Faculty Mentor: Kim Hackford-Peer (Gender Studies, University of Utah)

ABSTRACT

Oral history is an important form of documentation that is accessible for many, has various benefits, and covers a surplus of topics. However, there is one area in particular where it is lacking: positive documentation of queer members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or Mormon). Although these two communities are thought to be polar opposites, there are still people who desire to coexist in both, and having access to oral history that reassures them of their identities is vital. According to prior research, oral history is beneficial in many ways, such as its ability to provide representation for marginalized communities, the guidance it furnishes for younger generations, and its ability to better educate people in forms that might be more accessible or relatable than other forms of history. For this research project, I performed four interviews with people who are involved with organizations that create safe spaces for queer LDS individuals. The organizations included in this project are: Flourish Therapy, The RaYnbow Collective, and Affirmation since they are three of the most prominent organizations that exist today.

INTRODUCTION

Oral History Background

For centuries, people have been documenting their lives and the events happening around them. Whether it has been through writing them on cave walls, putting them down on paper with a pen, or eventually typing them into a Word document, humans have used whatever means necessary to preserve history for future generations. In 1940, a new type of record-keeping system began being used: Oral History. Allan Nevins, while attending Columbia University, decided to interview a civic leader regarding President Grover Cleveland, and unlike previous interviews, he decided to record it so it could be used for historical purposes. As this method of record-keeping started spreading, it originally only focused on “elites”, but after only a couple of decades it turned to focus on all people. It has since moved to focus on people from less recognized communities (History Matters) as it is an effective way to resist the erasure of marginalized people from mainstream historical narratives.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, oral history is “A recording containing information about the past obtained from in-depth interviews concerning personal experiences, recollections, and reflections.” While oral history is considered by some to have existed before Allan Nevins, as interviews and word of mouth did indeed evolve much earlier, an important part of the modern definition is that this spoken history must also be recorded. Nowadays, it is possible to find oral histories through online archives, podcasts, YouTube, documentaries, and so much more. Various studies have shown that these recordings have many benefits, from representing underrepresented communities to providing mentorship to younger generations, and so much more (Bhat et al., 2023; Bushouse et al., 2023; Engunyu and Boakye- Danquah, 2024; Enyindah et al., 2022; Wilson et al., 2023). Nonetheless, it is impossible to provide oral history for every important topic, and there are still holes that can be found in areas of oral history today, such as the lack of coverage on the positive intersectionality between members of the queer community and those active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or Mormon).

LDS Church Background

For decades, it has been well-known amongst those familiar with the LDS church that their leaders are not very accepting of the queer community. Back in 1995, their prophet (the leader of the church that is chosen through a line of succession), Gordon B. Hinckley, released a document titled “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” in order to inform church members of the recommended way to bring up their families as well as clarify where the church stood on topics like gender, marriage, and family. After this release, many church higher-ups said that one of the motives for writing this proclamation was the noticeable push for LGBTQ+ rights, and they wanted to make sure that their members knew where they stood on this issue. Two of the many problems with this proclamation are that those who wrote it repeatedly state that marriage should only be between a man and a woman and that there are only two genders. Since then, while some regulations have been changed to better incorporate queer individuals and a few church leaders have released somewhat accepting statements, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” continues to be reinforced and homophobic comments and documents are still being published.

For example, on the church’s website, there is a section titled “Understanding and Including Our LGBT Brothers and Sisters”, which would seem like a step in the right direction for the church. The majority of the section does move toward greater possibilities of acceptance for LGBT people, but towards the end, Ryan Wessel, a previous bishop (the leader of a designated congregation) in the church, states, “Remember that what someone feels and how they choose to respond to those feelings [same sex attraction] are not the same thing” (Wessel, 2021). He then goes on to say that those who withhold from having relationships with the same sex are still worthy of all privileges in the church and are not sinning; this implies that queer people who do choose to live true to their identity are sinners and will be restricted in what they are allowed to do as a member in the church.

Additionally, another section on the church’s website called “Homosexual Behavior”, specifically states “Sexual association of individuals of the same gender. God forbids sexual activity of this kind” (Homosexual Behavior). So, despite the few positive messages that leaders or members of the LDS church put out to try and show some support for the queer community, they are still ultimately against queerness and queer activity. Considering all the remarks and regulations that have been made by church members and officials, from an outside perspective, it would appear that queer members of the LDS church do not exist. On top of this, many heterosexual members of the LDS church tend to have a negative outlook on queer individuals who choose to stay active in the church, which may lead to them feeling ostracized and ashamed.

Nevertheless, these two identities do intersect. Thus, oral history must be collected so queer members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have a beneficial form of history to look back on and know that they are not alone.

Filling a Hole

On the church’s website, https://churchofjesuschrist.org/topics/gay, they do have videos of active queer members sharing their stories, which would count as oral history covering intersectionality between these two communities. However, all these stories are about members who have chosen to not have same-sex relations, and many of them have even decided to marry someone of the opposite sex in order to live out the life that the church expects for them. While people choosing to do this is not necessarily a bad thing, it is problematic for the LDS church to only highlight these stories and neglect those who still live a religious life while also living true to their sexuality. Therefore, there is still a need for positive oral history regarding this topic.

Furthermore, on an oral history hub titled “LBGTQ History: Digital Collaboratory” where the creators attempt to provide coverage of the past for queer people through oral history, there are hundreds of videos and topics covered. Yet, none of these are specific to the LDS church, or even religion in general, proving, again, that there is a lack of coverage in this area. Finally, in a master’s thesis titled, “The Intermountain West LBGTQ+ Oral History Project: The Folklorization of Queer Theory”, John Priegnitz specifically says that oral history needs to be created that covers safe spaces for queer LDS members (Priegnitz, 2023, p. 13). Each of these sources goes to show that there is a hole within the world of oral history, and the purpose of this research is to begin to fill it.

Literature Review

In 2023, Bhat et al. released an article titled “Redressing Historical Bias: Exploring the Path to an Accurate Representation of the Past”. Within it, they performed a study assessing historical bias occurring in various forms of history-keeping methods. This was done by performing a comprehensive review of modern writings, interviews with scholars/historians, and historical narratives. Through this research, they found that bias can occur in these works for a multitude of reasons, from political agendas to personal perspectives, yet there are ways to address it and better incorporate stories that do not often get told, such as those from marginalized communities. They argue that this will eventually lead to a more equitable society and provide a more accurate and inclusive portrayal of all histories. Bhat et al. list oral history as one of the solutions to this bias and state that it is important for racial and ethnic minorities and working-class people, all of which are underrepresented in the majority of written sources.

Similarly, in the passage “A History of ARNOVA at Fifty”, Bushouse et al. review the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) by looking at their historical records as well as recording oral histories. The purpose of this was to determine how ARNOVA has continued to function while the world around them as well as their specific fields of study have continued to change. In the methods section of this study, they state that their reason for conducting interviews was because “Oral history supplements historical research when there is a dearth of documentation or because a group is underrepresented” (Bushouse et al., 2023, p. 31). Bushouse et al. are trying to accomplish what Bhat et al. believe needs to be done in order to mend history. Engunya and Boakye-Danquah in “A systematic review of the socio-economic impacts of mining in Africa: Do research method influence participation” add that the reason that these benefits from oral history are possible for these groups is because oral history often allows them to provide self-representation and participation in the research process (Engunyu and Boakye-Danquah, 2024).

From all three of these sources, it is easy to see that oral history can be relied upon to fill holes in history that marginalized groups need filled, people are already striving to permeate these areas, and hopefully this will eventually lead to better and more diverse historical records and society.

Moreover, Enyindah et al. offer an additional perspective as to why oral history can be a strong proponent of record keeping. In their article, “Elders and the Sustenance of History in Nkoro Kirika Kingdom: A Comprehensive Overview”, they discuss the Nkoro Kirika culture and their perspective on people who are defined as elders. They used primary sources collected through interviews and secondary sources found in written history to explore why elders are so important to this culture. Towards the end of this article, Enyindah states:

The transmissions of oral history, enables elders to play a crucial role in providing mentorship and guidance to younger individuals in various aspects of life, including career choices, personal development, and decision-making. This mentorship has economic benefits because it helps younger individuals make valid choices regarding education, training, and career paths. (Enyindah, 2022, p. 432)

Even though this study is specifically looking at oral history regarding elders, at least some of these benefits would likely stem from oral history created by anyone or focusing on any group of people.

There are also benefits of oral history from an academic perspective rather than just a personal one. For example, Wilson et al. decided to look at what pedagogies have a noticeable positive impact on primary and secondary school students’ historical literacy skills in their study titled “A systematic review of pedagogical interventions on the learning of historical literacy in schools”. They did this by looking at previous academic literature that performed studies including three broad categories they chose, and in the end, they conducted a meta-analysis on 21 previous studies. From this, they found that students understood history and historical recounts more clearly through oral sources, regardless of whether it was live or through a video (Wilson et al., 2023, p. 19). Finally, although it is important to consider the roadblocks of oral history, such as lack of access, funding issues, problems with supporting infrastructure, and much more, people are trying to mend these issues to provide better access and increase opportunities for it to be used, such as in academic environments discussed previously (Jones and Piper, 2024).

Mental Health

In “Affirming and Nonaffirming Religious Beliefs Predicting Depression Suicide Risk Among Latter-Day Saint Sexual Minorities”, McGraw et al. performed what they believe was the first study to look at the correlations between internalized stigma, religious/spiritual struggles surrounding sexuality, depression, and suicide risk amongst both active and nonactive queer members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This study was important to perform, because in general, “Despite increased access to mental health care and more social acceptance, sexual minorities… continue to report higher levels of depression and suicide risk compared to their heterosexual counterparts” (McGraw et al.. 2023, p. 1). In other words, the queer community is at a greater risk of depression and suicide than heterosexual people, and this study provided an opportunity to explore this correlation through an LDS lens. In order to conduct this study, they first had to define two things: affirming beliefs and nonaffirming beliefs. According to McGraw et al., affirming religious beliefs make a queer individual feel comfortable with their sexuality, such as the teaching in the LDS church that God loves all people and has a plan for each and every person. On the other hand, nonaffirming religious beliefs tend to discourage same-sex relations, like the LDS belief that God ordained marriage to be between men and woman. For this study, two samples with hundreds of individuals who were at least 18, identified as queer, and had been baptized within the LDS church were recruited. The main difference between these two groups was that one received the survey questions gradually over an eight-month period in 2020 while the second was given all questions at once in 2022. They administered a survey with five categories of questions, and once they were answered, they explored correlations amongst the answers. In the end, they found that both groups were mildly depressed and exhibited a higher risk for suicide than the average person, and nonaffirming beliefs were related to internalized stigma, religious/spiritual struggles, and depression.

Similarly, in the article “Religiousness and Minority Stress in Conservatively Religious Sexual Minorities: Lessons from Latter-day Saints”, Lefevor et al. argued that since those belonging to the LGBTQ+ community live in a predominantly heteronormative society, they are automatically at a higher risk for experiences that will lead to poorer mental health. On top of this, the presence of heteronormativity in religious spaces, including the LDS church, also contributes to this decrease in mental health since they create a “… strong sense of group cohesiveness and a devaluation of those who are not part of the group” (Lefevor et al., 2023, p. 290). In order to explore this point and relate it specifically to the LDS church, they gathered 1,083 individuals from both organizations that support queer LDS people, like Affirmation, North Star, and USGA, and through word of mouth. The participants from this study included people who were queer and LDS, queer and nonLDS, heterosexual and LDS, and heterosexual and nonLDS so Lefevor et al. could perform a more in-depth comparative analysis. After collecting their results, they found that not only do sexual minorities display worse mental health than heterosexual individuals, which aligns with many other studies, but queer LDS members also had higher minority stress levels than participants who were queer but nonLDS. The authors argue that this is likely due to their engagement with a conservative religion, which Dyer et al. similarly theorizes in their study titled “Religion, Mental Health, and the Latter-Day Saints: A Review of Literature 2005-2022″. For this article, the authors collected 44 peer-reviewed, scholarly articles that discussed the mental health of members of the LDS faith, because they wanted to look deeper into the general consensus that being a member of the LDS church is correlated with better mental health. While general findings from their review showed that this belief is true, including in regards to depression, anxiety, suicide risk, self-harm, and body image, they also found that some studies showed that internalized homophobia from active queer members was linked to higher rates of depression and queer people who left the church had lower depression rates and overall better mental health than those who stayed.

However, Dyer et al. also highlighted the fact that the studies they looked at showed that the mental health of this intersection is extremely nuanced and complicated. For example, some articles in their analysis actually showed that staying active in the church combatted the effects of internalized homophobia and led to a decreased likelihood of depression for queer members of the LDS church. Additionally, while people in this intersection who sought belongingness within religion exhibited superior mental health as a result of high church attendance, those who prioritized belongingness to the LGBTQ+ community also had greater mental health after lowering their church attendance. Clearly, the mental health of this group of people is quite complicated and is not a “one size fits all” situation. Each of these studies provides examples of scenarios and factors that are shown to either decrease or improve the overall mental health of persons who are queer and LDS. Nonetheless, Dyer et al. stated “Although findings are nuanced, sexual minorities tend to have less favorable mental health”, (2023, p. 1) which means despite the complexity of this topic, it is still important to highlight the mental health challenges of this community and find ways to contribute to their improved mental health.

METHODS

Before starting my research, I had had multiple conversations with friends and individuals who are queer, LDS, or both who expressed to me that there is not enough positive discussion in society about the possibility of being both queer and LDS (Strunk, 2023). This led me to realize that uncovering and sharing stories about this intersection was extremely important, and thus, I decided that I wanted to interview persons involved with organizations that assist queer Latter-Day Saints so I could find those stories and make them available for others to come across. I chose to specifically interview people involved with organizations because I knew they would have a valuable perspective on the history behind the organizations, what resources exist for queer/LDS individuals, and why this topic needs more attention. To start this process, I began researching what organizations were out there as well as what their purposes were, the history behind them, and who created them. I did this through browsing the internet and social media, because these are places that queer/LDS people would likely go to try and find resources for themselves. Through this, I found that Affirmation, BYU USGA, Encircle, and Lift and Love were the four to consistently pop up and point towards each other. Since it appeared that these organizations are well established and strive to help the community I want to help, I began reaching out to both presidents and other staff from each establishment to see if interviewing them was doable. I wanted to interview presidents and staff because I felt confident that they would hold institutional knowledge on the history and importance of their organizations that would be difficult or even impossible to find elsewhere.

I heard back from Kate Mower and Fred Bowers with Affirmation, and Kate was able to connect me with individuals from organizations I had not found in my preliminary research, like RaYnbow Collective, Flourish Therapy, Simple Modern Therapy, and Celebrate. I believe I could not find them initially because they appear to be more concerned about reaching their target audience of queer/LDS peoples in need rather than the general public and allies, which is different from the original four that I found. I set up interviews with Gracee Purcell with the RaYnbow Collective and Lisa Hansen from Flourish Therapy, as well as with Kate and Fred from Affirmation. I wanted to complete these interviews, review my data, and then determine if I needed to set up a second round of interviews with additional participants. If all four interviews had common themes amongst them and provided me with substantial new history and stories that I could not find online, I knew I would feel confident that I did not need to interview more people. Between this research and the actual interviews, I formulated a list of questions (see Appendix A) usable for all interviewees that included a good mix of inquiries about both the organization itself as well as the interviewees’ own story and experience within the establishment. Throughout November 2024, I conducted and recorded all four interviews over Zoom since it was the most convenient with everyone’s work, school, and living situations. In order to decide where I wanted the remainder of my research to go, I thoroughly listened to each recording multiple times, took notes on portions that aligned with my research questions, transcribed quotes I wanted to use, and extracted themes that popped up in each one.

RESULTS

Before officially beginning my research on the queer LDS community, I reflected on the common narrative about what it would be like as a queer LDS individual living in today’s society. Elements of this narrative include feeling lonely, out of place, struggling to find a sense of belonging in both of these communities, and wondering if there is anyone out there who feels the same way. Engaging in this reflective process led me to look for an answer on the internet, where one of the first search results would be for Affirmation: LGBTQ Mormons, Family, and Friends. Their website offers definitions for various sexualities, contact information for active chapters across the world, resources to other groups and media, a brief history of the beginning of Affirmation, and more. As I explored this resource, I also thought about my own experiences with friends and classmates, some of whom knew about Affirmation, but still yearn for more despite all that it offers. Over the past few years at university, I have had many conversations with my queer LDS friends on this topic where they have expressed to me that the need for more does exist because of the disconnect they feel from both the queer and LDS communities and the belief that they cannot fully belong in either community because of their identity in the other (Strunk, 2023).

During my research, Kate Mower, the current historian of Affirmation, led me to the special collections in the University of Utah’s Marriott Library. There, we looked at personal letters sent from and to Ina Mae Murri- a queer LDS woman who played a big part in the upbringing of Affirmation in the 1970s. Many of these letters were sent to Murri anonymously or secretly from queer LDS individuals who were ecstatic that an organization that welcomed both of their identities existed, because they had never encountered anything close to that before. For example, one letter stated,

“… I was more than surprised to see an ad for gay LDS members. Yes I am LDS, and I’ve been gay for as long as I can remember. It’s very difficult to attend church every Sunday and know that in everybody’s eyes there, you are a sinner because of HOMOSEXUALITY! … Can you tell how excited I am? To finally know that there is another gay LDS somewhere in the world. I would love to meet someone or talk to someone about the way that I feel. I’m so lonely.” (Wolfgang, 1986)

This excerpt, as well as so many others, showed me that this yearning for more has been around for decades, and Affirmation was able to pave the way for it to be fulfilled.

Fortunately, in recent years there has been a large increase in organizations that support queer LDS peoples, especially in Utah where LDS is the dominant religion and shapes much of the political and social atmosphere. On the downside, these new organizations, in combination with, the erasure of those that came before them have prevented queer LDS people today from understanding that people like them who feel the same ways as they do have been around for ages. Therefore, the oral histories collected in this research are extremely important, because not only do they shed light on the support offered for the queer LDS community today, but they also offer the history surrounding each one and guard against the future erasure of more contemporary work.

RaYnbow Collective

My first interviewee, Gracee Purcell, is the current president of the RaYnbow Collective at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and has been the president for a couple of years. This organization was founded fairly recently in 2021 by Maddison Tenney as a way to connect queer students at BYU through their stories, resources, and art. According to Gracee, a big part of this creation was due to the fact that even though there are a handful of thriving resources and communities out there that can help these queer BYU students, they are pretty underground and hard to find. To combat this, RaYnbow Collective creates an easy way to access any of these other sources while also creating a community of its own through Back-to-School Pride and other events. Gracee said that having a resource like this is vital at BYU because “… it is so important… that people have spaces where they can like belong, and no one should feel like they don’t belong in spaces that they have like already… been admitted.” Additionally, when asked about people’s reactions to the collective, she shared that

I think I’ve been really amazed by how many people have stood up and like been there to support us. I think there’s this huge community especially of parents but especially of actually moms who are really welcoming and like want to just embrace all the queer kids at BYU… and I think there are fewer extreme like negative reactions than like really good reactions that we’ve had.

Both she and I agreed that this overwhelmingly positive reaction was likely due to the time period that it was created in, and she also added that none of this could have been done without the allies that paved the way for queer LDS peoples to be able to make space for themselves. As for the future of the RaYnbow Collective, Gracee expressed that the organization itself will hopefully expand to both BYU Idaho and BYU Hawaii; however, they are also “… very aware that if we spread ourselves too thin then we won’t be able to help anybody”. On top of this, they would also love to keep providing resources and support to queer BYU students in whatever ways they can. As for Gracee herself, in response to being asked what her ultimate goal for her organization was, she said:

My ultimate goal, and this is maybe going to sound crazy, but like my ultimate goal is for RaYnbow Collective to not be needed anymore… it was built out of a need at BYU and so I’d really love to get to a point where they don’t need us anymore.

In other words, she is hopeful that eventually the queer LDS community in Provo will become so normalized and support itself so well that they will not need the RaYnbow collective to provide the outreach that it currently does.

Flourish Therapy

My final interviewee, Lisa Hansen, founded Flourish Therapy in 2017 after experiencing firsthand the support that queer communities in Utah needed. As her kids were growing up in the early 2000s and became very active in various choirs and theatres, she “…recognized that the kids who had the most to offer were in the queer community… and we as a community failed them in providing mentors and opportunities to contribute and in supporting families and robustly making room for queer people growing up”. She knew from this experience, as well as her involvement in a gay men’s choir, that she wanted to help the queer LDS community once she got her master’s and doctorate from BYU, because she believed it was needed more than ever. Thus, according to Lisa, Flourish Therapy was created in Orem, Utah to provide mental health therapy, outpatient mental health care, and affordable therapy. During their first two years, they worked through Encircle, another organization that supports queer LDS peoples, since they started at the exact same time. After that, though, she shared that “Once we gained a foothold, we got lots of calls from [BYU] Idaho about ‘we need help up here too’”, and thanks to virtual therapy, they now provide services to many people living outside of Utah as well. When I asked her about the reaction from Utahn’s towards her organization, she stated:

I would say the reactions were very positive from organizations, which was really nice. We were able to go visit with people at the church office building who… were among those who felt this was really important… that’s since changed, but that’s how it was when we started… We’ve since been taken off of LDS family services referrals… even though we support people on whatever place and pathway they are wanting to go.

As for the future of Flourish Therapy, similar to Gracee’s for RaYnbow Collective, Lisa personally hopes for it “To become obsolete! I don’t foresee it happening in the near future, but my ultimate goal would be that there would be such inclusion that a specialized place for people to be sure they were safe in therapy wouldn’t be necessary.” She believes that Flourish’s own ultimate goal is to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health treatment and continue to create mental health treatment that is affordable to everyone. All in all, she has learned from her work on and in Flourish Therapy “That the community needs everyone’s belief that including queer people makes us a better community… and that paying attention to the marginalized among us benefits and uplifts everyone.”

Affirmation

Two of my interviewees, Kate Mower and Fred Bowers, are both affiliated with Affirmation: LGBTQ Mormons, Families, and Friends. Currently, Fred is living in Maine while acting as Affirmation’s president, but his involvement with the organization started back in the 1980s while he was trying to figure out his sexual and religious identities. Although Kate is their historian and is currently living in Utah, they have also been active within the community since 2018 and have held a few other leadership positions while living in other places, such as the LA chapter leader, Europe area leader, and junior vice president. They said that they found Affirmation when “I was dealing with a lot of my own coming out trauma…I felt like I really needed… people around me who understood the Mormon experience”. Since Affirmation is much older than both the RaYnbow Collective and Flourish Therapy and has expanded to all over the world, its history has been quite different. According to Fred:

Affirmation started in 1977. The climate for everything was quite different than it is today. There were still people… who were going through what they will call shock therapy and everything… there was this case of that people were definitely not welcome in their families, some people were thrown out at that time. It was very hard for people to find any place that was affirming for being LGBTQ and Mormon.

Kate emphasized the difficulty of belonging to this community back then by sharing with me the fact that queer LDS students at BYU used to go to gay bars Salt Lake City to look for people who had garment lines. This gave the students an opportunity to let them know that they had a secret group that supported being queer and LDS, because there was so much surveillance and shame at that time. Nonetheless, today, Affirmation is a global organization that has much more support, including from bishops, stake leaders, and other queer/LDS organizations, Fred told me. He also pointed out that that some of this development is owed to parents who supported their queer kids in the 70s and 80s, because they were an example to others and helped pave the way for organizations like Mama Dragons, Papa Dragons, and Affirmation itself that facilitate parental understanding. Additionally, Kate mentioned that the organization was actually quite radical for a while by being actively involved in protesting and communicating with the church, which also furthered Affirmation’s growth.

According to Fred, Affirmation strives to be a place that welcomes “… a wide range of LGBTQIA Mormons. It ranges from those folks that are still attending church, and some are out, and some are not out, and then it also goes to the other end of that with people who are just mostly LGBT and culturally Mormon”. In other words, they want to attract and support anyone affiliated with the queer and LDS communities, no matter where they fall within that intersection. Kate echoed this by saying “… we don’t care where you land on the Mormonism spectrum, as long as you’re alive. Our goal is to keep you alive and to honor your queerness- whatever that looks like for you- and honor that spectrum of Mormon- ness”. They went on to add that one of the main goals of Affirmation, from the very beginning, has been to save lives and be a place for people to land for as long as they need. Looking forward, Fred hopes that Affirmation not only continues to exist but also thrives and helps those who join it thrive. When asked about Affirmation’s ultimate goal, he said it would be “… for everyone who comes to it to learn to heal together and respect each other and… to learn to love each other and work together”. Kate, on the other hand, has the same personal goal and goal for the organization: for its history not to be forgotten. They believe that the systematic erasure of history surrounding the queer LDS community has led to the need for Affirmation and similar organizations today, when in fact “We’ve always been here, we’re always going to be here. You can’t say there aren’t queer Mormons because we’ve always been here.”

CONCLUSION

All in all, looking at the positive intersection between the queer community and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is extremely important, and oral history is a beneficial way to capture that intersection. Doing so means current and future generations of LGBTQ+ Mormons can listen to the interviews that I completed, which will both give them a glimpse into the organizations that exist to help them as well as allow them to feel that they are not alone with their identity. In the future, more research should be done on how other identities fit into this conversation.

Before I began my research and interviewed two of my queer LDS friends for another project, my female friend brought up the fact that as a queer woman, she feels like she has little to no role within the church since women in the church are expected to marry a man and have children. Dyer et al.’s research also briefly acknowledged this intersection of gender, sexuality, and religion when they said that “SSA [same-sex attracted] women experienced greater alienation from the Church, were more likely than SSA men to express negative sentiments about their church experiences, and were less likely to subscribe to Church beliefs” (2023, p. 14). Thus, there are clearly experiences from queer, LDS woman that still need to be brought to light. Additionally, race is another point of intersection within this conversation that is not explicitly part of this project. Nonetheless, in my interview with Lisa, she stated that race is an important factor of the queer LDS community, and it is something that Flourish Therapy is trying their best to better understand and accommodate. Moreover, Lefevor et al.’s study was purposefully done on white men in order to act as a sort of control variable, which means both gender and race did not play much of a role in their results on the mental health of queer LDS persons. As I said, future research should take both of these points of intersection into account, as well as the most nuanced intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and religion.

Ultimately, my goal for this research is to not only to shed a light on these organizations and their history, but to also show queer/LDS individuals that they are not alone and deserve to feel comfortable with their identity. I want them to know that their community has existed for decades, despite the erasure of it by both the LDS church and society. In addition to this passage being available to this community, the four interviews that were completed for this project will be uploaded to the J. Willard Marriot Library Special Collections so they can also be used as a resource.

Furthermore, I hope that this research will reach people who are queer or LDS, but who don’t necessarily understand that the two identities can, and do, intersect. I hope that this work gives them an opportunity to think beyond their own lived experiences so that queer and LDS spaces can become more inclusive of people who are queer and LDS.

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Appendix A – Questions for Interviewees

• What organization(s) are you involved with and what is your role within them?
• What was your motivation behind getting involved with , and how did you do so?
• What’s the story behind becoming what it is today?
• What’s the current status of , and what do they do?
• Your website invites queer, LDS individuals as well as . In your experience, are those people engaging as well?
• How has it changed over time and why do you think that is?
• If not, do you want them to, or is it important to you to focus on your target audience?
• What efforts have you made to try and get other audiences involved?
• How do you get the funds that you need to do what you do, and what do you feel are the pros and cons behind that?
• What were the factors behind choosing where to place your organization?
• What’s the plan for your organization to expand, and what are your personal hopes for those expansions?
• I have a question about your public image in terms of the way you present yourselves to the local community and people trying to find you. How does your organization make decisions about curating that image, and what are factors you feel like need to consider in order to reach your target audience?
• What are the roadblocks to this?

More specific question for USGA considering the disclaimers on their website

• What would you say has been the reactions of the Utah/LDS community to your organization
• How do you navigate doing the work that you do and serving the populations that you serve in the political context of Utah?
• I’m also interviewing people who work with Affirmation, Encircle, and Flourish Therapy. Does your organization have any relationship with them?
• What is your personal ultimate goal for ?
• What do you understand is your organization’s ultimate goal? This organization is dedicated to “creating and identifying safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff at BYU”, what is the role of cis-heterosexual individuals within it?
• Are there a lot of cis-heterosexual individuals existing in your space, or is it mostly queer and trans people?
• What’s one takeaway from your work that you’d like my future audience to know?
• Are there other things and stories you think would be valuable to tell that I haven’t asked you about?
• Would it be helpful to send these interviews back to you for you to publish?
• Affirmation- I noticed on your website that you have this voting system on your website, can you tell me more about that?
• What kinds of things do you have people vote on?
• Have you found that there are people with ill intent who try to shape the vote?