Don't Bloom Where You are Planted. Transplant.

So, I went to an LGBTQ inclusive medical office today. 

I'll be honest it is still the weirdest feeling for me to be openly accepted and validated as a queer person. I still felt like I had to tip toe around sexual topics and questions I had. Sex ed growing up was straight sex ed, and they promoted abstinence. They did not prepare you for reality. It was such a foreign experience being accepted on that level. Sometimes I feel like me being accepted as a queer person is wrong because it is the opposite from what I got growing up in the LDS church. Gay is wrong and I should not be so comfortable with myself. I should not seek pure joy outside of the LDS church. I should not find someone to spend the rest of my life with. I should “choose to be straight”. God will not love me or support me if I love a man. I’ll be seen as dirty. A sexual deviant. President Dallin H Oaks and the rest of the revelators think that my life is one big grievous sin. I am a lost sheep who has been deceived by Satan. 

If you were unfortunate enough to have watched General Conference this weekend, you could probably (hopefully) see why I and many other people in and out of the LDS church have struggled with happiness, and a lot of times die by suicide. With the LDS gospel and teachings the way they are, suicide honestly sounds like the best option for so many of us. SUICIDE IS NOT THE ANSWER, but in the moment it sure sounds like it. The LDS church is not an affirming religion, and there isn’t room for everyone. No matter how much the old men at the pulpit say so. Their message of love is loaded and convoluted. Their love creates confusion and causes rifts in families. 

I was raised to be a straight cisgender man. I was brought up being taught that embracing your sexuality was a bad thing if you weren't a straight cisgender person. I was taught that being in a relationship with the same gender was next to murder in the eyes of the Mormon God. I was taught every week that you can achieve celestial glory by living up to the standards of the LDS church by either remaining celebrate and lonely my whole life, or marrying a gender I am NOT attracted to so that some eternal "being" would be happy with me and I would eventually be able to make my own planet. I was taught that gender is essential to Gods so called “plan”. I was taught that being gay is OK if you don’t “act on” your gay thoughts and turn it off like a light switch. I was taught to treat my sexuality like an addiction and just push my feelings aside. I was taught that I was treatable. 

When I first began blogging, I was still leaning into that bear trap. I compared being gay to having a drug addiction, being alcoholic, or even a food addiction. Let me tell you, wanting the ability to love someone you are attracted to is not an addiction. I am extremely regretful that I ever came out and said that. My first few blog entries are a bit cringe worthy and spew conversion therapy. 

I was taught that men should wear men’s clothes, and women should wear women's clothes. I have been told by friends and family that they accept me, but they don't believe I will be gay in the "next life". 

I wonder how they would feel if I told them that I didn’t think they would be straight in the next life? After all, their sexuality defines their eternal existence. 

I was taught that the Mormon Prophet is a mouthpiece of God and that anything he says at the pulpit is seen as scripture (problematic).  

As I have mentioned before, my Patriarchal blessing was an emotional experience because I believed in it a little too much. I put every ounce of faith I had into the LDS gospel and the teachings. So much that I began hating who I was. I was so happy when I got my patriarchal blessing because I finally felt like it was possible to live life the way I was "intended" to live life. The way Mormon God wanted me to live my life. I began crying tears of joy because I thought I was going to be fixed and be able to live up to everyone's expectations. Luckily I chose not to stick to the status quo. 

Attached is a copy of my patriarchal blessing. I had posted it a couple years ago and got some backlash from some family. They were offended that I had shared it. They thought that it was cruel of me to post my own blessing and talk down on it, well I am not a believer in maintaining my Stockholm syndrome. I am doing whatever I can to take the power away from the monster that’s inside me (not the good kind lol). 

Well, it’s 10 months into the year and it’s a new me. I’m done hiding things. Especially things that aren't sacred to me anymore. If you are straight and are cisgender then I am sure your blessing may resonate with you and maybe it gives you peace. That is not everyone's case though and I am not going to pretend like this is a sacred thing to me anymore. 

I know people will be upset, but nothing about my blessing is sacred or holy. It actually caused harm to my life by feeding into the negative belief that a person should marry someone who they are not attracted to just to eventually divorce and live your best life later anyways. Even if I continued living according to how the church expects a person to live, I promise you I would have either ended it permanently, or just continue to build up the self hatred and had an even larger existential explosion later in life.   

In my blessing, Mormon God tells me that I will go on a mission and then fall in love with a woman and get married in the Temple. We will have kids and multiply and replenish the earth yadda yadda yadda. I read it to my friend today, and I was relieved that it did not resonate with me. I have been out for a few years now, but the past 20 months has been my first time being "out" and sober from alcohol. 

I drank an ungodly amount of alcohol every day because I had no idea who to talk to or what to believe. If I went to a Bishop they were instantly wanting to have a "court of love" (where they decide if you will be excommunicated or disfellowshiped until you decide to live the way they want you to)  they have no idea how to help LGBTQ members. All I knew was the LDS religion. I was so lost when I discovered that it was not true for me. I was not capable of being confident in myself. Even though I didn't believe in the church, I still believed I wasn't lovable. I believed I was a sinful, disgusting human in the eyes of Mormon God. I had no idea what else to believe. 

I even questioned if it was worth it to stop drinking my life away if Mormon God was still going to be disgusted with me for liking guys and eventually marrying a guy. (If marriage is even my thing, who knows? it’s 2019, marriage is a little archaic and hetero-normative, still beautiful but I am undecided if it is what I want). I am working on my definition of what I want my relationships to look like and not what other people think they should look like. If I want one partner I will have one. If I want multiple, I will have multiple. I am keeping my mind open because it is silly not to. 

Luckily, over time I have lost most of my residual beliefs in the Mormon church. Say it’s the devil who is deceiving me or what have you. Maybe I am possessed by some evil spirit who got kicked out of heaven with Lucifer and the other third of the hosts of Heaven. 

BOO! (that would be kinda fun if it was true, especially since it is October)  

But honestly, if this is the work of the devil and what I had before was the work of a “God”, then I would choose this any day. Mormon God did not offer me peace of mind. He left me with a confused, bruised, and bloody soul who felt worthless. There is no room for queer folks in the LDS church and I hope whoever is trying to make the church work for them finds their way out soon. Run girl, run. 

If there is a God, they will meet you where ever you need. You do not need to be in a church building to feel peace, to feel closer to God. If your experience is anything like mine then you may not even know what peace feels like until you step away, or at least hit pause on religion. Figure some things out for yourself instead of taking advice men who are stuck in the 20th century with their gospel and their policies. You are loved, and you do NOT deserve to be feeling what you are feeling. You deserve to look in the mirror and feel confident. You deserve to be able to identify with whatever gender you identify with. You deserve to date whoever you want to date. However many people you want to date. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to define your own happiness. You are worthy, you are lovable, you are beautiful. You are amazing. It is hard to feel that as a queer person in the LDS faith.

You deserve to be celebrated and not tolerated. Going to church and sitting through General Conference you are constantly reminded where your place is in the house of the "Lord" and it's not in the living room with the family. It's not in the Celestial kingdom according to the LDS Prophet. 

Please know you do not have to bloom where you are planted. Sometimes it is necessary to transplant in order to live a healthy life. Sometimes a plant is in toxic soil and begins to shrivel up because it is not getting the nutrients it needs to survive. You can do everything you can to keep it alive in the soil. You can water it everyday, give it some sunlight, maybe even say a prayer. It will still die if the soil is bad for it. It is OK to leave what you have been told to believe your whole life. I can say this now, but if I was currently in the church they would excommunicate me in a heartbeat. People have been excommunicated for much less. 

Take it from me, stay if you really want to. But there was even a time when I truly believed that it was the one true church. That’s because that’s all I was ever taught. I didn't know any better. I was taking the blue pill.

I have crossed over the hedge, I have left the village, I have taken the red pill. I have found that there is so much more to life then always trying to be perfect when the idea of "striving for perfection" is so subjective. Sin is subjective. The church may work for some people and you may feel some sort of peace if you fit in the perimeters of their expectations, but if it is crushing your soul, you deserve better. You deserve to be happy. You are not a burden my dear. You accept the love you think you deserve, and honey you deserve so much more. 

Your Apostatic Heathen,

Zachary 💕