I was born in Idaho, the first son and second child to my parents who had met at BYU, and were both 4th or 5th generation Mormons from Idaho. Making me 5th or 6th generation Mormon, depending on which line you’re counting. Anyway, the point of that is that my family and the Mormon church go WAY back – like “across the plains and the Atlantic ocean” back. So my entire life I was steeped in Mormon teachings. Also, from some of my very earliest memories [i.e. about 4 years old,] I knew I liked boys more than girls. There was always something so intriguing and magical to me about those of my same gender. Girls only had value to me as friends. Sure, I knew boys were “supposed” to like girls, but it didn’t really matter much to me during my young life. As I entered into sexual maturity, however, it began to make a difference.

I heard what the church/prophets taught – that sexual sin [of which homosexuality was one of the worst] was only slightly less terrible than murder. Without rehashing a lot of really unpleasant memories, this lead me, my entire adolescence, to hate myself so passionately that I had absolutely no self-esteem whatsoever, and was almost constantly engulfed with a desire to kill myself. I always considered myself a worthless coward because I could never actually take the step to execute all the scenarios [for killing myself] I conjured up in my head.

I might also add that, for as long I could remember, I hated going to church. It was boring and the people were mean to me. My peers were all downright hateful, and often the adult teachers were far from compassionate. There were a few people who did reach out to me, and I still have fond memories of some of them, but for the most part, one could say I didn’t really like or trust most Mormons. My favorite Sundays growing up were the ones when I was sick, and got to stay home [a rare treat] or if we were on vacation and somehow managed not to end up the ‘visitors’ to our relatives wards [but usually we did.] I always managed to have one “best” friend [always male,] which was my only refuge. For a long time it was Micah, but his family moved away, and then Brandon moved into our ward in ’89 and he’s still my friend to this day.

As a Mormon your life is mapped out according to a few benchmarks. Get born [preferably into a family with lots of other kids,] get baptized, grow up, go on a mission for the church [skip this step if you're a pretty girl and can land a husband before you turn 21, but if you're more of a "sweet spirit" you take the mission option,] stay on your mission the whole 2 years and convert everyone, come home, get married, and make more babies for the church. Easy, right? Well, after high school graduation the next step as was decided for me by the church and my family was “go on a mission.” I didn’t really want to go, but what else did I have going on? So I ended up in the MTC, where I met Steimle. [I'll have to get used to using the first name.] The MTC was actually 2 of the best months of my life to that point. I was surrounded by cute guys almost constantly, and I was learning a new language [which was challenging, but I like language, so it was fun.] The rest of my mission was more of a challenge. I’ll skip it for now, but maybe revisit some on a future post.

So fast forward – after the mission I went to BYU for a few years and tried dating girls. I was never very successful. I think they could tell something was ‘off.’ I also developed MANY unrequited crushes on cute, unsuspecting Mormon boys. It was torture. It was under that pressure that I finally confessed to my best female friend Kindra that I was gay. She was understanding and a great friend, and it was certainly liberating to actually get that out. If you’ve never had to live a lie, I REALLY don’t recommend it. It’s a private hell. It was shortly after that I also talked to my brother and next younger sister and told them about it. More liberation. I also started meeting other gay guys from the internet during this period. Almost all were also Mormons, some were BYU students, and all similarly confused to some degree, as I was. I eventually realized that I was not going to get the education I wanted from BYU [another story there, unrelated to the topic at hand] so I packed up my stuff and moved back to Texas and started my work career. I remained active in the church and started dating a really nice, cute South African girl named Leanne. She liked me, and I liked her. She probably would have eventually married me if I had asked her. But I knew it wasn’t right. I had tried so hard to convince myself that I could fit into the church’s mold that I contemplated it long and hard. It came down to the fact that I knew I wasn’t being honest with myself, or with her, and I didn’t want to submit either of us to that life.

After that I started dating my first boyfriend. I’ll leave off my final big “coming out to my parents” story for later. There’s a lot more to write, but for now it’s late, and time for me to go to bed.