It was fall of 2022 and Gracee Purcell had just arrived in Provo, UT to begin her first year at BYU. Not only was she excited about pressing play on life in a college town, but she was also feeling a bit safer after discovering the RaYnbow Collective—an LGBTQ+ coalition and resource provider wherein she could exhale and be herself. Their first initiative that fall was to fold and distribute 5,000 small booklets advertising LGBTQ+-friendly resources (therapists, safe housing, scholarship and event info, etc.) in the welcome bags that would be given to incoming students at New Student Orientation (NSO) with the hopes that the info would prove helpful to the (reportedly 13%) of BYU students who identify as LGBTQ+. But the day before NSO, the RaYnbow Collective received word that a unilateral decision was made against their contract with BYU and their booklets would be pulled and thrown away.
Gracee says, “It was disappointing and disheartening to hear about the decision, especially when a lot of the council remembers how isolated, lonely, and unsupported they felt when starting at BYU. I know I personally felt a loss of hope. I had come to BYU hoping for a fresh start somewhere I could do more. Having this happen on day three at BYU for me was hard. I took time to process and the next day when I went to NSO, I definitely thought about the missed opportunity to support the incoming queer students.”
However, Gracee says this provided her with her “why” and a renewed passion for advocacy, especially at BYU, “as well as the realization that maybe there’s nothing wrong with us. Maybe it’s just really difficult to exist within a system that was not designed to support spirits like ours. No student should feel alone. No student should feel rejected by their university because of their identity. I chose right then that I was going to lead with love.” While Gracee says she’d rather have seen those resources end up in the NSO bags, she’s grateful for the experience it gave her. Impressive wisdom for a 19-year-old who only came out as gay to her closest friends and a few family members one year ago.
Gracee’s life thus far has likewise been rather impressive. She graduated from high school in Eagle, ID in 2021, and by that point, had already achieved her Associate’s degree from Boise State. Her father, Brandon Purcell, says she was a born leader. The oldest of six kids, Brandon says Gracee was just two when her first sibling was born and he remembers telling her she had a super power as the oldest child—that people were going to follow her. “In hindsight, that’s a lot to put on a young person. But we noticed in her toddler years, her future would be as a leader… I think one of the reasons she went to Provo was because there was an opportunity for her to both grow and lead. This year she’s found those. I see her doing a lot of fantastic, important and impactful things—not only for herself, but for others.”
After high school, Gracee spent the first semester of a gap year in Mexico teaching English part-time at a school through an International Language Program. As a first-year student at BYU, she is now a junior credit-wise, and studying Psychology with plans to become a physical therapist for athletes. Gracee’s always had a heart for helping those in need, and since the age of 15, has helped train seeing eye dogs. Throughout childhood and her high school years, Gracee’s also loved sports. She played soccer, lacrosse, and even tried pole vaulting for a season to overcome her fear of heights.
She also overcame her fear of coming out by doing so for the first time to her travel group in Mexico, six days in, which in hindsight she says was maybe not the best idea. But in a surprising turn of events, she was embraced and loved wholeheartedly by the girls in her group. She came home and went back into the closet but then started an Instagram and blog (@to_all_the_latter_day_gays) in which she shared her truth of being attracted to women. Soon after, she was invited to go on Richard Ostler’s podcast as a guest, at which point she felt it was time to tell her parents.
When she came out to her parents, Gracee says there were a lot of tears on her mom’s end. She had never considered this might be a possibility. Later that night, she came out to her dad privately and he thanked her for telling him. Brandon says he recalls thinking this was a moment with a lot of gravity and he didn’t want to say something that would come across as unsupportive or unloving. “I think I expressed something to the effect that I was grateful she had shared this with me, and I’d like to just think on it for a bit and talk about it after I’d collected my thoughts.” Gracee says she knew it would take some time for her parents to wrap their heads around everything due to their strong faith in the church. She senses their faith has always been straight forward and that this was a nuance they perhaps didn’t fully understand quite yet. But she appreciates how they listened to podcasts like Listen, Learn and Love and Questions from the Closet and read recommended books. Still, there wasn’t a lot of conversation about her orientation at home in that time before she started at BYU, and it was Gracee’s choice to not tell her younger siblings or extended family members quite yet.
Brandon concurs it took more than a minute for him to process that the future he’d envisioned for his daughter might look a little different, but that ultimately both his and his wife’s love for and hopes for their daughter to be happy and fulfilled haven’t changed one bit. Brandon hopes Gracee will “be everything she can be and have the types of connections that are important to all of us.” He appreciates the broadened experience he’s gained from listening to the experiences of others from the LGBTQ community. And he’s expressed to Gracee an impression he felt through the Spirit that while he doesn’t have all the answers to life’s complex questions, he knows one person who does. Brandon encourages his children to, “Stay close to the answers. Stay close to Heavenly Father, and He’ll guide you.”
Gracee had offers to attend other universities, but chose BYU for a particular major and to be closer to family. While she didn’t initially plan to come to BYU as such a vocal representative of the LGBTQ community, she has since realized the importance of the work that needs to be done there and is willing to be in the public eye, even under criticism, to try to create the changes necessary to make it safer for others—especially those who are not quite ready yet to be out. Gracee recognizes how important it is to find a support system and was very intentional about doing so, and thus joined the RaYnbow Collective as soon as she arrived in Provo. About 50 people serve on the council; Gracee has served as the website and design graphic design lead, and was just asked to take over as President in April.
Gracee acknowledges the climate at BYU is hard, and prospects for dating as a queer student even harder as there is always a fear that permeates. She says LGBTQ students are aware of the different messages given to different students based on who their bishop might be—there have been instances where bishops have required students self-report to the Honor Code for any attempts to date. “It’s so variable between bishops. Some are allies, some aren’t. You just have to choose what you tell them.” There’s also the constant fear that fellow students may rally against your very existence, as a group of protestors did at a Back to School Pride event held just off campus. Gracee is grateful her psychology program is filled with wonderful, supportive peers and professors.
“I think that the ultimate path forward will be with compassion and curiosity. If we move forward in that way, I think hearts and minds will be more open, and there will be more understanding. It’s not about policy change, but people changing,” says Gracee. “There’s always hope. I don’t think God should be confined to one religion or a set of practices. You can find God anywhere. I don’t think we should put God in boxes. In the end, the ultimate problem we’re having is in the core teaching of Jesus, which is to love your neighbor as yourself. The designation of who your neighbor is has nothing to do with geography or orientation or our differences, but rather with our ability to see our shared humanity.”
In high school, Gracee started training guide dogs as a strategic way she could negotiate bringing an animal into a pet-free home. She has since brought up three dogs in the program and currently has a lab puppy living and training with her in Provo. The dog attends classes and events with Gracee at BYU, and is a visible reminder to many students that some people walk through life differently. Some have different needs. And sometimes, it just takes a little training and some resources to get there. Gracee Purcell is one young adult willing to make the personal sacrifices to help others to get there. To help others to see.
