Gather 2024

As most of you know, I have been on a journey for the last two and a half years as I grapple with what it means to be a gay Latter-day Saint. (If you're new here, you can check out my coming-out post and my anniversary post.) 

Fortunately for me, my journey has coincided with the beginnings of Faith Matters' Restore gathering (which I attended last week) and Lift+Love's Gather conference, which I attended this weekend. Gather, which I also attended last year, is specifically devoted to the queer Latter-day Saint experience, and it has a more middle-of-the-road approach than some other organizations. Just as I did with last week's Restore conference, I thought I would describe the conference and my experiences there. (Note: when I discuss personal interactions I had with people, I am avoiding using their names because I don't want to embarrass them. So if I'm talking about you, I want you to know I love you and appreciate you!)

On Friday morning, I drove down to Provo listening to my Halloween playlist early, since it was Friday the 13th. I saw some people I had previously met online, and I sat with one of them for the morning session. The first speaker was Greg Peterson, the president of Salt Lake Community College. He talked about BYU and SLCC, how BYU is exclusive and SLCC accepts all applicants, and there are different implications for each model. He compared that to building Zion. Do we have an exclusive concept of Zion, or one that allows everyone who wants to be there?

Then we heard from Jenn Blosil, an alumna of American Idol who realized she is just not into men but is currently choosing to keep her covenants. She performed "All Are Alike unto God," which Janice Kapp Perry cowrote with Meghan Decker for last year's Gather.

Liv Mendoza Haynes is a queer woman married to a man, even though she isn't really attracted to men, and they have a son with another on the way. I honestly don't remember a lot about her presentation. But she finished her presentation by saying that Jesus didn't suffer for the LGBTQ+ experience, because the LGBTQ+ experience is something to rejoice in.

David Butler spoke at last week's Restore, and he spoke again this time. He is like a standup comedian. He told a story that he once painted an amateur picture of Jesus that turned out terrible and he was super ashamed and embarrassed about. When his son saw the picture, he said, "That's not my Jesus." He explained that we sometimes have a picture of Jesus that doesn't match up with the Jesus that appears in the scriptures. And he told the story of the young men taking their paralyzed friend to Jesus through the roof. ("Church is boring. I wish someone would cut a hole in the roof during church," he quipped.) He explained that there are different ways to come to Jesus.

During the lunch break, I got food with three men who are in mixed-orientation marriages. 

For the afternoon session, we met in breakout groups, and I went to the LGBQ+ group. (The other groups were for gender identity, family members, and allies.) They had us get in groups of six and discuss the deep questions on our minds. For me, the deep questions are that I don't know what my future holds or what I want out of my future. Another man in the group is a BYU employee, and he is frustrated with the harsh messaging from Church leaders. He was specifically thinking of Elder Holland's musket talk, for which he was in attendance three years ago. But he can't say too much, because he doesn't want to get fired from BYU just before he retires.

Then Friday evening was a bonus event that was a live recording of the Questions from the Closet podcast, hosted by Charlie Bird and Ben Schilaty. That podcast has been very helpful for me as I have navigated everything, and I listened to every episode in 2022. (It helped that I was doing tedious things at work where I had to listen to podcasts to keep from dying of boredom.) They announced that QftC as we know it is coming to an end. 

Instead, they are rebranding as All Out in the Open, and they are going to rotate hosts. I really feel happy for them, because it didn't seem sustainable for them to do so many episodes all the time. Then I chatted with some people before heading home for the evening.

On Saturday morning, we heard from Nori Gomez, a Dreamer, an undocumented migrant whose family moved from Venezuela when she was four years old. The idea was to watch out for marginalized people, but I thought it was a stretch to have her at an LGBTQ+ event.

Lisa Diamond, a psychology professor at the University of Utah, spoke next. She talked about social safety. As human beings, we evolved to value connection, because being alone in prehistoric times literally meant death. To have social safety, it doesn't necessarily mean that our friends and family agree or even understand. But we need to know that we matter and are unconditionally loved. She showed a graph of trans people, queer cisgender people, and straight people and the places where people always feel safe. Perhaps not surprisingly, church is the lowest place where people feel safe.

She talked about maintaining friendships, that we need to be safe harbors for other people. But we also need to ask people if they will be our safe harbors. One thing I pondered a lot during the conference is why I struggle to make and maintain friendships and relationships. I think there are a variety of factors. For one thing, I'm an introvert and am content to be on my own. For another, I think that if people like me, then they have poor taste, and why would I want to hang out with people with such poor taste?

Steven Kapp Perry introduced a new song, "When We Gather," which was based on the story of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, and it had a brief interlude of "Come Come Ye Saints."

Then there was a panel with two same-sex couples who have been married about a year. Charlie Bird and Ryan Clifford are a very famous couple, and Michelle and Rachel Barnard-Crosland were previously married to men and had children. All four of these panelists attend church still, and they talked about how they felt like God told them to move forward with their marriages. (Earlier this year, the unscrupulous folks at Mormon Stories sent spies to Ryan and Charlie's ward to see if they take the sacrament. Charlie alluded to this without specifically saying what happened.)

During the lunch break, I got food at the farmer's market, and I stopped at Pioneer Book on Provo's Center Street. They have a giant section of Mormon books, and my brain kept screaming "historiography!" I was surprised to see them displaying this ten-year-old niche book, Exploring Book of Mormon Lands, about Andrew Jenson's 1923 trip to South America. During my last few months in Provo in 2014, I spent my days in the BYU library checking the sources in the footnotes. (It was my job. I wasn't a weirdo doing that for fun.)

And I had to find it a little ironic that here I was attending a Latter-day Saint LGBTQ+ conference while I looked at this giant stack of Spencer W. Kimball's Miracle of Forgiveness, which is notorious for saying hurtful and harmful things about gay people. They no longer make this book. But when I worked at the Church Distribution center back in 2010 and 2011—which wasn't that long ago—it was still a book that people could (and did) order through the Church's online store, even though it's a publication of Deseret Book, not the Church itself. (We used headsets that would tell us what products to put in the boxes for online orders, and the computer voice always called it "Miracle of for-jive-ness.")

And I was bemused that they had Timothy Ballard's books under "nonfiction," even though his "history" writings might as well be. And, of course—Tim Ballard. 😬😬😬

In the afternoon session, we heard from a British couple who do something with FSY (formerly EFY) in the UK. They shared a video of a couple who works with them who are both bi. Of all the presentations, I think this was the most devotional and orthodox. They talked about how much they love the current discourse around the covenant path. I was surprised they would talk about that, because the "covenant path" rhetoric can be very triggering for those of us in this space (myself included). 

Perhaps the most devastating presentation was by Michael Soto, a trans man, and his genderqueer guest whose name I don't have. Michael explained that the "trans agenda" is an average life expectancy. He shared the heartbreaking statistic that the average lifespan for women is eighty, that of men is seventy-five, but the best estimate (which is flawed) for trans women is thirty-five. 35! And he shared the brutal ways that trans people die. 

There has been a dramatic uptick in antiqueer legislation in recent years. 

And most trans people are satisfied with their gender-affirming treatments. 

This presentation was the hardest one to hear because it was so tragic. I have certainly had to work through transphobia in my life.

Then there was a panel with Lisa Valentine Clark, Allison Dayton, and Jordon Sharp about being parents of queer kids. Allison said that there is no faith stronger than when people come to church when they know they're not wanted. Lisa said that we are not building Zion when people feel excluded and leave. During this panel, I couldn't help but feel sad for teenage Mark. I was a super weird, sad, lonely kid. There are a variety of factors for this, but being gay was certainly a major influence. 

We also heard from a man named Kainoa Clark, and it was his first time coming out publicly. But I don't remember what else he said.

I met a woman on Friday, and she sat by me in the afternoon session. She was attending from California and recently started a gay–straight alliance at the school where she teaches. She felt she had to come attend in light of the new trans policies. She was attending as an ally. But she told me technically she is bisexual—and she had only ever told her husband. Then she got emotional after sharing that with me.

For the closing activity of the conference, we assembled period kits for teen centers throughout Utah. (I organized a similar project with hygiene kits for my ward!) As a squeamish gay man, I am very naive about the female body, and I want to keep it that way, so the "ick" factor almost kept me away. But it was good to contribute.

In so many ways, this conference felt like a typical Latter-day Saint fireside. There were hymns and prayers and talks about Jesus. Much of it felt like it could have been a Deseret Book meeting. But as I talked to individuals, so many people are struggling and really having a hard time navigating this intersection of faith and orientation. We don't fit the blueprint, and there really isn't a clear path for us (or a "right" path for us). 

Now, the best part of any conference is making connections and meeting people. I could listen to motivational speeches anywhere online. But it's so good to find new friends and reconnect with old ones. This conference felt like you could just be friends with anyone and they would understand the messiness of our lives. I'm grateful for the new friends I made and the old friendships I added to.

I have a very kind friend who I met in an online Lift+Love group two days after I came out two years ago, and he invited me to dinner with some local ally friends. But this morning, I was astonished to receive a notification that someone commented on a picture I posted on the Seen@BYU Facebook page back in 2011. The new notification was spam. But lo and behold, my friend had commented on the post way back in 2011, eleven years before I met him! And I was especially amazed that I figured this out on the day I was going to see him. So that was a fun connection.

***

OK, since this post had some heavy things, I thought I would end with pumpkinundation roundup, Gather edition! These are mostly things I got in my time in Provo. 

This Lee's Marketplace Pumpkindoodle was at the dinner I went to here locally. It was OK. It didn't seem very pumpkiny. 6/10.

I went to dinner with two other gay guys on Saturday, and I got this Back Door BRGR Grumpy Claire Burger. It has a savory caramel apple sauce below the beef. The caramel apple sauce had apple chunks in a sweet-ish sauce—not sweet like candy, but sweeter than is typical on a burger. I really enjoyed the burger; I didn't necessarily notice the caramel apple sauce when I ate everything together. 8/10.

I forgot the name of the vendor where I bought this pumpkin spice macaron. I think macarons are unreasonably priced, but I really enjoyed this one. 8/10.

In Utah, we use the word "scone" to refer to frybread, but this Dat Sour Dough Maple Pumpkin Spice Sourdough Scone is not that kind of scone. I think this is the first time I have ever had this kind of scone. I wasn't impressed with this particular one. It was dense and not very flavorful. And it was made with "pumpkin spice," not pumpkin, and yet even the spices weren't that noticeable. 4/10.

This Fresh Market Caramel Apple Fritter is their doughnut of the month, but I think it's just an apple fritter with a caramel drizzle, so it's not very interesting, and I've never loved apple fritters anyway. 5/10.

Sub Zero Ice Cream is a place that uses liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze cream into ice cream, and I went to one in East Wenatchee, Washington, back in 2008. At the Provo location, I had this Sub Zero Green Caramel Apple Ice Cream. It was very artificial tasting, like a knockoff Jolly Rancher, which I thought clashed with the cream. 4/10.

And I was eager to try the Sub Zero Ginger Pear Ice Cream, because I would love to see pear embraced as a fall flavor. I liked the textural contribution of the almonds. But I didn't really taste pear. I just tasted ginger. 6/10.