In the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, I realized I wasn’t straight.
You can read my coming our story here, but I’ll say this much: my coming out process was super fast, like a whirlwind. I realized it one day and came out to Mary, my parents, and my siblings the next, as well as publish a coming post online and on my social media accounts.
At the time, in-person church had been cancelled, and while I’m sure some of our ward members had seen my coming out blog post and social media posts, I hadn’t really come out in a church setting specifically. And that meant most of the ward probably didn’t know that I’m queer.
In fact, it wouldn’t be until nearly a year and a half later when I’d finally get that chance.
Our stake went back to in-person services last summer. If you wanted to watch the service from home, you had to get special permission. And since we didn’t feel as though we had extraordinary circumstances (even though we wanted to avoid exposure to the Delta and emerging Omicron variants of the coronavirus), we decided to begin attending in person.
The first mandated in-person service for our ward was the fast Sunday in August 2021.
I knew I wanted to come out to the ward and some point, and I realized that fast and testimony would be as good a time as any. And just like I pulled off the bandaid—so to speak—when I came out to my family and online, I did the same thing to my fellow ward members: coming out in person, at the mic, in sacrament meeting, on my first real day back since the start of the pandemic.
I told them all I was bisexual. I’ve come to realize since I first came out that my sexuality is more complex than that, it just seemed easier to say that than to go into a lecture on introductory queer theory.
And I have absolutely no regrets in coming out to the ward.
I had several people come up to me after the meeting in person and over email throughout the next few days, and that felt special. But there were 4 specific experiences that really stuck out to me, confirming that coming out at church was the right thing for me to do.
I came out because I wanted people to know that there are queer people in this ward. I wanted closeted queer people to know that they’re not alone and straight people to know that there was a specific person hearing what you’re saying.
The first experience occurred shortly after I was called to be the ward Sunday School president. This happened in the spring of 2021, roughly a year after coming out.
As one does, I reached out to the previous Sunday School president to coordinate initiatives, see how his teachers are doing, discuss goals he had set, and so on.
His response shocked me.
I’m glad the Bishop found someone to fill the seat of such an important calling. I want you to know where I stand on a few things. I believe that the LGBT as an organization and many of its members are immoral, next I also believe socialism is evil. I’m going to find it hard to support anyone who leads his family down these 2 roads. With saying that the Bishop and the Lord sees something in you that I am ignorant of, so I will put away my pride and I will raise my hand to the square on Sunday.
I never had him or his spouse added on social media, and it’d be 5 more months before I’d come out and church. I don’t think he knew I was queer, but he must have known that we had queer children.
This reply from the previous Sunday School president obviously wasn’t why I was glad I came out at church. For one, I hadn’t even come out at church yet, and this response was hurtful. How could I be grateful for something that hurt me.
No, what I’m grateful for is that just moments after getting this email, I actually received an email from our bishop, who happens to still be out bishop.
You see, the former Sunday School president had, for some reason, decided to CC the bishop on the email he sent in reply to mine. So the bishop saw that response. He must’ve known that I’m queer. I don’t have him added on social media, but I do have his spouse added on Facebook, and it’s possible his wife told him when I came out the previous spring. I also have one of his counsellors added on Facebook, so he also might have said something.
Regardless, he phoned me almost immediately after the email went out, and he wanted to make sure I was okay. He recognized the pain that email could cause, and he wanted to mitigate that damage. After I assured him that I was fine (and honestly, I was hurt, but not too hurt), he told me he’d reach out to the former Sunday School president and discuss what he had done.
So the first reason I’m glad I came out (even though I hadn’t technically come out at church yet) was because it helped me to know that at least one person in our ward leadership recognized that his ward contained queer members who wanted to participate, and he wanted to facilitate that participation.
The second reason I’m glad I came out at church was because of an experience I had at church that same day.
After the adult Sunday School let out and people were shuffling around to go home, someone who had been sitting behind me reached out to introduce himself.
It turns out that he and his spouse weren’t together anymore. They had a child together, but he hadn’t been active for a while. He promised her at one point that once provincial health protections had been lifted and he could attend church in person, he would take their child to church. And his first day back happened to be my first day back, when I bore my testimony and came out at church.
It turns out that he’s queer, and he had been concerned about coming back to church as a queer person, so hearing me coming out so publicly helped him know that he wasn’t alone.
The third reason was a few months ago, roughly a year after I came out at church, one of the older women in our ward came up to me prior to sacrament service beginning. She came out to me as queer. It’s all so new to her, and she stumbled through trying to communicate clearly her queerness. But it was unmistakable. More importantly, she felt comfortable coming out to me. In fact, it was the first time she had come out to anyone.
And the final reason why I’m glad I came out at church is that the stake presidency recently had me attend the bishops training meeting, where they were providing counsel to the stake’s bishops (and their counsellors, for those who attended) on the importance of creating welcoming space for the queer members who were living in their wards, even if they had no idea they were there.
It was an opportunity for me to share my experiences, to answer questions from these bishops, and to dispel some myths. I’m not sure how that meeting would’ve gone if I hadn’t been there, and I was there because I had come out and the stake presidency knew that I’m queer.
The stake presidency also asked for advice and guidance on things the stake can do to create a more affirming and inclusive space for queer members, which I gave him. It remains to be seen how much of those recommendations will end up being implemented.
Either way, as I said, I have no regrets coming out at church. Good things have happened because of it.
I know not everyone is in a position to do that. But I’m glad I am, and I hope people like that can know that they’re not alone.
