Talking with the Stake President

About four weeks ago I had an interview with my Bishop for a temple recommend. I brought up a lot of concerns and doctrinal issues that he didn't know how to handle, and so he referred me to the Stake President. I met with him just this afternoon, and it actually went really, really well.

I want to take a minute to talk about the times I've talked to priesthood leaders about being gay before. The first time I ever brought it up was to my Bishop when I was fourteen. I went in to talk to him because I had masturbated a few times and felt awful about it. As an aside, I mentioned that I thought I might have same-gender attraction... He told me to ignore it and that it would go away.

The next time was during my interview with my Stake President before leaving on my mission. He asked me if I'd ever been in a homosexual relationship. I told him no, but that I had "struggled" with same-sex attraction. He asked me if I considered myself gay, and I told him no. Then he told me not to worry about it and that it would go away.

On my mission I told my Mission President about it. He told me that what everyone gets wrong is that it's not certain genders that we're attracted to, but just the human body in general (which makes me wonder if he was secretly bisexual...), and not to worry about, and that it would go away.

I don't think any of them understood the emotional baggage that comes along with being gay. I don't think they quite understood that when I said I was "struggling with same-gender attraction" I also meant that I was struggling with depression, feeling constantly alone, and feeling like no one really cared. They just swept it under the rug and said it would be okay. And that really hurt, because it was never okay, and it never went away.

The first time I talked about it to my current Bishop was after getting back from China, when I was still really depressed. He reacted in a way I had never seen before. He admitted that he knew very little about the subject, and then said that he would do everything he could to learn more about it. But he also said that no matter what happened, he would be my advocate. That meant so much to me.

Today, my Stake President reacted in a very similar way. He had never heard any of the doctrinal or historical issues I brought up, and he hadn't thought of homosexuality in the way I presented it before. And so he said he would do research and talk to me again. He also mentioned that he's very good friends with a member of the seventy, and would like for me to talk to him. So in the next month, I might be meeting with a General Authority... that would be really interesting. And I'm really excited to see what happens.