the queer salt of the earth

2000s member is like "you immodest freak" and the 2020s one is like "what are you talking about? why wouldn't I be able to show my shoulders?"

anyway the moral of the video ends up being "the church isn't true because they used to preach all this toxic modesty rhetoric BUT THEN they changed and they don't do it anymore, THEREFORE it's not true!"

Which is a fascinating conclusion to me. Like, I feel like the knowledge that we change and believe in modern revelation is fairly well taught. But more importantly, I find it strange that an exmo is complaining about how we don't body and clothing shame anymore

I realized I was queer when I was 14. I had pretty much always been friends with the gay kids and that's when I realized I wasn't just the token straight friend. I questioned my sexuality, realized I was asexual, and decided I didn't care enough to figure out my romantic orientation. In the last few years, I just identify as queer because I feel like I'm somewhere between being aroace, bi, and lesbian. I feel like my gender is a lil queer too, despite being cis. Being an alt queer woman can feel like an entirely different gender sometimes.

Of course, being mormon this created doubts. I shoved them to the back of my mind. I was scared that seeking answers would mean that I had to choose between the queer community and the church and I loved them both. I stayed like this for years. At youth conference, I think my junior year, one of the lessons was about not letting the world pull you from God. The teacher got two ladders and set them up right next to each other, with the steps facing each other and the bottoms touching but the tops leading away from each other. One represented the world and one represented God. He stood on the first steps with no problem. After the second or third step he could't go anymore because they were too far apart and he'd fall. I remember thinking that that's what my life felt like. I felt like I was precariously balancing on the third step of the ladders, needing to pick one in order to continue without falling.

The next summer, during my last year of FSY, we had a lesson about the Family Proclamation in the morning. My friends and I (all queer) were talking about it at lunch. There were a lot of feelings. One of the FSY counselors sat down at our table and started to add to the conversation. We were about done eating and I just didn't like talking about this with non queer people so I tried to leave. I was almost out the door when I realized that they weren't with me so I went back to the table and stood there, not really adding anything, just waiting for them to be done. I remember he said something like "I see the proclamation as an ideal. It's not always what's going to happen, but it's what we should strive to." One of the kids asked "Where does that leave queer people in this ideal world? Are we just not supposed to exist?" I could tell they were mad. The counselor responded with "I don't know. But I do know that God loves you and you belong in this church. We need people like you in this church."

After that we left. I have repeated those words over and over in my head since then. I'm crying even typing this out. Somehow just hearing him say that made me realize that being queer was part of my journey to Christ and not a separate one. My straight and narrow path is painted rainbow.

I found tumblrstake in the fall of last year. I had created a Tumblr account in January and had avoided anything related to the Church because I assumed it was mostly going to be negative. I found a post tagged queerstake and looked at the posts there. I cried. It was genuinely an answer to my prayers. I've thanked God for yall many times since then.

It’s been a hard couple of months, and probably a hard couple of years. I’m still struggling with reconciling my faith and my identity as a genderfluid lesbian, but here’s the message I feel like I’m getting from my Heavenly Parents. This goes for all of you:

We love you. We want you here. We delight in your identity, because it is beautiful, bright, and a part of you.

you mean like how Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated? and Malcolm X? Like how every brown person in America who publicly speaks out against the Gaza genocide with any degree of effectiveness gets censured and disappeared? Like how black people weren't allowed to hold the priesthood? Like how Deseret Book broke contract with the guy who was writing a gospel-based antiracism course? And we are all paying for it because our tax money is funding genocide instead of healthcare, millions of brilliant minds are held back from higher education and leadership because of their race, capitalism is continuing to destroy us, and everybody is miserable.

White people reject the words of POC to their own long-term detriment. Nephites refuse to listen to Lamanite prophets because of their "skin of blackness" and it is why they get destroyed.

inside of a mormon temple, any country