UPDATE (Jan 7, 2012): Version 1 of LDS SSA study newsletter now available
Some preliminary results are in for the Utah State University conducted LGBT Mormon Survey.
Please click here:
Preliminary Results of LDS-SSA Survey Now Available
(Previous reference: LGBT Mormon Survey)
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
where no one wants to be
Why don't I write here anymore? I think a part of me doesn't want to answer that question here. It's not safe anymore. After all this time, all these months, I've realized that I've been bullied to keeping my mouth shut about some aspects of my life. The realm of my mind that needs a voice doesn't have an understanding ear. And I'm sick and tired of trying to say what it is, without saying what it is. But then, don't expect me to say it now that I've mentioned I'm sick of keeping it to myself.
What I want to say, I want to say it to a person. To their face. I want to read their expressions and watch for sparks of understanding, insight, inspiration, and I want to hear what they have to say about what I said. I want them to talk to me with the desire to know what I have to say about what they said. I want to hear and feel the tone of the voice, read and experience the body language. I want to be someone to them in real life, and I want them to be someone to me in the same living space.
This medium of text, a string of words which only convey just a microcosm of information is cold, empty, shallow. It is not the essence of the person; it's not the essence of me. These are just my words filtered through hours of thought and rewriting. I don't talk like this; I don't express my essence this way.
When someone experiences me in the flesh, they don't see the formality or the humor they saw in my writing. I don't think that fast, I don't talk that fast. I stumble with what to say, I constantly misspeak my thoughts and often repeat myself. Many times the words I want to speak never seem to reach my mouth leaving me to frustratingly search, strain and grasp for them. Often in failure. I know what they mean, I know what I want to convey, but that damn word won't come forward. So I pause, think, ponder, clear my head, wait for the word to come to the surface. "Ses...sees...serrs...serrr...serpe...serep...what the fuck is the word I'm looking for?"
This is not stuttering. I'm vocalizing in an attempt to stir up the word to come forward. Perhaps, desperately, give the listener, who I would hope hasn't tuned me out already, a clue so they could offer a suggestion to trigger my memory. All too often they have tuned me out or take my pause as a queue instead to change the subject or worse, walk away.
Things haven't always been this way. But they are getting worse and I fear that in time I will have lost all ability.
Nonetheless, with that frustration aside, speaking my mind, has given me more than any writing has done because it has connected me to people in deeper ways, given my mind a chance to reprogram all of its errant beliefs about body language, mannerisms, vocal tone, and the intent behind it, undoing years of social malignment from growing up with emotionally abusive parents up in a deeply judgmental culture. It's allowed me to find a community of likeminded people who can relate to my ideas and feelings and given me perspective and companionship.
But, only to a certain extent.
I've come to a moment in my life where I have found that I can no longer speak an important aspect of my essence. I've tried to speak it but I get blank stares, disapproving glances or just plain antagonistic comebacks to shut the fuck up about it. Bullying. This place, this blog, is actually not a safe space for me to explore those thoughts either. For this aspect in my life, I'm not in the right community. I'm stuck, alone again, without a community for the thoughts in my head.
But I do know where those communities are! And even though I don't know the right words to use, I give it a try anyway. And if it doesn't fall apart right away, or never starts because I'm not versed on using the correct language, it eventually falls apart anyway. Why? Because I'm too far away. I'm not worth the trouble or the time because I'm too far away. But what do they mean by that? Many of them are willing to travel 5 to 10, 20 hours away, or even fly across the country. But they won't for me? Why? Because I don't live in a city or an area of the country that interests them; I don't live in a place where there is a community. It's just me. And because of that, I seem to have nothing to offer them, despite my ability and willingness to travel to them. So our communication ends. They no longer return my inquiries or express any interest in what I have to say. No more email, no more chats. Alone, again.
That triggers me. Anxiety, frustration, anger, hurt, rejection, abandonment...
The only thing left is to delete them from Facebook so I don't have to subject myself to a constant barge of all the great things they are posing about the community. And as I'm quickly losing my ability to freely travel, I can't help but think to myself, "what's the fucking point of any of it anymore?"
All, I've got right now is my isolation in my dead end job in a corner of the world where no one wants to be.
What I want to say, I want to say it to a person. To their face. I want to read their expressions and watch for sparks of understanding, insight, inspiration, and I want to hear what they have to say about what I said. I want them to talk to me with the desire to know what I have to say about what they said. I want to hear and feel the tone of the voice, read and experience the body language. I want to be someone to them in real life, and I want them to be someone to me in the same living space.
This medium of text, a string of words which only convey just a microcosm of information is cold, empty, shallow. It is not the essence of the person; it's not the essence of me. These are just my words filtered through hours of thought and rewriting. I don't talk like this; I don't express my essence this way.
When someone experiences me in the flesh, they don't see the formality or the humor they saw in my writing. I don't think that fast, I don't talk that fast. I stumble with what to say, I constantly misspeak my thoughts and often repeat myself. Many times the words I want to speak never seem to reach my mouth leaving me to frustratingly search, strain and grasp for them. Often in failure. I know what they mean, I know what I want to convey, but that damn word won't come forward. So I pause, think, ponder, clear my head, wait for the word to come to the surface. "Ses...sees...serrs...serrr...serpe...serep...what the fuck is the word I'm looking for?"
This is not stuttering. I'm vocalizing in an attempt to stir up the word to come forward. Perhaps, desperately, give the listener, who I would hope hasn't tuned me out already, a clue so they could offer a suggestion to trigger my memory. All too often they have tuned me out or take my pause as a queue instead to change the subject or worse, walk away.
Things haven't always been this way. But they are getting worse and I fear that in time I will have lost all ability.
Nonetheless, with that frustration aside, speaking my mind, has given me more than any writing has done because it has connected me to people in deeper ways, given my mind a chance to reprogram all of its errant beliefs about body language, mannerisms, vocal tone, and the intent behind it, undoing years of social malignment from growing up with emotionally abusive parents up in a deeply judgmental culture. It's allowed me to find a community of likeminded people who can relate to my ideas and feelings and given me perspective and companionship.
But, only to a certain extent.
I've come to a moment in my life where I have found that I can no longer speak an important aspect of my essence. I've tried to speak it but I get blank stares, disapproving glances or just plain antagonistic comebacks to shut the fuck up about it. Bullying. This place, this blog, is actually not a safe space for me to explore those thoughts either. For this aspect in my life, I'm not in the right community. I'm stuck, alone again, without a community for the thoughts in my head.
But I do know where those communities are! And even though I don't know the right words to use, I give it a try anyway. And if it doesn't fall apart right away, or never starts because I'm not versed on using the correct language, it eventually falls apart anyway. Why? Because I'm too far away. I'm not worth the trouble or the time because I'm too far away. But what do they mean by that? Many of them are willing to travel 5 to 10, 20 hours away, or even fly across the country. But they won't for me? Why? Because I don't live in a city or an area of the country that interests them; I don't live in a place where there is a community. It's just me. And because of that, I seem to have nothing to offer them, despite my ability and willingness to travel to them. So our communication ends. They no longer return my inquiries or express any interest in what I have to say. No more email, no more chats. Alone, again.
That triggers me. Anxiety, frustration, anger, hurt, rejection, abandonment...
The only thing left is to delete them from Facebook so I don't have to subject myself to a constant barge of all the great things they are posing about the community. And as I'm quickly losing my ability to freely travel, I can't help but think to myself, "what's the fucking point of any of it anymore?"
All, I've got right now is my isolation in my dead end job in a corner of the world where no one wants to be.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Disillusion
It hurts.
When one set of friends talk total shit about another set of friends,
it compels me to question the value that I am to people.
Especially If someone's value can be so easily tossed aside.
So, as I sit in stunned silence for a moment,
I am deeply afraid to say anything, and not sure what to say.
What I fear, if I do say anything at all, is what my rage will say.
Which, if left unchecked, will make me the new object of scorn.
It all makes me feel isolated.
More so than I already am.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
LGBT Mormon Survey
UPDATE (Nov, 9, 2011): Preliminary Results of LDS-SSA Survey Now Available
UPDATE: Survey is closed.
Utah State University is conducting a survey for all Mormons or former Mormons who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender.
Click next to read the consent form and more about the person(s) conducting the Survey.
I completed the survey myself and I found it to be, well, rather cathartic. There are lots of open ended questions and plenty of space to write out experiences, stories and explanations. Of all the surveys I've take in the past which have attempted to research this subject, I feel like this one is was well thought out as opposed to many in the past that felt like they were written by "religious" high school kids or church institutions.
Anyway, if you identify as LGBT Mormons/Ex-Mormons, or even if you don't, as it says in the consent document that it's for non LGBT Mormons as well, I highly recommend it so that you can tell your version of the story in relation to this matter.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Those Nasty Recruiting Homosexuals
I have been meaning to post something about my resignation from the LDS church but life has gotten so busy lately that I've, well, sort of let this blog collect spiders.
I'm not really going to disturb the spiders much right now but I wanted to draw attention to this post by Maureen over at My Black Bikini.
Since I've already resigned, I don't have much else to do other than go out, proselytize and recruit others to resign as well by taking advantage of their shaky testimonies and pointing their browsers to the Facebook group "Resignate: Mormon mass resign for Prop 8 pending supreme court repeal" that Maureen talks about in her post.
Just so you know, resigning from the church can be a really easy process but there are some specific steps that need to be carried out to ensure you're legally protected from unwanted contact or in some cases harassment. For more information on the process, please see: Mormon No More.
I have documented my resignation process and may post it here some time. Although, it's really a dry and boring read. Hell, it bores me just thinking about it.
In the mean time, join us in the Facebook group. If you've already resigned, join us anyway to offer support to those who are planning on taking this big step.
I'm not really going to disturb the spiders much right now but I wanted to draw attention to this post by Maureen over at My Black Bikini.
Since I've already resigned, I don't have much else to do other than go out, proselytize and recruit others to resign as well by taking advantage of their shaky testimonies and pointing their browsers to the Facebook group "Resignate: Mormon mass resign for Prop 8 pending supreme court repeal" that Maureen talks about in her post.
Just so you know, resigning from the church can be a really easy process but there are some specific steps that need to be carried out to ensure you're legally protected from unwanted contact or in some cases harassment. For more information on the process, please see: Mormon No More.
I have documented my resignation process and may post it here some time. Although, it's really a dry and boring read. Hell, it bores me just thinking about it.
In the mean time, join us in the Facebook group. If you've already resigned, join us anyway to offer support to those who are planning on taking this big step.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Spot of Dirt
I find it really hard to be impressed by a religion that builds commercial centers for wealthy people and invests little to no money in homeless shelters or soup kitchens. Many times my old ward would set up service opportunities wherin we would volunteer to work with another denomination's soup kitchen. All time and money came out of our own pockets. No LDS church funds were ever used to assist.
Imagine the possibilities of what this kind of money could do if it were spent in ways that really helped people. People who, from no fault of their own, truly needed it?
"City Creek Center, by contrast, was/is being built at ~$3,000 per square foot, or nearly 5x more expensive than the next nearest comparable property, and that’s assuming that the City Creek Center utilizes every square foot of the approximately 20-acre development site."Source: Truth Hurts: Church Finance – Part IV
Imagine the possibilities of what this kind of money could do if it were spent in ways that really helped people. People who, from no fault of their own, truly needed it?
 |
| Source: MormonGags.com |
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Question of Choice
It took me awhile to become aware of my gay behaviors. But from day one, they were gay. Such as, whom I checked out, crushed on, felt emotional, physical, and spiritual attraction too. They were all gay behaviors. But I didn't see them as gay. I wasn't aware that I was doing anything different from anyone else for many years until expectations from the church told me otherwise.
But even then, I didn't understand, nor did I think that much about what I was doing vs. what they think I should be doing. I was only aware that the way I perceived the world seemed to be unique. I felt different, weird even, or at odds with those around me. I wasn't attracted to anyone male or female in any sexual way for reasons I thought had to do with the religious demonization of sexual coupling in general. I later realized that my sexuality was much more complicated than that. It wasn't about the sex itself.
So, from that alone, I am confident that my innate sexual orientation is not a choice. And I'm confident that many of the innate behaviors associated with sexual orientation are not consciously chosen. But Elder Oaks and Wickman would never believe me, nor would they believe anyone of any educated repute on the subject. For proof, see LDS.org for more of their mind fuckary on the topic of homosexuality. Little of it based on reality. But then, if you believe in the fairytales of that religion, Oaks and Wickman will be fucking with your mind and you won't even know it.
But there does at some point in life come a choice. And I will grant them that but only so far as they understand the basic definition of the word 'choice' and nothing more.
The choice comes when acting on it is done consciously. In that case, it's no one's business what choice I make. It's my life. I rule my domain only. No one has any authority to make that choice for me or even suggest what choice I should be making. How could anyone know how truly to make a choice for someone else when it comes to how we play out our internal attractions and innate needs and desires? So, ultimately, the entire argument of choice, whether to be gay or to act on gay feelings, becomes completely irrelevant.
Let's keep in mind one more thing here, the word 'lifestyle'. If the religious types want to use the word 'lifestyle' when talking of homosexuality, to reinforce the concept of choice, than they must also accept the term to be used with heterosexuality. No matter what 'lifestyle' one chooses, a choice to act on one's innate desires has been made either way. But, why won't those living a heterosexual 'lifestyle' see that they have made a choice? Because they have never had their choice questioned, ridiculed or demonized. Those of us in the homosexual 'lifestyle' have.
So, as a result, we've had an additional choice to make that the heterosexuals do not which is, the choice not to let all of the ridicule, demonization, hatred and bigotry spewed at us every day to stifle our happiness. So that we may be able to fully accept ourselves. Fully embrace that we are indeed gay and that we have the right to choose that path. After that, we can then choose to live as we are, openly in a homosexual 'lifestyle'.
Many heterosexuals don't have a clue what that's like because it has never occurred to them that the heterosexual 'lifestyle' has been shoved down their throats since the day they were born. Why does that not bother them? It doesn't bother then because they are not homosexuals.
UPDATE (Jan 28, 2012): More recent perspective here: The Question of Choice, Again!
But even then, I didn't understand, nor did I think that much about what I was doing vs. what they think I should be doing. I was only aware that the way I perceived the world seemed to be unique. I felt different, weird even, or at odds with those around me. I wasn't attracted to anyone male or female in any sexual way for reasons I thought had to do with the religious demonization of sexual coupling in general. I later realized that my sexuality was much more complicated than that. It wasn't about the sex itself.
So, from that alone, I am confident that my innate sexual orientation is not a choice. And I'm confident that many of the innate behaviors associated with sexual orientation are not consciously chosen. But Elder Oaks and Wickman would never believe me, nor would they believe anyone of any educated repute on the subject. For proof, see LDS.org for more of their mind fuckary on the topic of homosexuality. Little of it based on reality. But then, if you believe in the fairytales of that religion, Oaks and Wickman will be fucking with your mind and you won't even know it.
But there does at some point in life come a choice. And I will grant them that but only so far as they understand the basic definition of the word 'choice' and nothing more.
The choice comes when acting on it is done consciously. In that case, it's no one's business what choice I make. It's my life. I rule my domain only. No one has any authority to make that choice for me or even suggest what choice I should be making. How could anyone know how truly to make a choice for someone else when it comes to how we play out our internal attractions and innate needs and desires? So, ultimately, the entire argument of choice, whether to be gay or to act on gay feelings, becomes completely irrelevant.
Let's keep in mind one more thing here, the word 'lifestyle'. If the religious types want to use the word 'lifestyle' when talking of homosexuality, to reinforce the concept of choice, than they must also accept the term to be used with heterosexuality. No matter what 'lifestyle' one chooses, a choice to act on one's innate desires has been made either way. But, why won't those living a heterosexual 'lifestyle' see that they have made a choice? Because they have never had their choice questioned, ridiculed or demonized. Those of us in the homosexual 'lifestyle' have.
So, as a result, we've had an additional choice to make that the heterosexuals do not which is, the choice not to let all of the ridicule, demonization, hatred and bigotry spewed at us every day to stifle our happiness. So that we may be able to fully accept ourselves. Fully embrace that we are indeed gay and that we have the right to choose that path. After that, we can then choose to live as we are, openly in a homosexual 'lifestyle'.
Many heterosexuals don't have a clue what that's like because it has never occurred to them that the heterosexual 'lifestyle' has been shoved down their throats since the day they were born. Why does that not bother them? It doesn't bother then because they are not homosexuals.
UPDATE (Jan 28, 2012): More recent perspective here: The Question of Choice, Again!
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