For Jennifer West, 34, of Cottonwood Heights, UT, there was a time when she was told she couldn’t teach, speak, or pray in the church in which she had grown up. She was the oldest of 6 kids born into an active LDS family, and Jennifer says that as a youth, she “had no idea I was gay—none at all.” When she was at BYU she noticed all her roommates seemed really into dating, but she recalls, “I didn’t get it. I wondered if that might mean I was gay… I had always been a tomboy, liked sports, etc. But I thought the idea of kissing a girl was just as weird as the idea of kissing a guy, so I decided that wasn’t it.”
It was during this time that Jennifer stopped going to church. She didn’t love how singles wards turned church into a social event, and didn’t feel any sense of spiritual connection so she drifted away. After seven years of inactivity, at the age of 26, Jennifer decided to give the church one more shot. She says she told Heavenly Father, “Ok, I’m going to really gives this one last try - if there’s something you want me to do, I’ll try to do it.” She decided to meet with her bishop about getting a temple recommend, and he suggested she should prepare to receive her endowment. She says, “I was like, ‘Whoa, buddy, let’s start with just doing baptisms again’.” But next thing she knew, Jennifer shocked her parents by announcing that not only was she now attending church again, but she was selling her townhouse and quitting her job to go on a mission.
The same week she got her call to Cleveland to serve in the Kirtland Visitor’s Center, a longtime female friend said she had feelings for Jennifer. This friend had been romantically involved with a woman before, but was committed to staying connected to the church. Things evolved in their relationship past the point of friendship, but Jennifer didn’t worry much about what it might mean. She just thought she loved this friend--she loved a specific person; it wasn’t about gender, and she was about to leave for 18 months. But just three months into her mission, Jennifer was in a terrible car accident that forced her to return home and live in her parents’ basement for eight months of recovery. Friends from her mission had told Jennifer there must have been a reason Heavenly Father wanted her back home. Most assumed or implied it must be to get married, so she threw herself into dating apps and going on dates with men. At the same time, she found her romantic interest in her friend started to pick up again.
Still, Jennifer was unsure about her orientation until a friend described attraction to her in a way that finally clicked. Her friend summarized attraction as feeling that the more time you spend with someone, the more time you want to spend with them. Jennifer says this understanding “blew my mind,” and she realized that she had absolutely experienced that with some of her female friendships, but never with men. She also realized that once she was able to recognize the emotional attraction, the physical kicked in pretty quickly and kissing was not, in fact, weird or gross, but wonderful. It was then, at age 28, that Jennifer came to terms with the fact that she is gay.
She then had to figure out what to do. She started seeing a therapist, doing mostly unhelpful Google research, and spent hours and hours in prayer. She remembers getting to the point where she was just asking Heavenly Father to help her feel some sort of guilt if this was wrong, because she didn’t know how to repent and change if she didn’t feel that remorse. She didn’t know how to choose between two core parts of herself. As a result of her return to church activity and subsequent mission and car accident, she had a real conviction about the power and importance of the gospel in her life.
As she opened up to friends, Jennifer was met with many opinions—most along the lines that it would not be possible for her to both date women and stay in the church, with one friend saying being gay and staying in the church was like being “a German Jew in the Nazi party.” Most suggested she just needed to let the church go and “be happy.” But as she puts it, “I didn’t feel like I could choose to dis-believe in the church or not care about it any more than I could choose who I was attracted to.”
For awhile, she decided she just had to be ok with being alone for the rest of her life. She wanted to feel needed, and to have some warm bodies to come home to, so she filled her life with animals. Jennifer had cats, then fulfilled a lifelong dream of having pigs, and now three large dogs she adores. But animals couldn’t quite fill the void.
She ultimately arrived at a place where she felt peace about doing both - staying committed to the church and also dating and trying to find her person. As Jennifer considers her own spirituality and relationship with her Heavenly Father, she says, “I think it’s entirely possible that I’ll get to judgment day and learn I made wrong decisions. But I also know that if I do my best to try and be the person God wants me to be, things will work out. For me, it feels like that path includes a life with someone. The sacrifice and growth I experience in a relationship make me a better, happier, kinder person, in all the ways I think God wants.”
Jennifer knew there might be ramifications when she first prepared to come out to her church leaders while dating. She says, “I knew I likely would lose my recommend, but the temple had never been my favorite thing so I thought I could give that up.” She met with a local church leader who told her he indeed needed to take away her recommend. This meant she couldn’t go to her brother’s wedding, but she wasn’t ready to tell her family why, so she just told them she couldn’t go to the ceremony but would be waiting outside.
When she finally decided to come out, Jennifer sat her parents, Will and Lisa, down but found she couldn’t really talk. They said, “Do you want us to guess what’s going on?” She said, “Yeah.” The first thing they asked was if she was pregnant, which she laughs about, saying, "That wasn't where I expected them to go.” “Do you have a new job?” they asked. Finally, they guessed she was gay. She told them about her relationship at the time and her dad’s first reaction was to ask if her girlfriend wanted to join them on their next family trip to Lake Powell. Her mom followed with, “Have you thought about having kids? Because I’ll totally babysit.”
When Jennifer was 21, she got a tattoo and her mom had cried. She says, "Coming out seemed like a way bigger deal than a tattoo but there were no tears about this." She asked her mom about it and Lisa replied, “That was you defiling your body; this is just you telling us something about yourself!” She was so grateful her parents handled everything as well as she could have ever hoped.
Jennifer continued to attend church and serve in whatever callings she was allowed to hold, “It has been far harder to navigate being out and staying connected to the church than I expected it to be, or maybe just hard in different ways than I expected. I didn’t miss the temple, but it was hard to be met with church policies that seemed to say I wasn’t wanted at all (no teaching, speaking or praying).”
Jennifer chose to stay and find a spiritual outlet through music. Hymns and gospel songs have remained an uncomplicated way to stay connected to the spirit. Since she couldn’t teach at church, she made up and started teaching a class about hymns in the evenings after her day job for anyone who was interested. Policies have since changed (in 2020) where members are no longer disallowed from teaching or speaking in church just for dating someone of the same sex. She is out to her ward where she teaches Relief Society, and says her ward “is awesome.” But it was a bumpy journey to get to this place.
After Jennifer’s first relationship ended, she proceeded to date more intentionally and again found ‘doing both’ harder than she expected it to be. She learned the gay dating scene in Utah was not very accepting of people still wanting to be in the church. “It seemed like the best I could hope for would be to find someone who could at least tolerate my church participation.” There were a few relationships over the next few years and she learned how challenging it could be to have different beliefs than the person she was dating. She started to lose hope, thinking maybe everyone had been right about it not being possible to make dating and the church work.
Jennifer just needed a place where she felt a sense of belonging. She says, “All the groups or associations I was aware of seemed to prescribe one right path. They were either people who had left the church and thought that was the only way to find peace, or people who thought I should just stay single or try to marry a man.” Jennifer was eventually persuaded to attend a Zoom meeting of an LDS LGBTQ women’s group where she finally felt seen and understood. She says she sobbed as she realized here, she could be her whole self. She felt a sense of hope and spiritual renewal that inspired her to meet with her Bishop to get a temple recommend.
While she wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, she met a woman through the LDS LGBTQ group and they are now dating. They are both committed to the church and to holding temple recommends, which puts limits on what their future might look like but they are enjoying their developing relationship and the idea of having someone “to just do life with.” A lots people are vocally skeptical that this type of relationship can work but Jennifer appreciates the people who are supportive and trust her to navigate things. “It’s a really hard thing to figure out. I don’t know if a lifelong, romantic companionship like this can work. But I’m optimistic and I know God is good with me. As long as I’m trying, He’s going to be on my side and help me figure it out.”
Jennifer recognizes, “If you’re going to be a gay member of church, there isn’t an easy path. You have to pick your hard and figure out what works for you. I knew I’d have to give up something - in my current situation the biggest thing I’m having to give up is sex and that feels doable. If I chose to give up dating and be alone, that would be hard every single day. If I chose to leave the church, I would feel the lack of goodness and spiritual connection in my life constantly. Keeping the law of chastity definitely means some hard moments, but it’s not an every-day hard.” She continues, “I believe this path of staying in the church, having a temple recommend, and having a person in my life, allows me to be the best version of myself, which is what I believe God wants. I feel lucky to have landed here, for a long time I didn’t think this was possible. Whether it’s possible for the duration of life, I don’t know. But I’m sure grateful for all the joy and peace in my life right now and hope other LGBTQ church members can find the same peace, whatever their path looks like.”
