Kate: Hello, and welcome to Called to Queer, where we hold space for the queer Mormon women, genderqueer and intersex experiences. I’m Kate and my pronouns are she/they.
Colette: And I’m Colette and my pronouns are she/her.
Kate: Today we’re talking with Meghan Decker and we’re so excited for this conversation. But before we jump into that, we of course wanted to start off by seeing what brought us queer joy this week. So Colette, what brought you queer joy this week?
Colette: Well, we’re recording this just a couple of days after the BYU Rainbow Day, which is the commemoration of the 2020 clarification of the BYU Honor Code that after in the middle of February, they had taken out the part about homosexual relations or whatever they had termed it. And [00:01:00] it was said like, no, like queer students are allowed to be like straight students, just follow the law of chastity. And that’s what was said, people outed themselves. And then on March 4th, CES released a clarification saying, Oh no, that’s not right. And it hurt a lot of people. So what ended up happening is a lot of students had implemented a Rainbow Day and it was really neat.
This was my first Rainbow Day not working for the church and I felt safe to be able to wear rainbow. And so I wore my rainbow t-shirt, I wore my rainbow earrings and I had three queer clients that day that I met with. And it was just so nice to just show up as myself and not have to worry about any personal retribution, which I used to have to be a lot more aware of.
And I feel for the students who are still are in that position and the employees and faculty, staff, whoever is still having [00:02:00] to balance these various tricky pieces of themselves on what can I do? How can I show up and still be safe? But that was my queer joy of just being able to be myself and because I’m myself, be able to interact with my clients, to have half my caseload that day be queer and talking about queer issues and how that’s showing up in their lives. It just brought me queer joy, even though it could have also been some queer pain. If that makes sense,
Kate: Yup. Yup. I think they go hand in hand sometimes.
Colette: Sometimes for sure. How about you, Kate? What’s been your queer joy?
Kate: So we’re dealing with the refugee crisis here. And so refugees are coming in from Ukraine into Romania, to Bucharest. And I was planning on going today to Bucharest. It’s about a three hour train ride, two and a half hour train ride to the Capitol and bringing donations. My goal was I’d seen from the [00:03:00] LGBTQ organization here that they were taking donations, sleeping bags, medication, all sorts of stuff at the Accept headquarters specifically for queer refugees coming in. And so I was planning on going on Sunday.
So they announced, I think earlier in the week, maybe Monday or Tuesday, and by Saturday they said, look, we are overwhelmed with all of the stuff that’s been brought. We don’t have, we need to sort it. We don’t have room, please keep sending money. We will send it off to Ukrainian queer folks. It will go to queer folks. But we have a surplus here now and so that, and it’s going to refugee queer refugees in Romania, the stuff that’s on the ground in Bucharest. That was just like overwhelming that you don’t see a lot of queer stuff in Eastern Europe. And to have these groups in constant communication with one another and rallying [00:04:00] behind queer refugees has just been really inspiring.
Colette: That’s amazing. Thank you so much for letting us know all of that’s going on. I think we sometimes lose those stories when we see all the other things going on, but there, there is good amidst the horrible things also happening.
Kate: Exactly. So we both are sharing good among amongst the horrible.
Colette: And how about you, Meghan? We’d love to hear queer joy moment from you.
Meghan: Thank you. Well I mean, I’m feeling a little bit of that right now. Just being been with both of you and being able to join you. I’m delighted to be here. And, and as you were talking about that, I thought, well, mine kind of fits that pattern because we, we just recently moved across country from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Provo, Utah. And that wasn’t something that we just decided we wanted to do. As a matter of fact, I had a lot of fear about coming to Provo. It felt in some ways like ground zero for a hard place to [00:05:00] be, to be gay, to be queer.
And so I was driving across country. My husband was driving a truck. He was behind me trying to keep the truck on the road and high winds. And we had been sent this link by our new ward in Provo, a Zoom link that they sent out. And I decided to just listen to the sacrament meeting, see what it was like, kind of get the, take the temperature of the new ward, because I’d had so much fear about whether I would be accepted.
In our old ward, we’d lived there for 23 years. I taught people’s kids in seminary. I’d been their relief society president. They knew me in that context before I came out. My husband had been in their stake presidency. You know, they knew us. And then we just added this other piece. Coming in here, it was going to be different. So I was listening to sacrament meeting, and the talks that they were on the Come Follow Me content, which happened to be Sodom and Gomorrah.
And I had an impulse to just turn off my phone because I was afraid if it got bad, I would just make a U-turn on I-80 and [00:06:00] head east, go back home. But the first woman who spoke and I recognized her name because she’s like our next door neighbor. And somehow I knew that name. She started speaking and she talked about Lot and about how patient and loving God was with Lot. Just kept giving him more chances, helped him learn some more, you know, and, and the evidence of God’s love and patience and how we can depend on that in our lives, that God will be loving and patient and compassionate with us, and that he wants the same from us, for others.
And then the next woman spoke on the same topic and I don’t remember her angle, but again, it was love and compassion. And then there was this girl that just got back from her mission, in the Dominican Republic. And her whole thing was just love, love, love, love, love, God’s love. And it was, it was this queer joy moment for me, as a queer woman, coming into a new place where I was really afraid I would be [00:07:00] rejected. And it felt like just an evidence from, from heaven through these new people that are going to be my friends, that God’s love is constant. And there are people who want to be the channel for that love and I’m going to be among them. And it’s played out. We’ve gone to church now, two Sundays here, and I started talking to a little, few more people about why I’m here, what we’re doing, and that’s what I felt love and acceptance.
Kate: I’m so grateful for that. It’s, that’s a scary moment. So I’m really grateful.
Colette: Awesome. We so appreciate you being here with us, Meghan. We’d love for you to just start off by introducing yourself and your queer Mormon story to listeners. And then we can go from there.
Meghan: Okay. You know, I thought for years that I was very unique. And I’m not. I’ve talked to a lot of women who have a similar story to mine. I came out to myself when I was 53. I was a teenager during the time [00:08:00] that, you know, the, those quotes that people go back to that say, you know, they said this about being an abomination and being a perversion. And, you know, we need to sweep this from BYU campus, that all happened in my lifetime. And those are things I heard sometimes sitting in the tabernacle. And what I heard was as, as my attraction for girls became really apparent. There was no place for that in this church that I had joined just a few years before.
And I know this isn’t everyone’s experience, not, not every queer person in the church has this, but I felt called to be here. I felt called into covenant with God and, and I continue to feel that that’s where he wants me to be. But because I felt that connection to the church and to God, I felt like I had to bury this part of me and I did for like 40 years.
But I, I couldn’t bury it deep enough for the shame and the fear not to always be [00:09:00] present. And so I went through years of major depressive episodes and looking back now, I can connect the dots between times when I was really attracted to someone and I, my mental health just took a huge dive. I was suicidal for a time. I felt that I was a burden to everybody and that I didn’t belong. I was not connected to people and that, you know, my family would be better off without me. I mean, I read it’s better that one man should perish than a nation dwindle and perish in unbelief during family scripture study. And I felt like that’s my confirmation that I should be gone.
And so gradually, there began to be a little bit more of an, of the door opening in the church for at least the feelings, you know. May not approve the behaviors, but the feelings I experienced didn’t condemn me. And I actually kind of discovered that through, I had a girl come to my seminary class and she attended for a [00:10:00] few weeks. She was a senior, she was coming with another guy who came to my class, who was not a member but was waiting until he turned 18 so he could be baptized. And she called me one time and said, you know, Sister Decker, I just have a question for you. I have two moms, my parents are a lesbian couple. I was the first test tube baby conceived in Southwest Michigan you know, and she had grown up with what she describes as she was reared by the lesbian relief society. Her parents were leaders in the queer movement in our area. They ran a bookstore, they put out a newsletter. You know, she remembers these gatherings of people coming to their home who raised her and she’s an amazing person, but she asked me about what the church felt and understandably, her parents were very concerned about her involvement with a church that did not recognize their family’s right to exist.
And so, as I did more kind of studied more and research more to be able to, to be up-to-date and accurate in what I told her [00:11:00] about the teachings of our church. I think I found more space for myself, even though I was still in denial. I could teach about same-sex attraction and same-sex marriage and not even there was this firewall that protected me from thinking about my own complicated feelings.
And eventually one day I was thinking about a friend and wondering if she was gay and hoping that she was, and I thought, why would I, why would I hope that? And I got up, went into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, I did the mirror thing. And I said, I think it’s time to admit that you’re attracted to women.
And so that, that was, that was my coming out. You know, we talk about the hardest person to come out to is yourself. And it took me decades, decades to be able to do that. And I was just going to keep that to myself. And God kept telling me to tell my husband, who was the last person I wanted to tell. And I did. That was hard, because all we had ever seen was people who came out as gay and left their [00:12:00] marriage and left their family and left the church. That was the only model we saw.
So as I talked to him a few years later, I talked to my kids. I read Brené Brown and I still was suffering from shame for several years after that. And still just really my mental health was just so unpredictable. And I was reading Brené Brown says that shame grows in silence and secrecy. And the antidote is to speak our truth and be met with empathy and compassion. And I started to identify people, I could speak my truth to, and as I did, on a very one-on-one basis, that shame began to recede. And as I was met with empathy and compassion, I began to feel that for myself. And feel more acceptance for myself, I think because I could do it through the eyes of others for a little bit, and began to feel the love and acceptance from God that was always there. But because I didn’t expect it, because I expected that [00:13:00] he would reject this part of me, I couldn’t feel it. My expectations shut him out, shut out what he was willing to give to me.
So anyway, and then, and then I felt prompted to write a book, which meant I would be much more public, not just a few safe friends. And that’s about to be published. That’s coming out in next month. April, April 14th is the launch day. As I, as I was working on the book, starting this, I realized that my story is so different from yours. From each of yours, from other people, all of us, all of us have a very cut to fit, tailored to fit story. And mine doesn’t reflect or dictate what anyone else should do.
I want to be really clear about that. I don’t want anybody to listen to this and say to their kid, look, you can do what she did that. No, no, don’t do that. Don’t do that. So anyway, I ended up talking to over [00:14:00] 40 other women who are somewhere in this space of LGBTQ and Latter-day Saint, or have a Latter-day Saint heritage, or, you know, connected with the church, not connected with the church in a same-sex marriage, in relationships, dating, in a mixed orientation marriage, active in the church, you know, just all over the place and hearing their stories was incredible. I’m the same thing. You hear people’s stories and it’s, it’s, it’s sacred space. And it’s beautiful. So that’s in a nutshell, cause my story goes over many, many years, so it takes a little longer to tell.
Kate: I would like to pick up on those different things that are happening along the way, because we kind of have a understanding, a little bit of how the church has evolved over time, but the church fits into a larger context. And I think it’s hard for younger queer folks to really understand the [00:15:00] danger and unawareness that past generations have gone through. And so I think it’s really important to really highlight the difficulties of those things, because it’s not the same everywhere. Utah is not going to be the same as say like, I don’t know, Mexico City or something. Yeah, I would like to make sure that we hit all of those points that you’re, that you are so good at highlighting for us.
Meghan: Okay. Yeah. I can, I can talk to that a little bit if that’s okay with you. So another woman and I started a group for parents of LGBTQ kids in our two stakes. She’s up in Holland, Michigan. I was down in Kalamazoo. And one of the things that we did cause I have a queer daughter as well, who’s married to a wonderful woman. And one of the things that we did for this group as you know, kind of out of this group is we created this document that is obsolete and current teachings of the church. And then we did citations for all the current stuff, [00:16:00] because I think like people, my age, we were taught such different things in seminary, in Sunday school, you know, in the books that we were given to read to repent. All, all of those flawed teachings that came out of the ethos and the understanding of the time, because back then, I mean, homosexuality was still listed as a, as a pathology in the DSM or whatever it was back then, whichever version of the DSM. And everybody believed it was a choice, you know? And so if you take priesthood leaders who are talking to people who have made a rebellious choice to choose to be gay, and that’s a whole different premise than talking to somebody if you say it’s not a choice.
So, I mean, that’s probably number one, like it was, we believed it was a choice. And now we know it’s not a choice. You know, it was tied to pedophilia and, you know, [00:17:00] and caused by masturbation and, and all this. Well, now we know none of that’s true. But it’s not like, it’s not like there has been this update that, that came out that said, okay, all of those things, you were taught when you were kids, you people who are now leaders, that was all wrong, or a lot of it was wrong. So let’s update you, you know, let’s, let’s stamp obsolete on all of these things and come back and replace them all with current teachers. So that’s kind of what we did with this document. And I actually included in my book as an appendix. And I wish it were a living document because there is more and more coming out all the time that would update that.
But basically, it goes through a lot of these things and a lot of the language. And I write in my book, as well, about how two of the leaders who wrote some of the most venomous things about homosexuals, I actually had one-on-one experiences with each of them. [00:18:00] And I think that happened like when I was a kid. I think that happened so that now, you know, when COVID shut everything down and I wasn’t going to church, it gave me space to process all of the feelings I had of anger and hurt and betrayal from the church. And it also brought to mind these experiences with these people where I knew their intent was good. I think they caused harm, but not out of malicious intent.
There’s a talk in, At the Pulpit, which is in the Gospel Library App. It’s a collection of 180 years of women’s speeches in the church. And Francine Bennion has one in there that is mind blowing. That is called An LDS Theology of Suffering. And in it, she talks about it’s so good. It’s so good. And she talks about, we have so many contradictory things in those scriptures. How are we ever going to know truth? How do we, you know, [00:19:00] and then she talks about what we do know and what we know about suffering. And she writes beautifully, but she says that that one of the things that she is grateful for is that her children will not be forever damaged by the things she knew or thought she knew, by the truths she taught or the things she thought that were true that were not. That the damage that she did, she will be forgiven through the atonement, but for the atonement to be, to be fair, all of the effects of the things she’s forgiven for also have to be wiped away. And so she talks about this, this incredibly expansive and inclusive view of the atonement that helps me to be able to put all of those teachings from my youth into a context where I can give people some grace, because I don’t think it was malicious, but boy, there is a lot. And I think the responsibility today is for leaders [00:20:00] now to be really active in informing themselves about what we no longer teach that was wrong, that we used to take as truth. I think right now, that’s how we make restitution for what was done is now, we make sure that those teachings aren’t perpetuated.
Kate: Yeah, you’re speaking to something that cuts me also pretty deep. It’s that this idea that we will make these changes, but then they’re never overt. Even the November 2015 policy change wasn’t overt. It was found in the handbook, right? These things aren’t talked about, they’re just underneath and that’s, for me been a really big problem since 2019, that there hasn’t been clear cut and explicit statements about what these changes have actually meant. It’s just, you have to read the handbook and kind of decipher for yourself, which is [00:21:00] what you’re talking about with the scriptures too. Even the handbook, you find contradictory things. And
Meghan: Yeah. The transgender section. I mean, it’s like, wait a minute, did somebody proofread this? Because there seemed to be some internal contradictions that, you know, and I mean, that’s the first draft I think. I mean, I’m sure they went through it. Okay. Forgive me. Whoever’s listening to this and went through word by word and spent a year and a half working on that.
But I think that is the first statement in the handbook on transgender. And we are going to see more refinements as time goes on. But Yeah, I mean, you know, I was taught when I was a kid. You don’t play with face cards, you don’t drink Coke. And did that ever go away? I mean, did anyone ever come out in conferences say, oh, by the way, face cards are okay and Diet Coke, sisters. You need that to get through your day. You know? I mean, there’s nothing, so we’re good. We’re good at laying down the law. But not so good at making sure everyone [00:22:00] gets the message and the information gets all the way to the end of the row when things change. And that’s something we can do better at. There are things that we can do so much better at without changing. If you want to call it doctrine, if you want to call it policy, whatever, without changing core, fundamental things, we can do a lot better in a lot of ways. And that’s one of them.
Kate: Yeah, absolutely. But that’s, what’s so great about your book to have a, not just the information, but a visual to present to somebody too, right? To say, look at these things, how do we deal with this? This was said, and this is saying, this is what we’re saying now it’s, they’re contradictory. What are we going to do about that? When it’s presented to somebody that way, they have to deal with it. They have to look at it and think for themselves what it is that they, how they’re going to internalize that process that the church goes through, because it is a process that we don’t talk [00:23:00] about of revelation. If we’re a church about revelation, we’re not very comfortable with saying, before we had less knowledge and now we have more.
Meghan: Yeah. And we’re also not very comfortable with personal revelation if it doesn’t give us the answer that we think is the answer you should get. I think we can do a little better with celebrating the fact that people are seeking personal revelation, that they’re receiving things that may not be what we expect, may not be what they expect, and yet, they’re seeking it, they’re listening and they’re acting on that.
And so, you know, I talked to women in, in these interviews who said that they had heard as they prayed about this. And, and one thing that all of them talked about, or many of them talked about was how much revelation there is in this space and how close they feel to God in dealing with their gender dysphoria or their sexual orientation, or, you know, that, that [00:24:00] God is really very generous often with his guidance and with the things that he says.
And some of them heard your path is to keep the commandments and others heard go date, you need this experience. And others heard confirmation to get married to their girlfriend. And I think we need to be comfortable with allowing space for people to receive and act on the guidance that they receive.
And I know for me, my mom left the church when I was in my early twenties. And she told me that God had told her that she should become a Catholic. And my immediate response was, Nope. He didn’t say that. God, didn’t say that. God doesn’t lead people out of covenant. I don’t know who you’re listening to, but it’s not God.
And then now, thank goodness I’m became wise enough while she’s still alive to be able to say, I’m so sorry. God’s voice brought us into the church. You know how to [00:25:00] recognize that. I assumed because your experience was outside my expectations for what God would do, I assumed you were being misled. And I’m sorry that I didn’t trust you, to trust in your ability to receive revelation. And what’s interesting is she received a testimony of Joseph Smith while she was serving retired nuns in the mother house of their convent. And God took her on a circuitous route to get the experience she needed to come closer to him.
And, and I think we can trust people’s revelation. We can trust them to hear him and to follow him and to realize that sometimes he gives different people, different answers because they’re different people and they need different experiences. And we’re here to learn through our own experience.
Kate: Oh my goodness.
Colette: A hundred percent. And that just reminds me if you’ve listened at all to At Last She Said It, which is a great podcast of a couple of [00:26:00] nuanced Mormon women. One thing they say often is do we actually believe our own stuff? And they have had a certain episode specifically talking about do we actually believe what the church says about agency? Or, do we actually believe our own stuff when it comes to personal revelation? And I think unfortunately many people in the church, don’t. Just like you said, oh, if it goes against what the church says, then that can’t be right. So do we really believe in agency? Do we really believe in personal revelation? And I think that is such an interesting issue that a lot of people have to come up against in this space. Do you believe that you can receive personal revelation for you and what you need?
Meghan: Mmmhm. And are we willing to let down the wall of our expectations of what God would say or should say in order to hear what he’s actually saying?
Colette: That is huge to me. That was the biggest barrier for me personally, for the longest time. Was because me believing well, [00:27:00] God wouldn’t tell me that it’s okay for me to step away from the church for my mental health.
Meghan: Right.
Colette: So I kept putting myself in a place that was not good for me because oh, no. Stepping away from my personal situation isn’t good. Once I kind of let that go and was like, maybe God would rather I stay alive? And I was able to get that revelation that it’s okay right now that you are where you’re at. And who knows where it’s going to go, but this is where you’re at. And I’m okay with that. That was huge. So huge.
Meghan: Yeah. Yeah. We just need to remove these narrow expectations we have about what God would or could say. And when we let that go, and we just ask, and listen, and trust ourselves to hear. He may take us in surprising and unexpected ways, but man, his ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts and our thoughts, you know, he sees things we don’t see. We are so narrow and so binary in our [00:28:00] thinking. So much either or rather than also, and, and God dwells in an also and space.
Colette: Ooh. I love that. And I would love if you could talk a little more specifically, maybe do you have some examples specifically in your own life of God showing up in that way?
Meghan: Uh, Yeah. Yeah. I write in the book about an experience I had with developing kind of reciprocal, romantic feelings for a friend. And my thinking was, you know, I’d heard all these stories about you don’t drive near the edge of the cliff. The best stagecoach drivers, the one who drives as far away from the edge as possible and avoid the very appearance of evil.
And my thought was. I’m going to be, I need to run away fast. Runaway, runaway, fast, runaway far. And in counsel from a priesthood leader, in a blessing from my husband, in guidance from my therapist, they told me to do exactly the opposite. That healing comes through relationships. That I could [00:29:00] learn more about boundaries, internal and interpersonal boundaries. That it would be an opportunity for me to learn more, to define what I want in my life, rather than acting out of fear. That I could actually be an agent who acts as Elder Bednar says, rather than someone who’s just acted upon. And that all of that took me into what I thought was danger. But actually is the purpose of mortality, which is to learn, to grow, to make mistakes, and then come back and turn around and try again.
And for me, because I have felt God’s love so powerfully. I know I don’t stay in the gospel path because I’m afraid of the consequences if I don’t. That’s not what keeps me out of a woman’s arms. What keeps me where I am, is one thing that my husband’s amazing. One in a million and I actually love him and feel attracted to him. So I’m, I’m blessed in that way, or I’m just, my path is [00:30:00] different from a lot of other people. But also God’s love is just overpowering to me. It draws me to him. It’s not fear of doing wrong or getting in trouble or going to a lower kingdom. I don’t care about any of that. I’m not worried about the kingdom. I just want to feel his love. And when I’m close to him, I feel that. And so I will do the things that help me to feel close to him.
So staying in this relationship that I thought represented risk to my family and my faith and my eternal salvation, that was very counterintuitive. And it was exactly right. It was exactly right. And I’m grateful for the inspiration of, you know, my priesthood leader. I’m grateful for my husband’s courage to be able to let me find my way without trying to control or constrain me or protect his own happiness. By making sure that, that I didn’t leave him. You know, he let me find my way. [00:31:00] He granted me full agency. And because I had the ability to leave without guilt, I could fully decide to stay and not feel trapped.
Kate: Can we talk about that a little bit more? That’s a unique experience. I’ve I have not heard this particular experience. What I’ve heard is the opposite from for many husbands. So I would like to understand how better to cultivate that, but also. How did he do that? Because there, there has to be a sense of fear. Do you,
Meghan: yeah.
Kate: How did you have those conversations? What, how did that take place?
Meghan: So I think that was, that was some internal stuff on his part. He told me later that he knew he couldn’t force me to stay. That forcing me to stay would result in unhappiness for both of us. And he said he accepted that if I left and if we got divorced that he would still be able to be happy. That his life would go on [00:32:00] and that he needed to not try to control the outcome. You know, if I came back, he would be very pleased. Or if I came, if I stayed, he would be very pleased, but he couldn’t try to either control or constrain me. There’s the terms that he used. And that’s that’s been very highly differentiated, right?
And we’ve both been in, I’ve been in 12 step programs for about 10 years. He actually had responsibility for that when he was in our stake presidency. And so he became really knowledgeable about it. He helped conduct groups, he would sub for people. And so I think we’re both familiar with this idea of, of not being codependent, not trying to control or fix or rescue another person, staying on our own side of the road.
I think we had that foundation laid, but honestly, for him to be able to do this in such a state of high oh high risk, I think it had to be a gift from God. And in his ability to do that, [00:33:00] I also saw a godly attribute of respect for agency, because he totally respected my agency. And he also told me later that he decided to trust me. And when he said that, I stopped having to hustle every day for his trust. I thought I had to do that. I thought I had to prove myself. I thought I had to, and it just let go of this whole burden I was carrying, of trying to manage his feelings, his emotions, his, you know, when he said, I just decided to trust you, I thought, okay, I’m trusted. I don’t need to worry about that. You know, if something changes and I don’t deserve that trust anymore than, you know, but right now he’s just deciding to do that. And I don’t have to try to manipulate that. So, you know, he, I, I don’t know. I don’t know how hard it is for him. I know it’s hard sometimes, but I, you know, because I have a lot of friends who were, when I was in Michigan, all my friends are straight girls and out [00:34:00] here, I have a lot of gay friends that I hang out with. A lot of lesbian friends and and he is just, he just is okay.
And that taught me about God, about agency, about not being controlled by fear. And what’s interesting is he’s talked to some husbands now, because people reach out to me after they hear podcasts. And I reached out to people when I was new here and they were so generous and gracious with me. And so I’m happy to talk to people too. And sometimes he’s talked to their husbands and, you know, I see, I see other guys being able to do this, and I think it’s gotta be a gift. Because I also see a lot who aren’t, who are so worried. That’s where codependency comes from, right? We need to protect our own happiness. And so we try to control someone else’s actions because we’re dependent on them for our happiness and that never works.
Kate: Wow, what a remarkable story. And it’s clear to [00:35:00] me how this relationship really actually does. It works like you have this constant communication with one another and trust of one another, that is really crucial and important.
Meghan: Yeah. Let me just say sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes it’s really hard. Really hard. Sometimes David doesn’t want to hear any more gay stuff. And so I back off a little bit, I don’t talk to him about all these things I’m excited about, but yeah, but on the whole, you know, Kate you’re right. It, it works.
Kate: You’ve mentioned differentiation and you’ve put it in opposition with codependency. Can you unpack that for some folks who might not know what that means?
Meghan: Oh yeah. Yeah. And actually, maybe I’m not the one to do this cause I’m not the therapist, but from my understanding, being differentiated means that I don’t merge with someone else’s feelings or emotions or needs. And that was something that, I mean, with this relationship I had with this woman, there was a lot of codependency there.
And so being able to [00:36:00] recognize that was part of this healing growing process. But you know, I know my therapist said that when you’re highly differentiated, you can sit with a person in a state of high emotion and not either be drawn into it or repelled by it. You know, you can hold yourself separate from where they are or who they are or what their needs are. You’re a whole person and what my husband and I are striving for is to be two whole selves who come together. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife talks a lot about this. Who come together and not because we need each other to meet our needs, but because we like each other and we like to be with each other and we’ve, we feel good with each other. Merging, being enmeshed, all of those things are, are I, and I have a tendency towards that. There are some red flags I recognize. If I start to feel protective of a woman, that takes me right into connections that are not healthy, both from a gospel [00:37:00] perspective and from just a mental health perspective. The few other things like that, that I just recognize in myself that I’m starting to merge with her and I need to step back and remember, I’m a separate person. Remember who I am, what I am.
Colette: Which is so important. I think you described that so beautifully and I don’t have anything to add. I just want to point out how hard that can be, because working with so many people who grew up Mormon, some still are, I feel like culturally, enmeshment and not differentiating is almost encouraged culturally in the church. And really what we know about healthy relationships is differentiation is crucial. And so I love that you’ve done that work to be able to have the differentiation, to get away from codependency and enmeshment. That’s not easy work when in so many ways, culturally, women are expected to [00:38:00] lose their identity in serving and being a wife and being a mother like, forget who you are. And it’s like, no, that’s not healthy. So I love that you’ve been able to do the work to be differentiated.
Meghan: Mmmhm. Thank you. Yeah. I, my first therapist that I went to when I was suicidal, like 20 years before I came out to myself one of the first things he said to me was, do you feel like it’s your responsibility to make sure everybody’s happy? And I was like, I’m mom, of course it is. And so just challenging that, you know, challenging that perception. And he said, how can you possibly accomplish that? That’s not your job. And hearing that that was not, my job was mind blowing.
Colette: Which it seems so simple. But it really is mind blowing when we are culturally expected to yeah. You’re supposed to make everyone happy. Your needs are supposed to be last. But in a kind of a funnier way of looking at it that I’ve told some clients, I saw a [00:39:00] meme that was something to the effect of even chocolate doesn’t make everyone happy. How do you expect that you should be able to? So anyways, thank you.
Meghan: Well, and then we’re taking on their happiness is our job. And it’s not, it’s their job. I often think about whose side of the street am I on? And I just kind of have to bring myself back to like, okay, this is on my side of the street. That is not my job. You know, they are their job. I am my job and I need to stay on my side of the street.
Kate: Can we change gears just slightly to talk about your book a little bit? And you have a specific goal here with this book and in the people that you’re interviewing, how did you decide for what audience you were looking for? How did you decide that this was the subject matter that you wanted to deal with rather than just like a whole LGBTQ book?
Meghan: You know, it kind of evolved as it went along. I was not thinking of doing this. I had reached out to Ben Schilaty about an article I was doing. And I like article. I mean, you know, [00:40:00] article length stuff is easy and it’s not a big job. And he, he mentioned to me at the end of our discussion, this publisher is looking for a woman’s voice. And I said, oh, I’ve written a book. I’m not going to do that again. It is way too much work. And then that idea just didn’t leave me. And I realized, I think this is my work. This is on my side of the street. And so I decided I would write about my experience and that my target audience would be a woman like me, who is closeted. Who is feeling enormous amounts of shame and brokenness.
I’ve served in a lot of leadership and teaching callings in the church. I’ve been a seminary teacher and Institute, teacher relief society president, I mean, just on and on. And anytime anyone complimented me on anything, my internal narrative was, you don’t know me if you knew me, if you really knew me, you wouldn’t say that.
And so for the women who are saying that, who feel like their family’s going to celestial kingdom, but they’re not, because there’s this inward brokenness that can’t be fixed.[00:41:00] Or who are feeling attracted to their counselor in relief society, in the presidency. And they feel so much shame over that.
That was the woman I was originally writing to. And then, as I started working and realized I wanted to talk to a few more people on it, you know, I was like I’ll talk to, you know, three or four other women. And it’s over 40 now. I’m not sure exactly how many. But as I heard their stories, my focus broadened a little bit, and I also thought a lot about parents. Because there were lessons I learned as I parented my daughter. We came out to each other. She came out to me and I came out to her at the same time, because she was so afraid of rejection that it was like, she couldn’t hear me saying that I loved her and accepted her until I was able to say, I’m I’m gay too.
I think I probably said, you know, I experienced same-sex attraction because that’s the way we say, when we first, you know, are doing this, right? And so we were able to see each other and take down walls. Cause I’d been hiding [00:42:00] from everyone. My whole life. My husband never really came to know me. My kids never knew me. My mom never came to know me because there was this huge part of me that I was hiding. And it worked in me in so many negative ways, that I was really kind of warped by the shame, not by being gay. That’s fine. I’m all, I’m fine with that. And I never prayed for that to go away either. I don’t believe it will. It’s it’s me. It’s part of me. But it was the shame that did the damage. And it did damage for a long time. And so anyway, so I wanted to talk to parents and I actually kind of wanted to talk to priesthood leaders too and say, how, how can we priesthood and relief society leaders, how can we do better than we’re doing now? And it it’s swung around now to really, how do we create a belonging space for LGBTQ siblings? Not just tolerated. [00:43:00] Not just letting them attend, but how do we actually create belonging?
In the handbook, very first paragraph under same-sex attraction and the general handbook, it says we should be reaching out and that’s active. That’s not just, oh, we’ll let them come. That is how do we reach out and say here, right here, next to me, come here. And this is how you can serve with us. Because that’s part of belonging. Attending isn’t belonging. So I think that’s one of the things that I’m really feeling passionate about is how can we without change without having the same-sex marriage in the temple without, you know, how can we, within the context we have, what’s on my side of the road, what I can control or what I can influence others to control. How can we create belonging for people?
The book is coming out on April 14th. We’re having an event that I’m super excited about. There are four speakers and I’ll be one of them. The people that we have are Ben Schilaty, Richard [00:44:00] Ostler and Becky Macintosh, we’ll all be speaking. Steven Kapp Perry is going to be emceeing this. And what we’re talking about is how do we create belonging for LGBT loved ones, friends, family? How do we do that in our homes and in our churches and in our communities? We need to wrap our arms around this community, and I’m saying that as if I’m outside of it, which I’m not I’m right in the middle, but how do we integrate with each other? And do that in, in ways that we can throw away these old ideas.
I wish that there was a word we could strike from the dictionary. I wish we could strike out condone. Condone means to withhold punishment. How many of us really have the right to punish? You know, if we’re worried about am I condoning my child’s same-sex marriage. If I attend the wedding, no, you’re loving your kid. Forget about condoning. Condoning keeps us from doing good. That, that word. So anyway, so that that event is called. I think, I think it’s on [00:45:00] Eventbrite. You can find it by Tender Leaves of Hope. I don’t know if you can put up a link or whatever, but that’s on April 12th. Love to have people come. There are some just really wise voices that are going to be saying some good things there. And so this would be something that would be friendly to bring your Bishop, to, to bring somebody who doesn’t quite get it. Or who wants to learn more. This is going to be a safe, easy intro to how can we do better?
Colette: Yeah, we’ll definitely link that in the show notes and everything. So that would be a great opportunity for people to attend. And also pick up a copy of your book.
Meghan: Yeah. All of those, all of those authors will have their books there. There’ll be signing. There’ll be visiting, talking to people. Yeah.
Colette: I am curious in talking about your book, are there any particular themes that really stuck out to you as you were doing these interviews? Things that you highlight in the book or would want people to have their takeaways if they do end up reading?[00:46:00]
Meghan: So I think the key takeaway and the one, the last question I asked everyone in all of my inter, I asked them about how they did boundaries. I asked them about how they identifying that. They have really interesting perspectives and nobody’s full story is in there other than my own. My own story is kind of the framework for the book.
But their comments are kind of arranged thematically, their insights, their wisdom. But what I finished every interview with was if you could, if you could talk to a woman who is just coming to awareness of this, what would you say to her?
And universally, people said God loves you. It’s going to be okay, just breathe. You will figure this out. There’s nothing inside of you that God doesn’t know is there and loves. So it was just this message of you’re okay. You are good. Don’t be ashamed. God loves you and you are worthy of love by your family and your [00:47:00] community. And you can trust in that. And I think that is probably the most powerful message that I received, and I hope that we communicate.
Kate: I think that fits something that you had said earlier that I want to come back to, that I’m really intrigued by. And that is that you felt all of the shame. I think I felt too when you say I don’t think that I prayed for it to go away. I’m not sure about that, but I don’t think I prayed for it to go away either, but there was an internalized shame about it that I couldn’t articulate. That I didn’t like myself. And I felt like people couldn’t see me, but I didn’t know what that meant or what that was. And so it’s interesting to hear you talk about that because you seem to have that same experience.
There are going to be people who listened to this, or read your book who don’t know these things about themselves, but they felt that, right? They felt that feeling of I’ve been in a situation where [00:48:00] somebody doesn’t know who I am, but also, I don’t know who I am. I think that’s just like a really beautiful way that you pointed that out. And I think that has everything to do with these answers that the women are giving.
Meghan: Thank you. I think that’s very true. And what’s ironic is that we can, denial can be a protective device, a coping mechanism for us in a lot of ways and a lot of different things. But man, it does not shame just oozes its way into every crevice that it can.
And I used to teach workshops. They’d have me come back every year to young women’s camp to teach workshop on shame. And one of the key takeaways was shame doesn’t come from God. There is nothing in shame that moves you forward along the gospel path. Shame kills hope. Jesus Christ is hope. If you are feeling shame, that is the voice of the accuser. That is the message that, that is the antichrist. Shame turns us [00:49:00] away from others, from belonging, from our families, from, from just feeling that others will accept us. Shame tells us we don’t belong. And Jesus Christ gathers us into his arms and puts, puts those arms around our shattered souls
Kate: That’s beautiful. Thank you.
Colette: I’m really glad we are talking about shame. I think that is we don’t even talk about shame. We don’t talk about Bruno. That’s something we just avoid talking about, but we know that shame dissipates when we talk about it. If we’re feeling ashamed about something, we tend to want to pull away and hide and disconnect, but I’ve found in my own life and Brene Brown’s research has found that shame goes away through connection, through opening up. And so I know how hard and scary that it can be to open up about something you’re feeling ashamed about. I remember when I was so in the closet and so scared to tell [00:50:00] anybody, just being so sure that they would reject me if they knew this piece of me,
Meghan: absolutely.
Colette: But that is why connection is so important and healing. Because to have someone see me and love me. All parts of me, even the parts that I struggle to love, is the most beautiful thing. And it kills shame. And you can live more authentically. And it’s just I just love that we’re having this part of the discussion. Thank you.
Meghan: Yeah. And I’ll add, David Augsburger says that being truly heard and I would add seen, is so close to being loved that for most people, they can’t tell the difference. And I think our fears keep us from allowing others to see us and hear us. And that kills that connection. And as you say, when we are willing to be seen, to be heard and to be [00:51:00] received with compassion and empathy, that kills shame. That is the antidote.
Can I add one more thing? I’m sorry. I just realized my publisher would probably be really upset if I didn’t say the name of the book. So let me just throw that in really quick. The name of it is Tender Leaves of Hope: Finding Belonging as LGBTQ Latter-day Saint Women.
Colette: And we’ll link to that in the show notes, the best place to buy it, to connect with you, anything you want to share with audience you can say now, and then we’ll also link in the show notes. So how can they connect with you, how can they find it?
Meghan: Okay. Yeah, It’s it’s available on Amazon for pre-order. I actually just finished the audio recording this past week and I realized, man, I talked so much about shame. It was a little depressing, but man it’s yeah, if you want to learn about shame, this is the book for it. And my website is just my name, Meghan Decker with an H, M-E-G-H-A-N at meghandecker.com. And I try to put some [00:52:00] things up there that I think are helpful to people, so.
Colette: Awesome. We’ll make sure we link all that.
Meghan: Okay.
Kate: I’m coming back to your idea here about being seen. This is such an interesting point from the perspective of the church, because there’s so much rhetoric around you can be gay, we’re just not going to talk about it. As long as you just don’t identify, if you use same sex attraction, you use our lingo. Then we think you’re a part. But identifying is being seen. Somebody using your pronouns is being seen. Those sorts of things are being seen. And so it’s interesting that we shut out those ways of connection with LGBTQ folks in our congregations.
Meghan: Yeah, and this is a great example of how things are evolving, because a few years ago, a member of the Quorum of the 12 talked about don’t use labels. You don’t need to use labels. When you use labels, it defines you in ways that, [00:53:00] you know, the label, you should use this child of God.
And then in September 2019 President Nelson gave a talk at BYU where he used LGBT. And he used gay and lesbian. And right now on the church website, under counseling resources, which you actually have to be in a leadership role to have access to that. But if you’re a relief society presidency, or if you’re an elders quorum presidency or bishopric, you have access to this.
And it goes through and it’s like some of the best content on how to how to, how to respond to people. And it says use the term that they want to use. That that’s important to them. Listen, you know, if somebody comes in and wants to talk to you about this, listen, listen to their story. There’s nothing there that says, make sure they understand, give them a copy of the proclamation on the family. You know, that’s not in there. Cause because we know that. We’ve heard that a lot, right? We don’t need to be told what the doctrine is. We know that. What we need to hear is that we are accepted [00:54:00] and that we are loved. And how is the ward going to embrace us?
As I mentioned, David and I just moved into this brand new ward and they talked to us today about a couple of different callings. And the interesting thing was, one is in primary, one is working with youth. And when I first came out to David, he said, at one point I may be released from the stake presidency. And I thought I will never go to girls camp again. I’ll never, I’ll never do this again. I’ll never do this again. They’ll never have me do this again. And all of that has not been true. And I think I’ve had really inspired leaders. Because that’s not been the case for other people. But there is so much good content to counteract these old, old ideas about asking women who are in same-sex relationships, not to speak up, not to make comments in second hour, there’s, that’s not in the handbook. There’s nothing about that in the handbook. And yet that’s something that we think, oh, when people are ex-communicated, they’re not supposed to talk. You know, well, they’re not supposed to [00:55:00] give a talk in sacrament meeting maybe, but they can testify of Christ right along with everybody else in relief society. So let’s let them do that. Let’s make space for that. Let’s not be afraid of them.
Kate: So your lineup on April 12th is Ben Schilaty, Becky Macintosh, Richard Ostler, and your focus is on women and AFAB people. How do you see that experience as different from what other folks might talk about? Do you ever like zone in on, on this because it’s the topic of your book. So you hone in on that?
Meghan: Yeah. We’re all we kind of coordinated with each other. So we know we’re talking about Richard actually has a new book coming out on the culture. I can’t remember the name of it, but it, it deals with our culture and how can our culture change and improve?
Ben and I are both are both in this space as members of the LGBTQ community. He has a different experience than I do, as a, as a gay [00:56:00] man, as gay single man. And I’m married. But I think also I think women’s voices, that I really want to amplify women’s voices. That’s what I, this book. I became really passionate about helping them be heard. Because I think for whatever reason, you know, you hear somebody who’s gay speak at church and there is a guy. There just aren’t very many of us. And I think there are multiple reasons for that. But there is so much wisdom and perspective and faith and so much in this untapped treasure trove of LGBTQ women that, yeah, that’s, that’s probably what I’m trying to represent, is their voices and amplify their voices. And I have a couple of people who’ve contributed on my blog, on my website. I’m inviting people to contribute there and hoping that I can amplify their voices a little bit there too.
Colette: Well, as we wrap up, is there anything [00:57:00] else you want to say or things you wish we had asked you, Meghan?
Meghan: Obviously, I could talk for a long time, but I think I’ll just say that I have real faith that we’re going to do better as a people. I mean, I think we’ve taken some steps forward. We’ve definitely taken some steps back. I think those steps backward come out of fear. Come out of the fortress church that needs to be protected. And, you know, in Acts 5, we see that if this is God’s work, if it’s the work of man, it will come to naught, if it’s the work of God, nothing can hinder it. We don’t, we don’t need to rush to protect the church. We can relax a little bit. We can make space for rainbows.
We can recognize that we can live together in peace and listen to each other And learn from each other. And I will just add, as we’re finishing up, one thing that I heard at the North Star conference last year and North Star was a huge factor for me. It was a soft landing place when I first came out. And their Voices of Hope videos. I just [00:58:00] gobbled up every one that was by lesbian, which was like, I don’t know, three, not very many, because again, women’s voices.
But they have kind of a, I don’t know if they call it a testimony meeting, a gathering right around Sunday, that functions like a testimony meeting and a woman with two LGBTQ kids got up and she was talking and she said, we are building love like no generation has ever seen before. And I think that is absolutely true. As our kids come out to us, as our parents come out to us, as you know, we are learning to love in ways that are more aligned with Christ-like love than we have been able to do in the past. We’re leveling up and we’re leveling up in preparation for the Lord’s return and he doesn’t need the world to get more wicked. It’s already plenty wicked. What he needs is a people who are worthy and loving and prepared to receive him. And I think that as we’re doing our small part, as the LGBTQ community and the church [00:59:00] to help others to learn to love better and to love louder and to listen and learn. And all of these things were just a force for good. And we’re part of the preparation for the savior’s return.
Colette: That’s beautiful. Thank you so much. We so appreciate your time. We appreciate the energy and effort you’ve put into your book. I know it will bless many people and help them know they’re not alone. That’s big purpose of our podcast, purpose of your book. And I just love that we’re all just lifting where we can to build that community and help people find that community and find a way to kill the shame.
Meghan: Yeah, Thank you for letting me join you. and thank you for the huge, huge impact you’re having on amplifying women’s voices, too.
Kate: Thank you.
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