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DarkJedi wrote:

We are here to help you find the path, something which you ultimately have to do for yourself. When I say “may you find the peace you seek” I mean it sincerely.

So here’s the thing. I’m not a sit-around-waiting-for-others-to-fix-me type of guy. Part of my being here is to rule out another source of potential hope — no offence intended.

After a Church email informed me that the position of the Church had done a one-eighty without my knowledge (leaving me to question what I had spent almost fifty years denying and falsifying), I decided it was time to search for solutions.

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Roy wrote:

I have two resources that you might want to check out.

1st is the story of Josh & Lolly Weed. Here is a thread about their heartfelt decision to separate but still co-parent https://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?t=8739&hilit=carol+pearson

Next is the story of Carol Lynn Pearson. Particularly her book “Goodbye, I love you.”

You are walking a very difficult path. You are not alone in this path. I imagine this to be both comforting and sad. Comforting because others can understand what you are going through. Sad because it means that others have suffered and are suffering in similar ways.

There are so many bits and pieces I would like to comment on in recent posts, but doing so will result in my dominating this thread with an angst-ridden tsunami of self-pity and loathing.

I need to cherry pick.

I am well acquainted with the Weeds’ story, thank you. I was a member of North Star when everything went sideways. I was not impressed then, nor am I now. My own history is one of sacrificing myself again and again for what I have understood to be the greater good. His story reminded me of many others I heard in my time as a subscriber to the North Star email and Facebook groups (though arguably without the attention-seeking aspect). I feel sorry for her. As for him, I’m left shaking my head; I’ve seen and heard it all before.

As for “Goodbye, I love you,” I came across that while I was in my decades-long denial phase. I felt sorry for the wife — and uneasy about the husband. He made choices that I have no plans to make, and they cost him his life. My life proceeds in an emotionally part-paralysed way. The past and current teachings of the Church on my situation are occasionally enough to persuade me that death is the only way out. However, I will not kill myself on account of how the Church makes me feel. I will separate myself from the source of damage before it comes to that.

I wonder if anyone has read, “In Quiet Desperation,” co-authored by Ty Mansfield. The first half is an account by some parents who lost their gay son to suicide. The second half contains the philosophies of Ty Mansfield (an LDS therapist). The first half was moving. A handful of pages into the second half, and I tossed the book aside. The second half sounded rather too much like someone who went to the same school as Josh Weed.

[Carburettor]

nibbler wrote:

Can you have hot without cold, addition without subtraction, God without a Devil?

A few months back, I gave some thought to naughty Old Nick. We are taught that Lucifer is an integral part of the Plan because agency is impossible without him, so our very existence depended on someone being willing to undertake that role. In the pre-Earth life, the entire heavenly host would have understood that. That then leaves me feeling uneasy about a complicit devil figure being damned for all eternity. Perhaps it’s simply a ruse to keep us all in check. So, if Lucifer does exist, perhaps he is simply playing the role someone needed to play and is destined for the highest possible glory at the end, having sacrificed his very mortality for the glory of God. :eh:

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Watcher wrote:

[MODERATOR NOTE +++ Watcher is more on the traditional LDS viewpoint on this and most other topics than are many of the participants here. There is great danger of arguing or becoming divisive here. If it happens the thread will be locked. +++ END MODERATOR NOTE]

I have been at work all day, but I wanted to quickly respond to this act of moderation.

I sincerely hope this thread won’t be locked. It is currently my only lifeline, and locking it will serve to further invalidate me. I have no intention of being deliberately antagonistic. I am simply searching for answers that local, regional, and area leadership don’t have, and senior leadership won’t discuss — probably because the back story reflects badly on them.

If there is a way to mitigate the distress I have experienced for decades, I am keen to learn how — from anyone. I am happy to change what can be changed. If, however, the answer is simply to be more faithful in keeping the covenants I have already been keeping for decades out of scrupulosity and with “an eye single to the glory of God” — yet peace still eludes me — I will have my answer. An answer I don’t want, but an answer nonetheless.

Back in 2010, I reached breaking point after more than 20 years in my chosen profession. One day, my job collapsed beneath me. I found myself no longer able to mask the mounting pressures, and I broke down in tears in the middle of a telephone-based meeting with participants from four countries. It was so bad, all I could do was sob — for days. My poor wife had to step in because I couldn’t interact with anyone without crying. It took four months to return to work (during which we lived off savings), and I still remember that I had to slink away to the men’s room several times after returning to a different job to weep quietly out of sight on account of enduring unresolved anxieties. Note: this isn’t a request for pity, it’s simply a candid historical anecdote that illustrates my academic and professional brokenness that first began to manifest itself right back in my twenties. I had entirely committed myself to living as prescribed by senior priesthood holders, and I never imagined that the source of my debilitating imposter syndrome was rooted in the faith-based identity challenges I had refused to acknowledge. I have since concluded that is the source of all my emotional problems; my living as a square peg in a round hole.

More later.

[Carburettor]

Thank you for your comments, DarkJedi.

[Carburettor]

AmyJ wrote:

I would focus on what my Cognitive Dissonance is telling me, and what I need to focus on what is most “valuable” to you. James Fowler’s Stage 4 stuff might be useful to you in this regard.

Thank you, AmyJ. You’re a gem.

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In my rambling way, I guess I’m trying to express how I increasingly suspect that individuals who identify as LGBTQIA+ are as able to find peace in the LDS church as a black person trying to find peace as a member of the KKK.

It is possible to fit in and thrive — even long term — by remaining unaware of history and/or by deliberately ignoring its enduring legacy. If those issues come to the fore and demand an explanation, however, no reasonable defence can be offered, so the appetite for tolerating them decreases inexorably towards a vanishing point. I can’t properly express how despondent that makes me feel.

If the Church were to undertake an ongoing worldwide open dialogue — with input from all invested parties — into how to help vulnerable individuals reconcile differences between faith and identity in the context of Church principles, practices, and doctrine, there might just be a way to unravel some of the mess. Simply restating the Church’s position ad nauseam — which I now understand to be deeply flawed — serves only to alienate. I cannot find Christ in it.

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This is interesting. As humanity documents its way to an ever-increasing body of scientific knowledge, it seems unsurprising to me that belief in the devil should naturally wane in line with diminishing superstitions and general gullibility. We have been taught that the devil and his angels are here to tempt and try us, but how does that function exactly? When you experience an unwholesome thought, was that a product of some evil spirit in your vicinity being able to pollute your consciousness, or did you simply exercise free will in allowing your thoughts to wander?

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AmyJ wrote:

From what you have written, you are trying to figure out who is “right” – “you as a horrible person” or “church leaders who taught truths that hurt you who state they have authority from God to do so”.

Spot on. I punished myself emotionally for decades because I was naïve enough to give deference to repeatedly pejorative statements. I knew no better. I believed these authorities spoke God’s words — as enduring and damning as their impact has been. Until suddenly there was a change of tack by senior priesthood leaders, which has left me reviewing the wreckage of my life and wondering how to reconcile faith and wrongdoing. You’ve seen the movie, “Sleeping with the Enemy,” right? That’s how I feel. Should I run away?

I have come to understand that many vulnerable LDS Church members found themselves in a place of compromise when Ezra Taft Benson took on the mantle of President of the Church (on account of his hardline conservative views). I was oblivious to everything back then. However, in my progressive awakening from 2017 until the current day, the prospect of Dallin H Oaks replacing President Nelson has come home to roost. I am beginning to feel strongly that it will be disingenuous for me to sustain him as the President. I believe he is an amazing, inspirational man with a hateful streak; and that hateful streak is aimed at folks like me.

Dallin Oaks was President of BYU for nine years, and 36 speeches he delivered before and after his term in office remain accessible in the BYU speeches archive (https://speeches.byu.edu/). At least one has been withdrawn. It was titled “The Popular Myth of the Victimless Crime,” shared as part of the Commissioner’s Lecture Series for the Church Educational System in 1974 (https://archive.org/details/Oaks_Criminalize_Homosexuality). What might warrant its removal? Perhaps it was his views on decriminalisation when he said, “I believe in retaining criminal penalties on sex crimes such as adultery, fornication, prostitution, homosexuality” (see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1arP9KaGlHS8-GMViNCsx3QA0YW3GGBbX/view?usp=share_link for an extract). By crimes, he includes consensual activity between adults, including individuals who exercised no choice in the way they turned out. My faith prevents me from condoning what I understand to be immoral activity, but I don’t support prosecuting such individuals. Dallin Oaks has never issued a retraction; he has removed the material so it can’t be used against him. It stands to reason, therefore, that his views have not changed. I feel increasingly unable to support a person who finds me disgusting through no fault of my own.

It was Elder Oaks’s 1995 Ensign article, “Same-Gender Attraction” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1995/10/same-gender-attraction) that convinced me to go ahead and marry. His discourse was logical and arguably truthful — if uncomfortable for many — but he adopted the approach that individuals can and must somehow divorce themselves from the very conditioning that brought about their situation. I now realise I was damaged by that article. And I cannot extricate myself from that damage because I will not betray my wife.

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AmyJ wrote:

ASD peeps learn to “mask” (or not) to a specific degree as a defense mechanism. Observing when “masking costs you” vs when “masking doesn’t necessarily cost you” is a good thing to know about.

Yet again, AmyJ, you have offered some fascinating insight. I have just worked my way through much of the following document: https://neurodivergentinsights.com/blog/what-is-masking-in-autism. I can see that I am adept at masking, but I figure pretty much everybody lies somewhere on the autistic spectrum, right?

AmyJ wrote:

– I don’t know if there is a “false binary” going on here.

– I don’t know if both “rightful truths” are wrong.

One of my take-aways from another forum (that didn’t want me) is that LDS Church members are experts in black-and-white thinking because it supports binary scenarios in which there is either right or wrong. In reality, there is no such thing, only a scale of relative rightness or wrongness.

Black-and-white thinking would have me choose between identifying as heterosexual or one of the many identifiers in the LGBTQIA++ acronym. The truth is far more nuanced. In fact, some of me is heterosexual, some is bisexual, some is gay, some trans, and some queer. In fact, I might even be able to accommodate all those letters in various ways to reflect the gaps I feel in my life. However, that doesn’t help in the search for solutions — and the LDS Church currently shows no appetite for solutions because there will be no shortage of antagonistic people waiting to accuse the Church of illegal conversion therapy. I don’t need conversion; I need to address the unmet needs that have led me to disconnect.

[Carburettor]

Roy wrote:

I also believe that it is inferred that success means something about getting married in the temple and going to heaven as an exalted male and female couple. Those are assumptions.

I mean no disrespect when I remind you that I was commanded by God in my Patriarchal Blessing to seek out a wife, marry, and have children. I love my wife in the way that I can access such love, but this path has been a form of unwitting conversion therapy that has caused me (and others) significant and continuing harm in the absence of being able to address unmet needs relating to gender and identity.

I actually believe that getting married and having children is the path to joy as much as taking vitamin supplements can contribute to health — except that my own vitamins have been laced with arsenic.

[Carburettor]

Roy wrote:

I also believe that these bad sentiments towards LGBTQ+ individuals still to this day have a strong footing within the leadership and the membership. I believe that the church could “repent” or turn away from these bad sentiments and work hard to make the LDS church a more welcoming and peaceful place for LGBTQ+ individuals.

Agreed. It has been my sad experience that “bad sentiments” still thrive in parts of secular society and also in the LDS church. Back in 2018, I spent three hours with my stake president, trying to explain the myriad complexities and contradictions that some vulnerable members must face on account of the twisting Church narrative slowly unfolding in respect of gender and identity. To my great dismay, I was able to tease out of him his suspicion that same-sex attraction and paedophilia are connected. I was horrified that he either consciously or subconsciously was tarring me with that brush — and that he, a professional in the field of medicine, should still believe such nonsense. How could he?

Well, In 1961, Elder Mark E. Petersen of the Counsel of the Twelve Apostles authored an article called “The Prowler in the Jungle” that was published in the September 20, 1961 edition of Deseret News (https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=25429094) in which he stated, “We have come to a time when the deviate poses a continuing menace to children on every street in every community. … They are all there, molesters, rapists, killers, homosexuals — even men and women who are ready to serve as instructors in the black arts of degeneracy. They are emotionally sick and disabled creatures. … They are waiting. They are hunting. They are seeking the inexplicable circumstances that will trigger the attack. A word, a glance, a smile, a gesture — something will set it off.”

If only that were an isolated statement. There have been many in a similar vein that have framed Church sentiments for decades. In the Miracle of Forgiveness, Spencer W Kimball wrote, “Thus it is that through the ages, perhaps as an extension of homosexual practices, men and women have sunk even to seeking sexual satisfactions with animals.”

That is the type of slander I have tried to emotionally dodge for decades, trying to find joy and peace by pretending such comments were directed at others. They weren’t. For individuals like me, peace perpetually feels ephemeral.

And regarding the idea of repenting for decades of what feels increasingly like poison, let me share something our next prophet, Dallin H Oaks, said in an interview in January 2015 with the Salt Lake Tribune (available here if you have a subscription: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/03/31/dallin-oaks-says-church) or secondhand from here https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2122123&itype=cmsid and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUJns80itNE (and plenty of other places). He said unequivocally that the Church doesn’t “seek apologies … and we don’t give them.” To my ear, that sounds no more Christlike than saying, “the Church doesn’t seek charitable donations, and we don’t give them.”

The reason for sharing such comments is to highlight the problematic backstory that has simply been sidestepped or deliberately obfuscated. I have no problem with influential individuals making it known that their views have changed in light of greater understanding. I applaud that. I cannot support hiding information or hoping people will simply forget — because it is embedded within the subconscious of many.

An illustration of deliberately hiding misleading statements rather than addressing and correcting them can be found in the talk “Turning the Hearts” by Elder Hartman Rector Jr. of the Quorum of the Seventy, delivered during the Sunday Afternoon Session of May 1981 General Conference: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1981/04/turning-the-hearts. A number of sections have been redacted. Try to find the following text in the transcript: “If children have a happy family experience, they will not want to be homosexuals.” It’s not there. Now play the video and fast-forward to 6 minutes 46 seconds.

In recent years, I have deliberately sought out controversial statements simply to gain greater understanding about myself and my faith. It is the unresolved dissonance I increasingly feel that has led me to try (and fail) to bring about wholesome, supportive change (not doctrinal change) in both my local area and my country (as was as internationally through the North Star organisation) and which brings me to this forum.

I need to make my posts shorter.

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As much as I wish to, I have decided against quoting from the responses to mine at this hour simply because I need time to process the messages — they are so richly thought-provoking — but it’s past 1.00 AM here.

However, I love the impartiality conveyed in your messages; the way you haven’t categorically negated or belittled my evolving world view, but challenge me to consider other aspects.

I certainly hadn’t given any thought to the idea that evolution doesn’t always proceed in virtuous ways, otherwise we would surely have progressed beyond brain disorders by now. Which reminds me that I do very much believe in the causation of nature and nurture combined, and that, in my world view — centred on eternal order and there being a loving God — our nature doesn’t make us one thing or another but rather influences our susceptibility in interpreting societal cues about identity (whether from parents or wider society).

Perhaps I was unclear or muddled on that. I don’t believe parents are directly responsible (or anyone else for that matter) unless deliberate neglect or abuse is involved (which has proven to be a form of causation). Likewise, it seems to me that it can never be proven that people are born into experiencing gender and identity misalignment because, as I mentioned previously, no one can remember being a baby so they cannot say with any certainty that they have always felt a particular way. It’s impossible. I became aware of feeling things weren’t right by the age of four, but the overlaying of sexuality on identity cannot occur before puberty. Before then, one is only posturing for the sexual hardwiring that accompanies the rise in hormones from the onset of puberty — which, for me, was almost a decade later.

One of my children was speaking in full sentences by the time she was 18 months old (and was still pretty much bald), making her a popular spectacle in supermarkets when other shoppers would marvel at the talking baby. She learnt to process language at a reasonably early age (although she isn’t especially academic), yet her memories date back to no earlier than when she was three. How could she, for example, imagine that she has always felt a certain way when she has no conscious memories of a significant period of her early development when she was already articulate. I just don’t buy it.

My assertion about biology loading the gun is that (1) neurodivergence leads some susceptible individuals to interpret societal imprinting in negative ways, and (2) children whose biology is ambiguous or makes them superficially appear to be ambiguous in terms of the idealised male/female binary are likely to be the subject of identity suspicion (as was the case for me).

Society pulling the trigger is simply about people (even with the best of intentions) telling effeminate-looking Johnny that he mustn’t play with dolls because boys don’t do that. That he shouldn’t put his hands on his hips like that because that’s what sissy boys do. And, in my case, being regularly punched for years by an older brother who delivered his blows while accusing me of being a girl. How was I supposed to identify with masculinity? It was something from which I was excluded. It became the “other,” and puberty then hardwired it as the “sexual other” (except that I resisted it with all my “scrupulosity” and ended up becoming a living contradiction and hating myself).

In my Plan-of-Salvation world view, which is overflowing with agency, children are born unprogrammed (with some, sadly, more susceptible to harmful messaging than others on account of their brain chemistry), and society then positively or negatively models their outcomes. If there is any possible truth there, both society and the Church (as part of a wider faith society) have some serious injustices to answer for someday.

AmyJ, I tried to watch “Stranger than Fiction” on Amazon Prime, but it turns out it is no longer available. However, I watched a handful of trailers on YouTube, and I believe I have already seen it.

Instead, I stumbled upon a new Netflix documentary, “UNKNOWN: Cave of Bones.” What a serendipitous discovery! Non-human primates burying their dead a quarter of a million years ago. My evolutionary senses are tingling. I note there have been criticisms of the findings published online within the past few days, but the documentary evidence is fascinating and somewhat compelling. I am also reminded of the 800,000-year-old Happisburgh footprints of bipedal hominids walking in a group, discovered a few years ago relatively near to where I live.

Goodnight, kind people.

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Roy wrote:

Lots of great comments here.

I’m still waiting for someone to bring out the figurative pitchforks. That’s what I’m used to. You’re all being far too nice.

I agree with pretty much everything that has been said, except the level of discomfort associated with identity misalignment. Being left-handed in a right-handed culture is a trial to endure (passing the sacrament, sustaining, etc.) as is, say, losing a leg, or having a debilitating or terminal disease. Such challenges, however, may be less likely to trigger a core disconnect or dissonance, other than experiencing feelings of “why me?” Confusion in respect of gender and identity, on the other hand, puts gospel-loving individuals at odds with God if we believe what our priesthood leaders tell us. The difference in one’s emotional fracturing is orders of magnitude larger. In my opinion, there is no comparison.

LGBTQIA-identifying individuals joining the Church today know what they’re getting into, and I doubt the long-term retention rate will be high. People like me, on the other hand, who were raised in a culture of devout hatred are burdened by internally digested stigma that I suspect they can never shed.

I feel a measure of peace only when I am contributing to self harm by pretending I am someone else. I believe this is unjust, so I cannot accept that God is the author of it.

At the risk of venturing into melodrama, my situation results in occasional waves of morbid thoughts. Thankfully, pondering the enduring impact on my wife and children deters me from taking action. If I were not a member, I’d simply be dealing with the emotional issues I have found to be commonplace among those in LGBTQIA groups (having participated in several secular and faith-based ones). The additional dimension of hellfire and damnation, however, is enough to make a situation unbearable.

Perhaps we should review some of the “inspired” statements of senior priesthood leaders from my formative years to evaluate whether I am being overly sensitive. They are found in the public domain and are easily verifiable.

[Carburettor]

AmyJ wrote:

You might like the movie, “Stranger than Fiction” that is a story about a character who goes from living a very dry, almost cardboard life to one of their own choosing.

Thanks, AmyJ. I found nothing on Netflix, but there are three movies by that name on Amazon Prime. I’m hoping it’s the one with Will Ferrell, and I’ll watch that this weekend.

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