“If you’ve ever had a debate with the spirit, you know you can’t win.” That was Trent Clarkson’s experience while sitting in a car late one night with a friend at age 17. The difficulties of his life had come to a head. School and the social scene were not going the way he wanted, which had wrecked his mental health. Looking to escape, he asked a friend to go to a movie and out for a drive. While navigating the dark roads, Trent felt a strong impression he needed to tell his friend what was really going on, including the things he’d been pushing down and trying not to consciously recognize himself. He started slowly, at first only sharing the depths of his severe depression. But it kept coming to his mind—the “it” he’d never told anyone about yet. “Saying those words felt physically impossible,” says Trent, “but I turned to him and said I need to tell you something else—I’m gay. It was the first time I’d actually acknowledged that part of my life, the first time I accepted it.”
Looking back now, Trent calls that night lifechanging. He says owning this part of him “set me on track to figure out what was really going on in my life.” Life didn’t immediately become easier; in fact, things got worse. Trent remembers being alone in his bedroom grappling with intense confusion. Since his childhood growing up in a “lovely little town called Kanab, UT” near Cedar City, one of six children in a devout family who practiced daily prayer and scripture study and weekly LDS church attendance, Trent had felt an instilled knowledge of not only who God was but that He loved him and wanted to communicate with him from a very young age. “I knew He was there and would talk to me if necessary, which set me up well for later in life when things went awry.”
Yet one Sunday at age 17, Trent battled darkness and gloom while sitting on a pew in church with his family thinking about “existential things”—who he was, what was his purpose, why this was happening to him and that if this was his reality, what else might be different than all he had learned since childhood? “I wondered if there was a God, where was He, and why He wouldn’t talk to me anymore.” Trent says an indescribable feeling washed over him and he felt an immense sense of peace, love and comfort. Words came into his mind: “I know you, I see you, I love you.” Trent says it took all that he had to not sob on that pew. “I like to reflect on that experience. It only answered three of my 1,000 questions but it confirmed God is there, God knows me, and God does care about what’s happening to me.” It also taught Trent that it’s ok to have unanswered questions, and that some questions are more important than others.
Over the next year, Trent was able to open up to more people—a few close friends, a trusted therapist. He accepted he was gay and came to the mindset that he didn’t have a problem with it because God didn’t have a problem with it. His senior year of high school was a little better, and soon it became time to put in his mission papers, something that had been impressed on his mind years before. But it took him a year to get the papers out, and his call to Independence, Missouri. A major history buff, Trent was thrilled to walk and talk through all the church history sites, but an upset occurred. In February 2020, Trent entered the Provo MTC where he stayed for three weeks and watched as the world crumbled with the pandemic. His second week in, they stopped admitting new missionaries and every day his MTC teachers would give updates that seemed unfathomable: “No NBA playoffs; no in person general Conference.” Trent was still headed to Missouri but the Frontrunner train he took to the airport suddenly stopped in Draper at 8am. There had been a huge earthquake (the one in which the SLC temple’s Moroni dropped his trumpet). Trent didn’t feel it on the train, but had to reroute to the MTC. Swept up in all the speculation at the time, he thought, “We’re going to the land of Zion, and with all the prophecies about earthquakes, plagues, locusts in Africa, I just wanted to get to Independence to be the first to meet Jesus.” The next day, he was given the all clear to go out. Five days later, lockdowns shut down most of the world. As a missionary, Trent wasn’t allowed to leave his apartment for the next four months besides P-day grocery runs, but he says, “I’m grateful for how it worked out. I’m a huge believer in the Lord’s timing.”
While Trent had reconciled being gay, he wasn’t quite sure how he’d navigate shelving it for two years. He was able to circumvent certain conversations and “pretend it’s not a thing,” but eventually realized, “God had other plans.” Two or three weeks in with his first trainer, an incredible person Trent learned a lot from, Trent felt an assurance from the spirit that he should tell his companion he was gay. He sat on it for a few days, then got the confirmation from above that the Lord would be ok, and the companion would be ok if he shared. Visibly shaking, Trent said, “I’m gay. I hope that’s not an issue.” Trent says the companion responded “as well as I could have hoped. I think it was a good experience for both of us.”
Throughout his mission, Trent would occasionally feel similar nudges that it would be ok to tell certain trusted people, and every time he did, he said it opened up some of the best experiences on his mission as he felt closer to those around him and better about himself as “the irreconcilable parts came together.” He emailed his mission president to let him know, and in return got the response, “If you need to talk to me, I’ve available, but I have no worries.” As missions are small communities, word spread, and Trent learned he wasn’t alone, estimating that about 10-15 other LGBTQ+ missionaries opened up in his zone over the next two years. Trent especially loved coming out to people who had little experience with the LGBTQ+ community. One day while doing their work on social media, a district leader next to Trent made a comment about a gay couple on a Facebook profile. Trent stopped and looked at him and said, “Elder, have you ever worked with LGBTQ individuals before?” The DL said, “I haven’t; have you?” Trent replied, “Yeah, I deal with that quite frequently. I’m gay.” The district leader immediately and profusely apologized. Trent replied, “Don’t worry, Elder, it’s understandable—not having worked with LGBTQ individuals before. Mind if we can talk about it?” Trent then shared his story and explained what life was like for him. He loved sharing that, “Even though I experience same sex attraction, I love the church and am on a mission.” Trent says he grew to treasure the connections that came from learning of others’ experiences with God and life as they exchanged stories.
Trent worried about returning home after his mission. He’d liked having his life put on pause, focusing instead on others’ lives. He knew when he returned, he’d have to deal with tough questions. Still, he filled out a “My Plan,” a tool missionaries are given to map out their return plan to follow. He saw how a good part of that deals with “how I will stay active in the church and marry in the temple,” something he knew might not fit in God’s plan for him. “While much of the plan was helpful, it wasn’t specific for my needs, and I had to figure out a lot on my own—something I’ve learned to become comfortable with.” Trent didn’t feel like he could try to date women, but also felt, “If by some act of God some amazing young lady comes up, I’ll put nothing outside of God’s power.” Trent says he loves the framework the church gives, although since he’s returned from his mission, he says, “I haven’t been the most active. I don’t know where I’m going or doing, but I know that God lives and that Jesus Christ is the son of God. I have immense faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior… That gives me light when there’s no path. If nothing else, I know that’s true.” Trent says he also loves the Bible and Book of Mormon and has felt a lot less alone listening to the Questions from the Closet podcast over the years. He says he’s fine sitting in ambiguity.
At his first Thanksgiving back from his mission, Trent sent a coming out text on his family group chat, and everyone was supportive. “My younger siblings were a little confused at first, but they figured it out and moved on. Things have gone great ever since.” Of the pretty seamless transition, Trent says most of them had already known, though he says he’s a “pretty straight-passing gay guy; the straightest gay person I know.” A mechanical engineering student at Southern Utah University, Trent hopes to work with robotics, possibly in aerospace, a shared passion with his brother with whom he’d love to go into business. Trent currently does 3D printing and loves fishing, cooking, reading, and again, all things history—whether it be church history or American history. He works at a historical museum outside of Kanab where he loves to exchange stories with patrons all day. “It’s amazing to see what inspires people to be people.”
While he doesn’t consider himself a social person, claiming “I like to maybe have ten people in my vicinity,” Trent braved up and went to the first Gather conference last year—an experience that he loved and that inspired him to go back this year and to also start a Gather group at his college campus. He says SUU can be a difficult place to be as it’s “more traditional than Provo. Finding connection there with the church isn’t hard, finding connection with LGBTQ+ people is harder. Finding connection with both is almost impossible.” Trent felt “immensely grateful” when the Gather curriculum was released. Though only about five people currently gather in his group, Trent is excited to be part of the influence where people can strand in a room comfortably and hold both identities—as a person of faith and LGBTQ+.
“Doing this work that I feel called to do—I feel it as strongly as I felt called to go on a mission. I love knowing this is a work the Lord is very interested in doing. It’s encouraging to know progress is being made. As hard as things get sometimes, I think things are only getting better. We’re on the right track; we’re headed where God wants us to be.”
