DISCLAIMER: This article is about my experience with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My experience does not reflect everyone’s. I am not bashing the LDS Church nor do I intend to offend anyone with this article.
I was born and raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Whenever I tell anyone that, their eyes go wide and their response, at first, is “Oh.”
Yeah, “oh.”
The first thing they say after that is typically “Are you still Mormon?”
No. I’m not.
“Oh, good, okay. That is crazy.”
You see, that’s the funny thing: It isn’t crazy. It isn’t crazy because I still have family that is Mormon and will die Mormons. I still have parents who were raised Mormon and struggled with abandoning their religion. I still have religious trauma from a time in my life that I barely remember.
My experience isn’t some outlandish story. It was my life.
My life begins like this: I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to two Mormons who already had two kids. I was blessed in Jesus Christ’s name and was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints since the day I was born. I didn’t know any different; my parents didn’t know any different.
There are five children in my family. All of us were blessed into the church and all of us were raised to believe in it. I prayed every day, attended church every Sunday, and followed everything I needed to in order to go to Heaven. I had fun running around the church with my siblings and friends. I learned about culture and community while at church. I learned about love and giving because that’s what God’s children did.
I was loved in the church. I was happy and had a community of people who cared about me and my well-being. I had women who complimented my dresses that my mother made and men who pointed me in the direction of the bathrooms when I was walking around confused.
Everything was spelled out for me – I knew what I needed to do and who I needed to be in order to get to Heaven.
However, this wasn’t always a good thing.
Everything was spelled out for me. I knew what I needed to do to get into Heaven and that if I didn’t do that, I was going to Hell.
I believed that God was watching my every move. I thought I was going to Hell for talking back to my mom or lying to my dad. I was afraid that God had heard my unkind thoughts. Part of me was always scared. I was scared I was doing the wrong things and going to Hell for something as simple as breathing.
I was told that gay people were bad, that they deserved to go to Hell, and that being gay was wrong. I remember second-guessing that. I mean, we are supposed to love everyone, right? Doesn’t Jesus love everyone? I remember punching my leg after that thought. It’s what I was taught – it’s what is true, right?
After being told that women were meant to stay home with the kids, that they were the nurturers while men held the priesthood and worked, I was angry. I didn’t know how to be angry at the church, though. All I knew to do was hold it inside, so that’s what I did. I internalized it and believed that I wasn’t meant for great things like men were.
My beliefs weren’t based on dedication – they were based on fear. I was afraid of not going to Heaven with my family. I was afraid of Jesus Christ being disappointed in me. I was afraid that I wasn’t good enough.
I was obsessed with being a good Mormon – a good person.
I didn’t mention any of that, of course. Clearly, no one else felt it. There was something wrong with me, right?
When I was seven years old, I was sitting alone in my room with my tablet. I opened YouTube, ready to watch “CookieSwirlC” for hours on end. However, a video on the “Discover” page stopped me. It was from a channel, “Brie and Chrissy,” and the thumbnail was of these two women, right next to each other, looking down at each other’s lips. I froze and stared at the picture for a while, looking over my shoulder with something (shame? guilt?) swirling low in my stomach. After what seemed like hours, I finally shut off my tablet, throwing it against the bed and looking around me, paranoid. Did Jesus just see me staring at that photo? Did he know that I was okay with it? That I felt butterflies? Oh, no, I was going to Hell for staring at that picture, wasn’t I?
I looked up “Brie and Chrissy” for three days straight and looked at their thumbnails before I actually clicked a video of theirs. I kept psyching myself out, going to click on it but then remembering that they might kiss and the Heavenly Father doesn’t like that. God wouldn’t like me if I watched it, right? God wouldn’t like me if I was like them, right? Finally, my curious seven-year-old mind got the best of me. I clicked on the video and sat and watched the entire thing. I can’t remember exactly what the video was, but I do remember watching the two women kiss and refer to each other as “girlfriends”. I remember the butterflies that followed, and then the shame and disgust in not only them but also myself. Why would I watch something like that? Why would I feel… envious?
I watched “Brie and Chrissy” for years following that, realizing slowly that maybe I was watching them because I wanted what they had, not just because I was curious about different types of people. Any time I got done watching their videos, I’d go through and delete them from my YouTube watch history and search history, just to make sure no one knew. This was a secret for me (and God). Every time I was done watching their videos, I felt this shame and guilt all over again. There was no room for any of those feelings in my mind because God doesn’t love people like that. It wasn’t right.
Around a year after I began watching “Brie and Chrissy,” my parents left the church, bringing all five of us kids with them. We stopped going to church, no one besides my oldest brother got baptized, and we stopped following the words of the LDS Church. To make the transition easier, my parents began creating “family dates” on Sundays instead of going to church. We went to the zoo, the science museum, parks – whatever we could do as a family. For a while, we even went to a church that didn’t have one religion, but instead had a plethora mixed into one, or a church for non-religious people. Instead of a baptism, I got something that my parents called “Indiya’s Special Day.” My mom took me dress shopping, and then my parents and grandma took me to the American Girl Dolls store to pick out a doll, and then we all went to the Cheesecake Factory, where we sat and ate and talked.
My parents did their best to make it a seamless transition for all of us, and for the most part, it worked.
Undoing the internalized hate and religious beliefs was harder to change, though.
I went to middle school in a diverse area where learning love and tolerance for different types of people came quickly. I was friends with anybody I wanted to now that I was out of the church – I wasn’t expected to be friends with other religious people or talk about religion to my friends. I had friends who were queer and I was fine with it because judging people “different” from me was no longer regulated in my life. I got to do what normal kids did – I was a “normal kid” now.
My family life didn’t change much. We had more discussions on religion and my siblings and I were told by our parents that they wanted us to choose our own beliefs and create our own ideas on what we wanted our religion to be. My parents made sure to expose us to the world outside of the Mormon church, introducing us to different religions and ideas, and types of people. We were always expected to be tolerant, though. No matter what religion or identity somebody held, we had to be tolerant and respectful.
My parents were also very open to the idea that their children might hold different beliefs and identities than what is perceived as the “norm.” They asked us often about our beliefs and how we felt leaving the church. I remember I was once laying on the couch, watching a show, and my dad walked into the room. He sat by my feet and looked at me, a cautious smile on his face. He told me that it would be okay if I liked girls. “Do you like girls?” he asked, and the fear and shame that spent years boiling in my stomach took over. I shook my head. I wanted to say yes.
On the outside, the recovery from losing my religion was easier than the turmoil on the inside.
I was fourteen when I finally came to terms with being queer. Well, I wouldn’t say “terms,” more like I reluctantly accepted the fact. I had denied that part of myself for seven years, pushing it away, crying over looking at girls too long, and romanticizing queer relationships; I couldn’t keep denying it, no matter how much shame and disgust I felt with myself. I was so mad at myself for being queer, even though I had watched my brother come out the year before and been accepted by my family. I was so angry and ridden with guilt that I would do this to my family, that I would do this to myself. Why couldn’t I just like men? Why was I queer? Why couldn’t I keep shoving it away?
I still believed it was wrong for me to be queer. I didn’t think it about other people – I smiled when I saw girls holding hands in the hallways and accepted my friends who came out eagerly and with pride. I just couldn’t accept that I was queer. I was letting my family down, letting God down even though I hadn’t believed in him for years. I was disgusting in my mind, ashamed to even think about women like that. I couldn’t come to terms with it.
The point I accepted that I was queer was in Geography class in my freshman year of high school. It was spirit week and “Pride Day.” I had my brother draw a rainbow on my face because I was an “ally.” My friend looked at me while we were doing our work and smiled.
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Gay? Lesbian, I mean. Or bi? Something?”
I froze. I didn’t know what to say: no one had straight-up asked me that before. I kept opening and closing my mouth like a fish out of water, avoiding her gaze because I knew she knew. My reaction to her question was obvious – I was. I was something.
I accepted defeat and slowly nodded my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I ran to the bathroom and cried after that class instead of going to lunch. Why on earth would I admit something like that? Why would I tell somebody? She must have been disgusted with me. I was gross for looking at women that way, wasn’t I? I sat on the dirty bathroom floor, shame and turmoil swirling around my stomach and making me want to puke. What if she told people?
I couldn’t let anybody know. For one and a half years, I didn’t. I talked about my crushes on boys (never about that crush on Tasha from art) and giggled about boys to my friends. When I stared at girls for too long, I pinched my arms and reminded myself I wasn’t allowed to look at them. I wasn’t allowed to be queer.
My thoughts weren’t rational, clearly. I accepted and respected other queer people but couldn’t accept myself for who I am. I cried about it while I lay in my bed, sitting on dirty bathroom floors while skipping class, and even covering my mouth as I cried in my bathroom at home. I couldn’t accept who I was because it wasn’t okay. I would go to Hell, which was something I didn’t think I believed in anymore. I would let my parents down and Jesus down and God down. I was letting myself down.
I think I was 16 when I finally came out to somebody. It was my sister who I came out to first, some months after she had come out to my parents. I can’t remember how I came out to her, but I did, and she just smiled and we didn’t talk about it anymore. A few weeks later, I told some of my friends through quiet whispers in the hallways at school. One of my friends engulfed me in a hug and told me she didn’t understand why I was so afraid to tell her.
I didn’t know how to tell her I was afraid she would find me disgusting because I found me disgusting.
After a while, I didn’t hide it from friends anymore. I became friends with my current best friend and for months she thought I was a lesbian because all I talked about were girls. I called girls hot and smiled while doing it, even when I felt shame deep down inside of me and cursed myself for it later. Why did I say that? Did they think I was weird? Was I really that disgusting and useless that I couldn’t just hide it?
I don’t think I’ve ever outwardly said I was queer without feeling ashamed of myself for it. I feel like a burden any time I talk about it. I think God is ashamed of me and I am letting him down. I’m afraid I’m letting my parents down. I still haven’t told them who I am. I know they’ll accept me, but I can’t shake the fear that it will burden them.
I can’t mutter the words “I’m queer” without getting mad at myself for it. But here I am. I’m queer.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be content with myself for being queer. I think God messed that one up for me.
That wasn’t the only trauma that followed me. My parents used to tell us “Jesus is watching you.” It was innocent and used to make sure we stayed nice and obedient even when we were left alone. I still feel uncomfortable without clothes on, even in the shower, because I feel like someone is watching me. I worry that someone is watching over me just like Jesus does.
I am afraid that I am going to Hell. I am afraid that I have turned my back on Jesus and for that, I will go to Hell, while the rest of my family sits in Heaven. I worry that I am not good enough for Heaven and I will die while I’m still not good enough. I worry I will never see my grandma again because I am not religious and cannot force myself to be.
I’m afraid. I’m afraid because of a religion that I haven’t been a part of for years.
I’m healing, though. Bit by bit, the LDS Church and its beliefs won’t be on my list of fears and worries.
So, yes, I was born and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It isn’t crazy or peculiar. It was my life. It is my life.