Thomas Auseuga was born and raised in Australia and currently lives in Brisbane; however, having spent the last three months in Utah has made him consider a permanent move to the states. “I think I’ve met more LGBTQ+ people in one month here than I have in five years in Australia.” Thomas brought a trademark jar of Vegemite with him to share with new friends, and it must have worked, as he bonded with many at September’s Gather conference in Provo. Thomas loved Gather, but said going to church the following Sunday, even in Utah, felt like a harsh reality that things aren’t quite where he wishes they were just yet. However, Thomas feels called to the space he’s in at the moment—being an openly gay, outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ+ community within the LDS church. But that doesn’t always make it easy.
Read MoreCLARE DALTON
As a child, Clare Dalton would watch her dad go off to teach seminary or institute and ask if she, too, might be able to do that one day. His answer was no, as back then, the church encouraged women to stay home with their families. “That made sense,” Clare says, considering all she’d observed at the time. But after growing up in Arizona, Clare would pursue many opportunities. She served an LDS mission in Barcelona, studied linguistics at the University of Arizona while coaching high school girls’ basketball and a variety of middle school sports, worked at a group home, used her bilingual skills to teach driver’s ed, did door to door sales—which she says is everything they say it is (lots of money, lots of crazy), then ultimately ended up back in her parents’ basement, wondering what was next. One day, her father asked her to substitute teach a seminary class. This time, there was space for a woman in that classroom and Clare had an awakening—finally able to combine her two passions of teaching and working with kids. Clare spent the next eight years being called Sister Dalton in Gilbert, Arizona high schools where parents and students regularly asked for their kids to be placed in her seminary class. That is, until she came out as gay…