Trigger Warning: suicide, drug abuse
In the south of France, church looks different. The religious are rare, and LDS members even more so. And if you happen to find yourself an LGBTQ family in an LDS ward in France, you likely have earned the title of pioneer. Such is the case for Nathalie* and Paul*, who raised their three (now young adult) boys, Etienne*, Pierre* and Jules*, in a congregation of about 120 people. They live in a very large city whose residents wonder why they dress up on Sundays. But for Paul, who was raised LDS in Belgium, where his father was in a stake presidency for 36 years, and Nathalie, who converted to the church at 18 after letting missionaries in to talk to her and her sister “just to be polite,” the two value their religion. They also claim that their individual missions (his to Salt Lake City, her to London) cemented their foundational spiritual beliefs.
Paul and Nathalie met at a young adult conference when he was 22, and she was 26. They defied European norms, marrying young and raising three children. They have always been active in the church and were serving as stake YW and YM presidents when their middle son, Pierre, came out as gay. Pierre was 16, and when his parents talked to him about going on a mission, he broke down in tears. He begged them not to hang their hopes on him. Pierre revealed he had known since he was four or five that he was gay, but had been afraid if his parents found out, they would kick him out of the house. This broke his parents’ heart; they considered themselves a loving family. His parents took him in their arms and cried with him, saying, “We love you, you are our son and we will always love you for who you are.”
Nathalie says she was surprised Pierre was gay because he had always been into “boyish games and fighting.” She says, “We couldn’t make the connection and thought this wasn’t possible. We actually almost didn’t talk about it for a year.” When they finally did, Nathalie decided to read all the resources she could and requested her father-in-law translate some of the books about LDS-LGBTQ that had been printed in English, including Ty Mansfield’s In Quiet Desperation, Carol Lynn Pearson’s Goodbye, I Love You, and Voices of Hope (various authors), which she found most hopeful due to all the various perspectives it offered.
“We didn’t know one other family in the church with a gay kid at the time,” says Nathalie. They were driving blind, and Nathalie is convinced that Pierre having to live with burying his fear and shame for so long contributed to his depression. But he still strived to maintain his spirituality. Even after Pierre came out, he maintained a desire to serve a mission, which made his mom nervous. She had become friends with two women who both had gay sons who came out on their missions, and ultimately each young man took his own life. This was obviously devastating. Nathalie told Pierre, “If you go on a mission, it’s because you’re deciding that. If you don’t, it’s fine. If you serve just one month, or two or six, that’s fine. Whenever you feel you can’t stand it anymore, you come back.” Nathalie was happy to receive notes from members in Pierre’s mission in California telling her how much they loved him, and things seemed to be going well.
But one day, Pierre revealed his struggles of rooming with homophobic companions who said “bad stuff all day about gay people and he was fed up,” Nathalie says. “He’d tell me, ‘I’m teaching the Plan of Salvation, but I don’t know if I have a place. Where’s God putting me in the plan’?” And then he shared, “Today I had the thought that if a truck passes by my bike, I might turn into it.” Nathalie immediately called the mission president, and shared her son’s orientation and suicidal ideation struggles. The president “very lovingly” gave Pierre permission to call his parents every day if needed, and emotionally released him from feeling the obligation to stay if it was not what was in his best interests.
Pierre went home one week later, and Nathalie said, “That was the beginning of our hell.” Struggling to feel like he belonged in the LDS community (in which he couldn’t see a future, feeling like living a life alone would never fulfill him), nor feeling compatible with the gay community in France, who were more promiscuous than he wanted to be, Pierre expressed he wanted to go to the states – and in particular, Utah – where he felt he could meet more people like himself: gay men with LDS backgrounds. His parents signed Pierre up for BYU Provo and bought him a plane ticket. It took one week for him to decide it was not the place for him, but his parents made him stick with his commitment for six months. In Provo, he ultimately met a “community of gay LDS—some single, some not. Some went to church; some didn’t.” Nathalie says Pierre felt he’d found his family. He’d say, “These people were raised exactly like me and have the same scars.”
But after the six months, Pierre went back to France, where he was met with incredulity by gay friends who couldn’t see why he’d want to stay in a church that made him feel dead inside. He fell into a deeper depression. Nathalie noticed that he seemed to do better when he was reading scriptures and praying, and told him as much. “Even if you reject the church, you don’t have to throw out all spiritual things. Don’t kill the light which is your relationship with the divine.” But as things transpired, the church began representing everything painful for Pierre, and he would lash out at his parents, asking how they could remain a part of an organization that hurt him. Nathalie held up eight fingers and responded, “I have ten fingers. These eight are all these things that I love in the church, and there are maybe two I don’t understand or agree with. But I need the other eight for balance in my life. It’s not that I love the church more than you, I just need to stay balanced.” Pierre processed this and said he understood, and Nathalie says he no longer challenges her beliefs. As Pierre has continued to struggle with his mental health, Nathalie tells him, “I’d rather have my son alive than a dead Mormon.”
She has observed that the church has made minor progress in the 11 years since Pierre came out. She says, “I believe they’re good people wanting to do something about the suffering. And what could they do? Allowing gay couples to marry and participate in the chapel, that would feel better.” Pierre has expressed the sentiment that, “Either way, they make it where they need to fix me or fix the church; you cannot believe in a society where you’re the wrong people.” Nathalie continues, “He believes God made him the way he is – I believe that, too. They don’t want to hear they’re wrong, or have to be fixed to be comfortable with church. They want to be in world where they’re accepted for how they are because they didn’t choose this. Young kids have prayed years and years with no results. They’ve prayed so much – nothing’s changed.”
Pierre began to use drugs around the age of 24 and his parents worried as they slowly picked up on odd behavior. In the past year, Pierre has become addicted to a drug that’s growing in popularity in Paris, especially in the LGBTQ community. It’s highly addictive, relatively cheap, enhances one’s sex drive, and is hard to come down from. In the spring, Nathalie intercepted Pierre at an especially down time and was able to get him into a psychiatric hospital for the summer, which required him to take a leave from his workplace. He has continued to seek treatment, including hypnotherapy, over the past several months, and as of late, has been coming home some weekends to help remove the temptation to party. Nathalie is hopeful, yet realistic. She has tried her best to advocate for their son, and helped secure the placement of different certified therapists to help improve the mental health situations in the LDS space throughout France. She admits she is hopeful to attend therapy herself, as she still feels quite alone in this, often wondering each week if he’ll make it through another weekend with his addiction. While she wanted to protect the privacy of her family for this story (and thus names* have been changed), Nathalie feels, “It’s less heavy when you talk about it.”
“Parenting is so hard when you don’t know how to save your son from all the bad stuff. Being gay is not a problem. But being gay plus being depressed and on drugs is hard – it becomes very hard.” Nathalie and Paul’s oldest son, Etienne, has also struggled with the situation, feeling somewhat responsible for being the first son to “quit church.” When he recently vented to his mom about his frustration with Pierre’s addictions, his father said his duty was to be Pierre’s best friend and to show loving, positive behavior. Etienne created a group chat with cousins in which they take turns sending encouraging messages every day. Nathalie notes that since they began, Pierre has managed to stay off drugs for the past few weeks. She believes, “Love is the key!”
Nathalie and Paul are also trying to address the reality of the LDS LGBTQ youth in their area who still feel they must hide. They have offered firesides and trainings throughout various wards to share their experience and resources, but Nathalie says she feels not everyone has yet caught their vision or reality. She says, “Most are more open-minded and understand the need to open our hearts and our spaces to gay people, but the idea of gay couples in the church is still difficult.” She feels each ward should call someone—a stone catcher--whose sole job is to take care of the LGBTQ members to ensure they feel comfortable. While optimistic about the future, Nathalie feels that now, “France is just at the beginning of the beginning.”
