Note: I’ve been a writer for two years now on Political Review, and although I’ve felt proud of the articles I’ve written in the past, I have yet to feel as proud of myself as I do with this article. I hope you enjoy it.
I grew up in a God-fearing suburb of Dallas, TX. I prayed and read my scriptures daily, participated in early morning seminary, and attended weekly church services. I graduated high school, and in what was one of the most spiritual times of my life, served a 2-year mission in Lima, Peru. After that, I decided to attend BYU, knowing that the morals there aligned with my own. When the teachings of the church are intertwined with every facet of your identity, it’s easy to make those decisions because you know you’re following the “correct” path. What made this path difficult to follow then was accepting that my romantic feelings toward men, which before were pushed aside, weren’t going away.
I came out in December of 2023 as queer. In one of the more intense moments of my life, I came to terms with the fact that my sexuality wasn’t something I could change. Finding my “dream girl” at BYU wasn’t a reality for me, and I likely wasn’t going to be able to mold myself into someone that I wasn’t. With that being said, I figured life would be 10x easier after coming out. While in a lot of regards it has been, it also has not.
With that being said, I’ve learned various lessons along the way: You can be gay, but you can’t talk about it too often because that makes people uncomfortable. You can be proud, but not too proud because that’s crass. You can advocate for yourself, but you have to accept that other people won’t like who you are. And you have to be okay with that because it’s hard for them. You can be queer, but not so queer that you make it your whole identity. You can be excited when there’s a gay character in a new movie, but not too excited because that’s political. You can wear what you want, but you always have to look over your shoulder in case someone doesn’t like what you’re wearing. You can share your sexuality with others but not too often because that’s annoying. You can live your life authentically, but you can never say you’re living authentically because that offends those who don’t share the same lifestyle. You can appreciate
that society is more accepting now, but not push for more change because that means the world is turning evil. You can stand out, but not so intensely that it takes away from your straight counterparts. You can write about being gay in a college application, but that makes it unfair for straight people, because your chances of getting in are higher. So you have to be grateful for that.
You have to never be “too much,” never show off, never draw attention to yourself, never express desire to act on your romantic feelings, and never be rude. But at the end of the day, you still might be rude even if you weren’t trying to be, because standing up for yourself is selfish. The number one thing I’ve learned is that being a member of the LGBTQ+ community in itself is exhausting. When you hear about legislation being pushed through requiring the dissolution of DEI offices, see political candidates using flamethrowers to torch books on queerness in public libraries, or hear someone make a homophobic comment to be “funny,” your queerness doesn’t seem all that exciting anymore. But I’ve learned that there is so much more joy in being myself than pretending to be someone I’m not.
Many of us students are also members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are taught that Christ has felt every experience known to man through the Atonement. He knows what heartbreak feels like, he knows what losing a loved-one feels like, and he knows how it feels to make a mistake. But he also knows what it feels like to be gay. To be trans. To be queer. To feel unloved or undeserving. To feel forgotten or abandoned by a misunderstanding society that targets a community based on their sexual preference.
My invitation to those reading this article is as follows: broaden your understanding. Choose to engage in discussions with LGBTQ+ individuals and learn from them and their experiences. Act Christ-like with a desire to understand the queer experience and learn from it. If you’re wanting children someday, prepare in the case that one of them identifies as a member of this community and love them even more so if they do. The queer experience is a beautiful one, and something that ought to have more compassion.