It was time...

 I've been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the past two decades, and while my faith journey wasn't always easy, the truth was that I loved the church, or at least what the church was supposed to be. Over the past couple years, however, it became increasingly obvious to me that the church was never going to live up to my expectations. I thought maybe if I stayed inside, I could help elevate the church. I hoped that if I made myself visible and shared my story both in official church capacities and through podcast interviews, they would see that being transgender didn't have to be a barrier to being a dedicated disciple of Christ. What I found, however, was the longer I was in the church, the further backwards they were sliding. 

When I came back to Church after transitioning genders, I knew it was going to be a difficult experience given the restrictions placed on me. I had hoped that those restrictions would lessen and eventually disappear, but my hopes were continually dashed by the leaders of the church. Instead of giving me more room to exist in church spaces, they decided to further restrict where I could be and how I could participate, including creating a policy that all but said they thought people like me were little more than groomers that they needed to shield children from. That was enough to significantly reduce my church attendance, but I still felt the need to go occasionally. I wasn't ready to walk away again, not after finally experiencing both my authentic self and my beloved religion at the same time. My grief kept me holding on, and the promptings of the spirit told me that the Lord still had reasons for me to keep going, even if it was excruciating.

I even endured returning to the elders' quorum meetings after attending the Relief Society for two years. The humiliation of that cannot be put into words, and yet I still felt the Lord had a reason for me to be there. I told myself that my presence in the elders' quorum was for a purpose, and that it would force the men in my ward to confront the absurdity of the church polices. I found many people tried very hard to make me feel included and important, but nothing anyone did took away the bitter taste of being somewhere I didn't belong. So I only went occaisionally and every time I did, I felt sick to my stomach afterwards.

And then the Amicus Brief was made public. For those not in the know, the church filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court that outlined numerous reasons why they wanted the courts to revoke the protected status of transgender citizens. They wanted to take away the only thing preventing me from losing my job because of my gender identity (not that my current boss would do that), or losing my housing, or any number of ways I could be discriminated against. The church's argument essentially boiled down to them not wanting to be called bigots for their second-class treatment of transgender people. 

That was the last straw. My resolve to stay in the church completely faltered as I was filled with disgust and righteous indignation. How could the church I loved and fought so hard to be part of betray me on such an enormous scale? How could they possibly think the Christlike thing to do was to strip MILLIONS of the most vulnerable people of constitutional protections? All so they could continue to pretend they were righteous. 

After that, I was officially done with the church, but that meant I was in a state of limbo. I could look for another church, sure, but despite the LDS church's unchecked transphobia, I still loved the Book of Mormon. No church would accept my love of it. Not even the Community of Christ, another branch of the original Mormon faith, really believes in the Book of Mormon anymore. 

There are many ex-mormon communities I could join, but the vast majority of them also take issue with the Book of Mormon, so I wouldn't really fit there either. So, after spending a considerable amount of time in thought, reflection, and prayer, I decided that the only way to find what I was looking for was to create it myself. 

I think now that the reason the Lord wanted me to stay so long in the church was to prepare me for this. There would be no way I could start an online ministry if any part of me still held hope that the church would change for the better. I had to determine which aspects of the faith were important to me and which ones needed to be set aside. I had already been doing that as someone who'd lost faith and then returned, but it had to be finalized. I had to feel the pain, humiliation, and sadness in order to be inspired and motivated enough to do this. I had to feel the anger and righteous indignation necessary to call for a serious restructuring of the church. That is what this is, my attempt at restructuring the Latter-day Saint faith to more closely resemble what I believe Christ actually wants for ALL HIS CHILDREN, not just the straight, cisgender, white ones.

When Joseph Smith started the church and inspired the early Latter-day Saints, they held hope that they were finally free from stagnant, dogmatic, hypocritical, and backward-thinking churches. My heart breaks to say that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has become exactly that. They teach for doctrine the precepts of men. They have turned prophets and temples into idols that get between church members and Christ or God. The latest iteration of Prophet is the pinnacle of the church's decay, and I refuse to stay quiet about it. But instead of trying in vain to change the church from the inside, or trying to convince dogmatic bigots that people like me are still children of God as well, I'm just going to have to do what they can't or won't do. 

So my hope is that anyone reading this will see that I'm not here to tear down the church, but rather to build up a more loving, accepting, and inclusive community than the church ever could. So will you join me? Will you help me grow this into something beautiful? I can't do it all on my own. I'm going to need help, and I know there are so many gifted people out there that the church has cast aside, alienated, or driven away. So let's stand together and show them what a truly Christlike Mormon ministry looks like. Maybe, then, they will realize the error of their ways.