My Gay Mormon Sexuality Development

13 - I know I'm gay... This came from finding some adult videos of my much older step sister and finding no interest in the women and much interest in men. These feelings only grew stronger from here.

18 - I met my first openly gay guy who seemed interested in me. He invited me over to his place to talk and promised me that it would be nothing sexual. He then pushed me against my wishes and repeated no's and we messed around more than I would like... nothing major. This I believe stopped my progression into healthy relationship thinking. I put being gay in the back of my mind, went to some "reparative therapy" and went full force in to mission prep mode and off I served.

25 (about a year ago) - I did some major soul searching I decide to take a step back from church and accept myself as gay.

This is the point where I really felt like my development began.

I had my first real crush. Then I started seeing people and being okay seeing them as attractive. I wanted to date and love and be loved.

It is weird that in the last year feeling so many of the things that I heard described my whole life. The nervous feeling before asking for a phone number, that what if feeling and wondering if that crush might go somewhere.

I feel like in some ways I have come a long way, but I do have far to go. Maybe in a year or two I will be ready for an adult relationship :)

Coming out to the wrong people

So my last blog post I meant for just a select audience to read. I normally put it on my facebook as a locked status. I guess this time I forgot. Within a minute or two of posting I get a little IM saying that a woman that is like a mom to me (my church mom, since none of my family is LDS), read it. She talked about not agreeing with my "coming out" but loves me anyway. It wasn't a shock to her because we have talked lightly about the subject.

I tried to fix my facebook status right away, but it does make me wonder who else read it. 

I also came out to two amazing girls at work. This is scary because sometimes it is hard to know who you can trust. I work in Residential Treatment for teens, so we are encouraged to keep our personal lives separate from the kids so they can focus on their treatment instead of having things to attack staff on.

So far this has been a good choice to share with these two people, but I am still overly nervous I think that others will know. 

I hope for the day to come where I am really okay being 100% honest with everyone.

Coming out to my cousin

So, when I was at home in California, I came out to one of my favorite cousins.

This is only the second person in my family I have told. The first was a family member who is an open Lesbian and has been for my while life.

It was interesting this visit to tell someone close who was so close growing up and have her accept me for it. I felt like we became so much closer with me telling her.

For the longest time I felt like coming out meant giving up who I was and who I wanted to be. Everyday living a more and more open life I am learning that being gay, sharing who I am, and feeling confident are the very things I needed to be to maintain the things I liked about me and really start growing into what I want to be.

The next person I come out to may need to be my mom. I wonder how that will look?

Story time with Chris - Weakness

On my mission in a couple districts I was in, we had a block set aside know as Story Time with Elder Larson. I love relating stories to life. It makes it easier to go on. So I thought I would share a story that a missionary shared during a spiritual though one dinner appointment. I have been thinking about it a lot in regards to being gay.

One day a boy, who was born without a right arm, decides to take a karate class. The boy was nervous, and because of his disability was not sure he would be able to even participate in this ancient form of martial arts. When he walked in and explained his desires, he was quickly welcomed and taught his first move. He was instructed to practice the move for the hour he was there until it was time for him to return home. The boy did as he was told and returned the next day eager to learn more. When arriving, he was told again to practice that same move again for the day. This became the pattern as everyday for the next few months he was told to practice only this one move.

Finally the boy came in and the instructor asked him if he was confident in this move. The boy replied that he was indeed. With this reply the instructor told the young man that he was entered in the state karate championship. The boy was nervous that he only knew one move, but trusted his master, and arrived for the competition.

The boy started his first match, and by some miracle ended the round victorious. He was shocked and felt like this was a one time lucky shot. Into the next round, he won again. Third, fourth, firth, came with win after win. It was now down to the final match. Like all the others, he won again, now the state champion.

In shock and humility, he went to his master asking how this had happened. The Instructor replied, "In Karate every action has a equal counteraction. For the move I taught you, the counteraction is to grab the right arm."

Ether 12:27
27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their ^aweakness. I ^bgive unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my ^cgrace is sufficient for all men that ^dhumblethemselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make ^eweak things become strong unto them.


Sometime we look at being gay as a weakness when in reality God promises us that he will make weak things strong. I really like thinking about the things I like least about myself being the greatest tools in my life. Understanding them mean that I can get past the feeling weak in them and be happy for them.


I am so happy to be gay. When I think about it, it is what gives me tons of strength and motivation to be happy, to be better, and to love.

Taking my own advice

So, I work at a treatment center with girls who have sexually offended. These girls are drama at times and complain about almost anything the others say. As a staff it can drive me nuts and then I give my talk hoping someday it will sink in. I encourage them to focus on self and have empathy for the one they are mad at. I told one a story of my cousin that shot a man. I asked her to describe what my cousin must be like knowing he shot and killed someone. She gave a typical response, "Wow, really? He must have been awful, mean, evil, just a bad bad person." I then gave her the full story. He is a police officer that had to take one man's life that was trying to take another. Instantly her face changed to a smile with some embarrassment. She had obviously misjudged my cousin not having all the facts. I explained how she did this with her peers and she understood the lesson quickly.

I find that as of late I am doing a lot of fault finding. Some of the great people in my life are the one's that I get the most frustrated with. I need to be better at understanding where people come from.

Tonight, a guy that I met almost a year ago started chatting with me. I had to look up who it was because it had been so long. He was this amazing guy that I spent many nights chatting with and we seemed to have so much chemistry together.  Then he dropped off the radar and I didn't talk with him since May of last year. He had ignored all attempts I had made to contact him. It was so weird. So tonight when he started trying to chat with me I was mad. Really, who does he think he is? But, we chatted anyway, and he had been dating a guy much of this time. Makes more sense why he would back away. It doesn't make his ignoring me right, but I can understand it. This understanding makes it easier for me.

I think maybe I will have a better chance at a relationship when I try harder to see people from where they see.