(Content warning: references to the Club Q+ mass shooting and advocacy for victims of sexual assault and violence)
On Sundays, Jolene Gearhart of Colorado Springs is typically on call for a job that demands she sit with people undergoing unspeakable trauma—people who have found themselves suffering not in a church foyer, but in an emergency room or shelter or police car. As a volunteer victims’ advocate, it is Jolene’s duty to hold the hand of those who are often experiencing their very worst day—assuming they let her. As many of Jolene’s clients have just been rescued from domestic violence or sexual assault, physical touch is often the last thing they want. But Jolene makes it her mission to at least seek a moment where she can look them in the eye long enough to say, “This is hard work, but you are worth it. You deserve freedom, happiness, safety.” Jolene believes, “I can’t change the world, but I can try to give people hope.”
Last November, Jolene was called onto the scene of a horrific tragedy that hit too close to home. There had been a mass shooting at Colorado Springs’ only LGBTQ+ nightspot, Club Q, the night before Transgender Awareness Day. Three emergency rooms were swarming with people hoping to identify their loved ones on the lists of survivors. Jolene steeled herself to provide support to numerous families asking the toughest of questions. One family was unsure how to answer whether they were looking for a Jane Doe or a John Doe as their child identified as transgender—which ended up being an important distinguishing marker that night. Unfortunately, that family, along with four others, received the worst news—among the 24 injured by gunfire, their loved ones would not be coming home. It was a long week for Jolene as she worked alongside the care staff, hoping to do whatever she could to help her community heal. As a victims’ advocate, and the mother of an LGBTQ+ child, Jolene was uniquely qualified to serve in that unpleasant space—a role she says has only brought her closer to her Savior.
The Jolene Gearhart of six years ago might not recognize who she is today—an evolved figure of strength who works as an ally and advocate in spaces she once found foreign and uncomfortable. But when she looks back on all she’s learned since her oldest daughter came out, Jolene recognizes how far one can come to inhabit a space of love that also demands action. Just as she serves as a victims’ advocate, Jolene has taken it upon herself to speak out about how we can better love and serve the LGBTQ+ community--something she says she initially struggled to do, having been raised in an extremely by-the-book, LDS family.
Jolene and Thomas Gearhart’s oldest daughter, Alli (almost 24), broke the expectations of her conservative upbringing by choosing to not attend a church school after high school. Instead, she flew over Utah and further west to Laguna Beach, California, where she enrolled in the Laguna College of Art and Design. While Thomas was supportive of whatever school Alli chose, Jolene was anxious about who she might be surrounded by while taking comfort that at least, she’d have relatives nearby. Alli’s parents said they were thrilled to see her seemingly thriving in college. They were much less thrilled when Alli called them during spring break of her freshman year to tell her parents, “I think I’m bi.” (Alli now identifies as lesbian.) Jolene says Thomas was very calm about it, but that she “cried and cried; I spent a week in bed. I definitely said some things I wish I hadn’t—I know so much more now.”
Jolene spent those initial moments reflecting on her daughter’s high school years—chalking up her lack of dating interest to the fact there were few LDS options, and anything else would defy Alli’s strict “only date LDS members” upbringing. But Jolene considered how Alli also hadn’t seem very interested in church dances, or girls’ camp. Her mother had always figured that was because she was a little more introverted. Now, this same daughter was telling them she’d seen a movie she really identified with that had helped her come to terms with her orientation.
Jolene says, “I felt like I was grieving like a kid had died. It was hard for me to navigate.” Alli had told her siblings (Claire—now 21 and married to Brandyn, Ainsley—20, and Rainier—15) her news six months prior to telling her parents, and the kids all reacted well and were supportive of Alli, though they were upset at the tumultuous homelife they experienced navigating their parents’ emotions at the time. But her siblings were the first to say they’d understand if Alli left the church if it caused too much pain. Jolene says, “We asked dumb questions about LGBTQ issues, and wondered if her coming out might be because she was hanging out with other LGBTQ people—myths we had trained ourselves to believe to get away from accepting the community.” But as their new reality settled in, Jolene decided she needed to learn a little more, and began to look for resources. She says she remembers feeling like “a dirty kid” buying Richard Ostler’s book, Listen, Learn and Love. But as she read it, something sank in—the feeling that Ostler’s approach of listening, learning, and loving made common sense. Now it’s a book she recommends wholeheartedly and often.
When she asked her daughter why she didn’t say something sooner, Alli told her that due to the faith in which she’d been raised, it was all so off their radar, she never even thought she could know or explore something different than a heterosexual relationship. This is why Jolene tries to be an outspoken ally now and openly tell their story so hopefully, other LGBTQ+ kids will be able to learn and grow and process this part of them in their homes, under their parents’ tutelages, and not “after they’ve moved 800 miles away. Why are we sending kids out into the world to figure these things out? Adulthood is hard enough. I would have loved to have Alli by my side, and not having to figure this out on her own.” Jolene appreciates that in her former ward, there was a gay young man who the bishop took under his wing and designated as a quorum leader, embracing his authenticity. It’s sad to her Alli didn’t have a similar experience.
After facing a few tough years, Jolene is so proud that Alli has since graduated from college and is now working a “grown up job and can pay all her bills and live on her own. I never thought I’d be so thrilled to have a kid working, but I am. I love that she’s happy and busy working.” Alli tried to attend the singles ward near her college for a few months, but after a particularly painful talk on the Family Proclamation “broke her,” she ran out of the building crying and hasn’t been back since. Jolene says she’s fine with this now, but it saddens her how Alli’s at times struggled alone in California to figure things out. While shunning the idea of a loving God and sometimes struggling to share the interests of her family, Alli has joked she’s the “black sheep” of the family, having developed an affinity for crystals, tattoos, and is independently spiritual. Jolene says, “To me, to not believe in a Savior and Redeemer in life is heart-shattering and I worry. But she has a good head on her shoulders.”
Jolene says that now that Alli’s out of the church, she still recalls how “we judge people and what we think of people like her. Alli rightfully still fears that people discount what she has to say because she presumably ‘is following Satan.’ Alli grew up in it and says she values it, though it’s not for her.” Alli had always maintained a close relationship with her sister Ainsley, but things became a little awkward when Ainsley prepared to leave to serve an LDS mission to Mongolia in June of 2021. Jolene also felt a “ton of anxiety and conflicting feelings about Ainsley going. I’ve questioned why I’m sending a daughter out—though it was her choice—to preach and share the gospel when we now have very conflicting ideas? We say one thing and do another.”
Jolene found much comfort, though, and “felt seen by God” when Ainsley was called to a nametag-free mission to Mongolia where, rather than a proselytizing one, her mission emphasizes Christlike love through service. Ainsley is currently teaching English to kids and can only “missionary” if someone asks. Ainsley spends a couple hours each P-day on Facebook messenger with her mom and sisters, a time the women cherish. But church-centered experiences like these can still be hard for Alli—like when Claire recently got married in the temple and she had to wait outside. Jolene is very grateful more couples like Claire and Brandyn now prioritize civil wedding ceremonies in addition to temple services that can feel exclusive. She loves how both Alli and their son (who was 12 at the time) got to stand up and watch their sister exchange vows.
Claiming she “wears my emotions on my sleeve,” Jolene has found much comfort in talking with other mothers in this space about the best ways to support their LGBTQ kiddos. In the beginning of her journey, she frequented the Lift & Love online support meetings and still regularly recommends them to other friends and most recently a family member so they can join in community with others from across the nation and “be honest about how we’re feeling. In this space, we can find our way, preserve our authenticity, stay in our religion if we choose, and really help educate others so our kids can be who they are.” Jolene also reveres an experience she had visiting the St. George Encircle house with friends on a rainbow moms retreat and feels church should be more like that—a place where people can “be honest about who they are, bear each other’s burdens, and mourn with those who mourn. You can skip over the fluff and really connect on a deeper level in this space. People respond so much more to real experiences.”
Jolene has seen how being Alli’s mom has brought her much closer to the Savior and what really matters to her, which no longer includes the do’s and don’ts of shame-inducing outward behaviors like “overemphasizing dressing modestly and whether or not you smoke or drink coffee or tea”—practices that may just be a part of one’s upbringing or culture, and policies she has observed that in her past serving as a Relief Society president have led friends she’s deeply admired away from a church that should have been there to embrace and love them fully. “What kills me is we’re denying good people temple blessings because they smoke.”
While continuing to volunteer as a victims’ advocate, Jolene is concurrently working to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. After learning she could study religious trauma and work as a therapist on a sliding pay scale so all could afford her services at places like Encircle, she resolved, “This is one thing I can do to help out in this space.” Jolene recently worked with a beautiful young woman Alli’s age who is an unhoused drug addict who’d lost custody of her young daughter. When Jolene handed the young woman a blanket, the woman looked at her and said, “You’re weirding me out because you’re being so nice to me.” Jolene says the woman had been raised on the streets and “couldn’t take an ounce of kindness.” Jolene realized that, for so many in privileged circumstances with support systems, how “blessed and ignorant we can be as to what’s really going on out there. Functioning people with healthy families are the minority.” Jolene says, “Both in respect to my job and institutions like church, I often wonder, how many do we exclude because they don’t meet our criteria? They don’t talk like us or do what we want them to, so we push them away. We can’t change the world, but I can try to give people hope and bring them in.”
Jolene often thinks of how her daughter must feel, being pushed out of a system that has no place for her. It’s a similar feeling to when she holds the hands of some of the victims she works with when authorities come in and force them to “answer ridiculous questions” as part of their investigation, shortly after a survivor has suffered assault. Jolene says, “The Savior wants us all to be victims’ advocates. We may not all have huge traumas, and I hope we don’t; but the Savior is there for all. He wants us to be there for each other.”
