Emma “Evie” Mecham laughs that she grew up in a one gas station-town, as in, there was nothing else to do besides go to the gas station. In Firth, Idaho, official population of 539, there were no restaurants, no Walmart, just that fuel pump and a couple mechanic shops. “Most of the parents were farmers or teachers. For entertainment, kids mostly just hung out with their friends.” Though Evie recalls that if she went to her friend’s house, “We’d usually have to help her dad by moving pipe before we could do anything fun.” Students from small neighboring towns melded in to complete Evie’s graduating high school class of 51 students, and her father, a former teacher and librarian, is now the principal of an elementary school of about 250 kids. Yet Evie praises the strong library system and athletic programs of her youth as foundational. She grew up reading, which likely led to her love for writing poetry and other creative writing projects (IG: @theknownpast). When her history teacher begged her to join the varsity soccer team he coached her senior year because they needed a goalie, Evie agreed to do it as long as he didn’t make her run. Holding true to his word, Evie didn’t have to do extra running and says, “We lost every single game, but we had a lot of fun.”
Her home life was somewhat quiet, with her only sibling a brother eight years her senior, so Evie often felt like an only child. He now lives with his wife and four kids about ten minutes away from her parents in Firth. Growing up, it was a joke that Evie was always a lot more like her dad, while her brother was more similar to their mom. Evie loves her family, and says they are always learning how to try to understand each other better, even as Evie has recently come out as gay. In turn, she knows her family loves her and says, “Everything good about me came from my parents.” (Including her nickname “Evie,” a hybrid of her grandmothers’ names Emma and Virginia).
Firth was also a town with a predominant LDS population and conservative mindset—one in which people did not speak of gay people often or with affection. Evie deduces that that, coupled with body image perception and feeling like “not many people pursued me romantically anyway,” led to her putting a pin into coming to terms with her sexual orientation until adulthood. She says, “If you told me I was anything other than straight in high school, I’d have been like, ‘What? I like guys too much.’ And it’s true—but I really like guys as friends--you know, hanging out with guys. But I don’t want to kiss them, or do anything more with them. Romantically, sexually, they’re not my thing.” Since coming out, Evie has found her relationships with her male friends have become more relaxed and fulfilling, simply because the pressure to be anything more than friends has been removed.
Her upbringing also afforded Evie leadership and speaking opportunities in Family Career Community Leaders of America, where she would do Eagle-scout scale projects, one being to design an incentivized reading program for children with the participation of the fire department. “I had a great FCCLA advisor who took this weird little freshman and turned her into a state champ and national runner up.” Evie had always dreamed of attending BYU in Provo, Utah and was accepted—four times, to be exact. She went straight out of high school, but some mental health struggles and other “weird stuff that got in the way of being able to attend” happened, including the pandemic, leading to a start-stop path that required she reapply four times, but, “each time, I got in!” Evie turns 26 in May, and is now “taking it slow” studying psychology at UVU, where she has also loved working in the mental health training clinic for the past two years. She’s also active in her LDS ward, and considers her inherent belief in God and natural faithful mindset a spiritual gift. Evie says, “When I get frustrated with church things, I think ‘Ok, let’s say I left tomorrow, what would I do?’ I’d still be a Christian. I can’t deny God is real; I’ve had experiences with Him. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes the most sense logically to me within the framework of God being real… He’s all loving beyond what we know. My least favorite person is probably still going to heaven, and I love that. I have a strong testimony of God’s love.” Being a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a core part of Evie’s identity.
Evie loves the world religions class she is taking, and says if she weren’t LDS, she might want to study Islam, as she’s fascinated by other devout religious lifestyles. She feels, “It’s beautiful to believe in something, even if it’s not the same thing I believe in. I think it’s a sign of integrity to believe in whatever it is you do and to be earnest on that journey.” Evie is considering becoming a chaplain, as she finds the relationship between religion and psychology to be so powerful. She has appreciated having kind leaders in her faith who have shown her love and support. She’s come out to two separate bishops while in college, one by accident after “the Holy Ghost snitched first,” the bishop concurring he already knew. That bishop then called her to teach Relief Society, where she has also felt impressed upon occasion to share her real experiences. That bishop went on to become her current stake president, and Evie has offered herself as a resource to her new bishop, with the caveat, “I don’t rep all gay people ever, but if you have a question about the queer stuff, let me know, and I’ll try my best to help” Evie is the first to recognize it can be new territory for some.
While in college, Evie started to wonder if she might be asexual. “I would think, if I don’t like guys, maybe I don’t like anyone,” wondering if in her vast love of music, this might be why she had never connected with love songs. But at the end of 2022, she was attending an activity and hanging out with a girl from her ward, and recalls, “It sank over me—this is something different. This is someone who I want to be more than friends with. This is a CRUSH! It rocked my world. I wanted to be with her, and not just in a lusting after her body way, like we try to boil attraction down to. She was so cool and funny. I’d met guys I thought were cool and funny, but this was an attraction.” Evie says it had never clicked mentally before, but now that it did, she didn’t know what to do about it. It took Evie a long time to approach the topic with God, assuming if she prayed about it, she’d hear a response like, “You’re not gay, pull it together, go date men.” It took some time for her to work up the nerve, but one day she allowed herself to read her patriarchal blessing through the lens of being gay. She says, “When I did, it was like holy cow, everything fit into place and made so much sense.” She finally felt ready to pray and asked, “Hey Heavenly Father, did you know I’m gay? I am.” She immediately felt a response: “Of course I knew. I knew before you did.” Evie then describes feeling overwhelming love, and then a sense of, “Ok, now you know we’re on the same page, let’s get to work. Let’s do this thing.” Evie credits this as being one of her biggest catalysts for spiritual growth, because she no longer had to hide anything from God, realizing He knew since even before she was 13 and got her patriarchal blessing. “He knows, and that’s the point—He did this intentionally.”
Recognizing there are a lot of lessons to be learned on her journey, Evie says her path is “sometimes lonely, and sometimes good.” But she believes there is good to come. Since coming out on social media in January, she says she hasn’t had any big negative experiences, “no ‘you’re going to hell’ sliding into my dm’s, no slurs.” But she says the sense of loneliness she feels might partly come from the difficulty of people assuming that once you come out, “it’s going to be all rainbows and then I leave the church… I don’t want it to seem I’m like white knuckling it by trying to stay in a church and posting all the time about it. I don’t think anyone cares or thinks about it a ton, but I do. My religious identity is a huge part of me, and I don’t ever want it to come across as if I’m being fake or dishonest about what I believe in, just because I’m gay.” Evie continues, “I haven’t yet found a community where I feel my devoutness to both church and my gayness are fully embraced and loved and understood the way I would like it to be. I haven’t found a place where both are well-held and balanced yet, except with maybe my therapist.” Evie loves that her LDS therapist has been both faith-affirming while also helping her explore her sexuality in a healthy way.
Regarding relationships, Evie says, “I’d love to explore going on dates with someone I’m attracted to, but I’m taking it one day at a time… I probably need to work more on myself now before I could consider really going on dates. I’m not sure I’d be a great girlfriend right now.” She also expresses that she wishes it didn’t have to be such a big conflict over whether she dates or not. She says, “I wish downloading a dating app wasn’t a huge deal… It’s hard in the church regarding mental health… I don’t know if people understand this is a wrestle every queer member of the church has had to deal with: do I want to live gay or die straight?” Evie says while her mental health in other areas has improved over time, “In relation to the gay stuff, it’s gotten worse.” Upon contemplating the teaching in the temple that it’s not good to be alone, she’s had to consider whether that means friendship or a relationship for her, and “What’s the bigger sin? Dating a woman or killing myself? Thankfully, we don’t view suicide as a terrible, taboo sin anymore, but it’s still obviously not the choice our Heavenly Parents want us to make. I’ve read the church handbook in these sections over and over, and I have thought, if I took my life, I could be buried in my temple clothes, and if I married a woman and passed away peacefully, I couldn’t, which is hard because the temple means a lot to me. It’s a very real wrestle I’m not sure others understand.”
As she considers her own future, Evie often turns to poetry and music to navigate her thoughts. Her favorite “informal love language” is making playlists for people. Evie loves all genres of music (she’s even starting to warm up to country), and is excited about her concert tickets to Hans Zimmer’s upcoming North American tour. A Twenty One Pilots concert is also on the horizon, and always a favorite. As Evie contemplates the heavier questions of her future, she’s reminded, in the words of Twenty One Pilots, “Life has a hopeful undertone.”
