I do invite you to consider what your response will be if someone comes out to you this week. How will you respond? How will you protect their safety? How will you listen out of love, not fear? Can you set aside judgment and listen with openheartedness, both to them and to whatever words God may give you?

When we focus on how others are falling short, rather than how we can improve, we are victims of a shell game that distracts us from shaping our own families in the image of heaven. It is a tragic loss. Weaponizing the Proclamation as a mere defense against same-sex marriage diminishes our own potential to become more godly.

This is an except from Tender Leaves of Hope: Finding Belonging as LGBTQ Latter-day Saint Women, coming out in spring 2022. Here is a short clip from a presentation on this topic; this is the backstory

I’m excited to announce the upcoming spring release of Tender Leaves of Hope: Finding Belonging as LGBTQ Latter-day Saint Women. Based on my experience as a gay Latter-day Saint, this book also reflects the insights and lives of dozens of other women who find themselves at the crossroads of their sexual orientation or identity and their faith.

Shortly after I admitted my same-sex attraction to myself and my husband David, I read Dr. Lisa Diamond’s Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire. Here I started to find some context for my lived experience. In Dr. Diamond’s research I heard echoes of my own reality—attracted to women and one particular, amazing man. I started to build a new framework to understand my sexuality, my orientation toward women, the authenticity of my marriage, and how my life could make sense.

Every story has a beginning

I am a woman attracted to women. While for many women, that is a cause to rejoice rather than mourn, it put me at odds with my religious beliefs, my community, and the life that I felt God wanted for me. That dissonance created a deep shame inside me that devolved at times into suicidal depression, even as my conscious mind refused to acknowledge the cause.