LGBT: Lots of Gay, Busy Things

Whew, what a busy week! And a lot of the busy things were related to being gay.

My calling in my ward is to oversee and organize service projects. While I don't know of any specific incidents of this, I hear that many LGBTQ+ youth get kicked out of their homes. So I wondered if I use my calling to help homeless youth. I organized a project to collect supplies for hygiene kits for homeless kids in the Davis County School District.

I created a signup sheet for donations, and we were getting close to the event on Monday evening, but people weren't signing up. I was worried I would have to go and buy lots of supplies at the last minute. But! My ward came through, and we had plenty of donations and then some. We assembled the kits Monday, and my cochair delivered them Friday. I was really pleased with how successful the project ended up.

I had two free evenings this week, so I had to hit the Wild Rose Trail, and I encountered a tarantula friend. They come out in August and September, and they're always fun to see. They're better trail companions than rattlesnakes!

On Thursday, I got my edits back on my upcoming Pioneer Day article. So this week I will have to go through and accept (or reject) their suggestions. It might have been nice to get them back during a less busy time, but I'm pleased to be that much closer to publication!

Back in July, I met an up-and-coming scholar in Mormon studies named Calvin, who is also gay, and this week he invited me to a live recording of Mormon Land at the University of Utah. Mormon Land was my favorite podcast, but it became my second favorite when I started listening to Questions from the Closet. In honor of Mormon Land's three hundredth episode, they hosted this live event for special guests Richard and Claudia Bushman. Richard Bushman is the author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, a forthright biography, and he just wrapped up work on a book about the gold plates. I will have to check it out. To prepare for the presentation, I had to read Claudia's article about Columbus Day from my copy of Encyclopedia of American Holidays and National Days. I really enjoyed their presentation. They both had profound insights about Church history, the contemporary Church, and life. It was a good way to spend the evening before the Gather conference.

Gather

OK, so I'm going to do a detailed description of my thoughts of the conference, in large part so I have a record of it. If you get bored, you don't have to read it all.

Being a gay Latter-day Saint is difficult for a multitude of reasons, including the fact that some Church leaders don't mourn with us, comfort us, or make our burdens light, as the baptismal covenant says to do (Mosiah 18:8–9). In fact, some of them tend to do the opposite. So it is so important to find support from others in the same situation.

This past year, I have attended Zoom meetings for Lift + Love, one of many pro-LGBTQ groups. They were one of the organizers behind this first-ever Gather conference. This particular conference was aimed at being more of a middle ground than some of the existing conferences: more queer affirming than the orthodox North Star organization, a haven for those who endorse mixed-orientation marriages; and more spiritually affirming than Affirmation. I have never been to a gay conference before, so it was a good experience for me to go.

I do feel a little weird saying I'm part of the LGBTQ+ community, because I feel like I have nothing in common with the L or the T. I can relate to straight men, since I'm a man, and I can relate to straight women, since I'm attracted to men and am not terribly masculine. But I can't relate to being a woman or being interested in women. And I'm 100 percent cisgender, because I want nothing to do with the female body. But it is still good for me to learn from the experiences of others who are marginalized.

This conference was held in Provo at the Utah Valley Convention Center. There is a blog called "lowercase L" that makes fun of people writing a lowercase L when all the other letters are capitalized (i.e., they're writing an I instead of an L). I was surprised to see that UVCC had a printed sign with a lowercase L.

Sorry, I get paid to notice things like this

The MC for the conference was Steven Kapp Perry, a gay musician (married to a woman) and the son of Janice Kapp Perry. The first speaker was Iese Wilson, who was a gay student at BYU–Hawaii. As an introvert, I was a little annoyed with the audience participation. It was music oriented, and I like to joke that I'm not very good at being gay, since I'm not very musical and I don't like hugging. Then we heard from Clare Dalton, a lesbian seminary teacher. I found her talk very moving, but I already forgot what she said.

Then my therapist performed a couple of songs. Exactly a year ago at this time, I had just bought his CDs, and I was going through a really rough patch. So hearing him sing kind of triggered those negative emotions, but it was also a reminder that I'm in a better spot now than I was last year.

The keynote speaker was Steve Young, a straight ally. His talk had some good nuggets, but overall I thought they asked him to speak just because of the name recognition. However, I love that he uses his name recognition for good. He talked about speaking at Affirmation, and gay men would ask for a picture with him so they could send it to their dads and try to mend their relationships. He recently wrote a book called The Law of Love, published by Deseret Book. I didn't love the book—I didn't have anything against it, but again, it seemed like it was published just because it was Steve Young. I heard that his book was a #1 bestseller at Deseret Book, and it has a section about supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Can you believe that? That would have been unthinkable twenty years ago!

To close the Friday morning session, Janice Kapp Perry introduced a song she wrote specifically for the occasion, "All Are Alike unto God." She has two gay sons, and she got help from Meghan Decker, a lesbian, to understand the depth of our feelings. Two young singers performed the song. It was a lovely song, and it really captured the feelings of shame, brokenness, and worthlessness that queer people can feel. I hope it becomes more widely available so others can hear it.

After the session, my friend David introduced me to Steven Kapp Perry, and I told him that when I was fifteen, my stake performed his From Cumorah's Hill. The next day, he said hi to me, because he remembered meeting me (even though he didn't remember my name). I was flattered he would remember me, since he meets so many people. (And for a fleeting moment, I couldn't help but wonder if I had a memorably ugly face.)

We had a long lunch break, which I spent with a gay man and a trans woman.

For the second Friday session, we broke into three groups: LGBTQ+, parents and family, and allies and leaders. I of course went to the LGBTQ+ meeting, and I sat by a guy I had met on Zoom. He was talking, and a woman behind us said, "Listen to this guy's voice! It almost makes me straight!" My therapist's boyfriend did a presentation, and he had us raise our hands if we fit into certain interests. I only raised my hand when he asked the introverts to do so. (I could have raised it for liking game nights, except that I'm picky about games.) Then there was a panel with people in different situations: a lesbian married to a man, a lesbian with a girlfriend but they aren't getting married so they can have full Church participation, a lesbian married to a woman, a trans woman, a gay man married to a woman, a gay man who is choosing to be single after previously being in a relationship with a man, and a nonbinary individual. That was one of the main points of the conference: there are so many paths we can choose to follow, and all of them are valid for different people.

We had a dinner break before the evening "session," a live recording of the Questions from the Closet podcast to kick off a new season. The hosts have had major changes recently: Charlie Bird married his boyfriend, and Ben Schilaty is quitting his job at BYU to work for my therapist. I saw a woman there who I was sure I had been on a date with back in 2012, at the encouragement of a bishopric counselor. And there we both were at a gay conference! So I went up to talk to her afterwards—and it wasn't her. She was just the doppelganger of all doppelgangers. (I did find it curious she hadn't aged at all in eleven years.)

I headed back on Saturday morning, which opened with GENTRI, the Gentlemen Trio. They are very talented and attractive, but really they struck me as mom music. However, their gay pianist, Stephen Nelson, was impressive. They had the audience come up with a movie soundtrack (Jurassic Park) and a pop song ("You Need to Calm Down" by Taylor Swift, because of course queer people would pick that song, even though the person who chose it erroneously called it "You're Being Too Loud"). Within a few minutes, Stephen had concocted a piano mashup of the two songs. Like, it was mindbendingly impressive—it was the kind of thing I would expect would take several days of work (at least) to compose. GENTRI also sang a song Stephen felt had come straight to him from heaven, a song about feeling God's love in spite of being gay.

Then we heard from Liv Mendoza Haynes, a queer woman. She shared her experiences of feeling ashamed and suicidal. I only wrote down one thing the entire conference, and it was her closing line: "There is not a single verse that is worth losing another life." Then we heard from Michael Soto, a trans man. That was good to hear, because I feel like we usually hear from trans women. And then Ben Schilaty spoke before a brief break. During the break, I talked with a woman who was familiar with some of the things I've worked on, Wayfare magazine and At the Pulpit. 

After the break we heard from Bree Borrowman, a trans woman. I went to a fireside in February, and at that time she invited me to sit with them if no one else sat with me (others sat with me, so I didn't sit with her and her wife), and then I met her again at a dinner in July.

Then Tom Christofferson interviewed Darius Gray. Tom Christofferson is the gay younger brother of Elder D. Tood Christofferson, and I think he has a tragic story, giving up his partner for full Church participation. Darius Gray is not gay, but he was an original member of the Genesis group for Black Latter-day Saints back in the 1970s. Unfortunately, his voice was hard to understand on the microphone. But his story was heartbreaking and inspiring to hear. He learned about the priesthood-and-temple ban the night before his baptism, and on the first Sunday after his baptism, a young girl called him the n-word.

After lunch, we heard from the singer Ashley Hess. Then we heard from Charlie Bird—some people might have found his remarks controversial, but I agreed with them. He talked about Satan planting the idea that queer people are inferior, and that Satanic idea has infilitrated society for centuries. And then Allison Dayton, the founder of Lift + Love, spoke. She had a gay brother who grew up in the homophobic world of an earlier generation, and then he took his life in the wake of the November 2015 policy. And now she has a gay son. And then Jeff Case, a gay man in a mixed-orientation marriage, spoke. I saw him at a meeting in February, when he complimented my Valentine's necktie.

During the final break, a new friend told me his experience of just recently divorcing his wife because he's gay. It was obviously a very difficult experience for him, and it continued to affirm my decision not to go the route of a mixed-orientation marriage. 

And in the last session, we heard a piano/cello duet from some allies. (If only they hadn't played the overdone Leonard Cohen "Hallelujah" song, which is too often put into religious contexts, like Cinderella's stepsisters trying to fit their feet in a slipper that doesn't work!) Then John Gustav-Wrathall spoke; he is an active Church member despite being excommunicated for marrying a man. 

And finally we heard from Meghan Decker, who talked about working with Janice Kapp Perry for the song "All Are Alike unto God." They had all of us sing this new song together. That was a very moving experience for me. I even teared up a little bit—and if you know me, you know that never happens.

One of the things I loved about this conference is that I felt like I could be friends with anyone there, and I did make a few new friends. We all understood each other. I was able to meet several people that I've met online but not in person. And even though I'm out publicly, it's still something I have a hard time bringing up with people, even people who already know I'm gay. Twenty years of shame will do that. But I didn't feel at all inhibited in talking about being gay with the people there.

That's not to say it was an entirely positive experience. It was beautiful and inspiring, but I also felt a cloud of sadness for our community. Because of the way we happened to be born, we are in a situation that is tragic. We are all hoping for a day when things will get better, but that day still seems far off.

But it was a wonderful experience, and I recommend it for other people in the queer Latter-day Saint intersection. I hope to go again.

Then tonight I went to dinner at the home of some allies with some of the friends who were in town for the conference. That's part of why this is going up later than usual and why there is no pumpkinundation roundup this week.