Char Ahlstrom of Los Alamitos, CA knows what it feels like to “do all the things.” She and her husband Tom had devotedly raised their six kids in the LDS faith where they both served faithfully in the church. In fact, Tom was serving as their stake president and Char was teaching early morning seminary in 2014, the year they found out their fourth child, Kyle, was gay. Soon after, Char read a message on an open computer screen that made her wonder if her youngest son might be gay. Char is the first to admit they perhaps did not initially handle these news flashes as well as they should have. But she now often shares her story of growth and shifting perspective, hopeful it may ease others on similar journeys who realize doing “all the things” means nothing if they lose sight of what it really means to love.
When Kyle, now 32, first told his mom (six months after returning home from his mission) that he was bisexual, she says she wasn’t entirely surprised. She’d had inklings, but never talked about it. She observed he liked girls in high school, but never had a girlfriend. Whenever other possibilities presented, Char says, “I always pushed it away, believing, ‘I could never have a gay child because we are doing all the things in church’.” She’s embarrassed now to admit that at the time Kyle came out, she and her husband told him to just “keep up the façade”--that if he was bisexual, he could still remain active in the church, marry a woman, and pursue that path.
A few months later, when Kyle revealed he was actually gay, not bi, he still wanted them to believe he intended to marry a woman and stay in the church. In the months after his mission and during what he calls “the days of growing darkness in my soul,” Kyle visited the Salt Lake Temple often. He says, “I did as Nephi had done, ‘I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord.’ I did not go to ask anything particular of God, I wasn’t looking for permission to come out; no such endeavor was in my mind. I knew the path and the promises I had made and was committed to keep them even unto death, which with suicidal ideation, was coming quicker than it should. I simply went to the temple to cry, knowing I needed the Lord’s strength to carry on.”
While participating in an endowment session, Kyle says his mind wandered to a place it hadn’t before. He clearly saw his own wedding day, and to his surprise it wasn’t in the temple and it wasn’t to a woman. Kyle says, “It was to a talk dark haired man; we stood hand in hand under an oak tree near a pond. Feeling this fantasy must be a temptation from the enemy, I cast the thought out of my mind, trusting it had no place in the Lord’s house.” But the vision came back two more times. Kyle dutifully pushed the thought out a second time but by the third, he says, “The scene had rested upon my mind so gently, the way a parent’s guiding hand might lightly aid a child learning to walk, that I didn’t notice the delight of a smile, pure and powerful, had stretch across my face for the first time in months. And I heard a voice say only the word ‘Yes’.” That permission through revelation received in the mountain of the Lord’s House softened and sustained Kyle’s heart. He says, “I had been visited three times, and knowing what happens when you deny the Lord three times, I determined I would no longer bitterly weep; I had made enough of that noise. I knew from that moment on with the conviction of Moses taking off his shoes before the burning bush that my promise and my path now was to put off the shame I had been steeped in for years, was to welcome this new and everlasting vision for my life, and was to say only ‘Yes’ to love.”
Other facets of his story are “his to tell,” says Char, but this was a time in which they worried about his mental health as he struggled with depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. An eye-opening, life changing moment for Char was when one of her sons said to her, “I’d rather have a gay brother than a dead brother.” That’s when Char started to realize as much as she loved her son, she needed to find a way to accept and support him better. Kyle started seeing a psychologist and started medication. Soon after, he started making his way out of church. The family started noting positive changes in Kyle as he seemed happier and more at peace with himself. As he started dating men, Char remembers “kind of wanting to know” details about his dating life, but feeling too scared to ask. One day, Kyle said, “Mom, if you want to know something, you’ve gotta come straight out and ask.” For her, it wasn’t easy, but she did. Since, she’s been able to have open conversations with both of her gay sons about everything from dating concerns to HIV prevention best practices, which she appreciates.
While Kyle opened Char’s mindset, it was still very hard for her when she discovered the boy her youngest son, Keith, had been messaging was actually his boyfriend. She admits she “did not handle things very well. At the time, I thought, I’m dealing with one son who is gay who I’m loving and supporting, though not happy with all his choices. And now I have another?” Char remembers trying very hard to push both her gay sons to stay active in the church, believing that while the Savior wouldn’t change this part of them, that He would “lead them in a better direction than I thought they were heading. I was so scared and worried for them and couldn’t believe this was happing to us. We were that typical, conservative Mormon family.”
The night Keith told Tom and Char that he was gay, she opened her scriptures to D&C 78:18 and read: “You cannot bear all things now, nevertheless, be of good cheer for I will lead you along.” Char says it was such a comfort that “God did know how hard it was for me!” She struggled with how to be of good cheer when it seemed like things were falling apart. But, as a seminary teacher, when she learned that in some translations “good cheer” meant “have courage,” she says, “then I realized that’s what He was telling me – to have courage and He would lead me along and I wouldn’t lose my eternal family, which I was worried about. He did lead me along; he led me to new thoughts and ideas and people to reach me. After many years, I see very clearly how God has led me along.” Later in the temple, Char contemplated another rift in testimony she’d experienced, now believing that her children were gay and that wouldn’t change with any amount of therapy. So if that was true, and knowing what the church taught, she wondered if God actually did make mistakes. But in the temple that day, she was told the only thing she needed to do was to love her children and trust that God loved them.
At the time, Char was experiencing turbulence with all her kids – including some moving around the world and three of the six leaving the church. One day, she was listening to a podcast on which Tom Christofferson shared that what children need is for parents to both love them and accept them where they are. That was a switch in Char’s thinking, having believed people needed to do certain things to be met with approval. She explains, “So I didn’t feel I could love them where they were because it wasn’t where I wanted them to be. But the Spirit said, ‘No, you need to see them where they are and love and trust that they’ll make decisions for their life that are best. They’re not alone.’ The biggest change for me was to accept them and their decisions.”
Char says she was taught by the Spirit and came to understand that Kyle and Keith were not some kind of mistake. “I was taught that who they are, who they love, is exactly how God made them. Their sexual orientation is not something they need to endure in this life, and it will be gone in the next. That was a huge revelation to me and changed everything going forward. That understanding, for me, took much of the fear away. I personally came to understand that a loving God will include ALL. So when he said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone,’ it meant ALL humans in this world. I think eternity is going to look much different, way more expansive than we are taught. I have asked in prayer many times if I am wrong, deceived even, and every time, I get the same answer: ‘No, you are not deceived’.” Char loves that so many other parents express they’ve been taught the same about their LGBTQ kids. “I’m not alone!”
Around this time, Char’s husband was released as stake president, and despite Keith no longer participating in church after a rough semester at BYU-Idaho, he was invited to lunch by the new Long Beach stake president, Emerson Fersch, who said he just wanted to get to know him. Char says President Fersch was so kind and loving in response to Keith telling him he was gay, and asked him to speak at stake conference and share his experience. Keith didn’t want to do that, but after receiving a warm, knowing hug from their new leader in the hallway at church, Char suddenly had an impression she should speak at stake conference. Turns out that inkling manifested when she was soon after asked to speak about her journey as the mom of two gay kids.
In front of her stake, Char shared the nuance and cognitive dissonance she’d developed, and afterwards, many confided in her that that was also their experience. One man reached out to say, “I have a daughter who’s a lesbian and I don’t speak to her anymore. What do I do?” Char replied, “Call her! Still today, people call me for advice.” When asked to speak in Elders Quorum a few years ago about her experiences, an 85-year-old man raised his hand and acknowledged, “If I’m understanding this correctly, you’re saying WE need to change, that our hearts need to change and we need to be more loving?” Afterward, another man came up and said, “I understand what you’re saying but that’s not what the church is teaching.” Char replied, “Welcome to my world.”
Under President Fersch’s leadership and efforts by families like the Ahlstroms to have LGBTQ+ FHE and ally nights, the Long Beach stake became known as a friendly place for members who’d been pushed out of other congregations. When Covid shut things down, the groups stopped and they unfortunately have not restarted with a new stake presidency. While they still attend church as visible allies, Char says most of her and her husband’s interactions with other parents in their situation happen one-on-one.
While living in Utah, Kyle started to date one young man in particular. At first, Char felt scared to meet Chandler because she knew Kyle really liked him, but after she got to know him, she had no doubts this man was good for Kyle and she says she could see him as a “part of our family.” The shock of this realization made Char reflect, “What an interesting journey I’m on.” After dating for five years, in 2020, Kyle and Chandler married not under an oak tree by a pond but under the redwoods by a stream, with all the Ahlstroms in attendance. Char knew she supported it financially and emotionally, but wondered how she’d feel spiritually. She’d read an article about a BYU professor who wrote about how he’d felt the spirit at his daughter’s wedding to a woman, and Char says at her own child’s ceremony, she also “felt God’s love there.” Now when she looks back on the rhetoric she used to believe, how gay marriage would be “the downfall of our society and wreck traditional marriage,” Char reflects on all she’s learned watching Kyle and Chandler, who “go to work, come home, plant a garden, take care of their house, go for walks with their dogs” as they build a life and family. Kyle works as a photographer and Chandler is an event planner who has worked at Sundance. They love living near the mountains and getting outside in Utah where they reside.
Back in California, Keith and his partner of four years, Derek, live in Los Angeles, where Keith works for a production company, and Derek is a “very talented” filmmaker and director. Their relationship started as roommates when they both moved into an apartment with a woman. While Char was first apprehensive about who Keith might date in LA, she now says, “Derek is part of our family.”
Of her growth, Char says, “One thing I look back on now is how I was scared to be curious, to ask questions, because I didn’t want to hear answers. But now I see how wrong I was. They wanted me to ask questions, to want to know. I advise parents not to be afraid to be curious, to ask questions and try to understand where they’re coming from. Your kids are still the same people they were yesterday or before you found out they were LGBTQ+. Love them, accept them as best as you can. Trust them.” Recently, a man approached Char for advice about his trans daughter. She put him in touch with other friends with trans kids and advised him to “accept her, call her by her preferred pronouns, do all you can to love and accept her for who she is right now. God will give you peace about that.”
As most parents do, Tom and Char think that all of their children are wonderful people and greatly respect each of them. What was once fear and worry about Kyle and Keith has grown to a vast appreciation for everything those two in particular have taught them about love for everyone.
The exclusion policy of 2015 was the first time Char had ever questioned a prophet, and she says this has all made her look at leaders differently, and taught her it’s okay to question things. Now she has three children out of the church who maybe sometimes wish their parents weren’t so active (one of them jokes, “hate the sin, love the sinner” regarding his parents’ attendance at a church he finds non-affirming). But the Ahlstroms remain close, and siblings Kevin and his wife Bree, Krista and her husband Tallon, Kasey and his wife Didi, and Kenny, as well as Char and Tom’s seven grandchildren, all embrace Keith and Kyle. They gather every year for a reunion, where Char says they enjoy being around each other and she especially likes the brothers’ fun competitiveness. Nowadays, the Ahlstroms’ list of doing “all the things” prioritizes love, togetherness, and inclusion.
After her kids first stepped away from the church, Char learned how to respect their various journeys and to trust they’d all find their best paths forward. But she worried that first year about how to handle things like holidays and mealtime prayer and family Christmas traditions, which had once been so spiritually centered in their home. She didn’t want to offend or alienate anyone. Recently though, when Char talked to Kyle about coming home for Christmas this year and which traditions she could incorporate to “not make it weird,” he assured her, “I’m better with that stuff now. We can do the Nativity. I kinda like that story.”
