Colette: Hello, and welcome to Called to Queer, where we hold space for the queer Mormon women, genderqueer and intersex experiences. I’m Colette and my pronouns are she/her.
Kate: And I’m Kate and my pronouns are she/they.
Colette: Today, we’re interviewing Elena Thurston and we’re so excited for this conversation. before we jump into that, we wanted to start off by seeing what brought us queer joy this week. So Kate, what brought you queer joy this week?
Kate: Yeah. It’s been a hard weekend. A valued member of our community has passed away and we’ve Colette and I have talked and it’s been hard. what I’ve seen, is our community of social media community that we all built together, really joined forces, join hands to… First of all, celebrate a life, but [00:01:00] also able to come together and mourn with one another out of the way that we’ve that. We have put out efforts and energies into making a social media family, our family, and that is just as valuable as any other biological family. So that has been really important for me to and witness today or this weekend.
All right, Colette. How about you?
Colette: I invited a friend who is nonbinary and their three kids over last night and we had dinner and then the girls were begging to watch in Encanto. And so I got my parents Disney plus password. And so we watched Encanto and it was like their 18th time seeing it. So they were all singing and dancing along. And the five-year-old kept grabbing my hand and pulling me out to dance with her. And I know how hard this friend’s life is in so many different ways. And it was just so powerful to see the [00:02:00] joy their life, amidst the pain of just being present with their kids and having fun and saying, sure, let’s watch a movie together, even though that’s not their favorite thing to do, but their kids love this movie. It’s of course, a great movie with lots of themes I talk with all my clients about all the time. comes up a lot in therapy and it was just a really good evening.
Kate: I love that. Cause we, I also watched Encanto last night and I had no idea that we were telepathically communicating that. So love that.
Colette: We are so on the same page.
Kate: We are.
Colette: How about you, Elena? What’s been your queer joy this week?
Elena: Well, I did watch Encanto this past week and I actually posted a series of reels about it because I did feel like it mirrored the queer experience in so many ways. And there, I was like tearfully sharing all of the different ways that I thought it did. And then I got this comment from someone who was like, no, you white people don’t get this movie. This is for us. And it [00:03:00] was like, oh, back down to earth. Yeah. Okay. Let’s educate. First of all, we don’t assume people’s ethnicities. I’m pretty sure the movie made the point that Latin culture includes lots of different colors of skin. Okay. Now let’s move on to that next point. Yeah. Yeah. So definitely Encanto’s brought me great joy, but I would say my queer joy of the moment, is vindication.
I heard from a person who served in an adjacent bishopric when I was coming out and I heard from him through a Facebook message that was basically like, hi, I’m so-and-so. I want you to know that when you were coming out, I was really judging you. We prayed for you as a bishopric, we knelt down in the office and we prayed that you would make the right choice to not choose your sexuality over your beautiful family, that all of the stake really cherished.
And he went on and on. And then he said, therefore, I feel really bad, [00:04:00] but I need help. So one, it was the closest thing to an apology I’ve gotten to a long time, but two, it was the acknowledgement of reality that did take place. Those conversations did take place. No one will say that to me, until now. And it felt really, it was just real. And I think after so many years of so much cognitive dissonance to like have realness is a big deal, but then of course, what he was reaching out for was because he’s come out in the last six months and he’s now navigating his own divorce. And he’s now navigating how to tell his kids about his sexuality.
Like now he needs help from someone who did it four years ago. So I love that. There’s joy in authenticity, but there’s a lot of joy in vindication, as well.
Kate: Yeah, there is a lot of joy in vindication, but there’s also there’s just so much peace that comes from knowing that you understood what the situation was happening around you, even though nobody was actually talking about it, [00:05:00] that’s something that I crave. I crave people to be authentic with me and just tell me what you’re talking about, maybe behind your back. All of us queer Mormons know everybody’s talking about us. Why don’t you just tell us? Like we could have that conversation!
Elena: And let’s talk about how do you feel about the fact that you teach not to gossip every week. And yet here you are really like, you might be kneeling in prayer, but what you’re doing is gossiping with God about my sexuality.
Yeah.
Kate: And that, and then pretending as if that didn’t happen. And that is a form of gaslighting to
Elena: Yes.
Kate: Come up to you and say whatever they’re saying to you, and then be doing these things behind your back. You need to know that that is part of your reality. So I understand completely why that would be queer joy.
Elena: You go to your Bishop and you confess to your sin, of same-sex attraction. And theoretically, we’re all feeling oh, you’re just meeting with the Bishop. He’s not even gonna tell his counselors. Please. This was another bishopric. You [00:06:00] want to tell me that my council, like my word council, didn’t all know? Please, Please. Let’s just talk reality, right?
Kate: Yeah. Let’s just talk reality. I wish that we could get that message across. Anyway. That’s maybe a different podcast. But before we dive into our Queer in 60 Seconds, which is not aptly named, I first want to talk about like, I’m so excited to have you Elena on here. I’ve listened to your story. Many people listened to your TED talk story. You have quite the following of people who follow your story and want to hear about your story. But I heard about your story from Human Stories Podcast with Jill Hazard Rowe. It’s kind of a long interview, where it’s mostly you just telling your story. And I definitely recommend that anybody who’s interested in hearing more of Elena’s story. But was listening as I was running you like talk a lot about running in that one and I’m like, [00:07:00] yeah, me and Elena were running. And then… I got to this point where I was, I had to stop and literally yell out to, it was dark. was cold. It was last winter. And I was yelling into the abyss. Like you’ve got to be kidding me. And then I would keep running. The missionaries called me, by the way in the middle of it. And then, at another point, I just broke down and cried. Your story is so impactful. It was so impactful for me.
And I know it’s going to be so impactful for so many other people. And so really excited to hear your queer in 60 seconds, but also the rest of this story, and piece together the systemic issues of the story, because there are of things that are happening to you that are happening for other people, especially for AFAB people wives, that we need to, that we need to sort out for our listeners. thank you for being here.[00:08:00]
Elena: I’m so excited. This is the best work I get to do. Yeah.
Colette: Yeah. maybe we just need to retitle it just what’s your queer Mormon story? We’re not timing you. We just want to get the overview. So then we have stuff to dive into.
Elena: Absolutely. You got it. My queer Mormon story. Grew up in a chaotic family, without a religion. My parents came from warring religions. One was the Episcopalian, one was Catholic. And so those two did not see eye to eye. So they were trying to make life work. By the time I came along, things were real chaotic.
And so by the time I got to my teenage years, when developmentally your brain is starting to realize, okay, the world is really big. And what is my place in this world? I was asking big questions. Like, how do I have a functional family as an adult? How do I be a good contributing member of society as an adult? How do I be a good mom? Be a good parent, as an adult? Because I don’t feel like that’s been modeled for me, like any of it. And so in asking those questions, who answered them, [00:09:00] was the Mormon missionaries, along with some families that kind of hosted the discussions as I took them. And I took the discussions for almost nine months.
And this is the crazy part of the story that I don’t share often because only Mormon audiences would understand. But that’s actually a long time to take the discussions. Usually commitment to be baptized is right there and like the second discussion and I was really struggling.
Yeah. Real quick. I was struggling because they told me that homosexual people can not be baptized. And at the time I did not identify as LGBTQ in any way, shape or form. And it’s funny because when I look back at that time, I honestly felt like everyone in the entire world must look at women with a mixture of awe and attraction. Have you seen women? Like of course they do. So I didn’t think that I was abnormal. I just thought everyone was like me, and so to think that like homosexual people, I couldn’t be baptized, that felt really unfair. And that was what actually dragged on the discussions for [00:10:00] so long. Until finally the missionaries were like, it all works out in heaven. Like it will work out, God loves all of his children. It will work out, just get baptized.
So I did. And then I was, I went through the temple when I was 19 and then I met and married my husband when I was 20 and started having those babies. And I did run a professional photography company on the side which did very well, and was an integral part of my sanity. And as my youngest went off to kindergarten, I all of a sudden had six hours a day to think for myself. And all of a sudden, I couldn’t ignore a lot of the discontent and dissatisfaction that I felt with my own life, but I was so embarrassed by it because I was very aware of how hashtag blessed I was.
I lived in the neighborhood, I drove the minivan. I had the husband, the whole thing! I had four healthy kids. That alone put me in a place where I was like, I should be absolutely happy and content with my life. [00:11:00] And if I’m not, it’s because I’m not praying enough for reading the scriptures and after going to the temple enough.
And so that was the extent that I thought about it. And I just kept trying to distract myself through a few different hobbies. I was working out six days a week. That wasn’t enough time. So I started long distance running because when I was running, I couldn’t think about my life. I couldn’t think about my body except how to push it harder.
Which led to yet another hobby, which was fly fishing of all things. And then that turned out to be the key. It was a perfect storm of not realizing the anxiety and depression that I was struggling with, and then standing in a river and being so present. When you’re fly fishing, you have to shut down the 437 tabs that are open in your brain all the time. Otherwise you’re not going to be good at fly fishing and I’m good at everything I do. So I was willing to shut down those tabs and do it whenever I needed to catch the damn fish. [00:12:00] That’s when I realized it’s okay, it’s safe to be in my body. My body wasn’t something I had to cover or shut down or suppress or disconnect from.
And my body actually had quite a few things it was trying to tell me. And one of which was that I was completely in love with my best friend and fishing buddy, who was a woman. And that kind of started this whole process. There was about a three weeks of whirlwind teenage-hood lust. I felt like a 14 year old boy for a solid three weeks. It was amazing. And then the realization that everything I had worked so hard to earn in my life, including my place in heaven and my eternal connection with my family, my four kids was at stake. And so I went to my Bishop and I confessed, and I started the repentance process. I enrolled myself in conversion therapy and like 57% of conversion therapy participants, I became suicidal. [00:13:00] And I got to a point where I decided it was better for my kids to have a gay mom than a dead. And from that decision came so many others such as filing for divorce, such as figuring out my faith framework, like what was real and authentic to me. And then starting the nonprofit that I run now, which is called Pride and Joy Foundation.
So that is my queer Mormon story.
Kate: We love that.
Colette: I love that. There’s so much to dive into.
Kate: Thank you for sharing all of that, like that your story is really powerful, impactful. There are lots of parts of it that impact you as a wife differently than it would, if you were the husband. And so I think there are lots of points that we want to bring out and highlight in that.
But one of those is that, are a wife you’re recognizing your sexuality, you have a husband. I feel like maybe you’ve probably been cut off from your own sexuality and we can talk about that, [00:14:00] but then there’s another layer of, I don’t know, define quote unquote, hierarchy of your Bishop as well.
So what are your ecclesiastical leaders telling you in these meetings? As well as how is your husband handling the ecclesiastical interviews? How does all of that take place?
Elena: Yup. First of all, let’s talk about how the three weeks of lust ended. I’m a horrible liar. I can’t lie at all. I actually have a theater degree, but I was in production management, because by the end of my freshman year, everyone could figure out I can’t act. Can’t do it. So it wasn’t hard for my husband to be like, something’s going on. I didn’t even have a password on my phone. One night he just looked at my phone and saw the texts. It wasn’t that it wasn’t, it just was.
So by the next night I was in the Bishop’s office confessing. And Chad was there with me and [00:15:00] he met with both of us at first, maybe just 10 minutes. And then he brought me in and it was a lot of questions of, Did you kiss her first or did she kiss you first? And where were you intimate, in your home and her home? How did she touch you? How did you touch her? Did she have an orgasm? Did you have an orgasm? And I will tell you like this Bishop he’s he, at the time he was younger than 40 years old. He was the oldest kid at the time was maybe 10. He was a plumber, not like any therapeutic background whatsoever. He was a plumber. So this guy, he was not comfortable. I feel real bad for him. Like he was going down his list of questions and he was bright red the whole time. And I thought he was gonna have a blood clot in his head, like he was in distress.
And it was, [00:16:00] I realized now I had been so conditioned to just answer Bishop questions. I didn’t join the church til I was 16, but even then, you’re just constantly in those interviews. And you’re constantly asked questions that only made sense in that context. And even then, only if you do a whole lot of mental gymnastics. And yet because of that repeated exposure to that environment, there was in a very high stakes situation, with the random plumber of the neighborhood, asking me if I had an orgasm.
And me not stopping to think this is weird. This is suspicious that never entered my mind. So there was that. And then I walked out and Chad walked in and what I found out after the meeting was that he asked Chad, you are the victim. What do you want to see happen here? We can take her to a disciplinary court at the stake level. We can try to handle this on the ward [00:17:00] level. We have your back. What would you like to do to move forward? I mean, Chad told me that night before we went to bed. He didn’t feel that was weird. Neither did I. Like we were so conditioned.
And then from there, I was meeting with the Bishop every week for about a month, and then every other week. And in that time, within that first month, I was really an intense, emotional roller coaster. And my visiting teacher would come and check on me. We were actually very close, incredibly good woman, who was also struggling in her marriage for different reasons.
And so we were very real with each other and that doesn’t happen often in those visiting teaching relationships. So there we were, being very real and very vulnerable. And so I finally shared like the basis of my marriage, marital struggles. And she mentioned, oh, there’s this really great guy in town. And I think he could really help you. He was a licensed therapist for so long, like his whole life, and now he’s like in his early seventies. [00:18:00] And so he hasn’t kept up his licensure. He only works as a coach now. Like she was very upfront about that. But I think he could really help you. And she gave me his number. I called him that day. He called me back the next day, I was in his office that week, Thursday morning, 10:00 AM. And he’s telling me. Absolutely. We can fix this. I’ve done it for a long time. You need to work hard. You’re going to come in two hours a day, four days a week. We’re going to figure out what trauma happened in your childhood that made you feel unsafe around men and safe around women. And when we heal that trauma, you won’t have this attraction anymore. And all of that made sense to me. So I handed him my credit card at a bill of $270 a day. And yes, he was very Mormon. He was the patriarch in his stake.
Kate: But not licensed.
Elena: But not licensed. Correct. And he was upfront about that as well at our first meeting.
Colette: Ah, I have so many thoughts [00:19:00] and feelings and emotions around all of this. And I know we’ve heard many stories. We know many of our listeners will have heard many stories about their experiences with ecclesiastical leaders and with therapy. And I think a lot of times we have in our mind, this is what it looks like, but it, it just shows how subtle things can be.
The stuff that your Bishop was asking you is completely inappropriate. Even myself as a sex therapist, I don’t necessarily ask those questions of people. I don’t necessarily need to know all those details unless it’s what they’re actually working on.
Elena: Right.
Colette: But again, this is system that you’re in, the bishops have no training, but you’re trained to tell, to answer to authority
Elena: Yes,
Colette: And to have conversion therapy, which let’s note, it is outlawed in many states. In Utah, I know for a fact it’s outlawed, but it’s outlawed only for licensed therapists can’t practice it with minors. [00:20:00] lots of loopholes. right?
so here’s the same loopholes you’re an adult. You chose to in conversion therapy with someone who isn’t a therapist. And so it’s fine. So ecclesiastical leaders can still provide conversion therapy. Coaches can still provide conversion therapy. Family members can still provide conversion therapy. And conversion therapy isn’t necessarily electroshock treatment. Right?
Elena: Right.
Colette: Conversion therapy can be as subtle as it was for me. If my therapist saying, oh, you just think you’re in love with her. Because want that attention. Or saying things like, oh, she just thinks she’s attracted to you because of her trauma around men and you’re safe. I don’t know what additional thoughts you have just with, if you want to explain a little bit more about your experience with conversion therapy.
Elena: Absolutely. I’ve often thought that education is the best. Like the bans are great because [00:21:00] they get people talking and that’s about it. Even if we did have a nationwide ban, the fact is that the most violent camps are actually in New Zealand. And the majority of kids that are at those camps are American and British. So we can ban it here. We can ban it in the UK and we’re still gonna lose lives. Period. However, what we can do is we can educate. The fact is if I had been handed a form to sign that said 57% of participants in this will become suicidal. And the following year, a statistic came out from the Williams Institute that 98% of people go through it will struggle with lifetime suicidal ideation.
Do I think that even if I had been so desperate that I would have been willing to sign that paper? Would my husband? I don’t think he would have. Would my Bishop, if he had been aware, I don’t think he would have supported that to me. [00:22:00] This is a lack of education period. Like I honestly feel that the majority of parents and spouses would never risk their loved one’s life, the way I risked mine, unknowingly.
Colette: And so wish that conversion therapy you’re saying he felt super sure. Yes. I can change things. You handed your credit card. And so what was that process like? I’m assuming it wasn’t the electroshock treatments people think of sometimes when they think of conversion there.
Elena: Nope. Yeah. So this is considered talk therapy. And so his theory was something like I said, had traumatized you as a child were going to go into your memory, into your history, and we’re going to heal that trauma. And then you’ll no longer be attracted to women. And so first of all, right there, coaches across the entire United States are not allowed to go into your past.
So if you’re working with a coach, who’s trying to delve into your past, that is unethical. Coaches are supposed to help you with the present and the future. So if you want to talk about your past, go to someone with a license. [00:23:00] And second of all, we worked for a month and a half digging up old memories.
And his process was that um he would lead you through a breathing technique. Which would get your brain to the state. I’m not going to say hypnotized, but it would get your brain to the state where the memories came back so much more clearly. I would remember what the weather was that day, what I ate that day, what I was wearing that day.
So the memories come back very visceral and very real. And his technique was to take you through the memory, find the trauma of that memory, and then talk about it, go again and again, and maybe like change the ending or change like maybe the police showed up. Or change like maybe I had a weapon on me here.
You talk about it so much that you become desensitized to it. And that again is a legitimate technique that some therapists will use in certain situations to take the intensity away from the experience.
And so after about a month and a half,[00:24:00] I felt a lot better about my relationship with my mom, but I was still really attracted to my best friend and dreaming about her every night and still was not attracted to my husband. And his response was you must not be telling me something, you’re leaving something out. What haven’t you told me? And so for the first time, I told him about an assault that I had experienced most 15.
I had never told anyone, not my husband, not my parents, not the police. No one knew that this had happened, that I had been attacked by three of my schoolmates when I was 15 years old. And he was overjoyed, this is, this is it. This is why you think you’re attracted to women. We heal this and you’re going to be fine. And so for the next four months, [00:25:00] I replayed that experience.
Kate: Mmm.
Elena: And so my life at that time was get up, feed the kids, get them dressed, get them to school, go to the gym because of course I’m getting my body back. That’s what we do after we have our last child. And then I go to quote, unquote therapy, cry for two hours basically. And then come home, do my homework that he had assigned to me, which was actually reading some really good books.
I read The Body Keeps Score by Bessel van der Kolk. That is a really good book with some gems. And that’s the danger, right? There’s like some good things and bad things all mixed up together. Which was reason number 427 why I didn’t see the danger that I was in. Cause I felt like this is good. I’m figuring things out. This is a good thing.
You know, that night coming home and telling my husband about that assault, like that’s information that I [00:26:00] probably needed to share with them a whole lot sooner. So there were some really good things that are happening. And so I, I use that as evidence, that this is what I was supposed to be doing.
And then the kids would come home from school and I was in Cub Scouts, cause I was always in Cub Scouts, and I would do all the things, dinner, bedtime bed, go to sleep, try to sleep, never slept, get up and do it again the next day. So that’s a recipe for insanity in and of itself.
But what was happening at the end of those four months, as the re-creations that I was doing with this coach on a daily basis, were getting more and more and more intense to talk through. It was the Brett Kavanaugh hearings are happening at the same time. And here I am watching this woman testify to an experience that was so similar to what I went through, and watching the men in my life, respond to her testimony and reading the headlines [00:27:00] that we were all reading at the time that said 75% of American women have been assaulted at some time in their life. And that was a conservative estimate. And me finally connecting the dots. Being assaulted does not make you gay. 75% of American women are not gay. The math does not add up. And that’s when I was finally able to find the strength to say this… I’m not putting myself through this torture anymore because the math doesn’t add up. I’ve been lied to. So that’s how I was able to finish that.
Kate: Yeah, There’s a lot to unpack there. And a lot I would like to dive into, but there’s something at the very base of the story that happens in your story multiple times. So you go to meet with the Bishop and the Bishop. So infuriating to [00:28:00] me that he would call in your husband and say you are the victim. The people who are victims within Mormonism the queer folks.
Just, if you aren’t recognizing we are dying, because of Mormon rhetoric. Queer folks are actually the ones who are trying so hard to cover these parts of ourselves up. So you have this moment where your Bishop is telling your husband, okay, you’re the victim. Your husband is the victim of, I don’t know, you you having some sort of relationship at some level with another person, but not recognizing what that comes with.
You have that moment. And then you have a moment with this coach. Where the coach says, okay, we’re going to find what makes you [00:29:00] queer and fix it. That’s the essential piece here. It doesn’t matter what comes after that. The essential piece of both of these things is that your queerness is wrong. So as much as the LDS church wants to say, it’s okay to be queer, what your experience is saying, of these instances is it’s not okay to be queer, that you are inflicting harm on your husband, your kids, and it comes from own harm that’s been done to you by somebody else who isn’t the church, right? So it’s at the bottom of all of this. Every piece of your story is you were never seen, your queerness was never seen as the thing that they were trying to get rid of and never accepted. It was never just, okay we’ll accept you’re queer and move from there. Like how different would it be if your Bishop had been okay, we accept you’re queer, now, where do we go? Or if that coach had said, okay, we accept you’re [00:30:00] queer and now we’ll dive into your past and see what trauma comes up.
But no matter what, we are accepting that basic level.
Elena: I agree. I am astounded from where I am today to think back and realize in every one of those sessions with the Bishop that I met with him regarding repentance, the word lesbian never came up. Ever. It was always talked about within a frame of, this was a temptation that you gave into. Period. And yet, it wasn’t temptation that was targeted as the problem that had to be fixed. It was the queerness that had to be fixed. It was the attraction that had to be fixed. It wasn’t the moral aptitude. It wasn’t my resilience and staying pure that wasn’t what was targeted to be fixed. What was targeted to be fixed was the queerness. But we skirted around that in the spiritual meetings, by saying, I gave into a [00:31:00] temptation, and that made me need to repent, right?
So it was never brought on squarely by the spiritual leader. Yeah. It’s just the mental gymnastics hoops that gets you to the point where the conclusion that they come to is, okay, you can be queer, but you need to be celibate or you need to stay in this marriage, because this is what God wants. But the fact is, that is what led me to a breakdown. Like I’m not like a serial cheater. Like it’s not like I had been tempted by people my entire life. And I was like constantly trying to stay on the straight and narrow. Not what reality was. So, yeah, it’s an interesting series of faulty correlations that are put together to, to make it other.
Kate: Yeah, how different could it be, if we just use the language of LGBTQ? Use the language of lesbian or gay [00:32:00] or any other queer sort of language. If a Bishop were to use the word queer, I would feel safer. Just that word alone would make me feel
Elena: Yeah.
Kate: safer.
Elena: Yup.
Colette: And I just had a realization when you said, they never use a term lesbian and I’m like, oh, like that didn’t happen to me either. It was just the language of temptation, sin, mistake, slip up. How much sooner could I’ve realized my sexuality, if an ecclesiastical leader or the therapist, licensed therapist I was seeing at the time, said, explore it a little bit more saying, okay, I know you have a lot of distress around this, what you’re viewing as a mistake. Let’s talk more about your feelings towards her instead of just saying, oh, you’re a member of the church. That means you just want to shut it down. So let’s help you shut it down.
Elena: That’s right. Yeah,
Colette: Oh, that’s heavy for me. Thank you for bringing that up. And I think, again, this just shows the systemic nature that we didn’t [00:33:00] even realize what was happening, that we were victims. Your Bishop was saying your husband was the victim, but you were the victim of a homophobic society and culture.
Elena: A hundred percent.
Colette: So realize, Hey, this isn’t working, this coaching thing, I’m still gay. I don’t think it’s because of trauma and let’s put that out there. Trauma from males does not cause lesbianism.
Elena: Right? Just like overbearing moms does not create gay men,
Colette: Right?
Elena: Let’s let loose a lot of these misconceptions. Let’s let some parents off the hook. Let’s let some people who were abused as children and still feeling like their victimhood is what led to other problems down the road. If they consider their sexuality a problem, let’s let that go and release those connections.
Kate: Yeah.
Elena: Because even if you want to get into the science of it, we can track homosexuality and queerness at the genetic level. [00:34:00] This is not about parenting. This is not about trauma. This is not about an assault. This is about who we are. And if we’re willing to look and see and recognize and stand up for who we are.
Colette: That is so powerful and that also makes me think of a post I’ve seen on social media that says homosexuality has been observed, and I forget how many species they say, in this many animal species, like over 90 animal species. Homophobia has only been observed, to be present in one. Which is actually unnatural?
Kate: Yeah.
Colette: And I was like, Oooof. Good point.
Elena: I want some tea. The tea is hot right there.
Kate: But also that, that what we’re explaining right now is still an essential belief that the queerness is what’s wrong. There’s still a sense that we have to find the problem and fix it. And even if there are folks who have [00:35:00] experienced sexual assault and it’s made them very concerned about a relationship with that sex again, doesn’t mean that their experience should just be erased, that their queerness should just be erased. That the queerness is not an issue here.
Elena: Yeah, that doesn’t serve anyone.
Kate: I would like, if it’s okay, to talk a little bit more about uncovering these really hard memories to deal with and then bringing them to your husband and then do you ever heal them? Do you ever have the opportunity to meet with a therapist that you can talk with? I think this is an important topic because it is so prevalent within the queer community.
Elena: Absolutely. And let’s get real into the [00:36:00] nitty-gritty because there I went through, I will call that trauma, that experience that six months that I had with that coach was stupid trauma, like intense drama. And then now I’m in the middle of a divorce, right? Go ahead. A year later, I’m in the middle of the divorce. I am fighting for custody of my kids. And my husband knows that I struggled with suicidal ideation. So he’s taking that to the judge and he’s saying she can’t get custody of these kids.
Colette: He’s weaponizing that?
Elena: So I submit, I make the decision at that point. I need to, with my lawyer, if I can get back into like real therapy and work with a psychiatrist as well, on my meds. And I can submit all this evidence of how I am taking care of myself. I’m addressing my issues. Like I’m not ignoring this and [00:37:00] legitimize my healing process, essentially. Like I had to submit files inches thick to the judge. Notes from my therapy sessions, notes from my psychiatrist, my records from picking up my prescription at Walgreens. Like all of that had to be submitted as proof that I could be a functional mom, a good mom.
Kate: Yeah, this is also a systemic problem within not just the United States system, outside of the United States as well. But especially, if we’re talking about the United States that disability advocacy is not to the point where it should be. And this is a disability advocacy issue that you could bring up these things as a way to exactly, as Colette said, weaponize them somebody else.
I often talk about suicidal ideation and is my biggest fear, that people are going to weaponize it that’s, we need to be able to talk about it. If you can’t talk about it, if you can’t be open about [00:38:00] it and you want people to just be silent about it, that’s what’s costing lives.
Elena: A hundred percent, hundred percent.
Colette: I’m glad you were able to get help and get treatment, but I hate that it was used against you in that way. And I think that is one fear a lot of people who are assigned female at birth have, when they think about, maybe realizing this marriage isn’t the right thing for me anymore.
But then you add the layer of queerness. Regardless of queerness or not, there’s fears of what will be brought up, where will I be attacked, but then you add this additional layer. And to use your mental health as a weapon against you and potentially to use your queerness against you. That just hurts my heart. And it’s unfortunately not a new story to me, but every time it just is a gut punch to hear. And I am so sorry.
Elena: Yeah.
Kate: Crazy. It’s really upsetting to hear that the society has an impact on our lives [00:39:00] and has an impact on our suicidal ideation. That because we’re queer, we’re going to face more suicidal ideation than other folks, because of societal pressures and because of the shame about being queer. And then to have that thing used against you then in court, when it was, all of this is a systemic issue outside of you, yourself, that all of these other pressures came down because you’re queer.
It led to all of these other issues and all of that blame comes back on you as well. Nobody else is saying, yeah, we’ve done this. We’ve put you in this situation. No, the blame is also coming back on you. It’s the same as going to meet with your Bishop and saying, oh, your husband is the victim here, without recognizing all the ways in which queer people are the victims.
Can we talk a little bit more about that process of going through that divorce and specifically[00:40:00] the church brought in. Did you have ecclesiastical leaders that were working against you because you were queer, rather than siding with the mom, which you would think that Mormons would do. I imagined that you had ecclesiastical leaders who were saying, we’re going to side with because mom is queer.
Elena: Right. And that didn’t come about until like there was a point where I had to make a decision. I need to stay alive. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to stay alive. I mean, that was when people say like, you’re brave, right? Like you came out and the, really the opposite is true. Like I came out to stay alive. I come out every day to stay alive. And so to make these little decisions and it was the little ones that felt massive, but it was things like, I can’t go to church today. I can’t risk what it will do. The fight that I will have in my brain after going to church. Like [00:41:00] I don’t have, I don’t have the strength. I might lose that fight. So I can’t go to church today. I can’t go to the meeting with the Bishop tonight for the same reason. I literally just want to wake up tomorrow. And so it was those, it was from that point that once I stopped going to church, and once I stopped meeting with the bishop, then it was okay, Chad, do whatever you need to do.
And of course his response was, I’m not going to be the one to break up this family. You need to hire a lawyer. You need to file for divorce. I’m not going to be the bad guy here. And so then it was, yeah, I do need, I need out of this. This isn’t fair to me. This is unfair to Chad and this is really not fair to our children who are witnessing like, oh, is this what a married couple is like? Like no cuddling, no kissing, no intimacy. I mean, we had been sleeping in separate rooms for over a year, our kids aren’t dumb. And yet, is that what I wanted for [00:42:00] them in their marriage? 10 years from there? Absolutely not. And not for those future daughter-in-law’s or partners.
And so then it was okay, I’m going to file for divorce. And then it was. I picked a lawyer and that lawyer was not approved of by Chad. And he provided me with a list of four to pick from who were all Mormon. The list came actually from his lawyer. Basically people that she wanted to work with.
We went for six months and in that six months, like a lot of things had to be worked out, for example, kids’ schedules. And I wasn’t going to church. I didn’t. Literally, I still wasn’t identifying as lesbian at that point. I was, it was a daily tactic to stay alive, whatever I needed to do to stay alive.
And so this, that was the divorce. It was the Elena staying alive. And so in that time, we’re debating, who’s going to have the kids on what days. And we decided that the parenting week would start on Sundays, so that Chad could have them every Sunday to take them to church. Because I couldn’t, I knew I [00:43:00] couldn’t, my mental health wouldn’t let me. So okay. If the kids are going to go to church, they need to go with Chad. And same for family home evening. And we worked out all these issues and it came down to one tiny little tax issue and it all blew up. And in that time I had done a lot of work on myself and I decided, you know what, if we’re going to start over anyway, I’m going to go see if I can get my original lawyer back. Because it took that six months to realize that the guy I had hired, wasn’t pulling his weight. I was the one that found the tax issue.
So I go back to her. And she technically can’t really advise me because I’m not her client yet. I’m still someone else’s client. So she’s playing this dance basically during our meeting together, she’s looking through my paperwork and not advising me, but advising me at the same time.
And she gets to this one part in the paperwork and she says, why does the parenting week start on Sundays? That means you never get your kids for a full weekend. And I was like, [00:44:00] okay well, so the reason for the divorce is because, it was one of the first times I’d ever said it. I was like shaking, but I think I was really needing to get through to her and maybe have her take me back on as the client. And so I said well, the reason for the divorce is because I’m a lesbian. And I don’t feel like I have much to stand on as far as like how I can fight. And I can’t take them to church. Like I can’t. So if I have them on the weekends, I won’t be able to take them to church.
And that was when she shut the file and she leaned forward. And she looked me in the eye and she said, Elena, lesbians can be parents too. A judge is not going to take away custody of your kids based on your sexual orientation. Now, I don’t know why my lawyer of the previous six months could never say that to me. I have a feeling it’s because it’s not in his reality, but it was definitely in her reality. And she made that very [00:45:00] clear to me. And it opened up this incredible realization of this huge fear that felt so deep. And so all consuming that I had never even really addressed it. It felt like too much. And there she was addressing it head on. You are self-sabotaging because of internalized homophobia.
Oh, that was a massive moment of realization and realizing, not just in that divorce, but in so many aspects of my life. I was cutting myself, short, holding myself back, taking up as little space as possible. Not advocating for my children the way I could have been, because of that internalized homophobia.
Colette: I just got so many chills as you were talking through that. I think I see with so many people who are assigned female at birth. That have that internalized homophobia, who feel like, consciously or not, I can’t be a good mom if I’m queer. I mean, I remember [00:46:00] talking to someone they’re like, oh, I just, I can’t parent. I can’t become a parent. And that’s like my life dream. I can’t have a husband and the white picket fence. I’m like, can still be a parent. You do realize there are ways to still be a parent. Even if you’re queer. Even if you don’t go down the mixed orientation marriage path. And with you, you already are a mom. You do not need anyone’s permission to keep being their mom. But that internalized homophobia runs so deep that you don’t even realize it. That takes this lawyer. Not even your lawyer at the time, to point out, noone’s going to take away your kids because you’re queer. I think that also shows systemically, I think that fear is real. Depending on this, in a very heteronormative society. And being in a high Mormon population area. Is that something you need to be concerned about? Will they weaponize your queerness? Just like they, husband tried to weaponize your mental health.
Elena: Absolutely. [00:47:00] Yeah. I was that close. I was one tax issue away from the divorce being finalized and having that beat the schedule. And when I think about where my kids are now, there’s not even words to describe, like how much they’ve progressed and how much their world has expanded and how much their critical thinking skills have improved. There’s so much that has happened for them, including one of our four kids has come out. Could that have happened? If that divorce had been finalized that way? I don’t know that could’ve.
Kate: So I definitely want to hold on to that thought for a minute, because there are going to be listeners who really identify with your story and are in midst of what you went through and are thinking, it worth it for my kids. Do I divorce for my kids? Am I breaking up this family? Which I feel like, wives who are queer, get [00:48:00] this more often than husbands who are queer. The wives hear, you’re breaking up the family way more often than I hear that the wives are saying that to their queer husbands.
But there’s something that I’ve read from one of your posts Facebook, about your children. you came out, do you know the post that I’m talking about? Once you came out, you’re a better mom, is that
Elena: Oh, yeah, it happened just this past holiday season. So my oldest is actually a sophomore at BYU. so he was home for the holidays. And we still struggled to communicate in this family. I am parenting against my ghost, especially with my older kids. I raised them in a certain way, completely and totally driven by anxiety and depression. And I still see them like [00:49:00] hesitating to bring something up with me, hesitating to respond honestly, and authentically with me. Cause they’re unsure of how I’m going to react. Am I going to fly off the handle like I would have five years ago? And that’s real and that’s legit and that’s valid.
And so this past holiday season, when we had spent a good amount of time just being together and re bonding and laying that foundation of good communication, respectful communication, I then invited the kids. Like we haven’t talked about the divorce. Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about how it felt. And let’s talk about where we are now and if you wish we were somewhere different and let’s just open that. And the biggest thing that came out of that conversation was my oldest saying to me, when you guys separated, meaning my husband and I. You were immediately better parents. And my jaw dropped and I looked at my 13 year old [00:50:00] daughter who she is out. And so she is like one that I tend to look to as like a barometer of what’s reality, almost right from the kids’ perspective. And she nodded her head emphatically and she said, both of you became better parents immediately.
And that was actually something that I communicated to the guy that messaged me on Facebook last week, because he was really stressing him out as kids. We all do in that situation. And so I was able to say, my kid just told me this, right? This was incredible to hear.
And now I’m thinking back to just, I have three interactions. Cause I only live 10 minutes away from that old ward. Like I’m not far, it’s 40 stakes, but it’s only 10 minutes away. So in that in the four years since I moved out, there’ve been three times that I’ve seen women like at Target or Walmart or whatever, like from that ward. And I’ve come to realize, we weren’t actually well-liked. We were respected, cause we [00:51:00] worked damn hard. We did our callings to the enth degree. We were respected as ward members, but we weren’t actually liked. And that’s probably I’m not going to speak for Chad, but for me, that’s probably because I was full of judgment. I was constantly judging myself and the other women around me, I was constantly judging their Cub Scouts. I was constantly in their faces for stuff that they weren’t doing as well as I thought they should. Like I was that Mormon. And so I’m sure if the ward felt that, can you imagine what my kids felt? I am so grateful that while they were still young. I didn’t come out to my kids for a long time, because I had been trying to see this one marriage counselor that the Bishop had recommended. And she was like the one, right? That all like the Mormon couples were sent to you by their Bishop, because she was [00:52:00] so good at reconciling things. And so we went to this woman and by the end of our first session, she wanted to meet with me separately.
And at the end of that session, and I stood up and I’m going to walk out the door and she kinda gets between me and the door. And she says, Elena, I want you to know, I’ve been doing this for a long time. And I have so many current clients right now who are so dysfunctional because their parents came out to them and they were kids. Don’t you ever come out to your children, take the secret to your grave. And I, that was a licensed person. And hence it took a long time for me to come out to my kids. I had to deconstruct that million times over to be able to come out to my children.
It wasn’t until I got back into therapy with her, another therapist, like I had to for the court process. And I had that woman say, [00:53:00] why are you not out to kids? And I tried to explain it. And this therapist said to me, don’t you want to give your son some time to get to really know you before he leaves on this mission? Because I had really convinced myself that I would be a barrier, which I am to him going on a mission. And so I’m going to keep this close and quiet for as long as I possibly can. But then her pointing out that like my time with him was so limited, I needed to be authentic with him so I can have some kind of relationship before he left on his mission. And then we all know what happens after that. So that was huge. That realization of needing that time.
Colette: I can see Kate and I both got really emotional with you telling that story. That again, I think shows the systemic issues that you and many of our listeners are up against, living in such a [00:54:00] homophobic society. The church says we’re fine with queer people, but then you hear things, but don’t tell anybody or queer. Don’t act like you’re queer. Don’t let your kids know who you actually are as a human being.
Elena: But we love you.
Colette: And God loves you, but don’t actually be who you are. That just breaks my heart. And as a therapist, like that’s not ethical.
Elena: It’s really not. Yeah. I’ve looked at the code of ethics here in Arizona, it violated like four of them. So at some point I will be in a place where I can file that complaint against that woman, because I’m sure she’s still going. I know she is. Chad wanted her to be our parent coach after the divorce.
Colette: Oh, wow. Again, the systemic things you’re up against. I just want to go back to what you said about just choosing to stay alive.
Elena: Yeah.[00:55:00]
Colette: Us who grow up queer, in a high demand religion have so many barriers to that. So many things that get in the way of… I had to eventually make the decision to, I think God would rather have me be alive and maybe not super active, than dead and active. And that’s essentially what you said, it’s rather that my kids have a queer mom than a dead mom. People wonder where we pick up these messages and they’re everywhere.
Elena: And you can only fight against them for so long.
Colette: Yes.
Elena: And we all do. A huge reason why I started the nonprofit was because I do. And I’m sure you do as well. I get probably five messages a week in my inbox. From Mormon women, some Jewish women. Some Catholic women, some of it evangelical women, but because of my background, a lot of Mormon women who are messaging me in the middle of the night from their closet, like their literal closet, because it’s the only private place in their home that they can hear someone coming before they get [00:56:00] there. And they can say to me, I have five kids. I have to leave and I can’t leave. I can’t, and I’m not where you are. I’m not suicidal. And so I’m going to stay in this marriage and I’m going to make this work and I’m going to make this work and I’m going to make this work. And if that’s where you are, respect. But how long can you keep up that fight? I couldn’t, I made it 37 years.
Kate: I think that is a good point where I hope that folks who are going through this and who are experiencing this, cause we will have listeners who are going through this. It’s great for them to know that you’re not alone, but also isn’t all on us as the queer folks, it’s on
Elena: Yeah.
Kate: systems to change. It’s on to be sharing this with whoever. It’s for bishops and stake presidents to [00:57:00] use the word lesbian in these interviews. It’s on them to say, my congregant’s life is more important than our idea of an eternal marriage. This marriage is not working and we’re trying to make it work when it’s not working. Instead of forcing that, and saying it, to actually use empathetic language this from not just the queer perspective, we all need to be sharing these stories to get that education that you talked about at the beginning, bishops and stake presidents and whoever are going into these situations to have empathy for those moms who are in the closet, who don’t want to tell their kids that they’re queer. I can’t imagine what it feels like to not be your authentic self to your kid when they want to know what’s happening and they want to [00:58:00] understand what’s going on and you just cut them off from that. It’s devastating.
Colette: I know we’ve already taken up a lot of your time. You referenced your, the work you have with your nonprofit. I’d love for you to talk more about how that came to be and the work you do there and how maybe people can get involved.
Elena: Yeah. So it started in this really crazy way. And it’s actually a COVID baby because I was deconstructing my faith and rebuilding it into something that felt authentic to me. And I was navigating this divorce and I had lost all of my friends, 25 years in one neighborhood. And it was all gone. And so I was trying to reach out, trying to find someone, community. And I found a post Mormon group of women. And I was the only queer one. And yet the language was so universal. Coming out, [00:59:00] it could mean coming out of the closet. It could be coming out of the church, it could mean like anything. And the experience was so universal, to realize that I’d stuck so many things up on a shelf until the shelf broke.
There was so much about it that was universal. And as I shared my story, I realized there was value there and there was impact there. So again I have a theater degree, but I can’t act for anything. But what I can do is I can be on stage and I can have a microphone and I can command an audience like that’s within my skillset.
And so I was trying to, again, prove to the judge that I’m not going to be a mooch on society, that I can, I do have a career path. Like you have to submit to the judge, like how you’re going to support yourself, whether that’s going back to school for a degree, or getting back into your profession or whatever that is.
And so my plan was that I was going to be a public speaker. And I was going to teach about self-awareness and mindfulness, because I felt like an expert in that, at that time. And I did my TED Talk and it went live in [01:00:00] November 2019. That went viral. And I had booked speaking engagements all over the nation. Mostly for like inspirational motivational things. And whenever I booked a thing, I would find the local group of post-Mormons or the local group of queer kids. So usually that was out of college. And, because that’s the group that I love speaking to the most because I didn’t bring my sexuality very much into my mindfulness stuff.
And COVID hit. And I was getting these messages from these college students. Like I waited until I got to college to come out because I knew I was unsafe at home and I went home for spring break and I couldn’t come back. And now not only am I like trapped in this home with parents that either don’t know or are not affirming, but I can’t find my community. There’s no gay bars open. There’s no coffee shops open, like they were trapped.[01:01:00] And that’s when I realized that it took that moment for me to realize like this suicidal pit I had been in, there are queer babies in the same pit. And that’s my eyes opened in a big way. I had been really, I was in that thick bubble. I didn’t know. I chose not to be aware. And so that’s when it felt like I have to do something. Cause I know at that pit feels like I have to do something.
And so that, that started the non-profit. Our goal is to reduce the rate of suicide and homelessness in the LGBTQ community. And we do it through amplifying queer voices. And showing the world that you can be a healthy, functional, successful queer adult. And when we do that, not only are we giving hope to children and to our young college students that feel like they are so alone, but also we are showing parents that [01:02:00] it’s not a death sentence. It’s not like this, it’s portrayed so negatively. And if you were actually to take just this interview you’d be like, yeah, this is real negative. What you’re not seeing is like the joy that fills my life now, and that fills so many lives once they’re able to be authentic. And so we provide space for those parents to come and learn the knowledge that they need to have, the education they need to have to be the advocates their children need them to be. And then separately, I also do that through the workplace because I’ve learned that if I can go in through the workplace, where people are financially motivated to keep their minds and their hearts open to new information, I can create allies at work and it doesn’t stop at work. They then go home from that training and they have a conversation that says, I learned about non-binary today. Do you have any non-binary friends? And the kids always do. Their parents had no clue, but the kids always have a non-binary [01:03:00] friend. And so it’s been a really great multi-pronged approach to be able to increase the legitimacy of visibility and success of LGBTQ people around the world. It’s been really cool.
Kate: Absolutely. And there’s something that you talk about getting at that queer joy part or something that you talk about, there’s an analogy you use about you came out, that you’re missing, that part of your mind had been shut off.
Elena: So the underlying question, every time I do an interview with straight people or training with straight people, like it, wasn’t the underlying question here, but for everyone that’s straight, the underlying question is how the hell do you get to age 37 and not know you’re queer? Like, how is that possible?
And that’s a whole big, long discussion around internalized homophobia and systemic separation of the connection between body and mind and soul, and we can go through that. But a huge for me, one way that I relate it is like my family are all gamers. [01:04:00] We’re nerds. And in Super Mario there’s certain levels where you don’t see the block with the coin in it. You just see that outline. And I think of that as like my brain. I didn’t have a hole in my brain where my queerness went, that section was just offline. Maybe if I’d grown up in a different culture. Maybe if I’d grown up more connected to my body, like so many gay men are like, so often when I talked to later in life, people who came out, the men are often, like I knew since I was four, I just really thought I could overcome it. And that’s why I got married and tried to have a family. And so many of the women are like, I had no clue until this one woman looked at me or touched me, or I touched her and then holy crap, I couldn’t deny it. Those are two very different experiences. So yeah, so for me, that part of my brain just didn’t come online.
And I always knew there was something missing. I knew. We went to be what, like I put Chad through his master’s degree at BYU, bachelor’s and [01:05:00] master’s right. We lived in married student housing. We lived in Y Mount. Those walls are thin. Those women, some of them were really enjoying it and I was not. And so for two decades, I tried to figure out how to make that part of my brain come online. So yeah that’s the analogy that works for me. Like I have my whole brain now. And maybe there’s other stuff that’s not online yet, but I love finding it. It’s now super fun.
Kate: Yeah. And that is that’s part of the queer joy experience is finding those things that you felt cut off to. Yeah, there’s some exciting parts to coming out as well.
Elena: Yeah. I agree.
Kate: I like that analogy by the way. I’ll probably use it.
Elena: Awesome. Do it,
Colette: Yeah, because both of us really relate to the not being online and falling for a best friend sort of thing, and being like, wait a minute,
Kate: Yeah.
Colette: But thank you so much for the work you do. I think, [01:06:00] when we do these interviews, we start off with queer joy because so often we do talk so heavy. The queer experience can be very heavy and dark. But there is light ahead. I love seeing what you’ve been able to transform your life into by having that part of your brain come online, by being able to now more involved with the queer community and them sharing their stories to humanize and not other the queer community, that’s so often it. is an us versus them. We’re just like everyone else. just happen to be queer. So thank you. Thank you so much for the work that you do.
Elena: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having a platform where these kinds of conversations can actually take place. It’s huge. It’s huge.
Kate: Yeah, hearing that you’ve spoken to so many Mormon women. That’s what we’re hearing too, whoever’s listening to this, you’re not alone. [01:07:00] I know that it feels that way, but hopefully we can start recognizing that this is an experience. We understand what you’re going through.
Elena: I’ll never forget I was in that rental. And I was like, just trying to get through your day to day. And I was absolutely convinced I was the only mom of kids, Mormon lesbian. I was convinced I was the only one. And I went onto Instagram and I think I typed in ExMoLesbian, as a hashtag and Shelly Johnson of Latter Day Lesbian came up. And I thought the world had opened up and swallowed me. Like here was another Mormon lesbian mom of like 7 billion kids. Oh my gosh. Like that hugely opened the world up for me. And so to think a podcast like this can reach the women that feel like they’re truly the only ones that struggle. [01:08:00] If I could just reach out and give every one of them a hug, I would. Because you are so not alone.
Kate: You’re not alone. Elena, thank you. Because your story again, it’s I do recommend the TED talk and The Human Stories Podcast as well. Just your story is remarkable. Thank you for being here with us. Sharing it with us.
Colette: Thanks for listening. We appreciate you joining us today. Please feel free to follow, rate and review. If you want to contact us, you can reach us at hello@calledtoqueer.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram @CalledToQueer. See you next time.