#also if i have any information wrong you can tell me that'd be cool to know

[faenix-fire]

I went and got too much data out together for this but I wanted to add more. I'm going to go in this layer by layer like an onion starting with what's mostly known and talked about on Tumblr which is the attack on the queer community.

The attack on LGBTQIA+ youth is what Mormons see it as attack on purity. Theirs a level of performance that's expected at all times, certain people can get away with failing but there's those on the chopping block who's performance allows them a place to stay, a home, and acceptance.

In Utah, the mormon center there's a high level of mental illness and it goes from children to adults.

Utah is the highest in the following.

Now there's multiple factors behind this and one being the culture. The performance is an emotionally draining one and your not really aware enough to complain about it and if you are no one is going to understand.

Now POC, Queer people, and people who don't practice Mormonism are at a disadvantage. Many of them are more likely to face abuse, be let go from work, and face discrimination without help or resources. The problem is they're left out of the Mormon sphere, which is big, and that leaves them out of recourses. They can't connect to therapists who promote and believe in homophobic and racist ideas supported by the community. There's little anyone can do but cling to each other and that's if they can find one another.

In Mormonism your taught skills you should develop and people you should try to emulate. Standing out too much is a bad things. You don't want to be caught trying to "not be like other girls" you want to fit in and be the best performer.

There are a lot of common teachings of being a community and working together. Often using bees or sheep as a symbol. It's expected that you follow each other you get along and you don't be yourself. That's the key. You can't be yourself so everyone has to live towards an unhappy, unfulfilled, shitty goal. And Mormonism spreads this around the globe.

Adding more the statistics below:

The suicide belt:

Percentage of Mormonism:

The Rocky mountains:

Now higher altitudes can cause an increase in depression and anxiety as well as bad moods in general. The mountains do not help those in this area and adding a high demand religion isn't going to help. Looking at Utah data above there's a very different data for Utah vs it's neighbors. Suicide is the national low but it's the highest form of death for teens.

The pressure put on teenagers is astounding. I was raised in Utah myself it's why I care about this topic. Everyone I knew in school was suffering horribly. In one of my years of highschool the yearbook had three pages dedicated to kids who had died that year and all but one was suicide. They had barely anything there for them in the book, just a picture and names, all all of them were POC, non church members or openly Queer. Non of them had a support system they were outcasts. They didn't act the right way and so they've never been loved when they most needed it.

Those on the top in my teen years we're at best walking ghosts. I never saw them passionate about anything, they just were there and they did anything they were told and that's it. They didn't snort at jokes or act goofy. They were adored by adults for their behavior. Often these kids were pulled away from the group and praised by the opposite sex who were at least old enough to be their parent. They were told they were perfect marriage material. Their skills they worked on were encouraged and pushed as a performance for them to put in for these adults. "Show us how good you can sing, cook, wood work, knit, babysit, fix a car" It was grooming and in a way that was celebrated and isolating. Those kids, I believe, we're whisked away into dangerous and unsafe situations often almost weekly, even daily.

This all is not new either. It's always been the case or Mormonism. Joseph Smith, the founder, married a 14 year old girl, and although it was legal, the non members in the area of course didn't like it. It was still seen as archaic and disgusting even then.

And Mormonism had a lot of wars during it's founding because it kept growing and it's beliefs and cult like attitude was scaring people. They were getting multiple wives and they were changing the laws and culture. The church was closed off and holding secret ceremonies that people couldn't learn about and that looked dangerous. The leader had even been known to be convicted of fraud multiple times before this all started.

And it didn't get better. Joseph Smith prophesied of the governor dying a horrible death and not to long later he was shot in the neck and head. The governor survived surprisingly when he wasn't predicted to live by his doctor. One of Joseph's people had been conveniently in town and the Mormons had assumed him dead before they'd heard he survived or even was hurt at all. There wasn't enough proof to convict but the action led to his death because of a mob.

This only pushed Mormonism forward because Brigham Young took over and he pushed people to move west. He was also probably the worst fucking prophet I wouldn't know where to start everything about him is a nightmare and some far right people now days call him a "Chad" rather then "insane nut case monster" like they should.

If you live in this area then you may have been in the Mormon fantasy state if things went well. Also this amount on land of you can tell us huge. Utah from top to bottom can take five to six hours by car. This picture has basically all of Utah, Nevada, a majority of Arizona, the entire border where Nevada and California, most of the bottom of California, and little parts of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, and Oregon.

This brings me to the term Deseret, a word still used today. The Mormon owned newspaper is called Deseret News. Many of the affects of Mormonism still affects these areas and their foundings.

Mormonism shaped the west, literally.

A good portion of the FBI and CIA is Mormon. Also a large percentage of Mormons serve in the military. My cousin severed to get away from my family and find a group that could protect him from Mormons which was the government.

As much of the founding is retold often and can seem boring it all explains where Mormonism sits now. The stuff less known is deeper down.

There's also the weird stuff people like to talk about.

Also a lot schizophrenics are diagnosed in Utah (me) and surounding areas and there's a high correlation with them being Mormon. Schizophrenia can come from abuse and often in my experience it seems to be from people around you trying to disillusion you from reality. A religion full of illusions you can't question no matter what the followers do to you is a great testing group for mental illness. My aunt who was diagnosed never really got help. She ran away from home off to silicone valley to chase her dreams. She ended up in Scientology and in debt. She ran away from there too off to the mountains to seclude herself. She believed that the government was a Christian state and it was going to come for her. She ended up dying because she believed her food and water was poisoned. Mormons follow when you leave and they did follow her, not the scientologists. If they hadn't she wouldn't have been as paranoid and she wouldn't have ran off to the woods. Mormons stalking where you move helped kill her and I can't just forget that.

Salt Lake has underground secret tunnels. Of course it's less terrifying then it sounds but the high church members use them as a way to travel around the city. They actually have more protection then the president of the United States. I believe it was George Bush that went down in the tunnels when he visited Utah. They also have secret mountains full of documents. Sure all that sounds so bizarre and mysterious but there's worse secrets hidden in Utah.

Mormons were a huge factor in indigenous kids being rehomed and schooled. Knowing and seeing with my own eyes the effects of what they did, it's just awful. I've met survivors, I've actually set foot at one of the school grounds, it wasn't well kept at that point. It's mostly gone now but that school had once been a war hospital for WWII, it got repurposed for the students. We know kids have gone missing at these schools in Canada we know it by what has been found and the knowledge of lost kids. It wasn't exactly the same for the schools in Utah but there's kids who died from suicide and poisoning, ones with sexual abuse from the people they stayed with, as well as physical abuse, and extreme racism from the communities.

The church will not acknowledge when they did, the groups affected continue to meet together for community get togethers and they're lovely to talk to. Much of the important parts of the school that could be salvaged after it was left abandoned has been put in safe displays. There's art and photos and people have shared memories of the time. Still even though it was "better" then what many other schools are the time we're dealing with it's still a form of cultural genocide, many haven't rekindled their connection to their culture and that's cut a history away that can't come back.

This isn't a unique story to Utah with Mormonism either, they've conducted their interactions with the air of nice intentions across the globe. There's been blood and cultural death in the ground that Mormons tread from the very begging and it still remains.

This is why I try to tell people that Mormonism is America as a religion. It's promotes everything the states have always tried to be and it still spreads the message of conversion.

This stuff hasn't ended it has always continued and is still continuing. Many island cultures have fallen into a horrible place because of Mormon missionaries. The Polynesian cultural centre as mentioned above in a previous post is in possession of the Mormon church. They have control of what you see in the cultural centers and they get to dictate their culture for others to believe. They hold stakes in Hawai'i and what is taught to people. It's cultural genocide and they don't only do it to Hawai'i. American Samoa, and Samoa are both places that are affected. Their tattoos were shamed by the Mormons that colonized and proselytized.

Mormons loves to consume culture, are even encouraged too, and do so without actually respecting it. They can follow all the rules, even learn the language, but none of it is for anything other then conversion. I've heard and seen young men in Utah use racial slurs directed at staff in Ethiopian restaurants while speaking the language themselves. It's not about love for the people, it's about wanting to consume and dilute everything into Mormonism. It's something that comes second to the gospel, and nothing, not even heritage comes before Mormonism. That's not truly how it is though because Mormon culture is allowed to mix with the religion and much of it is American and European. It it just not allowed for groups that are not already following the white cultural beliefs. They're shunning foods people eat or religious practices that are seen as a sin.

This is what leads into my last big point. Mormonism is fascistic. Mormonism has been mentioned to have members, multiple, try to baptize Hitler. This is something you might hear and it talked about more openly then most things. This is knowledge that is on the outer layer of the Mormonism onion but it's also at the center. In WWII Mormons were not persecuted in Germany when Jehovah witnesses and Jews were. Mormons in Utah even liked Hitler and he had a following in Mormon spaces, people praised him for not drinking alcohol and eating healthy.

The church had this all pointed out pretty recently so they brought up a young boy, the youngest to ever ordered to be put to death by Hitler himself. He was Mormon and he was Jewish. The church, after the information above broken news, used this boy to promote themselves as not in line with Nazis. The problem with the story is the church had had him excommunicated, that means he was kicked out. Now, usually the prophet does that but this one had been unlawful, the members in Germany had removed him because he was Jewish. He got reinstated far to late and only to look better during the war. He died after standing up against the government and none of the members stood with him and even condemned him as well. The church at the time had made no stance on the matter of on the war itself of his death. Only after they were under fire recently did they dig up his name for PR. They'd never mentioned him as a hero or brave, nothing, not till they were mentioned in a specific book.

One of the other layers of Mormonism is that it's runs like a business. Everything is run as squeaky clean as you can get it while having underqualified people work in it. Each member is like a worker promoting their brand with a smile. Each member creates their own little members and converts others. The Mormon Corridor, also called Morridor by people here, is often perfect places for mlm's and pyramid schemes. There are many terfs, mlm mom's, vaccine disbelievers, and the hostile vegans and all in high numbers. It's a perfect place to get people who are in a community that already functions like these groups. You share and pass along messages of recruitment, you drop different lifestyles and adopt new ones, you persecute and play victim and so on.

This all leads Mormons to be easy recruiters because they listen and believe in group mentality. They've been taught not to think for themselves.

There a whole bunch of things the church gets money from business wise and their school (BYU) is a business school primarily. They own large swaths of land, enough parts that they have sway in things you can't even imagine.

Everything they touch brings them money, their followers bring them money, you who buys or interacts with anything Mormon or distantly Mormon gives them money. They sit on piles of cash and assets that go far beyond what a church needs. If you spending and money that touched a Mormon property, asset, member, or holding all trickles up to the church and they hold on to most of it.

Below are just some the things they get money from.

The church just like it's fancy temples and sweet smiley people, all of it is the surface. It holds beliefs that haven't changed as much as it seems.

Currently there's a group called DezNat, and as much as pulling a Deez Nuts joke on them is fun this problem is very serious. They're a alt right group that want Utah to be it's own country and stand out as Deseret as Brigham Young wanted. They had members in the kiwi farms, the proud boys, the January 6 attack. Last year a group tried to attend a pride parade in Idaho and many were Mormon and likely frequent these groups.

In the Ex Mormon spaces in including ones for chatting like discord, there are these people the hunt, watch, and take screenshots. Pretty much all my ex Mormon friends that are Queer or POC have been harassed for stating problems with the church online even in places they think are safe. They've been doxed for tweets and their accounts on social media you can find is searches next to DezNat. These groups on the alt right work together and help each other. There have been times we've sat and read their private conversations from the inside and It's all about wanted to cull people like cattle and take of the Us.

It also doesn't help how many death threats they send. I don't know if my favorite photo threat to receive is the Bowie knife that they love because Brigham Young cut up people who left the church or looking down the barrel of their favorite gun in a selfie with their head covered. (There's also here in Tumblr so it'll be interesting if I get any harassment here.)

The church hasn't made much of a statement about DezNat's even though they've been in the news, even getting on the today show in New York. They often make a fool of themselves for news but they're still a threat to people. They are working with groups around the globe and getting my friends attacked all while they're adult men with families. These guys smile at church and seem like that sweet guy who gives out candy in church lessons, they're seen to Mormons as police officers the protect, businessman, accountants ect. Mormons don't know and I don't think they'd know how to respond if they knew. Most Mormon women would divorce their husband if he was found looking at porn but not if he was a DezNat, that's a problem.

Mormonism hides it's biggest issues where only those hurting and attacked reside, it's why they are told not to listen to us. We Ex-Mormons are less Intresting to people outside then members trying to explain their beliefs or the weird secret mysteries. Mormonism is often seen as funny or a gag when it's quietly smothering like binds that are reshaping your body as your grow.

Not enough people know the truth only what's fun to tell as a story. It shouldn't be that way, people should know the truth.

Here's some resources on some of the information I said, most just people's thoughts and news. Not all of it is made by people against the church or groups not aligned with them but they bring up some of the data and screenshots I used. (None are if the Utah mental health charts because it's not directly related to the church more a symptom. You can look up the charts if you want)

Some about racism and colonization (they are all important but 7-10 is more indepth about the residential school I mentioned above):

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Some of the LGBTQ problems and the sexual purity culture at BYU(Mormon collage with three locations):

1 2 3 4 5

Mormonism being a business and group think (including FBI stuff):

1 2 3 4 5

Mormonism and Nazis (the third is a great YouTube channel on a lot of Mormon topics):

1 2 3 4 5

Not enough people know the Mormons believe Native Americans are Jewish people who turned away from God and got cursed by having their skin darkened, or that Mormons literally have Manifest Destiny right there in the text, no extrapolation. I’m not Native at all, but frankly, it’s one of the most disgusting things of that faith that caused me to utterly reject it. It is a vile religion that is white supremacist to its very core.

[opossumanon]

Here's why you shouldn't meet your heroes. Or just people who seem cool, cuz this douchebag I'm about to vent to yall about wasn't even my hero he just seemed like a cool person to talk to and then proved to be an asshole.

So a couple weeks ago I was at this conference being hosted at a good university, and it was a journalism and media thing where teens from all over the US and its territories come and learn about the field of journalism and practice and meet other journalists. It also yapped on and on about diversity and inclusion, but was actually fucking terrible about inclusion, but that's a whole other can of worms cuz today I just wanna vent about one specific bad moment.

So nearing the end of the conference was an event where we'd split up and be lectured by different journalists or professors of our choosing, and then there would be a "mixer" where we got snacks and then had the opportunity to chat with the speakers that we didn't get to see. I wanted to go with this one guy that I'm calling Guy, but all the tickets for his thing ran out so I went to another guy who had a REALLY good presentation but was also a classist dick (again, another can of worms). During the mixer, I struggled to get the opportunity to talk to Guy cuz I was so nervous and wasn't sure how to ask my questions without being boring or weird. Eventually my friends at the conference bullied me into doing it and so I waited in line to speak to him, watching as he was all energetic and charming and nice to a normal-looking girl talking to him and watched as he gave her his card. This detail is important.

Eventually the girl left and it was my turn to talk to Guy, and I explained how I couldn't see him speak even though I wanted to and I asked about what he was talking about, and he gave this really paraphrased answer that felt kinda bland? Like he threw in a very short summary of a story he told but it still felt rushed and like he was detached while telling it. It ended with me realizing that he probably wouldn't spill any tea to me personally so I went "Hey do you have anything else that I could look at to get more information?? A website, video, etc??? Or could I just get your card?" and he deadass said (I'm paraphrasing here)

"No, I don't think that'd help you."

Like wtf???????

(For anybody confused as to why I'm upset: In any sort of professional setting where a person has a card, asking for it is the most basic polite thing you can do to the point where people don't even have to ask cuz the other person will just go "Hey you want my card" and hand it over. Guy refusing to give me his card, when I knew for certain that he had one, was the professional equivalent of me reaching out to give him a handshake and him recoiling in disgust. I'm pretty sure he did this as blatantly as he did because he assumed that I'd be clueless about this sort of thing like most of my peers were.)

Looking back I can't find a single thing I did wrong. I waited in line patiently, introduced myself and shook his hand, made eye contact, etc etc. I wasn't even chatting with him for longer than 2 minutes before I gave up and went "I should go now cuz the guy behind me wants to talk to you too, have a good night" and left so it wasn't like I had him trapped talking with me for an hour. By the time I went back to my dorm, I was genuinely on the verge of tears and I felt useless and like I wouldn't be able to accomplish anything...Yknow, at the conference where they've been going on and on and on about how we're all special and are on track to be good journalists and stuff like that.

After 10 minutes of being blinded by tears and sniffling to my heart's content I switched to being angry and decided that I wanted to start a podcast starring weird people, being about weird people, and having an audience of weird people. I still wanna do this because the power of spite is absolutely a thing, but there's also a part of me that wants to back away from anything journalism/media related at all because I feel so fucking crushed from how Guy treated me. A lot of the self confidence that I spent YEARS trying to build back up from nothing was basically knocked over thanks to him.

I don't have much of a lesson to teach, I'm just still upset about this weeks later and I needed to get it out is all, but what this event taught me specifically was

I'll never be seen as normal or taken seriously, no matter how good my neurotypical cis white guy cosplay is

Professors of massive universities are pieces of shit and I'm probably gonna avoid going to them for advice in the future

Higher education is a good thing that all people should have access to if they wish, but also the people you find in higher education settings tend to be classist/elitist pricks who look down on people who don't walk, talk, act, or look like the "typical intellectual" (White person who's obviously upper middle class or higher who's neurotypical and cishet and able-bodied) and therefore making higher education available for everyone is and will continue to be a useless fucking endeavor until we flush out the intense biases against people who don't fit the "typical intellectual" within the system.