This past week found Spencer Smith, 31, strolling through his favorite place on earth, churro in hand, as he worked his way from Big Thunder to Guardians of the Galaxy with a group of friends. “Disneyland is the only place I know of where a full-grown man can run up to a character and no one bats an eye.” For Spencer, it’s a welcome escape, and the “one place I can completely be myself, and no one even looks twice.”
Most weeknights, Spencer’s location is the new Spanish Fork, UT hospital ER where he works as the attending pharmacist, ready to administer whatever life-saving medicine may prove necessary for car accident survivors or “people who decide breathing is an optional activity.” It’s a job he loves. In his spare free moments, he can often be found in his epic game room, where over 300 board games from Settlers of Catan to Carcassonne line the walls. The one place he never thought he'd be, however, was at last year’s Gather—a Christ-centered conference for hundreds of LDS, LGBTQ+ individuals and those who love them. For Spencer, attending Gather at first felt uncomfortable—like taking something he had accepted but wasn’t happy about and celebrating it. His orientation was something Spencer had never envisioned could or would be celebrated within the LDS context.
But one day, his close friend Nicole forced him to pull out his phone and register online for the conference, promising she would go with him and telling him, “You’re doing this, even if you only go for an hour.” Spencer decided to volunteer for “all the jobs” at Gather that weekend, knowing that keeping busy might alleviate some of the pressure of being there. He was pleasantly surprised to see his mom also sign-up last minute to attend, which took away some of his stress and anxiety. Between his volunteer duties, Spencer absorbed words by speakers that finally gave terminology to how he had been feeling for years. He took in how many people were there, and realized he didn’t have to walk this path alone. While he says he didn’t come away from the conference with a ton of lasting friendships, Spencer committed to attending again this fall because he wants to be there this time and volunteer, and not because he needs to be distracted. He also appreciates how Gather opened up the line of communication with his mom, as they now have a shared reference point of language for him identifying as gay.
Spencer was born in Provo, a BYU baby raised in a family with a father who served as bishop and an uncle who served as stake president. A self-described “nerd,” which to him is a good thing, (“Nerds are my people”), Spencer says he was terrible at sports. Unlike his brother, he preferred reading, brain puzzles, “things that kept him inside.” His family lived in California during Prop 8, and while Spencer knew he might be gay by then (in his sophomore year), he pushed against it so hard during this time, constantly defending his church’s position on Prop 8 to hostile opposition by teachers and friends at school. He remembers thinking, “I didn’t know you could have a testimony and still disagree with something,” though he remembers a conversation with his dad about why the church was fighting so hard against the definition of a word. His father explained that while the church’s positions wouldn’t stop same sex unions, Prop 8 would protect the word marriage, saying, “We don’t care if they’re together; we just don’t want them to use that term, which is sacred.” Looking back, Spencer says he now recognizes the dissonance that unsettled him at the time for what it was: denial.
Highly academic, Spencer majored in biology while attending BYU for a year before and the three years after his South Dakota Rapids mission – both experiences he loved. He says he never dated much compared to his peers, and he was glad he “got out of BYU when I did—so I didn’t have to deal with all the recent stuff,” indicating the polarizing LGBTQ+ policy shifts of the past few years. After doing a 12-page report on pharmacists during the 12th grade, Spencer decided it would make a great career choice and later graduated from pharmacy school in West Jordan in 2020, leading him to his current vocation.
Around the same time, Spencer decided to finally come out as gay to a few friends and cousins. In early 2021, he started telling more friends, but continuously found excuses to delay telling his immediate family, saying that whenever the opportunity presented itself, he’d think, “Well I need to leave--bye!” And run. Though anxious, Spencer says he knew his parents would be supportive, but, “It was still terrifying to have that conversation.” That September, he pulled his parents into a bedroom at their house and came out to them. His mom was “not very surprised,” which Spencer says makes sense considering how he grew up, loving all things Disney and Broadway. He remembers his father’s first response being along the lines of “This doesn’t change anything; you’re still you and we love you.” Spencer texted his four younger siblings later that night, and says they handled it well. He was a little more nervous to come out to his huge extended family (his parents have 21 siblings between them), realizing that would minimize his ability to control the narrative. They, too, proved supportive, besides a little jocular teasing among cousins. Next, Spencer decided to post online, where he was met by overwhelming support, with some friends coming out privately to him in return. He was also touched to find out his mom and some friends were monitoring the comments his post received to protect him, but there ended up being no need. All were kind.
When Spencer’s dad got a job transfer to St. George, his mother became distracted with her other kids’ needs and felt she had abandoned Spencer a bit until she received a prompting in the temple that “He’s going to be fine.” This reassured her she could be confident all would go well for Spencer, which he says was “awesome for her to hear, and for me to hear now. And I have been fine—it all worked out.” He appreciates how his father has also been there to support him every time he came out or had to take a step outside of his comfort zone, and has vocally defended Spencer and other LGBTQ+ people in many settings. Spencer says, “It is easier to trust myself when I know how quickly my family will get behind me if things go south.” Spencer also credits a great therapist for helping him gain skills and tools that have helped him decrease his sense of anxiety about what his future might look like. “Everything used to feel terrifying and overwhelming. Now, I don’t know what my life is going to look like, but that’s ok. I have the support I need.”
His original plan to stay single for the rest of his life, Spencer says he is now more open to the possibility of dating. He remains “very active” in the church, currently attending a mid-singles ward, “having reached the terrible age I can’t go to a YSA ward.” While he can almost blend in as “one of 900 other single guys in my ward,” he says it can be hard being in a church space where so much of the focus is on getting people married and building families. “Sometimes I think hmm, not everyone’s in that boat. Some are gay or just got out of traumatic breakups. Sometimes church can be a little tricky with people not intending to cause harm, but still making harmful comments.” When his orientation comes up when conversations turn to dating, Spencer finds himself wondering if his orientation will change how people interact with him.
While he grew up always believing that whatever the church said was law, Spencer says he now realizes he doesn’t have to agree with everything said over a pulpit, but can still maintain a testimony. He says, “Overall the church is still a huge part of my life, and I don’t anticipate that changing anytime soon… But when my friends leave, it doesn’t change anything between us. I know who they are as a person… If I were to stop attending, I’d still likely have my testimony… I would never ask anyone in my family to give it up.”
At a recent family wedding, for the first time, Spencer said, “If I ever get married, we’re doing (this) differently.” His mother turned and repeated that to an aunt, saying, “When Spencer gets married...” Spencer says his parents are reaching a point where they anticipate him dating men and have said they will fully love and support whoever he brings home. He also senses the eagerness of his aunts to set him up, as they often approach him with invitations like, “We have this friend whose son just came out and he’s super cute…” Spencer appreciates the gestures, saying, “My family’s been awesome.”
If he could go back in time, Spencer says, “I did the dumb thing and tried to figure it all out on my own, presuming if I attacked it with everything I had, I’d be able to change who I was or figure out a world in which I could make it work.” But as he started to open up to people and build a support group, Spencer appreciated how he could fall back on his friends when things got hard and say, “I’m drowning; I need back up to talk through some of my thoughts.” Spencer has also started his own monthly Gather scripture study group, and attends another friend’s each month. As he’s expanded this social network to include the possibility of a wider net, Spencer says, “It sounds cheesy, but the Gather conference literally changed my entire life. It showed me there are other people like me, and that while church life isn’t perfect, it’s doable. There are always people who will help and support you. You just have to find them.”
