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/he/they.
Colette: Today, we’re interviewing Maddi Tenney and we’re so excited for this conversation. But 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: Well, if you’re new to listening, you won’t know this, but if you’ve been listening for a while now, you might notice that I changed my pronouns to she/he/ they, instead of she/they. That’s like been a, a big deal for me, but it’s also always nervewracking. But being more in Romania and immersing myself more in Romanian language and, and talking with more queer [00:01:00] people in Romania, they’ve started to ask me a lot more about my pronouns and in Romanian. And so, um, I’ve been part of these groups. It’s been very exciting to be part of Romanian queer groups and being invited to these things. Like it’s been a summer of queer joy for that. And to introduce myself, I usually introduce myself with yeah. Which in Romanian is she/he. And then I say, and then I use they/them in English. So my queer joy is new pronouns, but also like a summer of getting to know Romanian queers.
Colette: That is so cool. Thank you for explaining the pronoun change and just queer joy and embracing more of our full identities, right? I love that.
Kate: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So for those who don’t know in, in Romance languages, there really isn’t an, a good equivalent in Spanish. There’s some new things going on in French. There’s some new [00:02:00] things going on, but in Romanian, we’re kind of, there’s, there’s a ground floor moment of trying to figure out how to incorporate non-binary language. So for right now, I use she/he in Romanian. So that’s where that’s coming from.
Colette: I think the conversation about like gender neutral pronouns is so fascinating, especially with Romance languages. And I’ve learned quite a bit from you about that. So I think it’s cool you’re on the forefront of these conversations and bringing that forward. That’s awesome.
Kate: Thank you. All right, Colette. How about you?
Colette: Last night I went to a queer wedding and so that is total queer joy so
Kate: It’s always your favorite. You love queer weddings.
Colette: It is my favorite! If listeners know Kyle Ashworth who hosts Latter Gay Stories, he and his husband, Jay got married last night. and it was just so beautiful.
Kate: Congrats. Yeah.
Colette: They’re such a cute couple and it was really fun. They did a video kind of talking about their story, as part of the ceremony that we all got to watch. And that was cool getting to know Jay’s story a [00:03:00] little more since I didn’t know his story as well.
And I went with my girlfriend and her son and her son was just playing on his tablet for most of the ceremony. It was kind of long watching this video, but after they were doing vows, I was like, Hey, Brooks. Like look and took away the tablet so he’d look for when they kissed. And he was just transfixed being like, you know, he’s four. He’s never seen that before, really. And it was just really cool, just seeing this queer joy, having a little kid, see queer joy, normalizing it for him, and just being around a bunch of queer people and non queer people experiencing this love is love and people are great. And it was just a very happy evening.
Kate: That’s awesome. Okay. We have a lot to unpack in your queer joy. First off. First off Kyle and Jay had like an open invitation,
Colette: they did.
Kate: anybody could come, which was really, really cool. And it [00:04:00] looked like a beautiful venue and everything. So how was that? Were there like tons of people?
Colette: There were a lot of people. It was really cool. They did. And I know this is probably not what most people would think of with the wedding, but they wanted to be open invite for anyone that wanted to come celebrate with them or see a queer wedding. It was up at Soldier Hollow in Midway, right on the golf course and they had a building and then overlooking the golf course.
And it was just so fun. Lots of people there. I wasn’t sure who I would know that would come, but I knew several, there were some of my queer friends that were there, a lot of allies I knew, um, and the ceremony was great. And then there was just lots of hanging out and dancing. And I was just catching up with friends and showing off my new girlfriend and introducing her to people. And that was a lot of queer joy. So it was fun.
Kate: Yeah. That’s the other thing we have to unpack. It’s been a summer we’ve we’ve had a, we’ve had a summer. [00:05:00] Yeah. So.
Colette: I’m dating someone! Yay queer joy!
Kate: Woohoo.
Colette: I’m sure you’ll hear more about her in future podcasts, but it’s been very happy. It’s still new, but it’s feels really good. And she’s really great. And maybe one day I’ll convince her to be a guest on here too. We’ll see.
Kate: Yay. So excited. So excited. So excited to meet her too in person.
Colette: Yeah. Yeah. That’s the other queer joy. I don’t know if this this’ll be out in time, but Kate and I are gonna see each other in person for the first time since before starting the podcast, cuz Kate’s coming out for the Affirmation Conference October, so that will be so fun.
Kate: Yeah. That will be great. Okay,
Colette: Moving on
Kate: Maddi.
Colette: We want to hear your queer joy. We’re full of it, apparently.
Maddi: I love it. Honestly, just being here is like this tender beautiful queer joy moment for me. So I don’t know if that could be my first answer. Um, but I’m actually, I’m working on this really exciting art [00:06:00] project right now. I’m doing a gallery installation. And I am just over the moon about it and I’ve been able to get back into the ceramic studio and that is a space that’s always felt very like sacred and holy for me, and bursting with queer potential. And so I am just, that is like my tender little, everyday moment of getting to go to the studio and get my hands dirty. And literally act as a creatrix and this beautiful expression of queer joy. And you’ll see more about the art show coming up soon, but I’m not gonna spoil it because it’s gonna be really cool.
Colette: Ah. That’s awesome.
Kate: Oh my gosh. I’m so excited about this. Okay. So I have kind of been on a Instagram mission. That’s how I’ll put it an Instagram mission for more. There’s a lot of Mormon queer art out there and not a lot of Mormon queer art done by queer people. And so I’m very excited, not [00:07:00] only for, for your art, but also you did the last year at BYU RaYnbow Collective, I believe was in charge of the BYU queer art exhibit, right? So I think that you’re like on the forefront of this thing that I’m very passionate about. So I’m very excited to hear that there’s a big project coming up.
Maddi: Yeah. Well, if you ever want any queer art recommendations, it is like my passion project. So I have all of them.
Kate: That’s awesome. Very, very excited. We’ll talk more about that for, for sure.
Maddi: do you want me to like overindulge in all
Kate: No, go for it.
Maddi: Um, well I think my introduction to queer art was actually in a class I took at BYU, which may be surprising for some people. And it was, uh, this overview of art made by LDS women from the very start of the church. So we’re talking, like embroidery that made it across the Plains. We’re talking about quilts and we talked about the function of fiber arts and, Mormon, LDS, [00:08:00] women’s culture and, letters and diaries and poetry and hymns. And. We in this class, we did this complete survey of from even before the church had started to people who would joined the church, what was their art like? And then to today. So the entire span of the church, what are women in the church making? And one of the very last artists that we talked about was, uh, Susan Kruger-Barber, and, Susan uses they/them pronouns and actually lives in Provo. And, they did this entire series of, queer pioneer hood. And what does it mean to be a queer pioneer? And they recreated like those Trek clothes that I think many of us wore that our moms like made the night before Trek.
Susan made like a, a drag persona of a queer pioneer and took all these pictures. And it is like one of the most beautiful art projects I’ve ever seen. And so that for me was a very foundational, like catalyst moment of there are other queer and gender nonconforming and [00:09:00] women individuals out here that are making queer art, trying to hold this paradox of faith and sexuality and spirituality and kindness, and they’re trying to hold it.
So I reached out to Susan, I was like, do you wanna be my friend Susan is so kind. I was like, yes. And then I’ve just, I kind of started following them and their art, um, and just really trying to find, other individuals who are trying to make art, like I was making art and like, I am making art and, yeah, I’ve just, I’ve just been so not to use a Mormon cliche, but like so blessed in like the literal sense of like living in Provo, being at BYU is there is this entire burgeoning art movement that is starting to gain traction of queer people of faith, trying to hold the wholeness of theirselves. So it’s actually something that for me is really integrated into my faith and my faith practices as art. Um, yeah, so there’s my little
Woman.
Kate: [00:10:00] I don’t know Susan, and now I immediately wanna like know everything, so very cool.
Colette: We are now adding them to our list of possible future guests. So thank you.
Maddi: 6000% do that.
Colette: we may want an introduction.
Maddi: for sure. Love. Well, we’ll be at Affirmation then we’ll just make some connections and we can all do hands
Kate: awesome.
Colette: well, um, already got a little glimpse about you, but we’d love to hear your queer in 60 seconds. Just your overview of your queer Mormon story. And then we can continue talking from there and get to know you more.
Maddi: Yeah. Okay. So I, let me start off with, I always thought everyone was beautiful both in a aesthetic way. But also in a, I never really understood, that being straight really only met being attracted to like one gender presentation. I just never, I don’t know. I don’t know why I never put those two and two together. To me, [00:11:00] homosexuality growing up, um, in a pretty sheltered Mormon environment was between two guys. lesbianism or like being a lesbian, the only times they bumped up against it was my soccer trainers growing up, were this beautiful lesbian couple. And so I actually grew up literally learning how to play soccer, from this, this wife, team.
And, I don’t know, it just, it was never like out there for me, it was always just kind of normal. and I just thought everyone was beautiful. And I was like, oh, it’s because I’m an artist. You know, that’s not gay. That’s just a aesthetic appreciation of everyone. And, um, I didn’t really think critically about it. I was busy. I was doing lots of things and growing up and I lived in a very small, when we moved to Utah, a very small rural community.
And to be Frank, it was more astounding that my little sister, uh, had cerebral palsy than I don’t know, than like that was more of the focus of someone who fit outside of this Mormon mold. And navigating [00:12:00] what does it mean when your eternal family looks different and what does it mean when someone comes into this world having different capabilities than other people and how do we make space for that?
And so, my family was always advocating. It was like always this advocacy game of how, how can we support Emma? How can we make Emma as successful, as she wants to be and what resources can we give her? And so being on the margins of Mormonism, growing up felt like a familiar space. Not because I was directly in it, but I understood cause I was taking care of my little sister, what it meant to feel like she was on the margins and what it meant to be like a family that had needed some extra care and kindness.
And my, my parents have always been really advocates for her, but also for, people on the margins in general. And so as I started to realize that I was queer in high school, my best friend came out and I was terrified. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was queer. I was in a really small rural community. And I didn’t know any other [00:13:00] queer women. I don’t think I had besides my soccer trainers that I had not seen for years, I just didn’t know. But I was so scared of anyone knowing that I may have also fallen outside of that, that perfect Mormon mold. So I just put a lot of distance between myself and my best friend and, um, shoved it down.
And then I got freshman of freshman year at BYU. My roommate was super straight and I remember talking to her, I was like, you’d never date a girl? And she was like, no, Maddi, I’m not even attracted to women. I was okay. That’s silly, goofy, never talking about it again. And then just like having this very like come to Jesus moment of like, I have spent my entire life trying to be the perfect Mormon daughter, you know. High school valedictorian, did the early morning seminary, graduated from seminary. Like I was active in young women’s. I had all the callings I showed up at the service activities. I, [00:14:00] you know, didn’t miss a week of church. I was running from soccer practice to young women’s to golf practice, and then coming home and like doing homework and getting a 4, like all the things that in my boxes were like perfect mormon daughter, like done, done, done, done. And then freshman year, you know, get into BYU, you know, be like faithful, serve a mission, put in my mission papers.
Like my mission papers were in. I was like, I am gay. All of those check boxes shattered. And I was like, well, I’ll figure this out later. And I went on my mission and I was like, I love the Lord. And I feel really strongly about this. And. I don’t know, I just was like this. I just don’t have time. I don’t have time to solve this right now. I’ll figure it out. And then I got on the mission and I was like, oh, gay is real. And, um, I then spent the next year and a half, not talking about it, not being out in any way. but really critically considering my faith and my relationship to God.
And then, get home. And I [00:15:00] still wasn’t out yet to anyone else but myself, I think at that point I like figured it out and, um, didn’t have a word for it. I, I still prefer the term queer. I just think it, it gives me the space to play, to figure out my own identity, but I didn’t come out until after I started the rainbow collective and I started it because there didn’t see any other spaces where both queer people of faith and people of faith and queer people not in a faith practice or engaging in spirituality. Um, and people not engaging in any faith or spirituality practice had a space where everyone could combine and be friends. And that’s what I deeply wanted. And so, I created that. And then about a year after its creation, I came out and yeah, it’s been a, it’s been a wild ride ever since, because now I’m out and queer and I don’t know, it’s a new thing that I’m navigating.
Kate: Boom, boom, boom. Like one thing right after the other. How soon after your, after your mission did you [00:16:00] start RaYnbow Collective?
Maddi: Yeah. So I came home in 2019, right before COVID like, it was the July before COVID happened. Life was still normal. There was nothing on the, even the horizon that life was gonna shut down. And I just had kind of planned, I would just never talk about it. Um, soon after, I was in a relationship and I realized I was super queer and didn’t really wanna navigate that in the space of that relationship. And about eight months later, that relationship ended. And, I decided this is my time to be gay. And I was like, I’m just gonna graduate BYU and then date women. And then my life will be perfect. And I was still BYU for like two more years. And so that’s when I started the rainbow collective was like, well, I’m just gonna create spaces. You know, if I can’t find a space and I’m pretty good at finding resources, then I know other people also can’t find a space. So then I started the rainbow collective and yeah, and then I just did it as an ally because allies make good spaces. and I wasn’t ready. I wanted to be financially [00:17:00] stable before I came out. I wanted to have a degree of independence outside of my family, in the church, in case things went poorly and things went great. But to me, that was really important. So it took me a while to come out. And then I did, I came out in October of last year, so
Kate: Yay. Welcome.
Maddi: thanks.
Colette: So glad to have you here.
Maddi: I like it.
It’s very nice.
Kate: Yeah. I think that sometimes people really don’t realize how risky and dangerous it is to come out at BYU. The consequences of what can take place at that school I think that’s a huge reason that I care so passionately about BYU students is because it is, it it’s dangerous. It’s a dangerous place. So it makes sense that you would want to be in a place that if things did go south, that you had some, some, some [00:18:00] stability. Maybe you can talk just a little bit for people who D haven’t been to B BYU and don’t know that experience, what risks you are taking.
Maddi: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So let me preface this by saying like I grew up wanting to either go to the east coast, do Ivy League, or BYU. Those were really in my view, my only two options. And so through high school, I got my associate’s degree from Weber State here in Ogden. I worked really, really hard to get that. Um, cuz I wanted to be a competitive applicant. Cause I knew to either of those spaces, I really needed to work really hard. And I had a lot of privilege that allowed me to be there. I had a mom that was advocating for me. My parents were financially support me while I worked on that. And so, I applied to be BYU actually as a transfer student.
And if you don’t know, at least when I applied, I don’t know if it’s different now, but you had lower odds of getting it as a transfer student than you did as a freshman. And that was really scary for me. And I really cared about going to BYU, because I wanted, I think I just wanted to prove that I could do it.
I [00:19:00] had a lot of people believe in me that I could do hard things and supported me. And I also had a lot of people who discounted me and my voice because I was a woman. And because I was a woman with an opinion in a small rural community, and it was not a popular thing. Um, and so I just wanted to prove that I could do it.
And also I felt deeply that, like, that was a space where I could belong. So when I got to BYU, I, I was just ecstatic to be there. I remember reading the honor code and like signing it and like, oh, this is no big deal. Like, you know, done like easy. I won’t cheat and not at that time, really considering any other implications.
Uh, so that was before the honor code was changed. And so homosexuality was still in there. And I, I remember reading it, but kind of dismissing it as like, oh, that’s not gonna affect me. Like, I’m just here for academics. Like, you know, I’m not really gay. That’s just a fun, little feeling I have sometimes when I make art, , that’s not a, that’s not a normal thing.
I started BYU in, uh, [00:20:00] 2017. And so for those of you that don’t know, 2017 BYU is completely different than 2022/2023 BYU. Um, 2017 BYU. There was like, that was even before, the news broke that the BYU honor code had been sharing information between BYU police. That was before BYU police even got, uh, de accredited through the state legislature.
The only conversation around consent or sex or relationships was like this Title IX presentation that I had my freshman semester and nothing queer was even mentioned. And I knew people and stories of people that were still getting like, asked to transfer was kind of how it was being phrased or being, uh, from BYU if they came out or if they were actively out. USGA was like this on off campus, they were navigating that. And that was super hard.
But even in those spaces, as I tried to enter them as an ally, I was told that I was like too straight or too straight presenting, or I wasn’t like really an ally because I didn’t look queer. Um, and that [00:21:00] was really heartbreaking for me. I know that they were doing their best and I also like they were coming from such a space of scarcity and protection.
But yeah, so like we like, even the conversation of like, if you get sexually assaulted at BYU, like girls were still getting investigated by the honor code after being raped and assaulted. Like that was my coming into BYU. It was very foreign to me as someone who had always been a really big feminist and a women’s right advocate.
And so when I started at BYU, I was more focused on just like women getting rights at like a basic level. Went on, my mission, came home. And when I was on my mission, everything the news broke. So, BYU was being investigated for the way it handled sexual assault cases. And I followed that really, really closely.
Then a couple months later, Matty Easton came out and I literally remember I was on my mission. It was like PDay. And I watched this coming out speech, this valedictorian speech on BYU’s Facebook. and for the first time connecting, like maybe this is a space that I can exist as a queer person. and maybe there are people that are navigating this and are wildly successful.
[00:22:00] Like Matty was the valedictorian. I wanted to be the valedictorian. I wanted to be this like high performing student. And I was like, okay, if Matty can do it, then I can do it too. Like Matty and Maddie, I was like, huh, our names even match. That’s kind of cute.
Then I came back to BYU and shortly after coming back is when the honor code was adjusted in word. not as much in practice, but it was adjusted in word and. Remember, I walked out of an English class. And we had literally just been talking about this queer writer in my English class and then walking out to hallway hearing and seeing these groups of queer people that I wanted so badly to be a part of. And I wanted so badly to be in their friendships. Um, so I just was like creepy, like listening, listening in. And they’re like, did you hear like the honor code change? And like the excitement and like the visceral joy. And then also walking outta that same English class, not shortly after and the heartbreak and, um, just watching people hold each other on campus of, you know, we came out cuz we thought it was safe and we don’t know if it’s safe now and how is the last week gonna impact us?
[00:23:00] And yeah. And then I’ve been at BYU ever since all through COVID and as I just, yeah, so that’s been, I don’t know, does that answer your question? I was a little rambling, but that is how, like my experience at BYU has been both like pre even we’re handling sexual assault cases as well. To now of like now we’re starting to do a little bit better. And, now we’re tackling queer issues and we’re still holding space for all of these other things. We’re still having racism on campus. We’re still having homophobia sexism. Like it’s just been this big journey of looking at all of these things that the school that I love, that I’ve been attending football games since I was 11 years old in screaming go Cougs now being on campus and, um, showing my love for the campus and the community in the way that I advocate for it. So.
Colette: That’s so beautiful. thank you. Thank you for the work that you do. I’d be really curious, hearing more about the RaYnbow Collective and how you started that as an ally in quotes. I think a lot of us queer [00:24:00] individuals have been there that it is safer to be an ally than it is to be out. But what led you to decide to start it? What has that been like? Anything you wanna share from there.
Maddi: Yeah. so like I said before, I, my freshman year had tried to get involved and come to queer spaces and I wasn’t queer presenting. and so the funny thing about BYU, is that there’s a dress code and an honor code, and that I’ve watched that be implemented in different ways the entire time I’ve been there, but there is this sense of being out on the outside.
they just released a study that like one in every eight BYU students is queer self-identifying is queer. So it could be actually a lot higher than that. I remember I took the survey and I didn’t even check off that I was queer cause I wasn’t out yet. And I didn’t want anyone to know. So I’m like, well, if there was like enough people like me, that there’s probably a lot more. Thinking about a campus of 30, 30 to 35,000 people. That is a lot of queer kiddos. And [00:25:00] so there is this sense of you dress the Mormon part, you know, you wear the knee the, the garment length shorts, and you wear the capped sleeve down east t-shirts that we all had in droves, like from 2011 to 2013,
Colette: Okay, sad story though. I went to Downeast with my girlfriend earlier this week, she was shopping for an undershirt to go to her sister’s wedding and they didn’t have those tees anymore. I’m like, what has happened?
Maddi: The fall, we have fallen truly. I think I actually still have some in the hanger rack. That’s right next to my bed.
Colette: I totally still have some. I wore wore one yesterday.
Maddi: Yeah. Um, but yeah, so there’s a sense of like physically presenting as queer and not physically presenting as queer. And there’s a spectrum of like super uber conservative. Like you are going to your family, Thanksgiving dinner, like Mormon outfit.
Okay. And then there’s this range of [00:26:00] like, then you have, you know, the people who haven’t been through the temple yet who may wear different types of clothing and on BYU’s campus where everyone is LDS, there’s a lot of these social indicators, that at leads to a lot of judgment. And then there’s, you know, there’s this spectrum of like our, you know, pre-temple, post-temple and then you have this diverse group of non Mormon students who are from all over the world. but because we all kind of dress the same, there tends to be this like cultural othering that happens. And then there’s the queer students. And the queer students. Um, there’s a stuck in there too, of those like me who are trying to remain allies and like dress and just hide, um, hide in that cultural assimilation, the safety of community and just looking and presenting like everybody else.
And then. There are different like stages of out, like you put a rainbow pin on the, your backpack and maybe it just says ally. And then maybe you get a sticker in your water bottle, but you don’t put it on your laptop because when you’re at the library, everyone will see your laptop. And then there’s like, okay, maybe I commit to a laptop sticker. and then [00:27:00] after the laptop sticker, then you have like, what would a Jesus do, uh, wristband. But there’s like, uh, he would love first ones. So maybe you get some of those. Maybe you get some rainbow merch, get like an, I walk with you shirt, those Rosie Card t-shirts like, there’s like you buy that.
And then, then you slowly start to engage with how do I play with the way I’m dressing. Um, and then you start to see more out appearances and I was never anywhere near there. And so it felt isolating to be very straight presenting at BYU. but now being openly queer, it’s been a great way to engage with community because you see a little rainbow pins. And you’re like, oh, there’s a friend, you know, or, oh, there’s a buddy. Even if you may not know their story, there’s the sense of like, because so many of us look the same, those small cultural signals and signs become increasingly important to identify safe spaces.
So I, at the rainbow collective, when I started all this, I didn’t see a lot of that in 2017 when I started there was like, you had a USGA pin and that was like your outness.[00:28:00] so I paid attention to a lot of those and I’m an art student. So I was like, Hmm. Like, I really like the art of that. Like, I really like the visual, the visual symbology of that. We’re all used to, we wear the young women’s medallions, you know, to signify that we’re LDS or we wear, you know, the clothing or we have the missionary name tag, like our culture is deeply entrenched in these very visual symptomologies of identity.
So when I came back, I wanted to create more spaces where I felt that sense of safety that I felt when I saw those USGA pins. Cause I wanted so badly to just be a part of somewhere to just belong. And so the rainbow collective for me, I started it as like this way to share these little safe spaces, these little safe moments.
So I started off as like an Instagram account where we were sharing stories, and sharing, queer art and rainbows on campus. And then it grew into, okay, like maybe I’ll make my own rainbow pin and my own rainbow sticker and I’ll just give those out. and then those blew up and I did not expect those to blow up in the way that they did.
[00:29:00] And I said, okay, like, you know, let’s become a nonprofit, how do we get funding? And can this be more? And so then we started doing like trainings for professors. We did a back to school pride night. but yeah, it just, the goal of the RaYnbow Collective ultimately is to create safe spaces on campus. And then to create a network of allyship across the rest of your life.
So my goal is someone comes to BYU. They’re like me, they felt really lonely as a freshman. Whether they were out or not out, they can come engage in a rainbow collective space, meet other queer people in the entire spectrum of queer faith, sexuality, meet people that are like them. And unlike them. Allow people to grow and then they become friends then. They’re friends on campus. You have these visual indicators of safety to train professors, what it means to be an ally, with race and with sexuality. I think those are really integrated. so we’re creating physical, safe spaces. We’re creating socially safe spaces, but then also you leave BYU and you’ve been to enough RaYnbow Collective events where you have professional contacts.
And then those that are part of the rainbow [00:30:00] council, we’re supporting them and getting them professional certification and training in the ways that their school or community may not support them because they’re queer. so that’s become the mission is to just take care of people with kindness. From the minute they walk on campus for the rest of their lives and following up at every level of what that means.
So turns out you can just start a non-profit in college. If you Google it then you do it. Like that’s been the craziest thing who knew.
Kate: It’s very cool. So this last BYU pride back to school pride. Uh, last month you and USGA worked really closely with, with one another. first of all, I do wanna mention here, the, the documentary Same-Sex Attracted. If you wanna know more about BYU’s USGA, that’s a great documentary to watch, but, how did you kind of rectify that relationship?
Maddi: Yeah. So when we first started, I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding between the groups. a lot of it that was [00:31:00] in some ways encouraged by BYU and the community at BYU to create scarcity between advocacy groups. this idea that there are only so many resources and so many people to help, and there’s only one way to do everything. and I also came into this space of not right like I wasn’t even out yet. I wasn’t a part of many queer spaces. I’ve been watching as an outsider for my gosh for like 10 years. And I wanted so badly to be in those spaces. And I didn’t have any mentors. I didn’t have anyone who was telling me how to do it or showing me it was literally just me and Google and, um, having this background in like queer and women’s studies, um, and just trying to like do my best to be really, really kind and be really, really teachable.
And so we had come together with USGA and Cougar Pride Center and they had been a part of the planning stages of back to school pride night, and then they decided to, uh, USGA decided to leave, um, back to school, pride night. And Cougar Pride Center and I kind of, we finished planning [00:32:00] last year’s event.
And then after the event, we came together and were like, how can we make this relationship work? So we coordinated with Celebrate Therapy, which is if any of your queer in Provo and just want some therapy or just some nice friends go down to Center Street to Celebrate Therapy. They’re amazing. And I love them and that’s my therapist.
They helped us coordinate and to talk through some of that, tension and misunderstandings and just like, we really are in this together. And I, I just love, and I respect USGA so much. They’ve held this space for a really long time. And in situations I’ve never had to hold it. I can’t imagine being a part of USGA in like 2017, 2018 when I was there, where, you know, students were still being, convicted by the honor code because they were sexually assaulted at school and navigating that while queer, like, I can’t even begin to imagine what that space would be like.
So I just wanted to learn from them and, and grow. And so, yeah, we just talked and communicated and now we’re all really good friends and I love them and we’re buddies and , they’re just [00:33:00] beyond incredible. and we work together really closely on a lot of projects. So USGA, they do their events and we support them. And then we do our events and they support us and we collaborate on different events. And so, yeah, we have got some exciting collaborations coming up, so like stay tuned on all the social media, but, yeah, so now we’re all buds and love each other, and it’s just this tender, this tender thing of wanting to be a part of this group for so long and, working to create a relationship. And it’s been this like, Just tender, loving mercy. And I just am grateful to be here.
Kate: First of all, RaYnbow Collective, very excited. It has been remarkable all of the things that you’ve done, I think that we’ll probably come back to talk about some more of the things that you’ve done with rainbow collective. But I would like to know like what it was like to go on a mission.
Sometimes we have folks come who have been on a mission and that’s might be where they recognized, or they struggled on a mission with certain things. What was your mission like? Where did you even go?
Maddi: Yeah. I Yeah. I was [00:34:00] called to the Pennsylvania Philadelphia mission. and I served there from 2018 to 2019. I served mostly in rural New Jersey, which was, so it was just the experience I needed. Just to help me overcome a lot of my own personal biases, and prejudgments of people. And then I also spent time in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, which is a suburb of Philadelphia.
but through all of that, like I spent a lot of time in the city. also at the priesthood restoration site was a part of my mission. So I had this like beautiful, diverse, incredible experience. what was it like? It was both the most sacred and the most profane and the most tender and holy, but also the most heartbreaking. going on a mission. I really wanted to make my parents proud. I wanted to make myself proud. I’d wanted to be a missionary. [00:35:00]
As a six year old President Hinckley had given that talk about having a temple, a picture of the temple in every like room of your home and my parents, they had put this picture of, I think it was the Medford temple. And I grew up in Medford, Oregon. And so they had put a picture of the Medford temple up in my bedroom. And I had this very like visceral memory of sitting there and looking at that picture and having this like conversation with God as like a little kid and just being like, God, like, I just wanna do so good. And I just wanna make you so proud. And I was like, oh, like, I’m gonna do this. And, um, I’ve always had this really tender relationship with, deity and the divine and, and feeling that connection. And I just, I just wanted to make them so proud.
And so for me, this mission was more than just something that like culturally, everybody does. I didn’t know, a ton of sister missionaries from where I had grown up. It was still a very gendered thing. there was two girls across the street who were sister missionaries in my stake. And I think that when I went out, like that was about it.[00:36:00]
I’m sure there were more that I didn’t know about, but it was just this, not a lot of people were doing it. And if you did do it, it was like, cuz you couldn’t like get married cause you had like graduated school and you like, nobody liked you. And there weren’t a lot of like young sister missionaries going on missions.
And so I went out as a 19 year old. I started the Provo MTC and while there I had a lot of really heartbreaking experiences, um, and also very tender and beautiful experiences of feeling deeply loved and going through, some real heartbreak of what happens when you trust an institution to take care of you and that institution doesn’t take care of you in the ways that it should. What happens when you trust people in positions of power that should take care of you and they don’t, um, and watching other people go through similar experiences.
And so I entered my mission having this like a stain glass persona of what I thought the church and I thought missions was like, just shattered of going from this little six year old who’s like, God, I just wanna make you proud. Like, I just want you to be proud of me. I just wanna do so good. To leaving the [00:37:00] MTC and being very loved by my parents and very supported by them and having them not know anything that was going on and not talking to them. Cause I didn’t wanna shatter that same stained glass ceiling for them.
and feeling then going on the mission of like, I’m just gonna leave that behind. And then I’m just gonna like work really hard and I’m gonna do all the things like I like memorized the white handbook and I was gonna be so good and so kind and my approach to the mission was different than a lot of other missionaries. I don’t say this into my own horn. I just had grown up with a sister who is on the margins of normal Mormonism. And I understood that not everyone’s life fit into these little boxes that we give them. And, the church isn’t the right space for everybody. It’s still not the right space for everybody. I hope that it becomes a better space for more people.
But I just really wanted to go out there and just love people. And I had been given this blessing from my stake president as I left that my mission was not as much about the people I was gonna baptize, but it was about the companions that I had and how I was gonna take care of them. And so I didn’t really, [00:38:00] I didn’t really care about as many baptisms I was when we got numbers, I was like, okay, like, that’s not applicable to me. put that off the side. Um, cuz I just wanted to love people deeply and tenderly. And in doing that, I had this, these continual come to Jesus moments of like times I hadn’t loved have other people tenderly. Learning how to say, sorry, how to apologize, how to ask for forgiveness. my own stereotypes. I had to confront of like, what does being LDS look like? What does being faithful look like? what does being Christlike mean? What does it mean when Christ said, love your neighbor and love God. Like, what does that mean in practice and what does it mean in Mosiah 18:9 when we stand as a witness? does that mean that we’re inviting people in or does it mean that we’re sitting from the side and judging who and who isn’t good enough to enter into our spaces?
And so, yeah, I was in a lot of rural spaces. I love rural communities. I grew up in rural communities and that’s kinda where my heart is. and I spent time in the city and I loved the diversity of people. I [00:39:00] loved it. It was my absolute favorite. Um, I loved meeting with people of other faiths and just having conversations about God and how they engaged in spirituality.
and towards the end of my mission, A lot of the trauma I had experienced in the MTC started to come back up. I was realizing I was queer. I think my therapist realized it like, didn’t say anything to me, just talking to them after I was like, did you know? They were like, Maddi, like, yes, I knew. I was like, ok. should’ve told me. But starting to deal with like a lot of anxiety and depression and suicidality, and my dad was in the stake presidency at home and there was this really big stigma against mental health. And he was fighting on his end of like, it’s okay to come home, but also like stay out if you can. And there weren’t a lot of service, mission opportunities at that time.
And so I, I was about six months out and I, was pretty, I was pretty suicidal and I, and I just felt like, it was just too much [00:40:00] pain and too much anxiety. And I just had wanted so bad to make God proud of me. And I never felt like I was doing good enough. And I started meeting with a therapist for the first time in my life and talking about what, you know, what do these commandments mean?
And, and what does it mean for me? Like what is the reality of the Savior’s atonement? Like, I don’t have to go through life trying to be exempt from that. That’s not the plan. The plan is not for me to be perfect. The plan is for me to use the atonement and to have a relationship with the savior as like everyone else that I was teaching and, learning how the spirit connects with me when I’m feeling really depressed, learning how the spirit is different than anxiety.
And starting for the first time to do that self work realizing that I was probably queer, um, that I needed to start addressing that and, thinking about that and, starting to have that conversation with my parents. And so the last bit of my mission. I was, you know, still going out and serving every day, but it was also coming home and holding a lot of really hard [00:41:00] things and starting to have really hard conversations with my parents of how to be open about identity, how to be open about faith and spirituality and mental health.
So when I came home, I was exhausted. I felt like I’d given everything I could to the Lord. Like I literally felt like I I’d put my entire heart and soul and mind and heart on this altar. and I just came home kind of like time to rest and time to take care of myself.
So my mission, yeah, it was both this like beautiful thing. And I met some of my best friends and I, those, I have relationships that I’ll treasure forever. Um, but it also was this very eye-opening experience of in the most life and death way. Where does religion play a part in my life? Why do I want to stay here? Why do I wanna stay in the church? Do I wanna stay in the church?
And that really set me up a foundation for now what I do as a queer member. yeah, that was my mission experience. I dunno if that’s what you wanted, but that’s what it, that, that’s what it was like.
Colette: That’s [00:42:00] beautiful. Thank you so much for being so open and honest and sharing your vulnerability and tears with us. I, I think one thing that’s hard for me about church culture often is people not being real about their experiences. And that’s one thing I love about this podcast is the opportunity people have to be real and share their stories. So thank you for your vulnerability.
Maddi: Yeah, for sure.
Kate: Yeah. And I personally, I didn’t go on a mission, so I don’t know what that, what it looks like to try to get therapy while on a mission and try to, uh, and to approach a mission president. How was all of that?
Maddi: It was really scary. luckily uh, with my first mission present, I really set the precedent that if there were missionaries anywhere in the world that were struggling with mental health, they could come and do a test mission in our mission. it was something in my mission that was spoken about was mental health.
Yeah. It was really cool. And I’m like, wow. Heavenly Father like, you know, if you really did put me there for on purpose, like I see you, like, [00:43:00] I see that you did that. There was some planning there, like that was pretty cool beans of you. so yeah, so I was like, blessed enough, but not blessed enough because I think other people could be blessed and situations are just terrible, but I had access to resources and I knew how to access them. And we were talking about it as a mission pretty frequently. We had, like, I think she’s the best therapist in the entire church, was over our mission. And so when I needed help, I knew who to contact and I, and I knew how to start asking for those.
Approaching my mission present was terrifying. This was my second mission president. and, they’re deeply good people, but we just see a lot of things pretty differently. And I wasn’t sure how they would be in supporting me, but like they got me the resources that I needed and supported me and it was good.
So, but, I’ve had other LDS therapy experiences that have not been as positive. I kept going to therapy after my mission cuz of some of the things that happened in the MTC and while I was serving. So, it just was that perfect mix of right people, right time, right place [00:44:00] of getting me resources and the therapist that I needed to really be successful. So yeah, that’s, that’s how it was. And we did a lot of virtual appointments and I got used to telehealth and and, uh, it was cool. Yeah. I really appreciated it.
Kate: That is cool. You talk a lot about resources and thinking about resources. And I think that is really important, first of all, because , you’ve literally made international news about your resources, but, um, but also because it is a privilege to know how to navigate those spaces and you clearly have been doing that for a long time, and that’s really interesting and, and neat that you were able to learn how to do that individually on your own, on a mission. even though that I’m sure that was terrifying and hard. and I’m sure we’ll also come back to talking more about resources.
But you’ve mentioned now a few times. Being feeling like you are a family on the margins and thinking about disability [00:45:00] advocacy, and how do you think maybe you can answer, how do you think that dis disability advocacy and, queer advocacy and all the other types of, community advocacy that you think about, how do they all interconnect and how do you see those things working together?
Maddi: Yeah. Yeah. I would love to actually speak about that. So lemme preface this by saying like, Growing up. I I’m, I’m white for those of podcast listeners. You won’t see me, but I am white. And, so I don’t understand what it is like to be a member of another race. And so I, I understand that where I come from is a space of already deep privilege.
I generationally come from families of teachers. So growing up, we were, we were never wealthy or rich. When we came to Utah, my dad started his own company and that changed a lot of things and access to resources and just spaces being in different spaces. That was super fun, you know, fundamentally different than I think a lot of members of the church’s experiences have been, in different socioeconomic [00:46:00] statuses. but growing up in Medford, Oregon, was a little different than Utah.
There were more conversations about disability and disability resources, and I was watching my mom. So I was like, you know, the student that was in kindergarten and then going to the third grade for reading. So she was navigating this like accelerated program for her first child. And then I watched her for her second child. Like, we’re just trying to get Emma to learn how to speak before she’s like four. So we’re just gonna work on occupational therapy. And she didn’t know how to walk until she was like three. And so, okay, let’s go. Let’s get, let’s go to horseback riding. How do we find resources?
And she was creating her own networks. Like there was just not, there was a lot of conversations, but not as many resources for people disabilities in Oregon where we were at. Like, I watched my mom and I went with her to every Wednesday to take my little sister to go ride horses so she could learn the rhythms and the cadences of walking by sitting on the horse. So her brain could start making those neurological connections on [00:47:00] how to walk herself. And she’s, you know, she’s still horseback rides to this day. Like that has been this fundamental thing. And like how, you know, teaching my little sister, how to eat and understanding that like, For me, you know, it’s just spoon to mouth, but for her it’s I hold the spoon and she has to see the food and she has to, you know, imagine what it’s gonna look like and practicing swallowing, learning how to swallow, how to combat a gag reflex, and then this, the spoon in the mouth. And then it’s the letting her have enough time to like, get the food off the spoon and her to, to eat it and then sitting with her and making sure it goes all the way down that she’s not choking. And if she does spit it up, like cleaning it up and just trying again and being patient and like, I was not perfect at it.
I messed up a lot, but that, like, I just think my like angel of a mother who just like held space for both of her kids. who both fiercely advocated for me and was at every parent teacher conference and she’s working full time as a nurse. So she’s exhausted. And she’s at every parent teacher conference for me, trying to get me into the best reading programs and [00:48:00] supporting me is I’m this like kid that just wants to learn. And also then going home and teaching her daughter, how just the first fun, basic fundamental skills and like learning that, on her own, she’d had a sister who’s disabled growing up and she’d been in those spaces and seeing the bullying and the discrimination and the physical violence at a very real level and had protected her, her big sister, her whole life. And then now she has a daughter who’s disabled. and I just like, I don’t know who I’d be if I hadn’t been had the family that I have and, and watching my mom advocate and create her own networks.
So when we moved to Utah, it was for Emma because there was Primary Children’s, there were Shriner’s hospital here. There was more occupational therapists. There was more resources here, so my parents uprooted their professional lives. And really just started a new, just to get better resources for their kids. we were doing okay financially, but it wasn’t like we were rich. And so I just watched my parents like create their own networks for years and coming to [00:49:00] Utah, continuing to create that and understanding that like church is different when your sister has a walker. Because you have to open doors, you have to have two people opening doors, because most church buildings have a divider between the doors. So you either have to, you’re lucky to have a building that has, that doesn’t have a divider between the doors, or you have to have multiple people opening doors to like even get her in the building.
And then once you’re in the building, the church, not all buildings are ADA accessible. And so how do you even get into the sacrament meeting room? What does that look like? And like, where can you sit in that room? So she can navigate with her walker in those spaces. And then how does a walker look like a nursery? And I remember my mom trying to navigate that, like, how do you have, you know, this toddler who is just struggling just to keep food down, how do you have them sit in a nursery space? And what does that look like for making space and how do we not ostracize, but how do we integrate, her into just everyone else and how do we create conversations? And then, just all these little things that I think most of us just take for granted, like [00:50:00] how do we enter church buildings? Where do we find a seat to sit at? Um, what are our pews looking like? The space between pews? Like those were things from a very early age I had to recognize and consider.
And so now, um, and the first thing I realized on campus was half of campus is inaccessible to everybody with a wheelchair. like you have a wheelchair or any type of mobility device, you can’t access half of campus. And so starting to engage in those conversations and then physically, how is our campus inaccessible, but also rule wise, how is our campus inaccessible? Like, I don’t know, for me, it’s always been very integrated because I grew up in those spaces and I just learned how to look at things differently.
And when something’s really easy for me, how is it not easy for someone that I love and what is my responsibility as someone who can open doors, who didn’t, who doesn’t have to use a walker, Emma’s really high functioning now. Like she’s serving a service mission and she, you know, runs and walks and serves at the temple. And she’s very like, she’s independent, she’s got it going on. But how do those spaces look like was just a, a [00:51:00] big part of my journey growing up in the church and then at BYU.
So when we have the mindset of, in the church of we serve others and we love our neighbors, we have to recognize our neighbors are not gonna look like us. Like, I don’t think Jesus was like out here, like only serve your neighbors that live in a three story house in a white neighborhood who are the same socioeconomic status as you. Like, even if you just look at the context of the scripture, that’s not what he’s speaking about, you know, or we look about, in the book of Mormon, you know, every time the Nephites have a struggle, we like to be like, oh, it’s cuz they were wicked. It’s cuz they weren’t including people. like it’s cuz they were weaponizing their privilege and justifying that through religion, to exclude people. And we just get that’s the story over and over and like what did Christ do? He sat on the margins. And so if we wanna find Christ, like let us meet him there. And let’s go find Christ and let’s go find ways that we can sit with people and listen to their experiences.
And so [00:52:00] for me, advocacy work is just that. Like we’re just meeting people where they stand and where they sit or where they crawl or kneel and let’s just meet them there. Let’s just listen and, and find ways to make our spaces more accessible. And that takes all of us. Like queer advocacy, disability, advocacy, dealing with race, gender, all of it, nationalities, xenophobia, like all of that is connected. It’s all connected because we it’s, all of us, we are all neighbors. We are all part of God’s community. And if we believe that God created all their kids, then like we are siblings to all their kids. And so for me as a woman of faith, it’s just very interconnected. Like how could it not be? So, yeah. That’s like why, I guess to me it’s interconnected. I know other people have different reasons, but that’s how I hold it.
Kate: Yeah, that’s, that’s amazing. And it does sound like your parents really introduced you to, to a different way of thinking. And I think that is really helpful. I’m interested to [00:53:00] know about your relationship with your sister and your, your relationship with your mom once you came out. Did some of those things help them when you were coming out to, to better help you?
Maddi: Yeah, for sure. It’s also hard, right? I think having my sister, you realize that the plan of salvation that we get taught in church is maybe it needs some adjustments or exceptions made. You know, if you’re not born with a physically able body, like everybody else, what does the next life mean? And how do we meet someone where they’re at in this life, instead of just looking to the next life of, oh, they’ll be perfect, you know, when they die. And so we don’t need to worry about this instead. Like how do we meet them here? Like, but yet they are here now, and this is a human being now, and we need to focus on loving now.
And so I think having a queer kid, I think my mom had to then, and my father as well, who’s also been a staunch advocate for me. How do [00:54:00] they now hold, both this idea of perfection in the next life, but how do they hold this daughter who is not, is physically able, but is on the margins of Mormonism for other reasons. And what does that mean for their eternal family in?
I’m grateful that they have that foundation of, let’s just like, what is most important to us and what can we do now? And we’re all learning it together and they’re doing their best to like a moment for career joy for me was after back to school, pride night, this year, like my mom and I went out to breakfast the next morning. And she just started asking me questions, like, what is the trans experience? Like, can you explain what transgender means to me cuz I don’t understand. Can you, who do you know, that’s transgender? Can you, can you like help me understand? Like why are these pronouns important versus these pronouns? And like, why is this important? And, and help me understand this and helping direct her to community members who are, who are identified as transgender or transgender, um, what does physically transitioning mean?
And like, I just, I’m grateful for their mindset of asking questions and just trying to learn, because it’s now [00:55:00] as a queer person of faith, they’re still in that mindset of like, let’s just learn and let’s just be curious and it’s still hard, right? Like when I came out, my parents were like, this is, I don’t know how to hold this. but they are doing their best and, and I’m infinitely grateful for that.
Kate: and your relationship with your sister?
Maddi: Yeah, Emma and I are buds. I think she’s amazing. we fight like all sisters do, but I think anyone would do that when you have a sister is 20 and you’re 23, we’re 24 now. And just, you know, trying to figure out what those sister dynamic dynamics look like. But yeah, I’m super proud of her. She’s serving an amazing service mission in the Ogden service mission and just literally killing it. And we’re still really close, so I love her and I think she’s amazing and
Kate: And she’s been a good ally though.
Maddi: life. So anytime I can hype them up is my happiest moment.
Colette: Awesome. Thank you so much. That was we’re recording this on a Sunday and I feel like that was church for me. You just talking and expounding on all that intersectionality and advocacy and what would Jesus do? And thank you [00:56:00] so much for all of that.
I wanna would love to change tracks a little bit and talk more about what you’ve done with the RaYnbow Collective, all the advocacy you’ve done. Talk about the back to school pride nights. Talk about the national news you made with the resource kits that were then pulled and things. Anything you wanna share with all the fun stuff happening with rainbow collective, that way would be awesome.
Maddi: Oh, I would love to share. Um, I’m really proud of RaYnbow Collective. And I wanna preface this by saying it’s not just me. Like right now we have a team of over 50 people who are behind the scenes working. So anytime I see RaYnbow Collective or I, I don’t mean, I, I mean us and so I hope people gimme grace. As I tried to speak to the collective experience of the RaYnbow Collective of all of us just working so hard.
The first back to school pride night, I was just like, I’ll just do it all myself. Turns out you cannot run a 5,000 person event by yourself. You need help. So I know who knew [00:57:00] I did not. But it was this like perfect storm of events where like BYU was making news for not supporting queer students. And I was trying to support queer students and we had professors and staff and faculty and students reach out to me who were like, how can I help? And I said, great, like do this thing. And so I started to learn, as I had learned on my mission, that you can’t just do everything alone. You can’t protect people from your hardness. Like you just need to like ask for help and invite people in.
So that has been. The, and especially this year after the back to school, pride night of, you know, how do you manage armed protestors? How do you manage someone, uh, like trigger warning for gun violence, but how do you manage someone who’s holding an AK 47 screaming your face that God hates you? How do you manage that? And how do you like deal with that? As a 23 year old blonde girl, who’s five foot, one and like a very public space. And how do you prevent mass shooting and how do you handle it when terrorist groups target you and your friends? Like, I didn’t know how to do that. And so, um, it’s been a lot of asking for help and a lot of getting [00:58:00] help and having just community members that support us in spaces. I didn’t even know they were supporting us.
So, that, yeah, it back first back to school pride night, I still don’t know how it went off without a hitch. Um, I’m really organized as a person. I’m very like meticulous. So at least our paperwork was good. but it just was like this people just trying to be kind and do their best and jumping in and helping. And then after pride night, learning that I needed like a council of people to help make these visions work and asking for help and receiving it. And people just showing up and being there for me and supporting me.
And remembering like little freshman Maddi who sat alone in her whitewashed dorm room at BYU with concrete walls, who didn’t feel like there was a single space in the world for her as a queer person. And older Maddi who was on a mission and also felt so alone that there wasn’t a space for me as a queer person of faith. And then Maddi who is asking for help at pride night and [00:59:00] having thousands, literally thousands of people from all over the state, just jump in and help just like this like beautifully tender moment of if you ask for it, resources will be provided. and just that happening over and over and over again.
And I think that’s why I’m so passionate about resources is I worked for BYU for the majority of my time at BYU. And it was literally my job to know all the resources on campus. When you call BYU, I’d be like, hello, this is a BYU operator. And someone could ask me like how to get to police from how do I find this elevator in the JKB? Like I had to know everything about BYU and this campus and I was the expert at resources. It was my job. I was literally paid to be a resource expert to know how to navigate BYU.
and if even I, as the person who is literally the expert on BYU and Provo, couldn’t find access to queer resources as a queer person of faith, then I knew for a fact, there were other people who needed those resources, who didn’t even know where to speak in.
And so being accessible and [01:00:00] accessibility has come a lot into that. And I think that’s why, like the resource packet is such a big deal to me. Why back to school, pride night is such a big deal to me. it’s just creating opportunities where literally anybody could have access to the resources that have taken hundreds of hours to find and to curate. and I also think that is the biggest struggle of being queer. You is you just don’t know that there’s people that love you.
It’s so heartbreaking. And I’ve said this over and over again, and I’ll say this until the day, I die, but to love a space so much, you choose to go to school there and then to have your heart broken and told that that school and that religious space doesn’t love you back. Maybe not explicitly and maybe sometimes explicitly, but in the policies and the ways we treat people just over and over again. Trying to hold this hope of like, maybe I do belong here and having it dashed.
That’s why the RaYnbow Collective is. So that’s why I’m so proud of it. And that’s why it takes so many people and so many work. And that’s why we focus so much on resources. It’s like we just want to [01:01:00] support people and show them that there are spaces. And even if there’s not spaces at BYU, there are other spaces for you and you are loved and you are gonna be taken care of.
And there is kindness and love and beauty and joy and fulfillment and queer marriages and queer families. And that’s out there if you want it. And there are queer people of faith over the entire world and that’s there if you want it. And if you’re not ready for it, sometimes just knowing that it’s, there is enough.
So when we make international news, that’s great. I’m really grateful for the people that advocate for us. And it helps us in incredible ways, but ultimately I would’ve wished that those pamphlets would’ve got to the freshman that needed them, because I know that I, as a gay freshman at BYU who didn’t even know wasn’t even out yet having that resource packet, would’ve been more helpful than any international news, just knowing that someone cared about me.
So
Kate: can we give a little bit of background on what that, what happened there in case somebody listening doesn’t know.
Maddi: Like what [01:02:00] is this girl talking about? Yeah, for sure. So when I was a freshman, you get this like tote of prizes and I like still have the chapstick that I got. It’s really good chapstick, like, um, but I just remembered seeing that and being like, wow, this is such a good distribution of resources. and then, you know, being gay and like, Hmm, how can I distribute resources?
And like, literally looking at my chapstick that was sitting on my bedside table and like, Idea like spark and all these lines for me connected. I was like, perfect. I can do this. And I had worked as a journalism and it’s run by the daily universe. I was like, I know how to navigate these spaces. So I paid for advertising space.
They completely approved it. We made this list. And funny enough, the list was everything that BYU itself had already published at one time or another, whether it was on a poster, whether it was on a flyer, whether it was given in CAPS, whether it was given in Multicultural Student Services, whether it was given from a college, some colleges have like LGBTQ plus like advocacy groups and clubs.
And so it was also, the BYU had already talked about like at BYU student, you can’t get [01:03:00] access to birth control. For example, through any BYU resources, you have to go to Planned Parenthood. So I was like, okay, like, well, we’ll just connect people to planned parenthood. Cuz that’s the resource BYU literally tells it students like that’s where I was sent when I need to birth control for my acne.
Like let’s just get people resources. So I put it together. I made sure it was super, I say it was super vanilla, but like very Mormon, kosher, like very like variable faith affirming and, uh, sexuality affirming, which is that’s like our standard at RaYnbow Collective is like, how can we be just be affirming to people where they’re at?
So yeah, we submitted it. It was all approved. We printed off, like it was 10% of our yearly budget. It was this huge commitment, like literally thousands of hours of collaborating with USGA and Cougar Pride Center and OUT Foundation, like all of the gay BYU stuff, we all connected on it. We worked through it, we got resources and, um, we put ’em out there and they were already in every single bag.
They were literally sitting in the bags in freshman dorms when some concerned parents that [01:04:00] BYU was giving queer resources to their students that called BYU. There were two calls, two phone calls made. it went up to the President’s Office. It went to honor code. It went to BYU police. Like they called everyone they could get ahold of. Finally it got to Dean of Students and literally the night before. So freshman orientation started on Thursday and on Wednesday night they were all pulled.
And I wasn’t notified of any that there was any issues. Daily Universe wasn’t even noted. That’s where my contract was with, was with the Daily Universe. They weren’t notified either just like professional courtesy, even like nothing. And an anonymous tip was sent to me and to the daily universe that they were being pulled and thrown away. And I, my heart just broke when I got that tip. Like if I didn’t have a network of friends on campus, I just, would’ve never found out. Would’ve never found out. And I just would’ve thought that they went out and would’ve been completely blindsided when all my freshman friends didn’t have their resources.
So then I spent the next two weeks meeting with everyone at BYU. I feel like, like I met with so many administration and professors just trying to [01:05:00] figure out what had happened and figuring out, oh, some phone calls that were made by concerned parents said their kids were being turned gay and BYU was saying to pull the resources whilst giving the office of belonging whilst the Office of Belonging had yet to provide any resources. They’re working on that now. I hope they provide resources, but it’s not like there was a replacement, it was needed and there wasn’t any resources.
So, luckily in those meetings, like people felt sorry for us and sorry for the lack of professionalism, frankly, for the situation. The Daily Universe advocated for us and got us a refund, which was so tender and incredible. Like their staff 10 outta 10, they did the, they did their best. I don’t hold them at fault in anyway.
BYU housing felt bad for us. They felt bad about the situation cuz their staff had been the ones to pull them. They’re like we were just following orders that were given to us. So they collected as many as they can. They rescinded the order to throw them away. They made, they found like almost, I think like half of ’em we got back like just, they just like, it was really kind though, like that took a lot of time and effort and energy to go find all those resource pamphlets and packets, to give them back to us and to navigate [01:06:00] that.
And just finding out in our meetings with BYU admin, that they were pulled, we were told first it was because it was disparaging against the church. And I said, can you show me what’s disparaging? And they said, well, no, you know already. And I said, I don’t know. These are all resources BYU itself has published. Can you go line by line and being told, well, we’ll just have to reschedule that. And then never having another meeting and then being interviewed live for KUTV in Utah, about their incident and finding out the BYU statement was that they wanted to direct people to the Office of Belonging.
And being disheartened that the Office of Belonging was becoming a weapon against the queer community instead of the office of belonging, being used as a support and the Office of Belonging wasn’t even contacted through the whole thing. They weren’t even notified that it was happening. Nobody asked them, should we pull these? Is this aligned with church policy and standard?
Like, it was just a decision made by one person. And then they had to find a reason to justify it. So, yeah, that was really sad, but we’re not stopping and we’re still gonna get resources to people and we’re still [01:07:00] handing them out. So if you don’t let me give them to the freshmen, I’ll just give them to the whole school. That’s been my approach.
Kate: so I have a lot of questions about this. First I wanna ask, how were parents notified? The students weren’t getting them right? The students, no students had had them yet,
Maddi: So I, I literally think that they had someone had seen our Instagram, that we were asking for volunteers to help put them together and had kind of put two and two together. And I think that’s what happened, which is sad. Cause it was like, wow, our own call for volunteers like a weaponized against us. But like, wow. Like people are so afraid of the gays at BYU that they’re stalking our Instagram, like love boost our engagement. I dunno. I dunno what the answer for that is, but yeah, that’s, that’s how I think that someone found out. Um,
Kate: got, they were pulled before any freshman got them.
Maddi: yeah,
Kate: Right. Okay. The other question I had was that you had the [01:08:00] resource packet in there and a flyer for the back to school pride. And do you think that the flyer had more impact than the resources?
Maddi: I think the resource packet would’ve been the most impactful to students. The back to school pride night, literally the back, it said like, come make friends like 20 plus positions. It just was an advertisement for us calling for council members. And then it just at the bottom said like, there will always be Christians to be right, it’s up to us to be kind, come join us today. Like, it was just like, you know, any club would send out, Hey, we’re the math club. You wanna make math friends come to math club? Like it was just like that. So I don’t know why that was pulled either. I’m still confused at first. I thought it was cuz it said drag, but nothing in any of it said drag show.
So I’m like,
Kate: That’s what I thought too. This is the first I’m learning that there was no advertisement for a drag show, even. So, because that was.
Maddi: were very specific about what went in, those, reviewed them over and over again like that there was nothing on there that would be contradictory to even any misconstrued opinion of a BYU policy. [01:09:00] Um, I’ve worked for BYU. I understand how it works. I understand how sometimes decisions are just made by one person who may have a misunderstanding of a policy. And I’ve seen how that’s played out in queer spaces over and over again. And we like tried to anticipate it and then, you know, it still didn’t work out and that’s okay. We’ll just find other ways, but I’m sad.
So just the lack of professionalism, you know, for an outside vendor to have a paid contract, to have promises in writing and then for one person in a department, that’s not even related to that department, be able to make that decision. And I asked ’em what other things have you pulled? And they said, we’ve pulled condoms. Um, and I said, well, do you pull the, the predatory credit card statements and advertisements? They said, no, we’ve never pulled those. I said, okay, like, what else did you pull? And they’re like, well, we pulled someone that was, uh, these like caffeine pills. That was my freshman year there, there was these pills, like help you stay awake during finals week. It was an advertisement for them. Um, and they had pulled those. That was like a big deal. When I was a fresh, I was like, is C know a little to campus. And then we all got Coke machines. It was like, what is this mean? [01:10:00] The nuances of Mormonism to play out such weird. But yeah, it just was weird. It was like, oh, like, you know, this got treated like condoms and, uh, caffeine pills. And the precedent was that just someone didn’t like them so they could get pulled at any time. So it just, you know, it was just fun. Just a fun little thing that happened.
Colette: that, and then the back to school pride night. so this was your second annual back to school pride night that happened, in August. I went to the first one, went to the second one. I was expecting the same kind of thing, and I was not prepared for the emotions that came up for me. Um, the first one very chill, like people, it was just so much love and rainbows and fun.
And then I came to the second one. I had stuff going on during the day. So I made it to hopefully see some of the booths and the drag show. And I’ve been to a bunch of [01:11:00] pride events before I’ve seen protestors and I’ve never been as hurt as I was at the back this back to school pride night to see these protesters who supposedly said, we’re protesting the drag performers or protesting the drag show. You’re corrupting youth, all this stuff. That was really hard. I almost left. And I’m so glad I stayed because the angels. Can you talk about your brilliant idea and how people came together to help make such a statement around that?
Maddi: Yeah. So I am really exhausted by the way that religion gets weaponized against queer people. I’m just done. I’m like you guys read your own books, like just
Colette: But for real
Maddi: stop cosplaying as a Christian stop cosplaying as a Mormon, like you promise to mourn those in mourn and comfort those that need comfort. That’s your baptismal covenant. You literally promise God that you would show up for people on the [01:12:00] margins. That is literally the covenant we make. We make it in the temple. We make it in every ceremony we have as a church, we make it in the sacrament meeting. And so I’m just like, just stop, stop using my Jesus to hurt people. Like, do you know him, if you met him, have you had spiritual experiences with your Heavenly parents?
Like, have you. Ever connected at a deep level of someone who doesn’t look like you and, and felt the love that is there. Like, do you even know how Heavenly father cares about their kids? Do you know how Heavenly Mother loves her kids? Like, do you even know, do you even get it? And if it makes me sad because I, so no, some people don’t get it and they’re probably really scared themselves.
And so I think that was helpful for me coming into this, like protesting, first of all, being put on, you know, having had terrorists, like being targeted by literal terrorists, being targeted by right wing militias, being targeted by hate groups, being targeted by groups that pretend to be conservative. Being targeted by other BYU. [01:13:00] Students and BYU, not doing anything to stand up for us, turning to Provo police and having them support us through everything. Having the state department reach out to us like those were experiences as a 23 year old, 24 year old Maddi. I never thought I would have. and I, I was felt really angry and I was really hurt. And I was like, how can I lead this group that’s supposed to love everybody if I am feeling these feelings? And how can I find grace for them too.
Um, and I don’t like mean to toot my own horn, but like, that was really helpful because I was like, the goal of back to school pride night has always been to invite everybody, to make everybody be able to engage with the queer community in a safe and loving way. Like that has been our stalwart. That has been why we’re here.
So how can we engage with these groups that are preparing physical violence that could have life or death consequences? How am I gonna keep my people safe? How am I gonna keep the protestors safe? How am I gonna keep the police safe? How am I gonna keep BYU students safe? How am I gonna keep my drag artists safe?
[01:14:00] And I was holding all this and it was very overwhelming. So I was on TikTok and, um, I had heard about Matthew Shepherd and his life and his story, in a women’s studies class at BYU, but I didn’t hear the whole story. I didn’t know about the angels. I didn’t know about Romaine Patterson who had created this beautiful public art to protect Matthew’s family so that they could go into, both the court dates and the funeral safe and protected.
and I sat there and it was like, I’m on like TikTok, crying, watching this group of angels, like go and just stand between these groups of, you know, God hates gays and you’re gonna burn in hell. And we hope Matthew’s in hell. And like watching this video reenactment of like what had happened. and just being like this is it.
And just thinking of like Elijah who’s, like, there are more with us than against us. I’m thinking about like Christ coming to the Americas and like the angels around the children and like, All the stories where angels are sent to take care of [01:15:00] God’s kids in times when nobody else is thinking of Hagar, you know, who’s dying in the desert and her and her son are dying and God sends them angels and he comes and speaks and protects them.
And thinking of my own family history stories of times where angels set loaves of bread to my family in New Zealand, as a missionary. Like the tenderness and, feeling my own family on the other side, like just love me and support me.
I’m thinking of my foremothers and forefathers who were some of the first people to integrate schools in Canada, between the first nations and the first peoples and the white communities and how their ward tried to burn down their house. because my great grandfather was integrating schools.
And then thinking of my paternal grandfather, who was the first one to integrate the white schools and the Hispanic schools in [01:16:00] California. And the disparagement he faced from his own congregations and like just this act of standing for and in between others standing as a witness, before God, in all times in all things, in all places, even until death and like, and looking for that and searching for that, and then finding this video and loving public art, and I’m like, this is what we’re doing.
And then it was like, okay, well, it’s, you know, a week before school starts, how do I find bedsheets in Provo, Utah, where all the bedsheets are sold out. They couldn’t, I could not find any Target, Walmart, everything was sold out. And so reaching out like my friend’s mom had this cash of white fabric that used to be made to make temple dresses. Like someone had a temple dress business and like the literal, like stitches that were like being used to make wedding dresses and baby blessing dresses. Like those became angel wings. Just being donated like yards and hundreds of yards of fabric.[01:17:00] And reaching out to Susan Barber. Who’s now my friend in Provo. And being like, Susan. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know adults. Can you help me? Elders, neighbor coming and having to tell them, like, I don’t know if I can keep you safe. So if you need to step out, then you have to step out now because there are men out there with guns. And I don’t know what’s gonna happen. And knowing like the, this county riot squad is around the corner and the city’s SWAT team is there.
And everyone, like there were people there that were hidden to help protect us and like having to say to these people that had stood up and supported us, like the, the angel, the frames were made by like my friend who was a queer graduate of BYU and like meeting him in my ceramics class and like sharing art in the sacred space and like him being a part of my art shows and then being like, I don’t know how [01:18:00] to make angel wings, can you help me? And him like, yeah, I’ve got you Maddi. Like, I, I can do this and just showing up and like.
and then telling these people that I love backstage with the drag artists. Like, I am gonna do my best to protect you. If there’s violence, I will come and get you. And I have an escape plan. and having to have that conversation, like with people that are there in angel wings and that literally physically confronting the protestors.
So our, so for those of you that weren’t there, we had some music at a stage and then everyone was gathered around for the show. And the protesters had stayed to the margins of the park for a while. But then as soon as the show started to come, they were moving in and it was really scary. And the students took pride flags and they literally made a wall by linking arms and holding pride flags like around the stage to create this, like this safe space. I like, we’ve got, we gotta go. We have to go right now. And I asked my DJ, I said, I need you to play a song. That’s gonna like, bring, like, that’s gonna bring the mood we want.
And he was like, what do you wanna play? And I said, I want [01:19:00] Macklemore. I want Same Love. So we walk out. I was like, it’s gonna, like, I can’t change. Even if I tried, even if I wanted to, my love, my love, she keeps me warm and. Like, that’s going, as we walk out and confronting physically, these screaming protesters who are screaming, God hates you. God hates gays, screaming, the family proclamation at us. Like they’re scared. They think that we’re here to ruin their kids, like, and like literally encircling about the stage with angels to protect both the artists and those who are watching. And then, uh, the line broke and the angels were the only thing between the protestors and the performers and the protesters kept trying to filter in and like, cause tensions. And so then we moved the angels and I said, I told them, I said, if I have to move you closer in one more time, we’re cutting it. Like, I can’t risk your safety. And they like, one just turned and said, Maddi, we will always be here for you. We’re always gonna just show up like we’re okay.
And watching my dear friend, [01:20:00] Susan and all of these other angels standing there with the most hurtful things being screamed at them. And they’re standing there smiling and they’re just smiling and like bringing the Queens out on stage and like bearing my testimony, that God loves all their kids’. Like, I didn’t know I’d be bearing my testimony at a drag show, but it just was this beautiful mode of like I’m gonna hold space for you and literal space for you. And we are going to encircle you with angels.
And the craziest thing. The show started and most of the protestors left, uh, I just think they realized like you can’t use religion to hurt us anymore. We grew up in the same pews as you. We grew up singing the same hymns. We went to the same primary classes and it is because we have these entrenched views of our worthiness as divine children of God, or inherent worthiness as human beings. You can’t use this to hurt me. Because I’ve grown up in the same spaces as you it’s been used to hurt me for my entire [01:21:00] life. And I’m either it has no power over me, or I have such a testimony of love that nothing you can say is gonna hurt me. And, uh, and also I think, you know, nobody wants to be on the wrong side of angels.
I think that that was a really powerful moment. Like, let me think about who are the angels protecting? It’s not me. I am on the wrong side. Um, and, and most of them left and some stayed and then I had to go out into the crowd and keep monitoring things and keeping people safe. And, uh, my mom is the tenderest human and was there running the medical tent. And if anyone was having a panic attack, I just do you need a drink of water? Let me get you a drink of water. Like, lemme take you to my mom. And my mom will take care of you. And like this, like handing off of like mother to daughter. And it just was like tender and it was hard. It was scary. Like. I’ve never, you know, I’ve been in active shooter situations before my high school’s on lockdown because of an active shooter situation. Like I’m very aware of the danger that guns have. [01:22:00] It was really scary and really hard, but I just kept telling myself, like, you just can’t be mean to my people and you’re not gonna scare me and you’re not gonna intimidate me and you’re not gonna make me feel small. And this is my space and these are my people, and this is my testimony in action. And you’re not gonna scare me away from that. And at the end of days, when I meet God, I don’t think God’s ever gonna be mad at me for being kind to their kids. So I’m just gonna keep being kind.
And that means handing water bottles to the protesters. We made sure they were hydrated and taken care of. And that also means sending out angels and that’s just kind of the duality of me and the rainbow collective and this work. So yeah, that was, that was that it was really cool and really tender and I cry all the time about it because it was the most beautiful moment.
Colette: It was amazing to be there and to witness and to know how hard you were working. I kept trying to say hi to you. And you were just [01:23:00] constantly, like, I gotta take care of my queens. I gotta take care of my people.
Maddi: Yeah. Sorry.
Colette: No, I loved it. And to see your mom so involved and to just see these people who stood for hours, literally in these costumes in really hot weather
Maddi: Oh yeah. It was like 102 the whole day.
Colette: to protect, it was just the most amazing display that meant so much to me. And I felt so much love, and I know others did too and it was so fascinating to see the protestors leave and the ones that didn’t, I was like, you’re protesting the drag show by watching the drag show. I mean, cool, but like little counterintuitive.
Maddi: Boost, my engagement. I love that.
Colette: and it, it was such a beautiful show and I, it was so much queer joy and people stepping up and filling this vision that you had was just amazing. And thank you for all the hard work and dedication. I loved hearing this behind the scenes. Just [01:24:00] thank you this, Ugh, I don’t have words. Thank you.
Maddi: Well, you’re welcome. But also like the real credit goes to the artists who performed and then Jordan Jones, who was my right hand man for the entire thing and they’re a drag artist themselves and put together and supported it and literally got on the dark side of the web to make sure that we were safe, like to look out for threats. So like, Yeah, Jordan is amazing and I love him infinitely and he made it happen. I just protected them. And he did all the, the glitz and glam and yeah, it was good.
Colette: it was such a fun show. It will so much queer joy. I loved it.
Maddi: I loved that so many of the artists took their own experiences with religion and expressed queer joy. And that, that was something I didn’t know, was gonna happen necessarily. Like I had reviewed all their songs and, but I wasn’t, I don’t think I was prepared for that. And it was beautiful and I love public art and that’s what it was. It was just art. It was just really good art and really good people. [01:25:00] And I liked it very much. Thank you. I’m really proud of it. It makes me really happy.
Colette: Yes, your testimony right before the drag show was so good. I feel like that started to take the wind outta the protestors’ sails.
Maddi: I just wanted to like, make it very clear, like this is a sacred space. This is a sacred space and I am a person of faith and you’re not gonna use Jesus to hurt us. And Jesus loves their kids. Like that’s the atonement. If we really believe the atonement, if we really believe that Christ died for all, if we really believe that there is a heaven, big enough for all of us, I just think it would fundamentally change the way that we treat other people and the way that we utilize religion very differently.
Because if Christ knows what it’s like to be gay, Christ knows what it’s like to be trans and Christ also knows what it’s like to be the person holding the gun. And Christ also knows what it’s like to be on the person on the other side of that. [01:26:00] How does that invite us to do better? And I wanted to open. I didn’t know what to say. And I was like, dear God, please help me to know what to say. Like help me father, like, I have no idea, like, please help me to know what to say. I had not prepared my speech before the drag show and I just got up and I just felt this, like, just bear your testimony. And I was like, are you sure? like, are you sure that that’s what you want me to do right now? and I just felt this, like, it’s gonna be okay. I was like, okay. And yeah, thank you. It was, it was very tender. I just think God was with us. And those that are with us are more than those that against us. And that’s like, literally just what happened.
So
Colette: Literally
Maddi: literally,
Colette: were such a Testament to that. It was amazing.
Kate: This is like a really powerful, I mean, it was powerful to witness it from across the world. I was excited to wake up the morning, um, to hear about what, how everything had gone down, cuz I was asleep [01:27:00] for most of it and like frequently searching LGBTQ plus, BYU. Like I just continually Google that and the resources kept coming up. It kept being BYU’s resources book that’s thrown away. I’m like that’s last week’s news. Tell me what happened. Tell me what happened at back to school pride and so waiting and waiting to see that and knowing that the angels were coming, cuz you, you had asked, Kyle at Latter Gay Stories to also contribute.
And so I’d been trying to pay attention to what was happening and I just wanted to know and there wasn’t any information coming quickly enough. and then to like, see it all happen and to hear these experiences, it was, it was really powerful, even halfway across the world.
But I think what’s interesting about the resource story and about the back to school pride story, in your telling it, I felt this when it was happening too, that [01:28:00] BYU for me is such a conflicted space. My dad is a professor there. I feel a lot of resentment towards that school for a lot of different reasons. But, to see you and hear you talk about even on social media before tonight, you’ve talked a lot about all of the people at BYU who are willing to help and who are willing to be in between. And to stand in between people. And that is hopeful for me because often I only think about the one person who’s making the decision to throw away the resources, but to think about all of those people who went back through the trashes or, the people who are BYU students who are in angel attire, those sorts of things. It’s really powerful.
So I actually looked up the scripture [01:29:00] that you keep referencing, but some people might not know, but I think anyone who’s been in the queer Mormon’s space long enough, knows the scriptures and, and that it means something to us. I think all of us, have come across second King’s six and know it, in our hearts that this is us, this is us. This is, is a scripture about us.
So it’s 2 Kings, Chapter 6, I’m gonna start in verse 15. But what’s happening is the king of Syria has sent out his whole army, to destroy Elijah. And you, you have him verse 15 and when the servant and the man of God was risen early. So Elijah has, uh, Partner with him. but this is talking about Elijah and he’d gone forth behold an host compass the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant [01:30:00] said into him, alas my master, how shall we do? And he said, fear not for they that be with us are more that they be with them and Elijah prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, opened his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened, the eyes of the young man. And he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire, roundabout them.
I think we’ve all felt like we know we know where we’re supposed to be standing. We know what side the angels are on. So to hear you’d actually posted that too. You you’d said that in one of your posts as well. And I thought, I think this just supposed to be like a queer thing. We all know that there are more that with us than there are with them. We know that we have these divine, other worldly people standing on our side. So [01:31:00] thank you for that.
Maddi: Yeah, Ugh. You made me cry. Just like, I mean, just, I’m glad you brought up Jay and Kyle, because like Kyle just texted me. He’s like, Maddi, what do you need? And I literally was like overwhelmed. And Kyle was like, how can I help? And just found us people and found us funding. Cuz turns out there were some bedsheets, they just weren’t in Provo. They were in Orem. And we just had to go drive and get them and we needed to pay for them. And then Jay did our medical tent all day long. All day long was there. And Kyle was there all day helping the security and helping me navigate everything.
And like, but this very tender story of like, I just, I think like the AIDS crisis in Utah, I don’t know if anyone knows the story. If you’ve seen the documentary, uh, Quiet Heroes, it’s amazing. You should go watch it. But during the aids crisis in Utah, the church’s official stance was if you have a queer kid with aids, you need to disowned them to protect your family from illness.
And, there was a nurse and a doctor in salt lake. And I I’ve had the chance to meet them they’re the most amazing people on the planet, but they, they worked at this Catholic hospital. It was the [01:32:00] only place where they could practice and they treated everybody. And I talk to ’em, they’re like we, we were treating Mormon bishops for aids. We were treating relief society presidents. We were treating returned missionaries. We were treating everybody and nobody else would treat anyone that was queer or had aids.
As the families would disown their kids, the nuns would give up their own burial spots for these people to be cremated so they could have a place to rest in holy ground. So if you go to salt lake city cemetery, you go to the sacred space where there’s the Catholic nuns, burials. There’s this entire section of people that died during the aids crisis in salt lake, they were taken care of, with such kindness and dignity and tenderness by people of faith who just wanted their people to be taken care of who just love God’s kids.
And like that has just been the story over and over and Kate I’m so glad you brought that up because, and that’s the hard part of being at BYU, cuz you see, and I deal with the one people, the decision makers and I’m working on educating and I’m working on opening it up alongside [01:33:00] literally hundreds of other students. At this point, there are hundreds of students advocating for themselves. And there are hundreds of faculty advocating for their students and it always makes me sad when BYU makes the news for being bad, because I fear the implications for the professors. Like what are these professors gonna do when they look for new jobs or like my queer friends who are graduating, who have to then like, justify their reason for graduating for BYU, because that they’re not homophobic and they’re not racist. And they don’t agree with that. They were just, you know, like me financially, you couldn’t afford to leave, you know, or your family doesn’t support you in leaving.
but there is, there’s so many stories and they’re there. If we just look for ’em and that’s like the resources, if you don’t know, they’re there, they’re not of any use to you. If you don’t know the stories, they are there, they’re not of any use to you. And so I that’s, what we feel called to do is just share stories and share resources so that people can have access, cuz people are they’re gonna do it and people are gonna be better and do better and be kinder. We just have to show them that they can. Yeah, it’s really tender. It’s hard, [01:34:00] but it’s good. It’s really good.
Kate: thank you for all of the work you do. It is a lot of work and it is a lot of work that a lot of people are doing, and it is cool that all of these groups are coming together to have like joint missions. I think that that is really impressive and exciting to see at BYU. I think that’s a new generation of BYU. It’s a, it’s a new cohort at BYU of people who are. No, we’re gonna, we’re not only are we gonna be vocal about it, we’re gonna organize together. And that is, it is really neat to see, especially within like just two years, I think.
Maddi: Yeah.
Kate: So, keep doing you. We’re all excited about all the things that you have upcoming. Is there anything you wanna announce?
Maddi: What do I wanna announce? all the things always. super exciting things. Because of the duke incident, we’re actually extending our LGBTQ [01:35:00] plus and race and gender equality, certification training with Equality Utah, to every BYU faculty, staff, student, and community members. So anyone who wants to be trained and certified on how to ensure equality in their spaces, like literally get a certification. You can put it on your LinkedIn. You can put it in your resume through Equality Utah. That’s happening in January. We’re stoked out of our minds for that, but we’re extending it to everybody cuz everyone there’s a need and let’s not just be reactionary.
Like Kate, I loved in your post that you said like BYU has done half the work and now it’s time. Like we need to do the other half and so yeah, that’s what we’re doing. And we’re so excited. So that’s exciting coming up.
We’re having okay. Again, more with us than against us. It turns out a lot of people graduate from BYU, that are gay and then they go and get really important jobs and then they wanna help other gay BYU students. but we are collaborating with some of the biggest companies in the nation to actually hold a career fair for marginalized students to both BIPOC, first gen students and [01:36:00] also queer students focusing on marginalized students at BYU. We’re holding an entire career fair, with everyone in October.
It’s gonna be October, I believe the 15th. It’s the Saturday after National Coming Out Day. But it’s with some of the biggest companies in the world and in the nation. So we’ve got general motors, we’ve got Cummins. We have Qualtrics, we have new skin, we have local Provo companies like Wilkinsons, we just have about 20 organizations coming to help queer students, prep, resumes, apply for careers and jobs get connected to a wide, you know, you wanna do stem, we’ve got stem. You wanna do nonprofits, we’ve got nonprofits. You wanna do humanities, we’ve got humanities. Like you wanna do teaching like ev anything, like we’re just gonna care, connect you to resources. So I’m also really excited for that because that’s amazing.
And then also we are supporting USGA and the Black Menaces in the strikeout, the Day of Striking Out Homophobia on October 11th. It’s gonna be at it’s 11:00 AM Pacific standard time. So that [01:37:00] means that it’s noon in Provo. We’re supporting the, the national walkout in strike for queer rights. So. I had realized like for some students, you know, maybe you need to stay in class because you’re a graduate student and you’re paying thousands of dollars to be there. so we’re just trying to hold space for that and just support it and support all the good that USGA and Black Menaces have been doing because they do the most, and I love them and I think they’re really cool.
So yeah, just some exciting things and then lots more coming up in January. I can’t release anything yet, but like, like really big stuff. So just stay tuned and follow us on social media and you’ll see it.
Colette: Awesome. We’ll make sure to definitely link all the social media. So everyone go follow you in the amazing work you’re doing, but thank you so much for taking so much time out of your day to do this. This was an amazing conversation. It might be our longest one yet, and such a great one to have kick off our second season.
We’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while. We’re so honored that we get to be your podcast debut. I don’t know how other [01:38:00] people haven’t wanted to talk to you yet on podcasts, because you’re amazing. And so we’re glad we were able to get you before you got too famous for us. So, thanks.
Maddi: Well, you two have been, some of the people I’ve looked to when I needed examples of queer people of faith. So I just feel really honored to be here. And I just hope you both know that like there’s kids that aren’t even out yet that follow you and watch you and are supported and loved by you. So just like keep it up and just you’re so brave. Not like in an old man way, like, you know, like, oh, you’re so brave, but in like really like, know how hard it’s to be in those spaces. And it’s really hard and I’m just grateful that you keep doing it and putting on this podcast because you’re changing lives that you don’t even know exist. So thank you.
Colette: Well, back at you, Maddi.
Kate: Very powerful. I do wanna shout out that Maddi is also a staff member at Equality Utah. So we’ll tag Equality Utah here too. Cuz you just do queer stuff literally all day, [01:39:00] every day.
Maddi: All the time made in my whole personality. So no, and I love Equality Utah because they build bridges in the ways that rainbow collective is trying to build bridges. So if you are interested in what being queer in Utah looks like politically and making sure we have legal rights, check out Equality Utah. I work for them and I’m really proud of the work they do. So
Kate: Yeah, they’re very impressive.
Colette: All right. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you joining us today. If you’re liking these episodes, we’d love it if you’d rate interview Called to Queer on the podcast player of your choice so that other people are more likely to find us. We’d also love it if you’d share our podcast with a friend who’d benefit from hearing these stories. If you wanna contact us, you can reach us at hello@calledtoqueer.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram @CalledToQueer. See you next time.