THE BURTON FAMILY

July 28, 2022

One night, when Holly Burton was tucking her 6-year-old son Sam into bed, he looked up at her with his imploring blue eyes and said, “Mom, I have a question and you have to tell me the truth. Am I adopted?” Holly responded, “No, honey. I would tell you if you were adopted; why do you ask that?” Her son replied, “I don’t know, I’m just… different.”

It turns out Sam would experience a unique path from many of his peers, in more ways than one. “He was always a very creative, gentle, inquisitive and intelligent child,” says his mom. “He tested to be in a gifted program, but he wanted to stay at his regular school and be with his friends.”

Sam is the second of five children in the Burton Family. Throughout middle and high school, Holly says Sam didn’t identify himself as being gay, but later reasons that the guys he admired back then probably were crushes. He told her, “Our culture never provided me with a healthy framework to even conceive of being gay, so it was easy to dissociate and convince myself it wasn’t so.” Sam had lots of friends who were girls, but no girlfriends. Holly now laughs, “I always just thought he was so pure, he wasn’t going to kiss anyone before his mission.” Indeed, as he prepared to serve, Sam’s stake president told his parents, “I interview a lot of missionaries before they leave and really grill them – I want to tell you that Sam is one of the purest souls I’ve ever spoken with.”

Sam loved serving in one of the New York missions, and his friends and family loved receiving his “wonderfully entertaining letters.” Halfway through his mission, Sam began having what he thought were heart problems. He was put through a series of tests, but came to realize he was experiencing severe anxiety attacks. Sam was coming to the realization that he was gay and the cognitive dissonance that it created caused his body to react. He came out to a LDS services therapist as well as his mission president.

THE SMURTHWAITE FAMILY

December 16, 2021

“One afternoon when everyone was out of the house, I snuck into the back of my mother’s closet,” says David Smurthwaite of Salt Lake City, UT, recalling his childhood. “There was a really old dress tucked away I’d never seen my mom wear – and rightfully so – and I stole it away to my room along with collected dregs of makeup rejects from our guest bathroom. And there, behind a locked bedroom door, I first experimented with expression….

THE OSTERMILLER FAMILY

December 13, 2021

“It was just an average Tuesday, and probably the millionth time I’d picked Nicole up from soccer practice,” says Mike Ostermiller of Kayesville, UT. Driving home, they were stuck in traffic, trying to make conversation. On Mike’s mind was a recent experience his wife Kristy had shared, after walking into Nicole’s room and finding her watching a video of two girls kissing. Mike decided it was time to bring it up. Nicole, who was 15 and struggling with depression at the time, didn’t come out and say the words “I’m gay” directly, but she made it clear to her dad that she was attracted to girls instead of boys. Mike says, “I had this moment that I don’t know that any parent plans for. I hadn’t.” But following his gut, Mike turned to his daughter and said, “Nicole, I appreciate you sharing that. I can tell that took a lot of bravery on your part. I love you, and we’re going to figure this out. I don’t know that I’m ready to have this conversation with you today. You’ve trusted me with this information, and I only get one chance to respond. I don’t want to screw it up.” With that, both exhaled and shelved the conversation….

THE TAYLOR FAMILY

November 4, 2021

“Our story starts with my brother’s, really,” says Amy Taylor of Idaho Falls. It was a cold Christmas Eve night in 2003. Amy’s husband Brooks was working the night shift at the sheriff’s office, so her fresh off his mission brother, Jamison came over to help Amy prep Christmas for her young kids. Once the kids had gone to bed, Jamison opened up to Amy. “He confided he’d been experiencing what he, at the time, called same sex attraction. I was completely surprised; it’s nothing I had ever considered. But in that moment, it changed everything I’d ever thought about gay people. I just felt bad he’d been living alone with this for so long. It made me feel closer to him and I appreciated him telling me. He asked me not to say anything because he planned to change his orientation, and didn’t want anyone knowing he had struggled with SSA,” Amy says.

THE CHAPMAN FAMILY

October 21, 2021

“It wasn’t a shock,” Susan Chapman says of her 21-year-old daughter, Sarah, coming out earlier this year. In fact, when Sarah was in high school, Susan tried to broach the subject herself with a “Hey, so…” Sarah would laugh and tell her friends, “My mom thinks I’m gay.” Susan now knows Sarah wasn’t ready to admit it just yet. Brought up LDS, Sarah was under the impression that perhaps it was something that might go away after she served a mission. But during her mission, Sarah realized this is who she is and it isn’t going anywhere. When she returned, she thought she might date guys, but quickly realized that also wasn’t going to work out. Shortly after, Susan visited her daughter for her birthday, and Sarah shared a particular Questions from the Closet podcast episode with her mom. Susan says she isn’t proud of how she responded at the time, and the next day apologized for not being as open as she would have liked. “When I went home from that trip, I really realized: my daughter is gay. Heavenly Father was preparing me.” She asked Sarah if anything was troubling her. Sarah replied, “I’m just dealing with some stuff.” Susan said, “You might as well tell me because I think you’ll feel better once you do. I already know, but you’re going to have to tell me.” Sarah said, “How did you know?” Susan said, “God told me.”…

The truth is, they were both dealing with a lot of really heavy stuff. In November of 2020, Susan’s husband Ryan had been diagnosed with colon cancer. He had lost his own father to a different form of cancer a year prior, and Ryan’s prognosis also did not look good. Sarah asked her mom not to tell her dad about her orientation, but Susan did – an action that upset her daughter, and the two did not speak for a few days, which was very out of character for them. But Susan needed the support of her spouse – her best friend, and most importantly, she knew that Sarah would need to know she had her dad’s support while he was still with them, if things were to go south.

Indeed, Ryan instantly expressed unconditional love for his daughter, and his own previous ideologies about what it meant to be gay changed on a dime once it hit home with his own daughter. Susan says he told her that up until that point, he wanted to believe it was a choice -- that if someone did not want to be gay, they could choose not to be. To each his own. But now, he knew that he had misunderstood…

THE SAIS FAMILY

October 14, 2021

“This is a season Rebecca and Jeff Sais have eagerly anticipated for a long time. Jeff comes from a multi-generational farming family; and after working for four decades in the agricultural business himself, he was able to retire in August. Now the couple is in Provo’s Missionary Training Center preparing to embark on 18 months of senior missionary service in Kentucky, where they have been tasked with developing the church’s ARP program -- an opportunity they say never would have happened if it weren’t for their testimony of the Savior that deepened through raising their daughter, Lindsey (41).

Lindsey is the oldest of her siblings, John – 39, Erin – 33, and Andy – 31. The Sais kids were all born in Idaho, and raised in Santa Maria, CA where they moved in ’93. Rebecca and Jeff have always strictly followed the principles of their LDS faith. As a child, Rebecca says Lindsey was very spiritual and obedient, super bright, and always loved school. She also loved looking for worms to sell and playing outside, and was the head of her T-ball team. She did not like pink or anything frilly. Rebecca now regrets that there were times she tried to encourage her daughter to wear her hair differently, or otherwise be something she wasn’t. After entering high school, Lindsey later got involved with friends who drank and smoke pot. She also had no interest in dating and never expressed wanting to do so. While her parents had suspicions about Lindsey’s reality, Rebecca says, “We were in denial. We didn’t talk about it. We tried to love and support her the best we knew how, but she had different ideas and became closed off.”

Long Beach State became Lindsey’s new home after high school, and in college, her drinking and drug use became a problem. She’d occasionally visit home, where house rules mandated she align with gospel living, and this caused some friction between her and her parents. While at school, Lindsey became involved with a (non-LDS) man, and the two married civilly in an LDS chapel. Afterwards, he joined the church, and at the urging of Rebecca and Jeff, the two took temple prep classes and were sealed. Lindsey’s husband was in the military which moved them to Hawaii. There, things spiraled downward fast. Lindsey hung out more and more with her gay friends, and ultimately came out to her husband (but not her parents). At Christmas, they told their families they were getting divorced.

THE FOGG FAMILY

October 7, 2021

Shortly after Michelle Fogg turned 20, she became active in the LDS church and received her patriarchal blessing. In it, she was blessed she’d have children “who will be special to the Lord” -- verbiage she found odd at the time, as she presumed all children fit that category. She wondered what might lie in store; and indeed, many unique experiences have come as Michelle and her husband, Steven, have expanded their family to include five children currently between the ages of 4 and 17. The Fogg children have a range of severe food allergies, rare medical disorders, mental health diagnoses, and giftedness. Emalee, now 17, was born with an array of medical problems that launched science-minded Michelle on a 10-year journey into the food allergy world.

Michelle started a non-profit and advocated for kids like hers in front of legislatures, created trainings for school nurses, served on national boards, and promoted education and safety for kids with life-threatening allergies on a local level. A decade of advocacy took its toll, and Michelle ultimately felt prompted to step back and center her care efforts in the home. It was soon after this time that her oldest daughter, Emalee, then 15, invited her mom to dinner to tell her, “I like girls, instead of boys.”…Saying these words brought Emalee tremendous relief. While this news rocked Michelle’s world, there was some relief that she was now in a place in which she could pivot to a whole new category of parental love, support, and understanding.

Michelle shared their daughter’s news with Steven, and together, they agreed to make it a top priority to continue to love and support Emalee, while pursuing further education and understanding. This time, however, Steven begged Michelle to not make their family a poster family for LGBTQ advocacy – not because they didn’t support their daughter, but because of the lingering PTSD from allergy-world exhaustion. Almost three years later, crediting the crucial connection and perspective she gained from listening to other people’s stories (mostly via Ostler’s Listen, Learn, and Love podcast), Michelle trusts it is the right time to share the signs and preparation she received along her daughter’s special journey. Because there were plenty.