Where are all the lesbians?

of me. Right? So LDS Living just shared it and then that was the peak of my fame.

the only gay Mormon. I'm the only gay person at BYU. I'm the only lesbian Mormon in the whole world." Now, I think that everybody is queer, unless they tell me otherwise. You know, it's such a challenge to find that community and how do we signal to each other? You know? That's such a real world problem. And I still feel it every day. I don't feel like I have totally solved that problem. You just take community where you can and you hold on to it tight when you find it.

with. And that's who gets to tell their stories a lot of the time. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's true that those of us who look like we fit in are the ones who are most likely to get airtime.

You know? I think women, especially cis women are given a lot more freedom to sort of experiment with their presentation and, and level of affection can still be read as friendship, you know? I think it's easy, a little easier for cis women to sort of experiment with some of those things and still be read as normal. Yeah, I was thinking about that. As a man, I feel like it was always kind of like, looked down upon to have like, close emotional relationships or to be

touchy or feely. And that's so much more socially acceptable for women. And I was gonna ask you, if you think that maybe you kind of because of that those gender stereotypes, those gender roles, women maybe don't know that they're like, romantically attracted to women, just because they have an outlet where that emotional fulfillment gets met? And then they're, you see what I'm trying to say? I absolutely do. I agree with

that. 100%. I think, if not placed in a position where you feel forced to label yourself, I think a lot of women maybe just won't, or don't feel a need to, which is totally fine. You know? She gave me permission to share this beforehand but my sister who was just a straight ally, for many years of my coming out, and the best ally ever, she just came out as bi not too long ago, because she had some space to sort of contemplate her own identity and, and what that

could include, you know? I think, maybe not everybody gets that opportunity. I think there are a lot more of us than we know for sure.

woman does not want to. She's too tired to have sex or you know, and all of these things or be physical with her husband. And then that also made me wonder if like, women's, like, the way we view women's sexuality in general, also affects the way women view their own sexuality. And so you can also tell me if this is true, too, but I imagine like, when I was trying to date girls, and they would like want to kiss, I would be like, "Oh, I really

don't want to do this." And then my friends, like I was different from my friends, because they didn't, because they really wanted to do that. Right? And then on the flip side, I'm wondering, if a lesbian is on a date and she doesn't want to kiss the guy and he does. Like maybe there's not as much like social pressure to do that, or like, does that make sense? It absolutely does. I agree. I think my years at BYU taught me, you know what the dating culture

is like at BYU. It's pretty intense, right?

And I knew this is that, that word fits my experience. And my experience has a label. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. And I sort of started to put it in those terms. That's when I started to come out to people just a few months after that. So before you're 22, you weren't, it would have been hard for you to put a label on that. It would have. I think I would have acknowledged that I had experienced some same sex

attraction. But I did not think that, that was a permanent condition, or that it meant anything about my ability to be attracted to men. Yeah. I'm just thinking about trying to put myself in your shoes. And I feel like I would have come out even later had I been a gay woman just because of these social pressures. And I mean, like, it was always very obvious to me that I was attracted to

guys. And I could see that incongruence with society, because of all the ways that it is incongruent with general society. And then I'm also thinking of things like how men have more of an obvious physical response to attraction that maybe women don't quite as much. And like, even still, I was pretty good at lying to myself...

longer. But I'm just like, so gay dude, that there just came a point when I could not pretend any more. And I think a lot of us reached that point. Yeah. So Charlie, you talked about this a little bit earlier. I feel like as a man, it was like my job to get married. And I was told to ask women out and find someone. It was like my duty to get married. So I felt like this intense pressure to find a woman and get married. And then I, I'm in a mid singles

ward now. And so there are all these like, super amazing single women in their 30s. And everyone just says, "Oh, well, the right guy just hasn't come along yet." And they're kind of like these passive people who just haven't like found, like, haven't been pursued by the right guy yet. Whereas my singleness was like my fault. If I just like tried more then I would, I would find

someone. So I'm wondering if you know, where are all the lesbians has to do with the fact that it's easier for a woman to hide, to say, "Well, the right guy hasn't come along yet" and just not show interest in men. Especially in the culture we come from I think that's

absolutely true. And I think it's so interesting to hear your perspective of that, because I just remember being on the flip side of it, where the messaging to young women and young adult women, of course, is that you don't say no to date opportunities. If a man comes to you acknowledge that that must have been hard for him and it is your duty to say yes, which is an uncomfortable position for anybody to be in. I don't think

this is great for anybody. But I definitely felt like it was my fault, too, that I was single, just because I had absolutely no interest. I felt like I was putting out a lot of negative dating energy, you know? Didn't get asked on a whole lot of dates. I said no to a few of the few that I was asked on. So it definitely felt like I was not as invested in that process as I

was supposed to be. The way we set it up kind of makes women in dating, sort of, you know, be able to be passive and just sort of float through it not necessarily be held accountable for not taking any romantic action in their lives. Yeah. Right. So a while ago, and I will tell the story with no identifying details. I met a woman who was a Bishop's wife. She said she had some questions for me after a fireside once. So she pulled me aside. And we were we were talking and she, like

had some questions about me. And she, she asked like, what had been some of the benefits of coming out. And I told her that one of the great things about coming out is I have been vulnerable people have been more vulnerable with me. And I've gotten to, like, hear people's stories and their secrets. And she looked at me and she said, "Do you want to know my secret?" And I said, Of course I do. And she kind of like stared off to the side for like 10 seconds like wondering if she should

actually tell me. And she told me that she was gay. And then in a marriage that she hadn't really wanted to be in for, for, for years. And, and she asked me earlier where all the, where all the gay women are because we hear from all these gay men. She's like, where are all the gay women. And she said, I know where all the gay women are. They're in marriages that, that they never want to be in. And then she said, "I love my husband. He's, he's a great man.

But I just don't know how to tell him or what to do going forward." And, and I remember telling her like, like, because almost no one knew in her life. And I said, "Well, I'll be with you on this journey for as long as you as long as you need me to be." And it honestly just like, pains me that so many people feel like they can't be open and honest. And I think that maybe we wouldn't have this question, "Where are all the lesbians?" If it was more okay for people to be out.

Oh, man. That's heavy but true. Oh, that reminds me of something. I was thinking a lot about to, that, that openness and that vulnerability and being you know, being so open with who you are and accepting of who you are is a great way to attract other people, you know, not just in a dating sense, but just in a community sense. How do you find other people who are like you? How do you find the other lesbians? I think a great way to do that is just to be open and

authentic with who you are. I know we talk a lot about, you know, things that might contribute to less visibility for queer women, but there are so many queer women out there. So many. And it's just a matter of, you know, owning who you are. And to whatever degree that means to you, to feel safe, that feels authentic. You know, if you put yourselves in those situations, where you're, you feel like yourself, and you feel like you can be yourself, you will find other people who are

being themselves too. And sometimes, it's just kind of hard to bridge that gap. You know, how do you find other people who are like you? How do you relate to those people? How do you communicate that I, you know, I'm one of you? And it's, it's difficult for sure. You know, sometimes, Charlie, and I will get emails, like through the podcast and people say, like, "I want to meet more gay people. Like, how do I do that?" And I often tell them, like, you know, the best way to

do is to come out. One of the tensions I felt is I'm not a very diverse person. I mean, I'm one of the most privileged people in the world. And so sometimes people will talk to me, and they'll be like, Ben, we need more diverse experiences than yours. I go, I'm sorry, like, this is my experience, you know? I can't make myself more diverse. But what would you say to the queer women who maybe want to be out but are struggling to know if that's the right thing to do?

Hmm, I think it's always the right thing to do to be authentic, and to do justice to the parts of yourself that you value. And that doesn't necessarily need to mean for everybody that you write some big Facebook post, or come out on National Coming Out Day or whatever. But to be able to find people that you can be honest with is important for everybody. And that doesn't mean you know, if you're not ready to put a label on it, maybe you never put

a label on it. But just to be able to have any circle, no matter how small or big that you can bring your whole self to. That, that's where you should start. I keep thinking about gender stereotypes and gender roles and kind of like a feminist perspective. And I remember growing up, I would do things that were like more feminine or more girly, and feel a little bit like publicly shamed by that. Like I could tell that the response to that was not

positive. And then my older sisters were both they were huge tomboys. Like all the things that I was, quote unquote, supposed to love they actually did. So they were like, they like wanted to play football and work in the yard. And they were just like, very tomboyish. And they were like, praised for that. And, and it was like, a great thing that they were doing

that. I don't know, I, it's so funny to me how gay men are considered feminine, because we like boys and lesbian women are considered masculine, because they like women. And I think we would all do better to like, kind of decouple all of that and just let individuals be individuals.

legs sometimes. And then it feels more Okay, that I'm wearing man clothes and doing man things and being a lesbian, you know? But I think societally we're uncomfortable with anything that doesn't fit that expectation, that small platform we've allowed for displays of femininity, is really it. And certainly men don't have any room to display that, which is so limiting. Yeah, and I don't bring that up to be like, "Oh, I'm so limited as a gay man." Because also, I'm like, I really do have a ton of

privilege. And in a lot of ways, I am very tokenized. And I fit the role. Right?

maybe more masculine. Does that make sense? Like...

And I think even if it's not coming out, as whatever right away, just finding spaces where you can explore what it means to be your whole self, whatever interest that might be or whatever, you know, outfits that might be, to just have a space where you can think of yourself as a complete individual totally divorced from these ideas and expectations of how we're supposed to present ourselves and explain our experiences is

probably the place to start. And then, you know, if you find safety with some friends, then you should be able to bring your whole self to that. Sammy, you mentioned before, like not having, like thinking you were the only person who was like a queer Mormon at BYU, and who were some of the people you looked up to that kind of give you courage? Oh, my goodness. The first thing I started to do when I put these pieces together was I sought out

some resources. I was looking for anybody who was talking about what it means to occupy this space of queer identity and Mormon identity. And something like this podcast five years ago, for me would have just been a lifesaver. This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. So thank you for this podcast, by the way, and congratulations on it. It's wonderful. That's the first step I took, really. And so I found some people who were having these discussions and they seem to have found some

measure of peace. Of course, at the time, I was looking for some answers, some total reconciliation, right, of what I thought was a problem of my existence. And looking back, I realized those people that I looked up to didn't have answers, they just had authenticity. They were able to be themselves, you know? And I think that's really what I came to aspire to. But just to be able to see yourself reflected in a place where you hope to one day be is so powerful, and something that we don't always

have, right? I mean, growing up as queer youth, I don't think we had a lot of role models, don't have a lot of examples of what we thought we could become. I remember my friend Vinnie, who was on the podcast, and like episode five or six, she and I were briefly roommates in Tucson over a summer and she was like transitioning between housing. And she had come to the realization that she was bisexual, and was trying to work

through that. And she said, "Ben where can I read stories about bisexual Mormon women?" I was like, uhhhh...

Um hmmm. It's so true. And I just started this new job at own. this new middle school this year, and it's up in Salt Lake County. So it's like really far away, you know? It's like a different world up there. And in my first week, there in our faculty meeting, our principal just kind of casually mentioned that she's a lesbian. And I just like stopped dead in my tracks. I was like, "No, way! There's another one and she's the

principal." I left that meeting and like texting all my friends and like calling my family like, it was so exciting. And my mom bless her heart said that must be so impactful to see someone who's like you in a position of authority, not only getting acceptance from a position of authority, but to be able to see yourself there. And that's not something that we get very

often. So anytime anybody feels like they have room to be open to any degree, even if it's just a little bit, I think that could be such a gift to someone else. I know so many people have given that gift to me, probably without knowing it just by their sheer example. Yeah. That's such a beautiful way to put like, like the gift of like, the gift of being yourself to someone else, like how much our personal life and story can be a blessing to someone else.

people in that situation. We don't need fewer types of one story. We just need more stories. We just need more...

work. So we changed our plans a little bit and we just did a small wedding with pretty much just our immediate family. But we both come from Mormon families so that was actually a lot of people. It was stressful to plan and I thought it was just going to be this little dinky last minute, technically we got married, woohoo, we'll have a party later to celebrate it type wedding. But we had so many people just step up from our families to really make that

day special for us. We had my wife's aunt is just like, so talented. She's like a professional event planner. And she just sort of took over, crowd sourced all these decorations and the florist and everything. And it turned into this really beautiful day and this full wedding just with a smaller guest list. So we feel very, very privileged to have had that level of support from both of our families really. How have your Latter-day Saint families reacted to, to their daughters getting married?

Largely really well. I think we've both been out to our families for a few years at this point so they've sort of been on that journey with us. And I think they both just express a lot of happiness for us having found happiness, you know? I had many times in my life where I just couldn't envision a future of any kind that would involve happiness. You know? And I think that is true for a lot of us. And I think my parents recognized that I found some happiness, and that, that made

them happy. You know? And my parents Ward up in Idaho, they threw us a bit of a bridal shower, actually, which I would have thought would have been impossible. You know, a few years ago, I never would have thought that a Mormon Ward would throw a party for a lesbian wedding, but they totally did. And it was awesome.

And from them, I was feeling reflected a lot of love and support for me, and also for my family. And this was just kind of, you know, we love the Taylors. So we want to do this for the Taylors, all of them, including you, even if, even if you don't, you're not a part of our Ward, or you're not even necessarily a part of our church. You're a part of our community, and we want to take care of you. And that was something I didn't think I could have.

Sammy, I'm really glad you shared that because I remember the first time I met a married gay couple who was still like, actively involved in their church congregation and like, still had a place in their family society, I was shocked. I was absolutely floored. And I don't really know where my life is gonna take me. But I didn't know that was an option. But now

I do. And I feel like that opens up a whole realm of possibilities and made me feel so much less stuck, and so much more, I don't know, capable of choosing my own life path as I go. And so I just, I think it's lovely that you can share that story and maybe give that experience to someone else.

So powerful to have the hope that maybe this, this place that we grew up, it's our home, the Mormon community is our home, and they still very much feel like my people, even if I'm not so much part of the church anymore.