In this episode, get to know Colette Dalton, one of Called to Queer’s co-hosts. Some things Colette talks about include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you want to connect with Colette, you can follow her on Instagram @colettedalton or on Facebook @ColetteDaltonLCSW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Transcript<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[00:00:00]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kate:<\/strong> Hello and welcome to Called to Queer, where we hold space for the queer Mormon women, nonbinary and trans experiences. I’m Kate, my pronouns are she\/they,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> And I’m Colette and my pronouns are she\/her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Today, Colette is going to share more in depth, her story. We kind of went over a little bit, but we’re gonna go deeper in depth. But before we jump into that, we wanted to start off by seeing what brought us queer joy this week. So Colette, what brought you queer joy this week?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I’m currently running a queer women’s support group through Symmetry Solutions where I work. That I think kind of was a bit of the beginnings of me like, no, we need, we need community. And I just have been loving meeting with this group of women over [00:01:00] zoom, Wednesday nights. And it just makes me so happy to have this space where they’ve been able to connect with each other and feel validated and seen and heard. And that definitely brings me queer joy. So how about you, Kate? What brought you some queer joy this week?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> That’s a great one. I’m working in Romania, in a museum in Romania. And in Romanian, my pronouns are basically she all the time. It’s harder in Romance languages to figure out how to do pronouns. But, this week I met with somebody who I was able to actually have this conversation and talk about what are, how do I talk about my pronouns in Romanian to Romanians, and how are they going to be able to see me and understand me as a nonbinary person. Cause they always ask like[00:02:00] the Romanian is so funny that sometimes they’re asking, “is that girl, a girl or a boy?” That’s how you would phrase it in Romanian. ’cause you don’t, you only have the binary options, but to be able to actually have that conversation and be able to talk about what that looks like in a different language was actually brought me a lot of queer joy, just to be able to say, like I’m not in this by myself, that somebody else is going to try to navigate this with me. It was really awesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I’m so glad you were able to have that conversation. I know that’s been a very interesting place to be for you as you are in the country abroad, the Romance languages are tough and, you know, talk about being marginalized in so many ways. So I’m glad that you were able to at least have one conversation. I hope those conversations can be safe and continue to happen for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Thank you. Yeah, thank you. No, it was good this week though. [00:03:00] So thank you for the opportunity to reflect on that too. I love that we get these chances on this podcast to reflect on queer joy because that’s, it’s important and valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Well, I love that we decided this will be a question we check in with each week, because it is an important topic. I think often when we share stories, we do focus and highlight how hard it can be to help people understand the experience, but it isn’t all bad. There are some really happy things that I’m excited to share, and I think it can be so powerful to focus on those queer joy moments and to share what that looks like. So I’m glad we’re sharing those experiences and hopefully our guests can join in on sharing theirs as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Absolutely. Okay. But today we’re talking about you and your story. I was going to say, so hopefully there will be some queer joy moments in there too, but this is exactly what you’re talking about, right? Like when you’re telling your story, there’s [00:04:00] also like so much trauma and stuff that goes into that. So thank you for being willing to, to share your story with us today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> A few jobs that go, I worked at Desert Industries with the church and we’d be helping people get skills and training to be able to get and keep better jobs. And so we would do a lot of job training and interview training, and there’s this concept called “Me in 30 seconds.” Like, what do you tell an interviewed viewer when they say, “Tell me about yourself?” How do you portray yourself in that as a way to highlight your experiences and show you’re a good job candidate? And so I kind of jokingly turn that into some of my friends, “like what’s your gay in 60 seconds? Like, what’s your super fast story?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I guess my super fast story I can do, and then we can go more in depth based on what you want to ask, Kate. But I grew up Mormon, super Mormon, in California. I went to BYU for both my bachelor’s and my master’s. Thought I was straight my whole life until, well, I then fell in love with the roommate [00:05:00] after grad school and we dated, but even then I thought I was still straight, because people fall in love with their same gender roommates all the time, right? And they’re still straight. That’s totally normal. I say sarcastically and jokingly now looking back. But I really did. I thought I was still straight. And then later on that girlfriend started dating another woman and I was like, “Wait, what?” I thought we were straight except for each other. And so that started me wrestling with my sexuality and I kind of came to realize, oh, nope, not straight. Definitely gay. If we were to go in more in depth, I’d probably say demisexual homoromantic. And that was<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Whoa, whoa, whoa. Can we pause there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Just like a brief background of what those mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Sure. Yeah. So demisexual is that I don’t find people sexually attractive until there’s an emotional connection. So I never related to “Who’s your celebrity crush?” I can recognize when people are attractive, but that doesn’t mean like, I have no [00:06:00] desire to make out with someone like a celebrity. People are like, “Oh, who who’s your hall pass?” You know, joking with their spouse. Who would you say, “It doesn’t matter we’re married, I’m going to have sex with this person, if they showed up on the doorstep and said they wanted to have sex.” That… never thing for me. But once I’m emotionally connected to someone, then I do develop some sexual attraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think that’s, you know, good to be aware of. And maybe something we can discuss in the future as the different types of attraction, you know? Cause there is a sexual attraction, there’s physical attraction, there’s emotional attraction, all sorts of different things. But homoromantic as I fall in love with women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I find people sexually attractive once I emotionally connect with them, but I fall in love and pair bond with women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Thank you for diving into that. That doesn’t go against your 60 seconds. So, please continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> It was definitely complicated. You know, super Mormon to the point that I was working for the church. I got a job with the church right out of [00:07:00] grad school. And if you counted my student employment at BYU, I’ve been working for the church since 2008 and it was just earlier this year, May of 2021 that I stepped away from church employment and now work for a group practice, Symmetry Solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it’s been really nice to be able to have space where I can publicly identify as queer and even be able to help clients in that vein, because I felt like I couldn’t fully show up to work and be queer when working for the church and. Yeah. So I identify as queer, gay, lesbian, demisexual, Mormon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that’s I, maybe that was like my queer 90 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I think it’s close to 60. That was very impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Thank you. I’ve gotten good at telling the story. If you would have told me a few years ago, I’d be telling my story on multiple podcasts. I would have thought you were nuts, but here we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Here we are. Well, that’s funny because I actually want to [00:08:00] bring up one of your past podcasts right off the bat. The podcasts that you were on, for Questions from the Closet, which is hosted by Charlie Bird and Ben Schilaty, the name of that podcast, “how to be an ally from the closet.” Can you talk about how that came about and, and coming to terms with that episode and how that fit into this larger story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Yeah. Good question. I mean, I obviously followed along Questions from the Closet. I really appreciate the work they were doing and sharing stories and helping people realize that queer people exist in Mormonism and a lot of different experiences and helps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I had definitely been talking to Ben some. We both graduated from BYU’s MSW program and we’d interacted in various different ways. And then I think they had a question that was kind of like, [00:09:00] how can I be an ally from the closet? Like how can I help people when I’m closeted myself and I’m not out. What do I do? I was like, well, that’s definitely a good question for me, cause that’s me, very closeted. I mean, people knew, but I wasn’t public and out about, I’d never announced on social media or anything. It was more just telling friends and family and things. Definitely wasn’t out at work cause that didn’t feel safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so I agreed to do it. I had the biggest vulnerability hangover after recording it. I was a mess and I’ve still never gone back and listened to that episode. So I hope it, people said it sounded good. So hopefully it did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> It’s great. I’ve listened to it. It’s great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Thanks, Kate. But I knew that by, I think I even said on the episode, that it’s ironic by talking about being an ally from the closet, I am outing myself. And when it did come out, I did post on social media, “Hey, in case you didn’t know, I’m queer and here’s this episode to hear more about my experience.” I hope [00:10:00] it helps people. Cause I think there are a lot of people who are in that experience of it’s not safe for whatever reason to be out, and so, how can you still be an ally? Because that was me for a long time. It’s like, as an ally, I think we should make sure we say pronouns, you know or whatever the case may be. But I really did out myself with that. And I was still working for the church for another eight, nine months after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then it wasn’t until I was done with my job with the church that I started doing a few more podcasts, if you’ve heard me on those. That’s when I felt a lot safer being out more publicly. I knew I could get a job easily outside the church, but I didn’t want to be without something. So I kind of got things in place to be safe. I didn’t want to lose my job because I was queer. Obviously that wouldn’t have happened, you know, you’re allowed to be queer, as long as you’re not acting on it. But you never know, it still doesn’t feel safe. Like if someone misinterprets things wrong, what if they see me talking to a woman and [00:11:00] think I’m flirting, you know it just didn’t feel safe to share my story more after that until I was not employed anymore with the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> So I have a couple of questions, follow up questions to that. But before we dive into your specific experience. I think you’re touching on something that’s really going to hit home with people who are listening about safety. Because I think there’s so often this rhetoric about people hiding who they truly are. And I think this is especially true for I want to say for people who were assigned female at birth, that there is a gendered thing with, especially within the church of you hide certain facets about yourself as people who are women or supposed to be women. So can you talk a little bit more about that? What you mean by, how do we, how do we talk about this distinction [00:12:00] between safety versus you’re hiding yourself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> That’s a great question that I am not sure I have a full answer to. I think it’s something we’ll probably be continuing to discuss. For me, safety is super important. Safety and security it’s actually I don’t know if you’ve ever done a values activity where you figure out what your top few values are, but it was interesting when I was still working for the church, I did that and I realized my top three values are love, belonging, and security and safety. In my mind, those kind of go along together. And it was hard because some of those were in conflict. When I was working for the churches, I felt safe and secure financially. As far as I had a very solid paycheck. That was salaried. I had great benefits, but I didn’t feel secure in being who I was. And I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere, you know, going back to the I’m too queer for [00:13:00] the Mormons and too Mormon for the queers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so I did feel safe in regards to, I am financially taken care of, and I’m really good at my job, but I didn’t feel safe to be able to tell people, “Hey, I’m gay,” because what if someone overheard that, misinterpreted that, reported me to whoever at the college or my Bishop and my ecclesiastical endorsements taken out my temple recommend’s removed, whatever, and I needed a valid temple recommend to keep my job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And there were times I was dating people who were not men while I was working for the church. And so obviously I couldn’t talk about that openly, because that very well could have led to my losing my job because I wasn’t being worthy of a temple recommend. Luckily, that didn’t happen. And I was able to leave without being fired. I was able to leave on my own terms and leave on good [00:14:00] terms and feel good about where I was going, but it was a very tricky balance that. I was still me. Like, I wasn’t different, but I wasn’t able to fully be me. Whereas now when I meet with clients, you know, I say that I’m queer. I can say, yeah, I understand that that’s tricky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is, of course I don’t make sessions about me when I’m talking to clients, but just being able to relate, I think can really humanize the experience and help people feel safer by knowing, “Oh yeah, you, you do get it. You do understand how tricky this is to navigate.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> A hundred percent. Yeah. I think that if I had, if I had known, if I had a queer therapist, things in my life would have been so much different, so a hundred percent, I agree you being out with your clients is, is really important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So there is one little caveat I want to make to something that you’ve said here. And that is that in for, for listeners, because I see this on social media [00:15:00] said so often that I think it’s worth people investigating for themselves in 2019, the church officially changed their handbook and changed their policy. They got rid of the November, 2015 policy. In 2020, the handbook changed again, which is why the why BYU’s Honor Code became so tricky because the handbook itself changed. Which does not indicate that you can not date somebody at the same gender, which is why BYU took it out of their honor code, which is, which is what brought about all of that stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I just want to make that caveat, not because you don’t know that, but because maybe some of our listeners have not fully read what the handbook had said before, versus what it says now. So I just wanted to, to make that little distinction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> No, and I appreciate you did and it’s [00:16:00] interesting you bring that up because since 2017, I actually worked for a CES institution. And so I remember when that came out, because that came to my work email saying, you know, I was hearing all this stuff about BYU’s Honor Code and we have the same Honor Code as BYU. So what does that mean? How does that play out and then to receive a work email after two weeks of people like, “oh, we can date, that we were okay as long as we follow, the law of chastity stuff. There, isn’t this double standard of I can’t hold hands with my same gender partner without risk of being reported to the honor code.” So then wait two weeks and get a email from the CES commissioner saying nope. No dating allowed. It doesn’t lead to celestial marriage. Which is odd because neither do NCMOs and people don’t get sent to the Honor Code for that. You know, non-committal makeouts, just dating for fun. Doesn’t lead to celestial [00:17:00] marriage necessarily. And that was a punch in the gut to read that email, even though, it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but to have it come to my work email, have it be in my face. I can’t ignore it. I just remember shutting my office door and crying. Cause it just, just another invalidation of my lived experience. And it was a fine line that I had to walk that looking back and like, how did I do that for so long? But I did. So it was, I don’t think I realized how hard it was until I had some distance from it that I could realize, oh, there is a difference in showing up and being myself versus having to hide this portion of myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> See, I did not realize that the CES letter would have impacted your job. So thank you for making that clarification. Listening to that story is so heartbreaking. I cannot believe that you were in this moment. I know that the students at BYU were feeling exactly what you were [00:18:00] feeling, but it must’ve felt so isolating to not be at BYU, to not know if there you have colleagues that felt like you felt, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> At least at BYU there are groups and things where you go in and have that sort of experience together. And it sounds like this was probably very isolating for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> It was, I did have a few colleagues at work that knew that I was gay, that I had felt safe coming out to. But it was hard. It did feel very isolating. I’m very, very grateful for the friends I have that were able to be there and support during that time. But no one else that I knew at work was publicly out at that time. It just, it wasn’t safe. And statistically speaking, you know, there are more queer people, but no one else was out. And so it did feel very isolating and no one, even if they knew I was gay, they being [00:19:00] not marginalized themselves, didn’t fully understand why it hurt so much, but it was helpful to see social media support and have friends I could talk to, but it was hard. And then shortly after that, COVID happened and we went and remote and honestly that if it hadn’t been for COVID, I wonder if I’d still be at that job because working from home gave me space to breathe, to be like, “Oh, not being in this high pressure church environment, six out of seven days a week, I feel better.” I’m sure we’ll hear lots of experiences of people dealing with suicidal ideation, depression, and same for me. And to suddenly feel some of that lift by not being in this environment, feeling safer and more at home. And made me realize maybe this isn’t the best fit for me anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m really, really good at my job. I really was, but it wasn’t sustainable for me anymore. And people had told me [00:20:00] that for awhile, you know, I’d been seeing a therapist, lots of friends and things, but that was when I realized this really isn’t sustainable. And I started trying to figure out, okay, what’s next? I know this isn’t sustainable. I don’t know timeline, but I feel like I will be moving on. And then things just kept falling into place for me to end up leaving that and to be in a new job and career that I never would’ve been able to picture if I hadn’t had that space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I’m grateful that you’re able to navigate all of that safely. I’m sorry for the pain, like it’s really, really painful and it’s hard and we are going to hear a lot about suicidal ideation. And so thank you for opening that door for us to be able to talk about that. But I also want to hold a little space for acknowledging how, how hard that would have been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Thank you. Yeah. And one thing that I know Kate, that we’ve talked about is how real that [00:21:00] suicidality and depression can be for individuals. And so that’s one reason on our website, we do have information about suicide prevention, hotlines, the Trevor hotline, things like that. So if you do need those sort of resources, please Google them or come to our website and find them because they are great resources and you are not alone. And we still need you here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Ah, thanks, Colette. Thanks for making sure that we added that. Yeah, I’ve used these resources. I am not ashamed to say that that’s the, these are the sorts of resources that saved my life. I know. This was just, this is our experience. This is the reality of what we go through. So thank you for, for being willing to talk about that. I would like to go back to one of my original questions that I was thinking of as you were telling your story. And that is that this podcast is building a community for women, nonbinary, trans [00:22:00] folks who have, I think, a different experience than gay men in that they might not necessarily recognize their sexuality until later on in life. We say late to lesbian, I’m late to lesbian. I’m so excited that we’re starting speaking with you and that we can immediately jump into this topic because many, other of our guests are going to also be talking about this. And it just so happens to also be amazing that you are a sex therapist, that you’re a therapist, that you have the background to be able to talk about sexuality and purity culture and how we cut ourselves off from these things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So can you kind of go back in your story a little bit and talk about maybe some insecurities that you might’ve had about not knowing until later? [00:23:00]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Oh, great question. Yeah, I think there was a lot of times I’m like, wait, am I actually gay? Am I just being deceived? You know, I had people say, “Well, you’ve just, you just think that you’re gay because you thought you fell in love with this roommate. And you’re not actually gay. You’re being deceived by Satan blah-blah-blah.” Because you’re right, growing up, looking back, I don’t have any stereotypical signs of being gay. I had crushes on guys. I did have a boyfriend, my senior year of high school for six months. But my theory about why this happens to people and I feel like what my experience was, was that growing up in a high demand, purity culture religion like Mormonism, I was never able to even think about anything else besides heterosexuality. Like this is the path you’re on, this is what’s expected. And you are not a sexual being. You’re not a sexual being until you’re married to your husband in the temple, then [00:24:00] flip that switch and then you can be a sexual person with him and him alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so I didn’t even question. This is what I’m supposed to do. This is my path. Great. And then, once I had fallen in love with this roommates, I kind of opened up this side of me. That was like, wait a minute. I am a sexual person aside from being married to a guy and maybe that’s not the right fit for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ve talked with a lot of women who that experienced. They don’t realize they’re queer until they are married to a guy, because then they open up this sexual side of themselves and they’re like, “Wait a minute. This doesn’t fit.” I know that’s not everybody’s experience, but that I think was mine that I had never had any experiences to even question, to realize. I was just on this set path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I’m glad I realized I wasn’t straight before I got married to a guy. There are plenty of stories out there that are hard and can have a lot of sad stories and heartbreak in them. But there is some insecurity around that of why didn’t I know [00:25:00] earlier? You hear stories of people who know from it’s as soon as they can remember, but for me, I just, wasn’t a sexual person. I buried that. I never had any issues with pornography, masturbation, anything I just was kind of, I just wasn’t a sexual person. And then I was, and I’m like, “Wait a minute. This orientation isn’t to men, it is to women.” Does that kinda answer your question?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely. And I do want to take a moment to say that we’re trying to normalize this. We’re trying to normalize this experience because Colette’s experience is other people’s experience. This is not a you thing. This is more universal than that. And we want to welcome those stories here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe you can talk about that moment when you did recognize maybe you can talk about that first relationship. And maybe we can deep dive a little bit more into demisexuality, which is kind of under the umbrella of asexuality, which a lot of [00:26:00] Mormon women talk about. I follow a lot of therapists on Instagram and they talk about their clients who are Mormon women coming in and saying, I’m asexual like that seems to happen fairly regularly when really it’s that they don’t know or understand or think about themselves as sexual beings. So maybe you can talk about your own demisexuality and also a little bit more about homoromanticism and how that entered into your first relationship and how reflecting on your first relationship, how those things now come to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Well, it’s so funny. I think the heteronormativity in society and in the church runs so deep that again, I still thought I was straight while I was in this relationship with this first girlfriend. It was just a fluke, you know, I just, it’s just this one person I’m still totally straight. This is just a weird fluke. If I hadn’t met [00:27:00] her, I wouldn’t be with a women. I’m straight. Because that is the society we live in that it wasn’t even allowed to question. It wasn’t until she had started dating someone else that I was like, “Wait a minute, if you’re not straight, what does that mean for me?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I started hanging out with queer people and some of them started asking me questions I had never asked myself. What do you find attractive? Who do you see yourself with? What’s your type? Which I’m not entirely sure if I have a type because of the demisexuality, but there are certain things I find more attractive than others on individuals. And as I spent more time thinking about it, I realized, yes, I can recognize that men are aesthetically pleasing, but that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to them. Whereas I am more attracted to women. And I fall in love with women and then I become attracted to them, you know, with that demisexuality So it’s been a journey. It wasn’t a sudden light bulb [00:28:00] lightning bolt moment. That was like, “Hey, you’re gay,” and now my life makes sense. I know some people have that experience. There are still times I’m like, “Wait, what if I am being deceived? What if I’m not actually gay?” And that’s where labels can be limiting, right? Sexuality can be fluid. But it’s a way to quickly describe my experience of saying I’m gay. I fall in love with women. But labels shouldn’t be putting people in boxes, right? It’s a way to quickly describe experience, quickly find your people. But it took awhile to just try to figure things out, because I think we do try to put ourselves into boxes and my experience, didn’t really fit neatly into any one box. And it made me question myself a lot, but since then I have had other relationships with people who aren’t cis men, and it feels so good. I feel happy. I’m growing in these relationships. I’m becoming more of who I need to become. Being in a celibate life, isn’t going to work for everybody. And for [00:29:00] awhile I thought, okay, this is my path, but I know that I’m not someone who can stay single forever. And remember when we say there’s that double standard. People are like, “Oh, you can just, you just stay celebrate. It’s fine.” That’s not asking the same thing as you do of queer people. It’s not asking follow the law of chastity. Celibacy is that you never are with someone, the rest of your life. You’re going to be alone. And didn’t God say, it’s not good for man to be alone. He didn’t say, “It’s not good for man to be alone unless you’re gay and then suck it up and deal with it until the next life.” I believe that some people are made queer and this is their experience. And they can still be happy. And I just see that I’m probably not going to end up with a man and that’s okay. I think God is meaning for that to happen and not for me to be miserable and alone forever, which is kind of where I thought my life would be if I were to stay celibate forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I [00:30:00] love everything that you’ve just said. Thank you so much for, I was feasting on your words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, because I think that so often we hear endure to the end and somebody before I even came out, that said, “Why is that a thing that we say, because why endure? Why are we enduring to the end? Why aren’t we celebrating and enjoying life to the end. Why is that not a mantra?” And I think that that is so easily translatable to the queer experience saying, there’s a glass ceiling to my happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Yes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> If I fit into this box, I can hit this glass ceiling, but why not go beyond that? Neither of us identify as bisexual or pansexual, but I think there will be many people who are listening, who do identify as bisexual or [00:31:00] pansexual. I think the strikes their experience even more to say, “Okay, well, I’m going to limit the people that I interact with or fall in love with, or, you know, go on dates with, because only these people meet the parameters that I should fall in love with. And that is so limiting and so sad that you folks can not have your full range of experience, your full range of love and opportunity. Because you think that you have to fall in love with the right person. I want to make space for those bi and pan folks who are navigating really complicated roads and falling in love with somebody and saying, “No, I’ll just wait for the next person.” How traumatic and sad that that really is. And I want to give you hope that[00:32:00] who you fall in love with is who you fall in love with. You can’t just like force something to happen. We fall in love with who we fall in love with, and you fell in love with who, who you’ve fallen in love with. And I appreciate that you’re able to say that’s what that was. That was love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> And yeah, going back to my story, I think it’s still as maybe many people can relate to, I think I went through some mild conversion therapy. After that relationship ended, she moved out because we were both still trying to be Mormon and that just wasn’t sustainable when we were attracted to each other, living in the same house. And I went to therapy and it was… great therapist, great guy. But he was also Mormon and kind of said some things that were like, “Oh, you know, you just thought you were in love with her.” Just things that were conversion therapy that, I didn’t realize that at the time. And it’s hard because that was my mindset. I was still wanting to be in the church. I was still wanting to marry a guy, [00:33:00] but that was some conversion therapy language that still sometimes plays in my mind, when I’m in a bad place and I’m doubting myself. But that was a good relationship and we were happy, but it didn’t fit in our world paradigm that that was something that was possible. And so it didn’t work out. And we both went through conversion therapy at different times and we’ve both been on different roads. And I’m just so happy that we are both in better places now. We’re still friends. She’s married to a wonderful woman who I’m also friends with and I’m glad that people can still find queer joy within these really hard parameters. Cause that endure to the end thing, that just brings up images of gritting your teeth and bearing it. And I think it can be very dangerous ideas and language because if you think about it, it can very easily lead to suicidality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think for me it did, as well. It’s like, “Well, if it’s all gonna work out in the next life, why don’t I just hurry that along?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> And that’s where my brain was sometimes. It’s [00:34:00] just endure to the end. Well, I’m tired of this and if it’s all gonna work out in the next life, why not make that happen sooner? And I’m so grateful for good therapists and medication and support, that I’m not in that dark suicidal place because I realized God wants me to be happy now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is maybe gonna sound a little random, but friend of the podcast, Channing from The Faithful Feminists, she did a rune reading for me. And one of the phrases that came out of it was, “I give myself over to abundant joy.” And that’s just something I repeat to myself and try to believe, because I feel like so often queer people are told we’re not allowed that. And trying to allow myself to have that again and believe that joy and happiness is possible and that I deserve it. And that God wants me to have it. It’s definitely a journey, when it’s been kind of reinforced of, you’re not supposed to be happy. If you’re happy in a relationship with a woman, that means you’re sinning and you’re being deceived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I believe that God wants [00:35:00] me to be happy and that God created me this way and that I truly do feel called to queer, that I was called in this way to have these experiences, that I can then use my combination of professional and personal experiences to help others. If I hadn’t been through this, I wouldn’t be helping the clients I’m helping. I wouldn’t be on this podcast with you. And so I think it does all work out and it can work out now. It’s not just in the next life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yes. Thank you so much for all of those words of wisdom. I appreciate everything that you just said. I also want to touch on something that you’ve said now a couple of times, and that is that sometimes you fall back to these old beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Oh. 100%<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> And this is a form of conversion therapy. And so many of us do go through this and I’m so sorry to you and to anyone else who’s listening, who’s ever heard [00:36:00] from a professional say something that is not affirming to your queer identity. That happens all the time. And I’m so sorry that happened to you. But can we talk about how that thinking sometimes still slips in and that’s okay. That it sometimes still slips in and there are going to be people who are listening, who also have that deep fear, maybe I’m wrong about this. And especially somebody who’s just starting out on their journey. You get that so much more often. Once you’ve been through it for a lot longer, you, you learn to recognize those thought patterns and how like halt the tape. But can you tell me about that a little bit more?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Yeah. That’s actually a conversation I have with clients a lot when it comes to thoughts and patterns and behaviors. When we look at brain chemistry, we have neural pathways and if the same thing happens over and over, we kind of strengthen that neural pathway that it becomes [00:37:00] more automatic. And maybe this is a weird analogy but imagine you have these cows in a big field and pasture, and they just wander around, wander around, but after a while they trample down the grass and they ,create a path. And then even if it makes no sense, they just keep following this path because it’s easier. They don’t have to trample through the grass to make a new path, it’s already there for them. And so that’s kind of like a neural pathway that’s been formed. It’s easier. It’s automatic. It just happens. And so when you’re creating these new thoughts, habits, behaviors, you’re creating a new neural pathway that takes energy because that grass is still there. You’re having to hack through it to create this new path. And so it’s normal and natural to fall back to the old one while you’re still building it. As I tell people all the time, how long have you had this thought? Oh, your whole life? As long as you can remember? A couple of decades worth of, “I’m not good enough,” or, “I’m not actually queer, I’m being deceived.” And how, how recent is this new thought that maybe you are good enough? Maybe you are queer. [00:38:00] Maybe you’re not being deceived. Maybe God does want you to be happy? Oh, you’ve only been thinking this a month or two? Yeah. I think it’s kind of normal and natural that you’re falling back to this well-worn path, as you’re creating the new one. It takes time to change those. It hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And I think you’ve got to have some patience and grace with yourself as you go through that. And for me, it’s also been really helpful, just connecting to other queer people who are at different points of their journey and can reassure me that I’m not off base as I’m creating this new path and thought. Does that make sense? It’s a weird analogy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> It’s not a weird analogy. It’s great. Thank you. Thanks so much for that. Yeah. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how you made that pathway for yourself. Did you feel like you had a relationship with any sort of Creator or Divine or God that you continue to [00:39:00] have as in terms of this question and what that universal divine person or whatever how they connect with you to reaffirm or affirm the identity for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I never had some big experience like some people say, if they sat down to pray and they have this big overpowering thought\/ feeling\/ emotion, that God loves you, that you’re okay. But I’ve had those more quiet, subtle confirmations. Even for me, the confirmation of how easy this podcast is falling into place and how easy it’s been in my job, how easy and how healing the support group I formed for some queer women at work has been. I feel like those are confirmations that I’m on the right path, even if I didn’t have an experience in the temple where God told me it’s okay to go find someone of the same [00:40:00] gender. I feel like I’m receiving those smaller confirmations along the way that I am on the right path. That I’m exactly where God wants me to be right now, even if I don’t know where this path is leading, I don’t know where I’m going to end up. I have enough confirmation that God wants me to be happy and that God is good with where I’m at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Thank you so much for that. I would like to just hone in on everything you just said, because sometimes other people think that they know our path and what’s best for us better than we do for ourselves and that don’t have that overwhelming personal revelation or whatever that says, do this thing then you don’t know that that’s what God wants you to do or whatever. But how does the other person know what God wants you to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything you’ve just said is so, so, so important. I’m so glad. I hope that people will go back and listen to what [00:41:00] you just said, because it doesn’t matter what sort of grand experience you’ve had when you know that you’re on the right path, when you feel the things like fall into place for you, that’s how, you know, that’s how, you know you’re headed in the right direction. And if you feel good about it. I think so often queer Mormons feel bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Yes<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> They just bad all the time. And if you find something that feels good, go with the thing that feels good. Your body, who you are, you know your path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> But I think that’s also an interesting thing to think about. Cause I was talking to another friend who was trying to figure out some spirituality and stuff is having issues with the church and she was talking to someone and they said, “What if you just follow your spiritual bliss?” And she’s like, “I can’t do that.” And for some reason I feel like she and I, and probably some other people have internalized this pioneer ethic of if we sacrifice more, and if [00:42:00] it’s hard, that means it’s the right path. But what if it can just be easy? And that’s, I think something to really wrestle with, because she said that, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I do have this thought in my mind that if it’s hard, it means it’s right.” But what if it can just be easy? What if God is clearing the path for things to work out for me and it can just be easy and I don’t have to be feeling suicidal and dragging myself to church every week because of it, but I can let go of the suicidality and trust that it can be easy. And God’s still happy with me and happy that I’m happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that’s been a big mind shift, but also really hard. I don’t know where that came from of hard means better and sacrifice is good. I think it can be, but that doesn’t always mean the case. And especially if you’re sacrificing your mental health and wellbeing and potentially physical health, maybe that’s a sacrifice you don’t need to be making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Love that. Thank you so much for that clarification. That’s [00:43:00] excellent. This has just been so insightful and great. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I love these interviews because I’m like, I love talking to you and it’s always interesting. Like, I feel like I’ve told my story so many times. What else do I have to share? But I feel like I told my story in the 90 seconds, 60 seconds, but then diving into a lot of really good other topics. So this has been really fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Well can we navigate back to your story then, and talk about the working for the church? Are there like specifics about working for the church that you missed or that you felt were just so damaging? I don’t know, like you have this experience, trying to come out while working for the church is a pretty unique thing. I’m interested to know and how, how you navigated that and maybe even the cognitive dissonance of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Definitely some cognitive dissonance.[00:44:00] Though, sometimes I feel like I was able to just compartmentalize things and then it wasn’t as big of a deal. I do miss my job in some ways. I was really good at my job and it was a very unique job and people are like, “Can’t you just find that job somewhere else at another school?” But it was such a unique job because it was such a small school. It encompassed so many different things. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to find an exact job like that. And I miss a salary position. Being self-employed is different. But I also do love the freedom of what I’m able to do now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing that was also hard working for the church is seeing the patriarchy highlighted in a lot of ways. Honestly, in some ways that was harder for me than the queerness and how that impacted things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Can you talk about that a little bit more? Like, can you tell us what you mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Well, it was just interesting that all the higher up positions were filled by white men in like their fifties and sixties. And I felt, and maybe I misinterpreted, but sometimes I felt like I wasn’t seen as a [00:45:00] professional in my job because I was a woman. Like I am the mental health professional, but sometimes I felt like my thoughts and ideas weren’t seen as important sometimes. And I could very well be misinterpreting that, cause I do have issues with the patriarchy and maybe I’m misattributing things, misreading things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that, that was hard. It was hard feeling confined. I had to have a valid temple recommend and I knew God was good with where I was at, but what if my ecclesiastical leader didn’t agree with that? And so that was difficult to navigate. I remember one time when I was dating my first girlfriend, my bishop did take away my temple recommend because I had gone in and talked to him. And then a month or so later, my boss was saying, “Hey, we’re doing the annual temple recommend checks the next time I’m there. Please make sure you have that.” And I went into a frantic mode. I’m like, “I don’t know what to do.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n I called my Bishop and he said, “Here, I’ll give you your temple recommend back so you can show that to them. But just don’t use it.” And I am [00:46:00] so grateful for that Bishop because he could have said, “Oops, sorry, consequences.” Not giving my temple recommend and I could’ve lost my job right then. I don’t think I fully realized what a tricky spot that was until I looked back later. I was like, “Oh my gosh, like that’s kind of messed up that, you know, this one person could have been the difference between me keeping my job and losing it by him having taken my temple recommend he could have just kept it, but he had compassion and was like, “No, you’re, you’re working through this, so let’s give it back. So you don’t also lose your job on top of everything else.” So there’s definitely some unique stuff there. Just having to constantly be checking myself for things that might out me to someone that wasn’t safe. And it’s just really freeing to not have to do that anymore, to be able to be publicly out. And no one can fire me for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I mean, you laugh, but this is like a really terrifying, this is a terrifying story. And it’s not [00:47:00] just that you, it’s not just that you worked for the church. You had how many years at BYU before this as well. I didn’t go to BYU. So. My dad is a BYU professor, so I understand the culture pretty well, but I didn’t go. I don’t know that pressure to constantly because you know that you’re being surveilled, you know, that people are watching you, you know that you have to meet with the Bishop, all of these sorts of things. And so you don’t, you’d already done that with, with BYU, even if you weren’t out<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I was still straight back at BYU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah. Straight at BYU. There’s still the surveillance. So I think that you perhaps were used to that at BYU and then, so it was easy to transition to working for the church, but yeah. I understand why it took some time for you to be like, “whoa, wow, that’s terrible.”[00:48:00]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> Yeah. I think sometimes you don’t realize how bad a situation was for you until you’re out of it. And my mental health has been a lot better since I’ve been able to be out publicly and even just the working from home during COVID did really help to have that distance. If you’d asked me year and a half ago, I never would imagine I’d be in this place. But I have been feeling very led and I’m very grateful for where I’m at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> I love that. I’m grateful for where you’re at, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Colette:<\/strong> I am so grateful that we’re friends and that we’re doing this. But I think that’s probably enough for me for today. So we ready to wrap it up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kate:<\/strong> Yeah. Ready to wrap it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All right, everyone. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you joining us today. We appreciate Colette and her story and the opportunity to chat with her today. Please feel free to follow, rate, and review. And you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram [00:49:00] @CalledToQueer. See you next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n In this episode, get to know Colette Dalton, one of Called to Queer’s co-hosts. Some things Colette talks about include:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you want to connect with Colette, you can follow her on Instagram @colettedalton or on Facebook @ColetteDaltonLCSW.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,20],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-episode-transcripts","category-interview","tag-church-employement","tag-demisexual","tag-late-to-lesbian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":354,"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions\/354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calledtoqueer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n