LGBTQ Mormon people are LGBTQ individuals with historical, cultural, or religious ties to the Latter Day Saint movement. There are many organizations centered on LGBTQ people within Mormon and Mormon-adjacent communities affiliated with several Latter Day Saint denominations. LGBTQ Latter-day Saints include both practicing members and former members of the largest denomination the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Public discussion of LGBTQ people by senior leaders of the LDS Church increased in the mid-to-late 20th century, and since the 1970s, LGBTQ individuals with Mormon connections have received growing attention in news media, scholarship, and popular culture. A range of independent support, advocacy, and community organizations has emerged in response, often operating separately from official denominational sponsorship.
LGBTQ Mormon population estimates Although there are no official numbers for how many members of the LDS Church identify as gay or lesbian, there have been several estimates. Large surveys of over 7,000 students at the church's largest school Brigham Young University (BYU) in 2020 and 2017 found that over 13% had marked their sexual orientation as something other than "strictly heterosexual", while the other survey showed that .2% had reported their gender identity as transgender or something other than cisgender male or female. Over 98% of BYU students are church members. In 2003, BYU's newspaper cited two LDS therapists who stated that the supermajority-Mormon BYU student body is "somewhere around 4 to 5 percent" homosexual. Family Services estimated that there are, on average, four or five members per church ward attracted to the same sex. An external study, conducted in 1972, found that between 10 and 13 percent of college-aged Mormon men reported past same-sex sexual behavior, which was similar to the percentage of non-Mormon men who similarly reported. The study did not tabulate the number of homosexual individuals who had never had a same-sex sexual experience. In 1979 BYU's newspaper published a series of articles on homosexuality in which Maxine Murdock of the BYU Counseling Center and Ford McBride, a former psychology student who conducted BYU electroshock aversion experiments on gay BYU students, estimated that 4% of BYU students (or around 1,200 students at the time) were attracted to the same sex. See footnote 71.
Gary Watts, former president of Family Fellowship, estimates that only 10 percent of homosexual Mormons remain in the church. Others dispute that estimate, saying numbers in support groups for active Latter-day Saints and for self-identified gay Mormons are comparable. A number of LDS people who experience attractions to their same sex shared experiences in the 1997 book A Place in the Kingdom: Spiritual Insights from Latter-day Saints about Same-Sex Attraction. Others have shared their stories through the now defunct Ensign and Evergreen.
Prominent LGBTQ Mormon people Practicing Mormons Tom Christofferson is the brother of Apostle D. Todd Christofferson and has returned to activity in the church after leaving decades ago. He serves in Affirmation leadership. Ben Schilaty is a BYU adjunct instructor and Honor Code Administrator. He publicly came out as gay in 2015 and published a book on his experiences with homosexuality titled A Walk in My Shoes: Questions I'm Often Asked As a Gay Latter-Day Saint, published bv Deseret Book in 2021. He also co-hosts the popular Questions from the Closet podcast which discusses LGBTQ+ topics within the context of the LDS faith. Ty Mansfield served as a missionary in the New Hampshire Manchester Mission, graduated from BYU, and has been an adjunct instructor in Religious Education at BYU since the summer of 2013. He chronicled his coming to terms with his sexuality in a co-authored book with Fred and Marilyn Matis, In Quiet Desperation: Understanding the Challenge of Same-gender Attraction, published by Deseret Book in 2004. Mansfield later married and published another book on homosexuality, also by Deseret Book, in 2011, titled Voices of Hope: Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Same-gender Attraction—An Anthology of Gospel Teachings and Personal Essays. H. Stuart Matis, a celibate homosexual, stated that "straight members have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up gay in this church. It is a life of constant torment, self-hatred and internalized homophobia." Matis committed suicide at an LDS Church meetinghouse in Los Altos, California in 2000. After two of his gay friends also committed suicide, Affirmation members began to hold suicide vigils around the country to raise awareness about suicide prevention and the destructive consequences of what they considered to be homophobic treatment by other church members. Suicide victims are posted on its website. Matis's story is described in the book In Quiet Desperation: Understanding the Challenge of Same-Gender Attraction and was later inspired and created into the play "Missa Solemnis; or, The Play About Henry" written by non-Mormon playwright Roman Feeser. Matis's death was described in the 2010 documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition. Mitch Mayne, a celibate homosexual member in San Francisco, served as of 2011 as executive secretary to the bishop in the local Bay Ward. Mayne has promoted family acceptance of LGBTQ youth and hopes to serve as a bridge to the gay community. He has also promoted the idea that all people with homosexual feelings, including those who are involved in homosexual behavior, should be welcomed into the church with no consequences for their sexual choices. He has said that he is not committed to church teachings about homosexuality and could well enter a gay relationship in the future. He believes that church leaders are mistaken in their teachings about homosexuality. Rich Wyler was excommunicated from the church due to his homosexual behavior, but has since rejoined the church. He was married and then widowed. He is the founder and executive director of People Can Change and co-creator and leader of Journey into Manhood. He established Higher Path Life Coaching and began coaching professionally in 2005. He leads telephone-based coaching group called "A Wife's Journey: Caring for Yourself and Your Family When Your Husband Struggles With Homosexuality or Addiction." Savannah, a Mormon girl, came out as a lesbian to her congregation at the age of 12 in 2017. Roswell Grey is a queer LDS activist. Grey is known for working to reconcile religious identity and queer identity, especially for youth of faith, and advocating visibility, support, and acceptance in both digital and physical spaces. They were a notable member of Beloved Arise's youth ambassador team. In 2022, Roswell Grey was chosen for Good Morning America’s Inspiration List among LGBTQ+ youth making change. Grey was also part of GLAAD’s 20 Under 20 class, as one of its honored changemakers. Kris Irvin was a transgender Latter-Day Saint activist. They wrote candidly about their experiences with faith, gender identity, and parenting on Twitter, where they had over 6,000 followers and was considered a "community icon." They organized demonstrations for fair treatment of queer members at both LGBTQIA+ and Latter-Day Saint events, including General Conference. They died January 23, 2022, at age 35.Courtney Tanner. "Kris Irvin, a tweeting transgender Latter-day Saint who pushed for equality, dies at 35." https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2022/01/28/kris-irvin-tweeting/
Living former Mormons
Christina Aguilera is a singer who was raised in an LDS home by parents who met at BYU and married in the Washington D.C. Temple, though, Aguilera has not self-identified as Mormon. On several occasions Aguilera has mentioned her physical attraction to women as well as men.
David Archuleta came out as gay to his family in 2014, then publicly in June 2021. He and his mother disaffiliated from the LDS Church in 2022. Bruce Bastian served as a church missionary to Italy, graduated from BYU, and married in a church temple before coming out. He and a BYU professor developed and co-founded WordPerfect software for word processing. He currently serves on the board of the Human Rights Campaign, America's largest lesbian and gay rights political action committee. In 2008, Bastian donated $1 million to fight California Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Martha Nibley Beck, daughter of Mormon apologist Hugh Nibley and author of bestseller Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith. Dustin Lance Black is an American screenwriter, director, film and television producer and LGBTQ rights activist. He who wrote for the HBO Series Big Love on a polygamous Utah family, created the LGBTQ history ABC docudrama miniseries "When We Rise", and narrated the documentary "8: The Mormon Proposition". In 2008, he won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay for Milk, a movie about the 1978 assassination of gay civil rights leader and San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk. Patrick Califia is a writer on the topic of sexuality and is a bisexual trans man. John Cameron is a former BYU student who participated in electro-shock aversion therapy sessions on campus in 1976 with the goal of changing his sexual orientation. The controversial therapy was conducted by PhD student Max Ford McBride under the direction of Dr. D. Eugene Thorne of the Psychology Department. While hooked to electrodes, the subjects were shown pornographic images of men while simultaneously being shocked. The experience was so traumatic for Cameron that he left Mormonism. In 2006, he finished writing a play about his experience, titled 14, in reference to the number of men who were the subjects of this particular experiment. The play was first staged at the University of Iowa in 2007.
Jim Dabakis is a Utah state senator married to his husband Stephen Justeson and enrolled in BYU in 1971, but left after his mission when he came out at 23. Andrew Evans is a National Geographic journalist who wrote about his compulsory year of conversion therapy and "traumatic moments" as a student at BYU. Levi Jackman Foster is a queer artist/photographer, social media influencer, and LGBTQ activist raised Mormon in Alaska. Levi left home at age 16 to escape conversion therapy and has since voiced opinions advocating for LGBTQ rights working with organizations such as Trevor Project, GLAAD, FIERCE NYC, SAGE, Marriage Equality USA, No on 8, Human Rights Campaign, Ali Forney Center, Los Angeles LGBTQ Center, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, New York LGBTQ Center and has created multiple social media campaigns raising funds and awareness for at-risk, marginalized, ex-Mormon, and homeless LGBT youth and elderly. Michael Glatze is a former gay rights activist and publisher of Young Gay America's YGA Magazine. Glatze renounced his homosexual relationships and was baptized into the LDS Church. He stated that "Jesus, however, is what, ultimately, changed me." Glatze left the church within two years of his conversion and now considers himself a conservative Christian and serves as a pastor of a small church in Wyoming. His story is told in the independent film "I Am Michael" starring James Franco and Zachary Quinto.
Tyler Glenn is the lead vocalist of the American rock band Neon Trees and came out as a gay Mormon in Rolling Stones magazine in March 2014, but has since stopped identifying as Mormon since at least April 2016.
Laci Green is a bisexual sex educator and online video creator for Seeker and MTV. In 2016, Time named her one of the 30 most influential people on the Internet. Jimmy Hales gained media attention as a BYU student with his live coming out video. Jesse Havea is a drag queen with the stage name "Brita Filter".