place]

I hope the people in our little tumblrstake we have on here know just how much their words have helped me. Just seeing queer mormons is such a privilege. You’ve brought me a lot of guidance in this past year and you have strengthened my testimony to great heights. It is so simple what you do on here, yet so powerful. It has changed my life, and probably my future too. If church leadership was as progressive, accepting, and informational as tumblrstake then the church wouldn’t be viewed as it is today.

I told my classmate today that I was going to mormon prom, which led her to ask me if I was mormon. When I told her I was, her jaw literally dropped. It was obvious that she couldn’t imagine someone like me ( queer af ) being in the church. She has a small perspective of who I am, and a small perspective of what the church is. Unfortunately, they were far too different things in her head, to be seen mixed together. It hurt realizing that some people see the church that way, as this bad thing. I’ve been so fortunate to have a mostly accepting ward and a special place in queerstake, that I’ve forgotten our reputation and our dark history and our not very accepting “brothers and sisters” that when I say I’m mormon to someone, they react like I just came out to them.

know that our LDS blogs in our tiny corner of tumblr proves to be more than just a small community. It is a life line keeping me holding on to that iron rod and I’m sure so many others aswell. I thank everyone for all that you’ve done here. You represent the real church of jesus christ of latter day saints.

[chanxoxyeol]

Just came out to my mother who is visiting me from Utah because I fucking forgot to take down this goofy ass flag.

[anghraine]

jenndoesnotcare replied to this post:

Every time LDS kids come to my neighborhood I am so so nice to them. I hope they remember the blue haired lady who was kind, when people try to convince them the outside world is bad and scary. (Also they are always so young! I want to feed them cookies and give them Diana Wynne Jones books or something)

Thank you! Honestly, this sort of kindness can go a really long way, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.

LDS children and missionaries (and the majority of the latter are barely of age) are often the people who interact the most with non-Mormons on a daily basis, and thus are kind of the "face" of the Church to non-Mormons a lot of the time. As a result, they're frequently the ones who actually experience the brunt of antagonism towards the Church, which only reinforces the distrust they've already been taught to feel towards the rest of the world.

It's not that the Church doesn't deserve this antagonism, but a lot of people seem to take this enormous pride in showing up Mormon teenagers who have spent most of their lives under intense social pressure, instruction, expectation, and close observation from both their peers and from older authorities in the Church (it largely operates on seniority, so young unmarried people in particular tend to have very little power within its hierarchies). Being "owned" for clout by non-Mormons doesn't prove anything to most of them except that their leaders and parents are right and they can't trust people outside the Church.

The fact that the Church usually does provide a tightly-knit community, a distinct and familiar culture, and a well-developed infrastructure for supporting its members' needs as long as they do [xyz] means that there can be very concrete benefits to staying in the Church, staying closeted, whatever. So if, additionally, a Mormon kid has every reason to think that nobody outside the Church is going to extend compassion or kindness towards them, that the rest of the world really is as hostile and dangerous as they've been told, the stakes for leaving are all the higher, despite the costs of staying.

So people from "outside" who disrupt this narrative of a hostile, threatening world that cannot conceivably understand their experiences or perspectives can be really important. It's important for them to know that there are communities and reliable support systems outside the Church, that leaving the Church does not have to mean being a pariah in every context, that there are concrete resources outside the Church, that compassion and decency in ordinary day-to-day life is not the province of any particular religion or sect and can be found anywhere. This kind of information can be really important evidence for people to have when they are deciding how much they're willing to risk losing.

So yeah, all of this is to say that you're doing a good thing that may well provide a lifeline for very vulnerable people, even if you don't personally see results at the time.

[saxophonecathedral7]

for my entire life in the mormon church all I've heard in regards to the LGBTQ+ community are things like "it's not wrong to feel it but it is wrong to act on those feelings" and "I'm tempted to drink coffee sometimes but I resist it; why can't you?" and I've probably spent way too much time and energy trying to figure out what makes people think this, but it was and still is just so utterly baffling to me. it's not just a "temptation," it's who I am. you couldn't stop being straight by just remaining celibate, why do you expect me to?

I think that a huge part of it is that they think of being queer solely through the lens of sex and sexual attraction. they don't understand that it's a part of our identities, they don't understand that we love each other and have silly romantic crushes like they do. they think of it only as sexual preference, the "parts" you prefer, or sometimes just some weird kink. once someone from church asked me when I "started having these feelings." I told them that I put the pieces together when I was 15 but that I'd been a lesbian for long before that, and I specifically remember having a crush on a girl when I was in 3rd grade. they responded that they don't believe that, because "children don't think about sex."

And this is such a wildly warped way of seeing queerness. if this is how you view it, you will never, ever fully understand us. because it makes it sound so simple, doesn't it? oh, so you just want to have sex with women? then just don't have sex with women, easy. everyone has to do that at some point. every straight person has to abstain, why shouldn't you have to? and that's what drives me nuts. we literally have emotions and feelings and attractions that are just as complex as yours.

we don't "struggle with same-sex attraction." we are queer.

(for the record I understand that for a lot of queer people, sexual attraction makes up most or all of their experience, and that is 100% valid. it's just incredibly unfair and ignorant to label every queer person in the history of the world that way)

[brothermouse]

Sunday doodles 6/2/25 Fast Sunday

And, because I like tumblr better than any of my other socials, a Pride month bonus doodle:

[lizardho]

I read your post from october. My mom was born into the mormon church and her childhood was hell. She was not ... fit? to be a parent, but she had my brother and I, our childhoods were not great either, though I did try the church until some bad stuff with a step father happened when I was 8 or so...

The thing that has me writing you though, I had a cousin, she was lovely, about ten years younger than me. We connected when I was about thirty, and we talked some. It fell off though.

In 2023 my aunt, her mother, contacted me because my grandmother had passed away. I think I asked about my cousin and she told me that she had killed herself. My cousin was gay, or even more than gay, we never got deeply into it. Her household growing up was very deeply mormon.

When I think of the church, when missionaries come to my house, because they do... I think about my cousin, and her lovely smile and how different her life might have been if her family had not been mormon. How she might still be here, how if I had kept in better contact she might not be gone.

Thank you for sharing your story.

I hate that this story is so common, and I’m so sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing your story with me. The pain that comes with the loss of a loved one is sacred and special in a way that’s hard to articulate. I’m touched that my writing helped you feel that I could respect that story and those feelings.

[the-rad1o-demon]

[Image ID (sorta, basically just the text from it):

GET KOSA TRENDING.

STOP SCROLLING NOW!

AS OF FEBRUARY 21ST, 2024, WE GOT FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE DAY OF DECISION OF THE KOSA BILL, WHICH WILL CAUSE MASS CENSORSHIP ROUND THE INTERNET IF PASSED. OR DOOMSDAY. WE NEED EVERYONE TO KNOW ABOUT THIS AND CONTRIBUTE. I'M NOT GIVING UP ON YOU ALL.

WE'RE DOWN TO THE WIRE BUT WE CAN'T GIVE UP YET. IF WE GIVE UP, EVERYTHING IS OVER. IF WE DON'T, AT LEAST WE HAVE A CHANCE.

I'M THE ONE WHO SOUNDED THE ALARM, AND I'M NOT GOING TO CURL UP AND DIE YET.

Reblog this post in every LEGAL way you can under the Tumblr guidelines with the appropriate tags. TELL AND TAG EVERYONE YOU KNOW, then add the tags to see below... and more if you can think of any complying.

Visit badinternetbills.com if you want to find a way to defeat KOSA. It WILL NOT take much of your time. Reblog with any other information or sources, too-- but make sure to reblog if you can.

Reblog if you support lgbtq+ content.

Reblog if you support questioning queer youth and/or abused youth getting the information they need.

Reblog if you support Ao3 and/or other sites that wholeheartedly preserve talentedly made media.

Reblog if you're going to repost this on other sites than Tumblr and spread the word across Twitter, Tik Tok, Pinterest, or elsewhere, alongside the link to badinternetbills.com.

END image ID]

Hey, everyone. So yeah, this is happening. We're still fighting this battle. And we can't give up now. We can't. We can't stand idly by while one of the most important resources that helped us all wake up, or at least start to question things, is being threatened by the government.

We can't stand idly by when kids, teens, and adults just like us still trapped inside might lose access to the resource that could help them wake up. We can't stand idly by when they might lose access to their non JW friends and family. We CAN'T stand idly by when we can do something to stop this bill from passing.

I am sick and tired of this same old song, where conservative fuckers higher up think they can oppress everyone. I am FUCKING SICK of it.

Please, reblog both this post and the original post linked above what I've written, and do what you can to stop KOSA, please. We are running out of time.

I suggest that if it is within your power to do so, that you do more than simply reblog and assume someone else will do something. DON'T assume that. Please do more than just reblogging if you are able to, because that's not really enough at this point.

Call/email representatives in the House and tell them to oppose KOSA (you may want to list different reasons depending on who you're calling, some House representatives are anti-LGBTQ+, so it may be best to tell them to oppose because it violates people's privacy, safety, and anonymity online). Print posters and put them up where legal if you can.

Sharing all this information to other social media sites (Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, the bird app) to reach more people can really help too. The wider the reach, the better.

Thank you. Now let's fucking rip that bill apart like we rip apart Watchtower magazines and eat it for fucking breakfast. (In a "we're eating it and the politicians who are sponsoring it are looking on in horror" kind of way)

[loveerran]

What does 'Sensitivity, kindness, compassion and Christlike love' feel like?

A new church policy affecting transgender members of the LDS church has recently been implemented. This new Policy of Exclusion severely restricts or eliminates baptism (38.2.8.9), fellowship and opportunities for service for transgender members - including transgender children. Insofar as I am able to tell, it treats transgender members, who have transitioned in any way, worse than convicted child molester members (treatment of convicted child abusers who are members, including child sexual abuse, in 38.6.2.5 vs. guidance for church participation of transgender members, including transgender children).

If the default setting for a transgender member, including a transgender child, is to be treated by their congregation more severely than a convicted adult sexual predator of children, can you see why some of us are having difficulty feeling the church's stated 'sensitivity, kindness, compassion and Christlike love' for us? Why we may feel we are not part of 'All are welcome'?

[thecrowscandle]

I feel like when a lot of people talk about “worldly things” or being “in the world, not of the world” misunderstand what “the world” is. The world isn’t all the horrible people who don’t live the way church members do or “attacking the family”, which is usually a sugarcoated way of bashing on people who are different. The world is the influence of darkness, hate, pride, envy, selfishness, greed, etc., the things that are antithetical to who God is and who we are to become. All people are prone to be susceptible to those impulses, but we can change and improve because we are of divine substance. The people aren’t the problem with the world, it’s what the world does to people. And I think that a lot of rhetoric in the church is directed at people or groups when in reality it’s what people are subject to that needs attention

[the-rockinahard-place]

I knew it was gonna happen anyway, but I still had hope. I clung onto the “What if?” I thought that because the patriarch forgot that my parents told him I was a girl at the end of our pre-blessing meet up session that I wouldn't get misgendered in my blessing. but then I found out I couldn’t be alone during my blessing because his wife wasn’t going to be there. This meant I would need one of my parents in the room. Even when I told my parents I wanted to do this alone they still didn’t take my wish seriously.

So when the time came, my parents had made sure he wouldn’t forget this time. And my dad got to sit there and listen to the blessing. The blessing I have dedicated myself to for the past month and a half. I tried so hard to make sure I could feel the spirit today. I fasted, I prayed, I read my scriptures, ect. I felt good, hungry from fasting, but good. I had new dress shoes on, new dress pants and socks, and a nice button up and belt. I felt euphoric all day because of this. And there was a powerful spirit in the room. I could feel it and it was truly amazing, but each time he would misgender me it felt like getting stabbed in the chest.

The mental battle to focus on the meaning of his words instead of the face front value, to remind myself that god knows me and wouldn’t call me that, that what the patriarch is saying is just his own personal interpretation of god's words. Trying to remind myself of those things was draining. And it made me frustrated and upset that I let myself get so hopeful. I wish I waited til college where I could’ve gotten to actually be alone, yet at the same time I know there was a reason I got the blessing at this point in my life. That this pain had a purpose. The only way I can explain how I know this, is that I know God knows I’m trans and understands what it feels like to be in my shoes.

All these mixed feelings of spiritual uplift and gender dysphoria left me silent. I had some time to think. In the silence I thought about the future, about when trans people are finally accepted into the church. How when that day comes, difficulties such as getting baptized in a dress as a boy won’t be an issue. Or getting misgendered in your patriarchal blessing could be adjusted later. Or trans people could pass out the sacrament, visit temples, get sealed in temples. I looked for ways the church could expand its ideals to be more accommodating. I did this because it helped remind me that I am simply working with what I’ve been given. I am on my own with this in my personal life. I have had no representation to look toward in this. Its always been a leap of faith. So I hope my experience has helped other trans people in the church and I hope my experience has opened the eyes of cis members in the church.

[your-blorbos-are-queer]

elder mckinley from the book of mormon is gay (canon)

submitted by @richie-shitlips

[goldenstorm0]

shout out to that one time my mom was struggling to not accidentally misgender a student.

The kid presented very non binary and had a unisex name. This was right after election and understandably a lot of kids were stressed, so if someone just couldn't handle the day they were told to chill in a different classroom for as long as they needed (all special ed, idk what gen ed was like but this isn't uncommon for them, just higher volume than usual). So she had this kid, and my morman ass mom who does her damndest to be an ally, first tried to guess their pronouns by asking the kid's name. And when that didn't work, looked them up in the system but then realized that wouldn't be accurate. So she tried asking around the different teacher aids but no one had worked with this particular kid before.

So by the end of the day, she admitted defeat and finally just. asked. but she was so tired and not thinking straight. So finally she said:

"so sorry to ask, I don't want to come across rude, but are your pronouns she/him or he/her?"

All of the queer people I've told this to think its the cutest thing ever, my poor mother is mortified by it, and I promise to never let her forget