Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay - Season 1 Episode 03- Change Is Gonna Come
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00:00Hey!
00:02Hi Heather, how are you doing?
00:03I'm doing good, doing well.
00:05Yeah.
00:06Well, since speaking with you, I've thought more and more,
00:10and it meant a lot to me that you wanted to hear my story,
00:14and that it was a really good experience for me,
00:17like a really healing one.
00:19It means so much to me that you would say that,
00:21because it meant so much to me to be able to, like,
00:25share that with you.
00:26I just keep thinking about how important it is to have more voices,
00:30but also how important it is to have more allies like you.
00:39I love you, and I will do whatever I can.
00:43Well, I appreciate it.
00:44I'm glad we're in this together, and I love you too.
00:47Thank you so much, Benny.
00:50Well, have a great night.
00:52Okay, you too.
00:53Bye.
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01:25that that's what we're up against i'm promising that i'll help carry the burden and i'll be an
01:31ally and an advocate but doesn't it like seem a little ridiculous to you that it's me
01:40you know i'm just like an idiot housewife and and i'm the one that's taking the time to listen
01:49i just feel overwhelmed and horrified and scared and
02:01stuck and it didn't even happen to me
02:08i just want to do whatever i can and i i'm scared that i'm not enough
02:12these stories should be enough they shouldn't even need me to bring attention to them
02:24i will never back away i just hope that more will join the fight
02:30we grew up in the church and were abused by our dad and all of our bishops stake presidents for
02:46almost two decades knew what was going on at home nobody said or did anything to help i personally
02:53could not look at the church as responsible or that they had a responsibility to me um because
03:01because of the way that i was indoctrinated i get messages every day and from survivors of abuse
03:07that talk about the way that the church had failed them
03:13i'm on my way to meet with these sisters they reached out to me their story is
03:19is awful and it sounds like the church just really let them down and i don't understand how
03:27that could have happened so many times in so many different situations the truth is bad things are
03:34happening and they're not doing anything about it i want to find out who they talked to specifically
03:41like what was said and how they could have you know not only fallen through the cracks but just
03:48been deliberately you know shuffled into a system that was abusing them
03:56hi hi i'm heather hi it's so good to meet you it's so nice to meet you too
04:03you guys both have septum piercings i wanted it since i was 16. how long have you had it i did not
04:08give myself permission to get it until i was 36. i mean i totally understand that like not giving
04:14yourself permission for it and it's like i really think it's the biggest badass thing you can do
04:19as a mormon woman that you know what i mean like yeah i was scared to get a double pierce you know
04:23like i hid it from my family i am the older sister i'm the middle child but i'm the older sister i am
04:31about four and a half years older than jenny when we were small children she was the annoying little
04:37sister when i was little i had got a nickname of mini liz because i would just follow her around
04:42everywhere and if she did something i wanted to do it and if she liked something i wanted to like it
04:46she was the person who i wanted to be and my favorite person to be around she has always been
04:54my example as we got a little bit older we definitely relied on each other a lot we became
05:01inseparable and really formed a really special relationship we've lived in a lot of different
05:09places my dad was in the navy so i was born on guam along with my older brother and then we moved to
05:16san diego jenny was born there we lived there until i was about 10. then we moved to this teeny
05:24tiny little town in northern minnesota with a very small branch i often tell my husband who grew up
05:29here in utah that i had a much more staunch like uh more than upbringing than he did
05:38it's really hard to talk about it in terms of beliefs because it was more like my entire sense
05:43of reality i identified as a member of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints
05:51and that really meant something to me what i found both disturbing and compelling about your story is
05:59it just seemed like the church had so many opportunities where it could have really helped
06:04you and instead it just it didn't if you're comfortable kind of can you kind of walk me through it
06:11there was never a time that i remember not being abused my earliest memories are of abuse
06:24a brand new baby straight from christ i came straight from his arms to this earth and you
06:29started touching me then and that was that was satan guiding me and leading me down the wrong path
06:33no dad that was you that was all you you can't blame it on satan my dad himself told me he always
06:42knew he would abuse his child if he had a daughter he never went for help knowing that he had that you
06:50know predilection he just hoped he would never have the opportunity so when the opportunity came along
06:57and he had a baby girl that's what he did some of my earliest memories are digital penetration
07:08oral stimulation as i got a little older it did move into a bit more violent you know full-on rape
07:18um penetration and anal penetration and i didn't recognize it as wrong i just recognized it that it
07:28hurt and i didn't like it and i wanted him to not do it to stop the belief that we
07:41can be an eternal family and that that's what we strive to be that is drilled into you from
07:49your earliest earliest times he would say things like we keep this between us this is the way that
07:56that god wants us to show that we love each other and so when he would frame it as um
08:06these are the right things to be an eternal family i believed in
08:12he used the the church's teachings um as a way to make the abuse normal my brother was the target for
08:24his worst physical abuse i was the target for his sexual abuse jenny was the target for neglect
08:31my dad abused all of us slightly differently so that we would feel isolated
08:37so that we couldn't talk to each other and we couldn't relate to each other and we would put up
08:48with more to keep everyone else from feeling what we were feeling
08:56how would you describe your sister oh like i might need to like just take like one second
09:02my sister is the strongest most beautiful soul i have ever known my whole life she is my hero
09:18i would not be here today on this earth if it were not for my sister i never met
09:25anyone more empathetic to have gone through what she's gone through and still
09:32want to even look anybody else in the face let alone connect with them is wild
09:40did you have any idea of what was happening to your sister i didn't know details until much later
09:47but i always knew that something was wrong when my mom found out that my dad was abusing me i was
09:53only five years old she discovered an active abuse happening i didn't really know why she was so angry
09:59or what was happening it had been something i'd been experiencing my whole life up to that point and so
10:05i didn't know it wasn't normal and so she you know starts screaming and i run and hide because i thought
10:10i was in trouble um and her her first instinct was not to go to the police um you know she didn't
10:18think this is a crime she thought this is a sin and so she went to her bishop
10:29on my mom's side is extremely devout generations back the church was so important to my grandparents
10:36that that passed down to my mom that that was her frame of reference for life basically anything
10:43outside of the church is of the world and being worldly was a sin and so she went straight to the
10:50bishop to a believing mormon the bishop's word is the word of god when you have access to a resource
11:01like the power of god you know you run to your bishop we were pretty open with discussing it in
11:08our family like throughout the years um so you know and i kind of heard later on from my mom and
11:14my dad kind of what was discussed and what did that bishop say to her essentially you need to be
11:20a better wife you need to be a better member you need to read your scriptures more make sure that
11:25you're doing family home evening and like be a more supportive wife does that mean
11:29have more sex with your husband the phrase that i remember hearing was to be more available to him
11:36that's so gross he won't be tempted to abuse his daughter so you're the gatekeeper of his of
11:44his actions yeah like it was somehow her fault or or mine for attempting yeah him no absolutely they're
11:52taking all the burden off of him and they're making it this like bodily function yes rather than the crime
11:58it is yes he gave him like a slap on the wrist he didn't there wasn't any um official disciplinary
12:05action taken no contact to law enforcement no nothing it was it was like six months of unofficial
12:11probation basically don't take the sacrament you can't say prayers but he wasn't like they treated it
12:15like a like a like he had drank wine and yeah yeah that's terrifying yeah my understanding was that it was it was said
12:28there's no need for an official report it was very much the message that because my mom reported it to the bishop
12:38that was all that needed to happen and no further action necessary because they were going to take care
12:42of it he told him to go to counseling through lds family services he went to the office he told them
12:52why he was there and they said stop they warned him essentially um if you continue with
12:59telling us what you're doing we will be obligated to report it so he stopped talking and then didn't
13:09go back stop talking go home to your daughter yeah i think that that initial bishop he mostly was
13:16concerned about my dad's salvation you as the victim were kind of just collateral damage and secondary to
13:22like getting this man on the road to righteousness it's terrible i mean there's not even a word
13:29i just i don't have a word there is no word a bishop looking in the eyes of a five-year-old who he
13:36knows is being raped patting her on the head and sending her home with her rapist and every bishop
13:43is called by divine inspiration right if he was inspired by god why wasn't he inspired to get us out of
13:51that situation the abuse never stopped it didn't even slow it just continued and then progressed you
14:05you know to become more violent that has definitely been a source of rage and even just a source of
14:24confusion like how could this have happened the bishop had the opportunity
14:30obligation even to report the abuse my mom had the obligation to report the abuse he was sent to
14:41counseling who had the obligation to report the abuse and you know even going further if the stake
14:49president knew about it at that that initial time i was five years old abuse had been happening to me for
14:56five years if it had been reported at that time there is the potential that it could have stopped there
15:03because it wasn't i was then subjected to 13 more years of abuse
15:14even more horrifying is to realize is it wasn't you know it wasn't just that one bishop
15:19uh-uh because that was just the first time that you know my mom went to her priesthood leader for help
15:30yeah it's a big day that's right it's a big day
15:35i'm gonna get baptized you're gonna get baptized by who my dad well isn't that nice
15:41after the very first time she found out and he had that slap on the wrist he was just a full member
15:50again you keep saying slap on the wrist it's like i cannot believe that that's all he had it was
15:57after his you know six months of not taking the sacrament then he just was a full member again he actually
16:01did my baptism um like he just he was just a regular he baptized you oh yeah yeah and he was still abusing you
16:10yeah oh yeah the father's the priesthood leader of the family so he's doing the priesthood work for
16:18the family well we got our newest member of the benita first ward here elizabeth i'm really proud of her
16:28i can't imagine how that would change your reality especially when you've told people he's gotten
16:37caught and no one's done anything about it i really wish that i could go back and hug that little girl
16:44and just be like it's okay to be happy even though these really bad things are going on you're finding
16:51the joy in your life right now and that's okay because sometimes i feel shame for that like why didn't
16:57i act in a way that other people could see that i was hurting but also i look back and i think wait a
17:02minute i didn't need to let people know in other subtle ways because we told them to their faces in
17:08black and white words so they couldn't say well she seems fine to me before the age of eight you're
17:15incapable of sin once you turn eight years old you are now capable of sin and that's why you need baptism
17:21the idea of being capable of sin made me question what he was doing is it wrong but part of the reason why
17:33i complied sometimes was so that he wouldn't look for the opportunity elsewhere i couldn't imagine him
17:43doing that to anyone else but especially not to my sister my little sister who was just little she
17:53was just so little i couldn't let that happen
18:01the idea of a pre-mortal existence is a huge part of the doctrine the idea that
18:09we chose to come to our family we knew ahead of time as spirits a general idea of what sort of
18:19things we would be faced with because i would have been you know watching my family that i'm gonna
18:23come into and i still chose to come here i still chose this family and for a long time i thought it was
18:33because i can handle it i'm i must be really tough i must be really valiant i must be really special
18:40um because god's asking me to do this really difficult thing and so if i don't do it well
18:47i'm going to disappoint him he's expecting me to come back and thank him for the opportunity to
18:56have lived a mortal life i'm assuming no one ever said take your kids and leave him no
19:03no when my mom married my dad she was very explicitly told by my grandparents this is a forever thing
19:12you are being eternally sealed to this man you cannot come home not too long after she had found out
19:21that my dad was abusing me we went out to minnesota for a family reunion she was in turmoil the whole time
19:29considering maybe maybe i should stay here maybe i don't have to go back
19:35but because of the way that my grandparents framed this marriage to her she felt it wasn't safe
19:45to go to them and say i really need your help
19:48i believe that my mom was a good mormon and that meant obeying your priesthood leaders and the
19:59priesthood leaders said that they would handle it honestly i think that she truly believed that he's
20:06been caught he's not going to do it again because that's what repentance is for you stop doing the
20:12thing that you were doing and you repent of it and because he had then completed whatever this initial
20:17bishop's his penance yes in her mind he wasn't going to do it again so she just for five years just
20:24trusted him trusted my dad that he had stopped and then when i was 10 she discovered the abuse again
20:36when i was 10 i have a very vivid memory of the active abuse that was happening when my mom caught my dad
20:48again it was the middle of the day she had gone somewhere i don't know grocery shopping something
20:55had come home earlier than he was expecting he had me in the bedroom and was performing oral sex
21:04on me and my mom's you know storms in the room i'm crying uh i can't say anything and all i do is i
21:12lift my skirt to show that i don't have any panties on my mom went to the priesthood again and this time
21:23they took it a bit more seriously um this time he was excommunicated and if you're excommunicated in
21:29that fashion i'm assuming he had the 12 a disciplinary council of 12 area representatives
21:35the whole stake presidency the entire disciplinary council all of those priesthood leaders knew
21:40excommunication doesn't do anything it gives them plausible deniability of anything he does
21:45and also some enmity so that they can say well he wasn't a member of the church no one called the
21:51police again oh and this time so many more people knew the church views excommunication as part of
21:59the repentance process when there is a serious enough sin to require excommunication it has to
22:07happen so that they can fully repent and then be re-baptized as a member with the excommunication with
22:16all of those priesthood leaders knowing not one of them went to law enforcement not one of them
22:23thought it might be a good idea to maybe protect the other children that he had access to
22:30and warn the members of the church that he was still actively attending all i'm hearing is like them
22:37saying whatever happened to lizzie doesn't matter what matters is what happens to him yeah and we've
22:42taken care of him so like i can't imagine as a victim feeling re-victimized every time that it
22:47doesn't matter that you're abused doesn't matter what he did and it doesn't matter if you it doesn't
22:53matter i think one of the issues is when bishops only see themselves as these spiritual leaders
23:01because i think that once he'd been excommunicated they felt that was the end of their responsibility the
23:06church leadership the top you know leadership as long as they were doing what you know they said
23:12then that that's what they were supposed to be doing there's no room left for your own moral
23:17there's no personal choice no personal responsibility attached to those decisions because it comes from
23:23the top down i mean that's how i felt growing up like i didn't i had already made that choice
23:26when i got baptized so now every other choice is already made yeah
23:32once my mom realized that he didn't stop and wasn't going to stop but she was still you know counseled to
23:41stay she thought okay all i have to do is just make sure that he's never alone with her it was her job
23:49to keep him in check it was her job to keep him away from elizabeth and she spent years trying to do
23:56that and failing because she was a human being who needed to sleep i heard a story similar where that
24:03burden was put on the wife and so she just started sleeping in front of her child's door on the carpet
24:10how do you ask that of someone when we moved to minnesota my mom took my dad and met with the bishop
24:18just to say i'm working on coming back to church it was a it was a front you know it was to help him
24:24hide the the veneer of perfection the perfect little mormon family we couldn't have that without the father and husband
24:31i know all about that yeah nobody could know that he wasn't a member only the leaders knew all the
24:37rest of the members of the church didn't so you guys were going to church every sunday throughout
24:42all of this never missed a week so did your dad go to church with you guys yeah he even wore certain
24:50undershirts that would make it look like he was wearing garments the people who he interacted with at
24:56church had no idea of what he was doing at home but because the leadership knew and didn't do anything
25:02about it he was able to form those bonds and friendships um under false pretenses yeah they
25:07had no idea that they were friends with a pedophile who could potentially harm their children your dad's
25:14already excommunicated but you're not allowed to talk about it they reinforced to you as the victim
25:20and child a code of silence to protect him absolutely yeah which would make i mean if i
25:27were in your position like more reluctant to say he hasn't stopped the excommunication
25:33didn't scare him straight it took her a long time but my mom started questioning that message
25:42there was a lot of shifts in dynamics in our family one of the times was when online chat rooms became
25:48really popular my mom started chatting in these chat rooms and with that you know veil of anonymity
25:58she was able to talk about what was going on at home people were validating her finally validating
26:04her thoughts of this is not right this is horrible and really being horrified by what she was saying and
26:13i don't know that she really expected that reaction but i don't give her a lot of grace for this time
26:21period because she left us alone with him so she could figure it out so she left yeah our mom had left
26:32us there with my dad and had gone to ireland to meet someone that she had met in one of the chat rooms at
26:42that time she wasn't thinking about how we had been feeling she only was was reflecting on how she had
26:49been treated and how she was feeling and so she kind of abandoned us that's the summer that liz and i
26:56got really close and protected each other to the best of our ability as a 13 year old and a 17 year old
27:04yeah yeah so how did it eventually stop as i got older the abuse changed the risk of pregnancy was
27:14enough of a deterrent um to stop the rape my abuse turned to a more mental and emotional sexual abuse
27:21and the abuse definitely changed for my sister
27:28after all the pain that you caused me how could you go and do
27:31just about the same thing that you did to her
27:33i wasn't near the same thing i did okay but then it's still considered molestation
27:38i'm sorry maybe someday i'll be able to forgive you for what you did to me but i'll never be able to
27:42forgive you for what you did to her i did have one instance of sexual abuse and it was that same summer
27:51that my mom left when my mom came back the dynamic had shifted a lot i don't know what
27:58happened to her while she was gone but when she came back she said we're leaving she decided to take
28:05us to utah because she wanted to be around mormons let's go go to the motherland and they'll help us
28:11even after years of being kind of dismissed and told to put up shut up and do better she still
28:18went to the church for safety and support yeah it's her first call i understand that
28:25i got pregnant with my son when i was 18 and i was out here in utah trying to make it work with his
28:32dad it was a turning point for me i still had a communicative relationship with my dad like we
28:40weren't friends like i didn't i but i still talked to him i still saw him as my dad when i had my son
28:49and i felt so much joy and so much love i felt what a parent is supposed to feel for their child
28:57and in that moment i knew i could never talk to him again the only time i ever talked to him again after
29:05that was for my criminal case against him so how do you go about reporting something like that well
29:11i thought of all of the years of abuse the place where it happened the most because we lived there
29:19the longest was california okay and so i called the uh san diego police department and i made a report with
29:26a detective he asked me for you know some instances of abuse i gave him maybe you know three or four
29:35memories i've got hundreds yeah you know just the tone of horror and anger that this man who i'd never
29:44met before had for me and our family it was um it was very validating and it was uh a shock like
29:54seen through a clear lens for the first yeah all these other men knew these exact same things how is
30:00this the first person who's showing any sense of this isn't right and something needs to be done
30:09during the investigation i had worked with the police department to call him and record it
30:16i want to hear from your own mouth what you did to me and how far you are for it
30:21everything i ever did to you that was inappropriate or wrong me inappropriate dad why would somebody
30:29rape an innocent person why would somebody stick things in an innocent baby like you did to me
30:34okay i'm supposed to go to hell for what i did okay yeah you are you should you deserve to go there i'm not
30:39going to do you remember when mom called us the first time sure i said daddy i don't want to do this
30:56do you know what you said what well i guess if you don't love me you've never loved me the way a father
31:04should love a daughter no i haven't i hear in your voice that things are better things are better
31:10things are better because you're not raping me every night well i'm sure that that is a big factor
31:16oh yeah it's a huge factor it's the only factor you idiot great and i pray for you every night
31:24i basically got a recorded confession and from there it went pretty quickly
31:30i made my report mid-august probably uh and by mid-december he was arrested are you serious
31:38and so just put it right up here oh my gosh it took me becoming an adult to advocate for myself
31:49and finally um you know do what all of the priesthood leaders and my mom didn't do for 21 years
32:00people knew what this man was doing bishops stake presidents men that know better he told one
32:06detective and he was in arrested within six months yeah yeah what was his sentence and is he still in
32:14jail 32 years but he was released after about 15 and a half years he finished his parole in 2023 and he
32:23was re-arrested for child sexual abuse materials a lot of them shut up yeah so he's he's back in prison
32:34i hope he dies there because if he dies there that means that he won't be a danger to i mean to anyone else
32:41is that when he started to look at the church's role in protecting him that wasn't for many years
32:52the criminal charges were filed against my dad in 2004 i did not look into filing a civil lawsuit
33:02against the church for their role until 2020 i wouldn't even consider it for a very long time
33:11like no the church was just doing what they thought was right the church professes to have a direct line
33:18to god and to know information and to have access to god that members don't have
33:28what on earth could i possibly know more than these men as soon as you start to feel like maybe that
33:35maybe the leaders of the church didn't do the right thing that critical yeah a little bit critical
33:40exactly then then that instantly comes in well i can't criticize the church right absolutely not
33:46that's that's what's the covenant we make in order to attend the temple yeah and it's not even a conscious
33:51thing yeah it's instantly you know uh i would think should they have done more and then i would be like
33:59i need to read my scriptures more because i must be missing something yeah the way it is run by jesus
34:04christ so who wants to give notes to jesus exactly if you're jesus i'm not going to tell you you're wrong
34:09yeah i'm not going to be like hey man that was a bad decision like go back and rethink that are
34:14you sure are you sure yeah no exactly okay and then you align yourself to that decision no matter
34:21what it is and lean not unto our own understanding but unto his and then to the lord and i believe that
34:27was my mom's outlook her outlook was they are direct conduits of god so whatever decision they make
34:37that is the decision that god would make well that was your mom's conduit because that's what we're
34:43taught yes still today yeah yeah never mind that he's you know abusive and you know harming you and
34:50your children there was a moment where i looked at myself as a child as a separate entity i could
35:11recognize that what was done to her was not right and so i thought you know i might not be able to do
35:19anything about it i might not be able to make them take me seriously but i want to try so that's when i
35:28contacted a lawyer one of the things that i hoped to come out of the lawsuit with the church was
35:36some accountability even even just an acknowledgement you know we did have a responsibility and we
35:45you know we we didn't do the right thing let's make sure we do the right thing from here on out
35:51that didn't happen but we went through mediation and came to a settlement it definitely felt very um
36:01dehumanizing and and humiliating to hear you know my trauma being talked about in terms of a dollar in
36:09terms of money but then also being haggled over the attorney from curtain mconkey that um did my
36:15deposition had the most smug face did they offer any explanation for things that the church no the
36:22church has no responsibility and that was their official statement that was the church has no
36:27responsibility the mom should have done something why they threw her under the bus they really did big
36:32time they really did but i don't think the thought ever entered her mind that the church had done
36:41anything wrong yep she still grapples with it yep we're trained to think this way this is what you're
36:48bred into you know it's conditioning i still struggle to deconstruct it right now like there has
36:54to be an explanation for this you know the people that i went to church with cared about children and
36:59would never turn a blind eye but the truth is as much as they may care about children
37:04they care about the church more yes and i think that's hard for people to understand like our
37:09allegiance to the church which we also say is our allegiance to god is the strongest so any other
37:17directive is less important that's what it felt like and that's why i'm not going to shut up about
37:22it still like okay cool you gave me a settlement that means jack shit to me yeah like my story
37:29our story our story is important your role in our abuse is real and it needs to fucking change so
37:37that other children are not hurt the same way that we were i have mixed feelings about the church today
37:44there is a lot of good in the people of the church but the corporation of the church of jesus christ of
37:52latter-day saints is harmful deceitful and i do see it as evil i have removed the church's control and
38:02influence from my life and it's taken a lot to get here but my life is actually beautiful the church
38:08has this very planned out future for everyone and outside it's so much messier and i i've preferred that
38:17honestly we have wanted to talk about this publicly for years and have not been able to find an avenue
38:26to do that it feels like a constant reminder of no one listened and you're listening i am i'm listening
38:34and that feels huge you're both remarkable i'm so glad you have each other as a mom of daughters your
38:42sisterly bond means a lot to me i know your story is going to change lives and i'm really grateful to
38:46you guys for sharing it with me
38:48i just i feel really like heavy
39:11something shifted in my conversation with lizzie and jenny
39:18i'm terrified of the word cult
39:25if we could have a conversation around cult techniques and cult behavior and if it didn't
39:33eradicate the beautiful parts of my childhood and the wonderful things my parents did for me
39:39i would just say it easily you know my parents were in a cult they raised our entire family in this cult
39:48and it's really really really hard to get out of and it doesn't mean that my childhood was
39:57tainted or that my parents were bad people or that my family didn't have real love and real experiences but
40:05i was raised in a cult
40:13final thoughts take one a and b marker oh now i know what this scene is
40:19well no pressure i'll tell you my final thoughts they're not going to be what you
40:26i just want to talk about what you're thinking i've been really toying with this why me this whole
40:39time you know in every conversation i'm just thinking you know why me the why me really made
40:45sense today and it kind of answered that question for me you can shine your light on stories and
40:51create visibility for people and the effect of that change can be significant change could happen
40:57i'm hearing these stories for the first time and they change the way that i view myself
41:06and i'm sorry you don't need to apologize and definitely the church that i dedicated my life to
41:14you giving victims a platform an opportunity to tell their stories is i think the biggest act of
41:23resistance that you could do these stories should be heard and the church is never going to hear them
41:30but the world can can you just put it right up here
41:37and that's who they should put their faith in now these victims put their faith into the church and
41:42those institutions for years and now i think they should put their faith into humanity and let their
41:47stories be heard and i hope the world responds with like kindness and support and love and outrage
41:54for every story that's on floodlit there are a thousand others that have just never come forward
42:03this is the beginning of a reckoning this is the beginning of a movement where people see
42:09that they can come forward and their abuse can be validated i feel like i've seen and i trust myself
42:17enough to know that even if everyone around me is saying that the sky is black to me it's
42:22crystal blue and it's so clear what needs to be done
42:36to all my bad mormons
42:44i'm starting to gather personal stories from people who would like to share them in some way
42:49we will use this platform to shine a light on things that i as a lifelong member of the church
42:55never knew existed my mission was one of the most damaging experiences of my life there's so many
43:03effects from that that still i'm still trying to get over and work through we started getting dozens of
43:12texts calls we had a car follow us my dad would tell me like you need to go get your mom
43:19and bring her home to us our eternal family depends on it took me to multiple polygamist settlements and
43:26when they wanted to give our son up for adoption to a really simple
43:32and it goes so high up it goes into
43:36i don't know where i'm supposed to go or what i'm supposed to do
43:41i haven't really had many people to talk to
43:53i just got this text from somebody that wants to remain totally anonymous
44:18and sent a different name but that he's a
44:21sex worker for mormon leadership i'm a high-end gay escort a lot of the mormon leadership who run the
44:29organization are my clients i'm not just talking about bishops or stake presidents temple presidents
44:34and yes even general authorities i don't believe this
44:40a general authority of the church using a high-end gaze escort that's like an expose that's national
44:48inquirer shit you know
44:51they come to me because i create a safe space for the leaders to feel love and acceptance
44:56and then they go back to church and teach homophobia from the pulpit
44:59they are causing great harm for me it's an emergency
45:06hearing all of these stories from people all over the world if i get really angry about it the church
45:11is just not going to listen to me and label me a heretic apostate crazy person
45:16so i have to follow their lead in terms of the level of action i'm just going to say are you willing to
45:24meet with me i never thought i'd be in this position ever ever
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