#nathan kitchen

I'm going to share the words of Nathan Kitchen:

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Complicated. Highly complicated. This is the only description that can adequately describe all the emotions, thoughts, and feelings I am sitting with as I digest the news of Russell M. Nelson’s death. All the news and social media right now contain soundbites: peacemaker and changemaker. The truth always lies behind the surface of the soundbite. I had a front row seat to what was happening in the margins to LGBTQIA+ Latter-day Saints during his tenure as president of the Church. I tried my hardest to reliably chronicle this for my fellow Latter-day Saints in my memoir with BCC Press, The Boughs of Love: Navigating the Queer Latter-day Saint Experience During and Ongoing Restoration, so that you could see it alongside me. Most of the time, I felt like I was shouting in the wind. And maybe I am. But I cannot sit idly by and watch the greatest creation of queer spiritual refugees in the history of the Church and not say something.

In the coming days, many of those in the margins will not share the same perspectives on President Nelson’s life and legacy as the majority of the Latter-day Saint population. The margins are complicated. There, we are always holding seemingly contradictory truths in the reality of our lived experiences. The margins are that liminal space where we honor and respect the dead as we honor and respect our lives.

I say this with all the love and tenderness I can muster: Just stop and listen to those in the margins. Over the coming days, we will share our lives, experiences, and thoughts in the wake of President Nelson’s death and in anticipation of an Oaks' presidency. These perspectives may seem provocative, but please understand that they are valid and thought-provoking. They are true. LGBTQIA+ people are reliable reporters of their own experiences. Let us not separate from one another as we hear these voices from the margins.