I Experience Same-Sex Attraction. General Conference Helped Me Realize I Belong

As a lifelong member of the Church, I grew up with a pretty specific plan for the future. I had every intention of serving a mission, getting married, and raising a family in the gospel.

But what wasn’t part of my plan was experiencing same-sex attraction.

Despite all the deep hopes and expectations I had from when I was young, I eventually came to a point where I had to face my reality. Eight years ago, I found myself having honorably returned from a full-time mission and with a diploma from Brigham Young University in hand. But that’s where my plan stopped and when all the expectations I had for life suddenly came crashing down. I found myself moving to Chicago, still single and still attracted to men.

The reality of navigating life as a single, chaste Latter-day Saint who experienced same-sex attraction was not what I had planned for my life. How could I move forward in life alone? How could I maneuver my way through life circumstances that I did not choose and that were outside my control?

I have an incredibly supportive family and I have had wonderful bishops, friends, and ward members who have given me friendship and love, but there was always a part of me that was convinced of Satan’s lie that I didn’t really have a future within the Church.

Sometimes general conference messages, especially those about dating or marriage or children, can be difficult for me and for other single members of the Church to hear because we erroneously think that we are alone, that we have diminished worth, and that we don’t belong.

But it was such an incredibly healing experience for me when I listened to the inspired message from Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the April 2021 general conference. I had never heard the Church referred to as a place for “grace and space,” with room for each of us.¹ And I have reflected on it constantly since he shared his message.

I realized I wasn’t alone in feeling at times that I didn’t have a place of belonging. As Elder Gong shared, over half the adult membership of the Church is widowed, divorced, or unmarried.²

For much of my life, I believed Satan’s lie and shame-based message that I was second-class, that my sexuality and being single made me “less than,” that I was “not enough,” and that I didn’t really have a place in the kingdom of God. But I felt as if Elder Gong was speaking directly to me when he shared that “all are equal, with no second-class groups.”³

This statement of equality was for me personally a message of hope and healing that meant more than words can express. Here was an Apostle of Jesus Christ speaking directly against an individualized message of shame that I have struggled with for decades.

Elder Gong poignantly reminded me that disciples of Jesus Christ come in all shapes and sizes. I may not have fulfilled all the plans of my childhood, but as a believer of the restored gospel, I do have a place. I do belong. And I can use my unique gifts and all my experiences as a single member to help build up the kingdom of God as I serve my sisters and brothers.

Through increasing my faith and with the support and validation of local and general Church leaders, I’ve come to know that none of us is truly alone. As Elder Gong testified: “When we come with broken hearts and contrite spirits, we can find voice in Jesus Christ and be encircled in His understanding arms of safety. Sacred ordinances offer covenant belonging and ‘the power of godliness’ to sanctify inner intent and outward action. With His loving-kindness and long-suffering, His Church becomes our Inn.”⁴

Regardless of the shaming messages from Satan, all of us are invited to the Inn, a sacred place of “grace and space.”

I’ll see you there on Sunday.

Notes

1. Gerrit W. Gong, “Room in the Inn,” Liahona, May 2021, 25.
2. See Gerrit W. Gong, “Room in the Inn,” 26.
3. Gerrit W. Gong, “Room in the Inn,” 25.
4. Gerrit W. Gong, “Room in the Inn,” 27.