Tegan Zelano Blanchard has lived a lot of life in just 21 years. Tegan, or “Z” as he’s called by friends, is majoring in National Security studies with his foremost interest being in international relations. He hopes to work for the state department and go into diplomacy. But in this hot political climate, he’s quick to state, “I care much less about who’s in charge or how our national political system works, and much more about how to get clean water into under-resourced regions of South America, or how to get sex-education to rural communities that need it. I want my career to be focused on improving others’ quality of life.” He claims if he didn’t need to make money, he’d likely work for an NGO.
Tegan’s global awareness was certainly influenced by his parents, who both work in international business/relations themselves. He was raised bilingual (English and Spanish), and is the youngest of four kids–with his three older sisters all now married. Tegan spent the first nine years of his life in Utah, then moved to Costa Rica for a year, then back to Utah, then to Chula Vista, CA at age 11. When all his sisters had moved out and Tegan was a sophomore in high school, his parents felt strongly they needed to move to Ecuador for business opportunities. Despite this inspiration, it wouldn’t be until the summer before his senior year of high school that this prompting would come to fruition. His father had served a mission there, and the Blanchards started a series of businesses in Ecuador selling everything from carpet cleaning to dragon fruit, and sourcing chocolate and flowers. Their impression for the move felt divine, and after two years in Ecuador, Tegan’s parents were called to serve as bishop and still serve in that capacity.
But their kids all now live in Utah, with Tegan attending UVU with one of his sisters. He loves taking a sculpting class with her, and recently enjoyed going clubbing in Salt Lake with all his siblings. Having just returned from his mission in Argentina three months ago, Tegan is full of life and eager to enter this next chapter. While there were dark periods in his life, he now exudes optimism and purpose.
Ever since a young age, Tegan said he felt “an inherent, extreme closeness to God in a way that isn’t entirely normal.” Now defining God as Them/his Heavenly Parents, Tegan remembers playing on his bed at age five and talking to God as if They were right there with him. He also felt very aware of himself and the way he’s built. With a high propensity to love others, Tegan always loved love—from romcom movies to having at least three different crushes on girls in elementary school, when that seemed to be the thing to do.
As puberty ensued, Tegan began to notice he felt something much more profound for people of his same sex. At age 12, he told his bishop he was attracted to boys. The bishop responded that it was probably just hormones, that things would change and he’d be fine. Tegan says, “Even though that was not a helpful response, I’m not angry at him at all. I couldn’t have expected him to react in the best of ways given the lack of experience he probably had.” Tegan felt he needed to tell his parents, who he says were not homophobic, but not necessarily educated on the topic either. He still spent about five years having moments of pacing outside their room to drum up the courage. During that process, he’d stare into their large mirror and think about how they saw some of him, but not all of him.
The Blanchards lived in California in 2016, when President Obama legalized same-sex marriage. Tegan remembers that time as a hot debate in which he felt his church community was against him, while his school community was for him. “I thought, they’re debating me—I’m the topic of the debate,” he recalls. But he also tried to remain in a state of outward denial. Tegan says most of his queer friends grew up hearing hard things from relatives, and while he loves that his middle name is his great-grandfather’s and loves his extended family, he recalls a close relative telling him that gay marriage was an attack on the family. As a young child, he interpreted that to mean he was Satan’s attack on the family. But all things considered, Tegan said he had a happy, idealistic childhood with a loving family.
Having never experienced depression before, 2020 wrecked Tegan. When the pandemic hit, he was in a “difficult but growing” relationship with a girl, especially because they were both struggling deeply with their mental health. They ended up cutting it off just before his depression began to take hold. “I remember this was the first time in my life I felt absolutely no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel. I felt God less than any other part of my life. Though looking back, I can see just how intimately They were involved.” The Blanchards moved around a lot during this period—to five different homes just during the pandemic. Politically, Tegan felt an intense connection to the pains of marginalized groups he saw online. Feeling the impact of George Floyd’s death, he became involved in BLM, and he started experiencing a faith crisis, questioning the history of racist policies in the church, as well as limitations against women and LGBTQ+. “Something within me cried out so desperately for the pleas of these people. I can’t compare the experiences side by side; each is distinct with its own challenges. But my heart bled so deeply for people struggling to find a place, because I too had felt that pain of feeling like there was no place for me.”
In 2021, when he was 17, Tegan’s parents sat him down to listen to a podcast about sex “to make the topic less taboo.” At that point, Tegan finally decided five years of carrying his stress alone was too much. He’d had some practice, having come out to three or four friends prior, which helped prepare him to face his parents at the end of the podcast and say, “I’m going to throw you a curveball at you right now… I think I’m bisexual.” He says his parents replied with a huge embrace, tears, and “so much unadulterated love.” He was then able to open up and share what it had been like. His parents advised him to focus on girls, but he says moving forward, that advice didn’t prove to be helpful and the topic didn’t come up much again. Tegan’s sisters and brothers-in-law also responded with full support on video calls in which he told each of them, one by one. He’s not sure if they found it a surprise, as he says his interests had always been more artistic, and he recalls his cousin overhearing his parents talking about him at age eight and wondering if he might be gay because he was “very effeminate” as a kid—something Tegan at times was bullied for. When his cousin told him that, Tegan remembers breaking down sobbing and then trying to act more masculine from then on out. Though now, he’s comfortable saying he believes he was born gay,
The day Tegan and his parents decided to move to Ecuador was the same day his friends in California called saying school was canceled due to the global pandemic. But it wasn’t until June of 2021 that they landed in their new home country. The Blanchard’s initial residence in Ecuador was in a dangerous area and his mom was robbed at knife point while going to the gym. After so much transition, and now continued isolation with COVID-19, Tegan says this was the most overwhelming time in his life, grappling with his faith crisis, sexuality and the uncertainty of his living situation mixed with extreme limitations on his ability to socialize with people of his age. Yet, he endured.
In Ecuador, Tegan’s faith crisis culminated with the figurative breaking of the shelf. Harboring internalized homophobia made the cognitive dissonance worse, and church became a difficult place in which he felt so “othered” that there were times he’d stay outside the chapel, sobbing. Yet, watching queer-affirmitive media like Love, Simon and Heartstopper, reading queer novels, and hanging out with queer friends, made Tegan begin to feel less “othered.” He remembers countless nights on his knees praying desperately, not angry at God, but “so worn out feeling so much pain and hurt in the silence.”
That Thanksgiving, Tegan’s sisters all came to visit and held an intervention. They were worried about Tegan’s mental health because to them, “the light had gone out of [his] eyes.” He confirmed he didn’t want to take his life, but felt he had been in darkness with no hope for so long, that he had nothing to live for. Looping in their parents, Tegan’s dad eagerly agreed to support him pursuing therapy, and Tegan says meeting with life coach Jill Freestone (online) made all the difference. Tegan loved how her approach is affirmative both toward the church and the queer community, and in his first session, she centered their work on a more expansive view of God and Heavenly Mother, with which Tegan identified deeply. Tegan now says, “Learning about the Divine Feminine kept me alive spiritually at that time.”
After finding some healing, Tegan went to visit his sisters in Utah and felt “free” for the first time in two years – free to drive, to go out at night, to see people. For the first time, he made out with a girl and “kept his standards,” but did “just about everything fun one could do that’s still legal.” This time, when he went back to Ecuador, his parents had moved to an incredible house with a pool in a safer area, and he was able to design his bedroom with posters and LED lights, just the way he wanted. They could now go outside without getting robbed. Continuing to work with Jill, Tegan moved forward with his mission papers which he says felt “batsh!t crazy” amid his faith crisis; but he felt a desire to proceed in a tentative but trusting mindset. A 2022 talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks set him back and made him want to give up, but Tegan felt propelled by the wisdom in Jared Halverson’s words, “Don’t let a good faith crisis go to waste.” Following the hard talk, after more than a year of intense bitterness, Tegan hit the point of apathy and screamed at heaven, “I just don’t understand!” At that exact moment, his sister in another country texted him: “They love you.” Tegan screamed up again, “What am I supposed to do now?” He got another text from his sister: “So much.” Tegan says, “It was so precise and perfect in timing that I couldn’t see it as anything but divine. Although I didn’t receive a specific answer like I was hoping for, I felt that a knowledge of Their infinite love would be enough to keep moving forward.”
“Even in apathy, I thought, ‘If God loves me this much, I could go serve’,” says Tegan. His parents gave him autonomy to make his own choices, and supported him as he later was called to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Right before he left, Tegan again went to Utah for some fun with his sisters, and this time he kissed his first boy—which felt important to him, to affirm you can be queer and a faithful member. He says, “Part of it was a ‘take that’ to so many years of pain. I wanted to show I can be me and a disciple of Christ. A week later, I went through the temple and was endowed. There, I better was able to understand that God is much more expansive than we define Them to be. I still have so much left to learn.”
Tegan says his experience in the Mexico MTC was brutal, but he loved every minute of his mission, where he grew close to his mission leaders and spent a lot of time serving in the office. As he prepared his farewell talk, he says he felt the first spark of the joy of the gospel in two years, something that he had deeply missed during the darkest moments of his depression and faith crisis. He realized he could focus on talking about Christ during his two year service. And that’s what he did. He says, “My faith crisis redefined my relationship with the Savior and got it to a place where I could really reach people… I learned how to more deeply love God, others, and myself and developed the divine gifts of empathy and charity. I recognize others have had hard experiences serving a mission and I weep with them and validate their pain. But for me, it was life-changing.”
Now having been home for three months, Tegan is “going on a ton of dates and learning so much about myself and how I was made, and more about God and the way I connect with Them.” Though he originally came out as bisexual, he is learning that attraction is more complicated than he anticipated and definitely leans towards men. Above all, however, he’s most interested in dating people willing to invest in a personal relationship with God, saying, “That has led me to my kind of people, those who are genuinely searching for a connection with the Divine. But if they’re in a potent faith crisis or on a different part of their faith journey than me, that’s still okay.”
Tegan says he is wholeheartedly committed to “living the life and future God would have for [him], no matter what that is.” Though he doesn’t believe that necessarily means marriage to a woman in the temple is the only way. “If God says, ‘I want you to always stay close to me and marry a man that you love,’ or if God says, ‘Here’s the perfect woman for you’, so be it. I trust Them way more than I trust myself.” Tegan continues, “I had made certainty an idol of sorts; it had become my God as I sought after it looking for peace and comfort. It was only when it was taken away from me in those two years of intense darkness that I came to realize only God can give me lasting peace. It was God’s way of teaching me to make Them my God and idol. And I now know more than ever that my future is much brighter as I keep my Heavenly Parents as my focal point and closest confidants.”
