March 21 2009
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a boy. It wasn't a constant desire by any means, but it was strong when it came up and pretty vivid in my memory. In many instances, I tried to be a boy. I hung out with my brothers and their friends a lot to the point where they would sometimes get angry and tell me to go away. I remember one time we all went out in the wide expanse of unpopulated land and my brothers and their friends took off their shirts to get some relief from the Arizona heat. I was eight years old -- young enough that I had no discernably "feminine" chest, so after polling my brothers, I decided to take off my shirt too. I didn't see the harm of it. That is until I went home sunburned and my mother asked how I could have possibly gotten a sunburn on my shoulders. She wasn't very pleased with the answer. I wasn't very pleased when I was baptized soon afterward, because that itchy baptismal garment irritated my sunburn. So did the backpack full of rocks that one of my relatives used as a teaching aid before I went into the water.
When you're little, there generally isn't much distinction between the sexes, or at least there isn't much of a gender barrier. There wasn't with me, at any rate. Because I wanted to be a boy. And in many cases, I was.
When I was a little girl, I was also Mormon. I had been born in the church, raised in it. I went to Primary every Sunday and Sarament Meeting. I learned all the Primary songs and loved to sing them. In Primary, there's no distinction between the sexes. It was easy for me to feel more relaxed because there was no segregation. But I really hated wearing dresses. At the time, that was the worst part of church for me, because I wanted to be a boy. And in many cases, I was.
It's important to keep this in mind. All throughout my childhood, there wasn't much segregation that I can remember. I knew that there was a difference between boys and girls, and I knew there were different expectations for boys in the church than there were for girls -- but there were some instances when that really did not click with me, because there were some instances where I did not differentiate myself from other boys. I knew fundamentally that I was born with a female body and thus I knew that I was different from the other boys, but I don't think I ever fully grasped why that should keep me from being just like a boy. Because I wanted to be a boy. And in many cases, I was.
But then came the worst part of church for me: the segregation. Once I hit twelve years old, I was taken from Primary -- where boys and girls were taught in the same group throughout the entire block -- and put in Young Womens. I vaguely remember the day. The bishop pulled me out of my Primary class and spoke to me briefly. Then he led me up the stairs to the second floor of the chapel. He took me to a room lit only by a single marbled glass window in which several girls my age and the Beehive teacher sat. The bishop introduced me and I was sat down at the end of the line, and that was that. Suddenly, I was unmistakably considered a girl.
And I didn't like it. Because I wanted to be a boy. And in many cases, I was.
Once again, this was not a constant, conscious feeling. It manifested itself in subconscious ways -- ways that were so subtle that I wasn't even aware that they did pertain to my gender issues. It's taken me a great deal of reflection to dredge up the memories and connect the dots. I did not spend every minute of every day wishing that I was a boy. In fact, I thought my discomfort was based solely on many other factors. I was not the most popular kid in school at the time. My grades were suffering because the social pressures were overwhelming. They really crushed my desire to apply myself anywhere, and on top of that, I had a poor work ethic to begin with.
But I never fit in at Young Womens. I did not want to be there. I did not feel any kinship with the girls. I, myself, was not a typical girl. I had very little interest in boys, though I fooled myself into celebrity crushes for many years. I learned to play the part of girl fairly well -- but I could never be a girl. I had no interest in makeup, no interest in dressing up. When I attended Young Womens camp, the other girls took pleasure in all sorts of womanly activities. I always felt incredibly awkward. Constantly I felt like an outcast, a misfit. I didn't want to be there -- because I didn't belong. Because I wanted to be a boy. And in many cases, I was.
I was called as MIA Maid secretary during the latter part of my stay in that particular "level", but I never really participated in any sort of MIA Maid leadership duties. I took attendance during class -- that is, when I was actually in class myself. My attendance had started to wane. Depression was setting in. It was affecting me very badly, both in my church attendance and my academics. My grades suffered very badly because I just couldn't bring myself to wake up and go to school or church. When our ward time changed to afternoons every other year, I learned to sleep through the time slot so my parents wouldn't make me go. I became very good at faking sickness to get out of going to church and school. I barely, barely passed Junior High. In fact, at "graduation" in 2000, I was surprised to actually receive a diploma, filled with Ds and Fs and occasional Bs and Cs as my report card was.
High school rolled around. My attendance in church was very sporadic and spotty, just like my school attendance. I got into online groups and found an outlet that way. Though we were only allowed to visit Mormon sites at first, I slowly began to sneakily branch out. I discovered that atheists and gays were not evil, disgusting people. I befriended several. And when the subject of religion came up, I found myself growing more and more ashamed to call myself Mormon (though I hid it well). I became a bitter and angry young person as the worst stages of puberty set in. Depresion became so overwhelming that I began to have suicidal thoughts. If this was what life had in store for me, a part of me didn't want to live it.
That's when I approached my mom. One day while I was sitting on the computer and she was sitting at the sewing machine at the opposite side of the room, I asked her if it would be possible for me to get therapy. When she asked why, I told her about those thoughts I'd had. She set up an appointment with LDS Social (Family) Services.
My therapist was a pretty good woman. She diagnosed me with clinical depression and respected my desire not to take medication (I was too young at the time anyway, having only been sixteen or so). She taught me several things about the causes of depression and how to deal with them. I had just more or less ditched my way into failing my second freshman year, and she helped me work with the school in progressing my grade level so that I wouldn't be left behind while my friends moved ahead. It was a brief bright spot in what had become an extremely dark and troubling time in my life.
Once I was considered able to handle things on my own, therapy ended. But the depression came back. I was a sophomore taking freshman classes, but soon I stopped even being a sophomore. I stopped attending school and church altogether and withdrew from socializing altogether. I didn't get back into socializing for another year or so, when I started taking classes at the community college. I specialized in theater, because that was where I could get my scholarship. I met new people, new friends, great-minded instructors who helped me come out of my shell. I had never been so happy. The depression was still present and still something with which I struggled, but I had found something to do with my life, a better outlet. And more importantly, I discovered that I identified and interacted better with people when I was cast into a masculine role.
In theater, I was cast almost exclusively in male roles. In the choir, because of my unusually deep voice, I was seated as a tenor. Because of this, it became an inside joke that I was the "Man Whore" of my college. People would jokingly call me a man, and though I reacted with playful exasperation, something inside of me was finally filled. It felt good and it felt right. Because I wanted to be a boy. And in many cases, I was.
College came and went. I was no longer able to acquire scholarships from the school and, unable to afford it on my own, I stopped taking classes. Depression set back in and I withdrew from the friends I had made at college. My social life began to center around the internet where I met many great people and developed extremely tight friendships, none of whom were Mormon. By now, I had stopped being active in the church almost entirely.
It wasn't until November of 2007 that I "officially" renounced Mormonism. I had come to the realization that my morality and personal code differed greatly from the path I had been taught. I announced to my friends that I no longer considered myself Mormon, and I was happy with that.
Then almost a year later in August of 2008 -- while I was in the process of truly, deeply questioning my gender identity (later in the month, I came out as transgendered) -- my friend linked me to a copy of Mark E. Petersen's pamphlet on how not to masturbate. We both had a really good laugh over it and I shared it with others -- and then, in the pursuit of honest reporting, I did a little research into Mark E. Petersen. Knowing that outdated information was rampant in "anti-Mormon" circles, I wanted to make sure the pamphlet was not some outdated piece of stupidity. My research into Mark E. Petersen led to an overnight binge on the church, the church's history, and the people who founded it. I was absolutely dumbstruck by what I was reading. So much of it was information that I had never heard, in church or seminary, while some of it was stuff we had touched on in seminary but never went into the factual details.
I read almost everything in about 48 hours and came away feeling absolutely disgusted. I had renounced the church before, but it was a placid separation -- a simple parting of ways because I did not feel as though the church was the way for me. To quote my journal entry from that day: "I'm not Mormon. I have a few of the beliefs of the Mormon system, and I hold no real ill will toward the LDS church (that homosexuality thing aside). Truth be told, it's not a bad religion, as far as things go, but the people within it make me ashamed to have even once called myself a Mormon."
But here I had discovered and had my eyes opened to just how bad the church is, how much it caused me subconscious pain, how much it caused me to repress and how miserable that made me feel. How I have been unconsciously putting together a broken life that was crushed and pounded by the church. How much money I wasted on them.
I was absolutely stunned. Then, I was angry. I was very, very angry for a very, very long time. I began searching for support and ways to get my name permanently removed from the membership rolls of this "great and abominable church". I stumbled onto this site and originally presented myself as my female identity because, at the time, I was not comfortable with anyone except a few of my closest friends knowing that I was transgendered.
On the 16th of March 2009, after many months struggling and battling the fear of familial rejection and building an outside support network, I sent off my letter of resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It arrived at 6:39AM on March 18th 2009, legally rendering me an ex-Mormon. I told my family before I sent it off that I was going to do so, and I received no reaction whatsoever. I wonder if they've even read what I sent them, and I wonder what their reaction will be when I receive a letter in response to mine. I have some apprehension about it.
But finally, I feel like the happiest man on earth.