mimormonfeminist

[mimormonfeminist]

"God never gives you more than you can handle" is survivorship bias. People who got more than they could handle are dead.

[mimormonfeminist]

LION HOUSE ROLLS

Follow for recipes

Is this how you roll?

[mimormonfeminist]

You have been with me from the beginning.

John 15:27

[mimormonfeminist]

"St Paul said, 'Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.' To work together, and to grow together, we must be tolerant. No one person or…or faction seeking to dominate another. And speaking to the Ephesians, who were of course a mixture of Jews and Gentiles, Paul reminds us that God's gift to the Church is its variety. It is this variety, this diversity of people and views which gives our Church its strength. And over the course of many years in the service of our Mother the Church, let me tell you, there is one sin which I have come to fear above all others."

Conclave (2024) dir. Edward Berger

[mimormonfeminist]

He looks out over the cardinals and sees they are unified by a single emotion. Shock.

CONCLAVE (2024) dir: Edward Berger

[mimormonfeminist]

Happy Pride!

For all the neighborhood/ward to see. My front window for June! Happy Pride Tumblr Stake / Queer Stake

[mimormonfeminist]

I did flags!! (part 1)

Feel free to use if you like them 🌈💛

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Links

[mimormonfeminist]

And Gay Nauvoo wins with 71.6% of the vote! 🎉🎉🎉

Tragically, I've been called for jury duty for the exact week that I was planning to make the trip.

But never fear, I will make it to Nauvoo and I will make it Gay.

All right, I'm ceding my decision making to the great, all-knowing poll. I have a long weekend in June and I think it would be fun to visit a Church history site for the first time since I was a youth.

[mimormonfeminist]

God says ACAB

[mimormonfeminist]

I googled ‘captain Moroni’ and this was one of the first images to pop up. New icon

[mimormonfeminist]

All right, I'm ceding my decision making to the great, all-knowing poll. I have a long weekend in June and I think it would be fun to visit a Church history site for the first time since I was a youth.

[mimormonfeminist]

stretching with mama

[mimormonfeminist]

STOP asking queer mormons why we stay despite the homophobia and START asking homophobic mormons why they stay despite the core tenet of kindness

[mimormonfeminist]

:-)

[mimormonfeminist]

Before I knew I was bisexual I was just insanely dramatic and weird around guys I liked. I had a crush on this guy in my ward - he was older than me, he played bagpipes and had a cheerful dog and an old Volkswagen bus that he worked on all the time. He also had nice scruff and unnaturally attractive hands and a good sense of humor, so I was like FULLY smitten.

I talked about him a lot and about how he was just so dang COOL, dang it, because he was so frickin’ cool. And I really liked him. I thought he was funny and smart and interesting and cool and fascinating and a bunch of other weird feelings I barely had the attention span to think about (I think my ADHD may have prevented me from coming out for a while tbh).

One day, I’m like 14-15, his dad is called to be my Sunday School teacher. His dad is this ex-military hardass with a chip on his shoulder for absolutely no reason and unattainable standards for his children. He spent most of Sunday School talking shit about his eldest boy and how he was rebellious and didn’t listen to him and how that was going to make him a bad adult and a bad son forever. How his son was too lazy and unmotivated to be successful because he didn’t listen to his advice on how to read the scriptures. He complained about how our generation was too weak to do things right and that our generation would surely be the one that brought the world’s downfall because of our laziness and sin.

And like, first of all, that guy can already go fuck himself for that. To clarify, that’s already stupid. BUT. He was talking about the man I had uncomfortable dreams about at least once a month. I couldn’t stand it. I’d get so mad I’d go home shaking sometimes because how fucking DARE he insult his hardworking stunning son by calling him lazy? For not reading the Bible the way his dad wants? When he’s already spending his time learning bagpipes? And fixing cars? And being cool? And cute? Who the fuck even cares if he uses the footnotes in the Book of Mormon? Who gives a rotten rat’s ass if he doesn’t use the scripture study manual his dad uses? He’s so cool he doesn’t even need it? So fuck off?

And eventually I got fucking Sick Of It and decided to mutiny. And by mutiny, I mean skip class. I’d just not go. And after a bit, adults started noticing and bugging me about it. At first, this was put off by small talk and excuses, but as my absence from Sunday School became more well-known, my excuses began to be rejected.

“Oh, Lizard, why aren’t you in class?” Uhm idk because my Sunday School teacher is mean to his kid and that makes me so mad wtf do you want from me? 🫠🤔

“Where’s your class, I’ll go with you!” Oh no ty I’d rather peel my own eyes than have my taste in men critiqued tyty 🩷

“Lizard, you should go to class, I’m sure they miss you!” And I miss the innocent days where my stomach didn’t hurt when a cool boy I knew was being belittled but unfortunately for us both those days are LONG gone and all that’s left is a budding psychosexual clusterfuck that will render me almost fully incapable of functioning for the better part of a decade so Bye Bye, sister Smith 🙂‍↕️

It had gotten to the point that ward leadership was involved. I was being approached by members of the Young Men’s presidency and the Bishopric to try and make me to back to class. They were telling me God had told them to find me and instruct me on my rebelliousness. This is where I implemented my secret weapon - women. Mormons are weird as hell about a lot of things, but especially about women. And I was GREAT with women. So to combat the leadership’s attention, I started helping women.

Our ward had a lot of new moms with babies who were, as babies tend to be, fussy. But for Mormon women the church is often their only social outlet, so they try to power through as long as they can even if it means enduring the exhausting ordeal of taking care of a fussy baby at church.

For what it’s worth, I have a lot of sway with babies. I got baby street cred. Me and babies have a rapport. I have always known this. I have always loved this. And in this crucial gay time in my faggot life my baby mind powers came in clutch - Every time I saw a member of the bishopric getting close, or a young men’s leader giving me side-eye, I’d start walking slowly towards class, passing by relief society. I’d wait until a mom’s baby had gotten too fussy and needed to leave the room, and I’d swoop in like a knight. “Oh, don’t you worry sister, I’ll bounce him a bit. You go back and hang out with your friends in class. You deserve a break.”

If it was a diaper change or something they’d tell me no. But if it was just some good old-fashioned baby fusses, I mean, they’d be moved almost to tears. They just got their social time back AND a free babysitter who is renowned as the Baby Whisperer. And because I was holding a baby as a favor for someone else, I of course could not reasonably be bothered to return to class.

So just like that, I was out of everyone’s sights. This went on for about a month before the straw that broke the camel’s back, which was that without my class participation the classes were quiet and awkward. I’d often take the brunt of Sunday school lectures by answering questions impulsively and over explaining myself enough that the clock could run out without anyone needing to do or say much. My absence meant everyone else was getting hit with the full unpleasantness of this guy’s bullshit. And so slowly, one-by-one, I had a group of about 8 kids on baby-holding duty. These new moms were so overjoyed, they and their husbands were both so actively in our corner that now chastising us was untenable. Now we had bargaining power. So the Bishopric approached us, confused beyond confused and uncomfortable beyond uncomfortable, and said,

“What’s it gonna take to get you back to class?”

The POWER I possessed in that moment was addictive. By being kind to the women of the ward and ignoring the Mormon de facto Rule of Law of following rules en-masse so the rule breakers feel left out, there were now so many people breaking ranks that we had effectively enacted a church boy labor strike. And they crumbled so fast it was almost like we had swayed God himself to our cause.

“I want brother assholedad gone. He sucks at teaching.”

I didn’t even have to say it. One of my rebels said it for me. I just nodded sagely and said “Yes, his class is not edifying. It’s better to not go and hold babies.”

And just like that, with a snap of my limp-wristed, Christ-wounding, bottom-brained fingers my faggot will was enacted. God’s revelation that brother shitdad was his chosen Sunday school teacher flipped on a dime. Suddenly brother shitdad was asked to be an usher and the fun dad of another one of my crushes was called in to teach us. I still stayed to hold babies a lot, but the rest of the class returned and all was well again.

Although I didn’t recognize it then, I think that was a formative moment for me in a lot of ways. I learned that being really persistently annoying will get me what I want from authority eventually. I learned that God’s will can be swayed by going in strike. I learned that ignoring men’s made up authority forces them to level with you as a person. I learned that caring for women, especially vulnerable women, can make a whole world happier. I learned that letting women rest can help them feel more love for the things that matter in their life. I learned that social bonds make everyone stronger and happier. And I learned that loving others in a gay way can change the world.

Be gayer. Read Terry Pratchett. I love y’all 💕

[mimormonfeminist]

You are a Child of God

Therefore, it is beneath your dignity to kiss the earthly rings of tyrants and shine the boots of oppressors.

Remember that your kingdom, like Christ's, is not of this world. When Jesus taught that we should render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's he meant money. Not souls. Not the dignity and self-possession that is ours by birth.

It is against our religion to accept violence from the State—not for ourselves, and not for others. Read D&C 121-123 again. That's what they say. That's what they mean.

How can we hold any other position when the Prophet Joseph Smith was executed through vigilante justice? How can we choose false imprisonment for anyone when it was exercised against our own people so many times?

The God who told our prophet and our people "fear not what man can do" in the face of state violence will not forgive us if we side with jailers of the innocent. Not in this moment. Not in any moment.

Seeking redress against state violence is a sacred duty bestowed upon us by God. D&C 123:7 says "It is an imperative duty that we owe to God" not to allow such things to stand as long as there is anything we can do to stop it.

If you need the words to express to the Trump supporters in your life why supporting the current administration is immoral and unacceptable for us as a people, here they are. To love our neighbors as ourselves means we cannot tolerate their oppression because it (allegedly) benefits us in any way.

God has withdrawn protection and prosperity from our nation because our people have supported and allowed this evil to happen to our neighbors. It will continue until those who are responsible repent. And if they don't, the promised suffering that was promised to our own oppressors will come upon us:

13 Also because their hearts are corrupted, and the things which they are willing to bring upon others, and love to have others suffer, may come upon themselves to the very uttermost;

14 That they may be disappointed also, and their hopes may be cut off;

15 And not many years hence, that they and their posterity shall be swept from under heaven, saith God, that not one of them is left to stand by the wall

There is moral rot among the Saints in the United States. If we do not purge it from among ourselves through repentance and restitution to those we have harmed through this corrupt administration, we will be destroyed from the earth by that administration. We will fall into the pits we have dug for our neighbors. And we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

[mimormonfeminist]

Professor Park lists the books from the past 50 years he thinks are most important about the LGBTQ+ LDS experience. He includes two volumes edited by Kerry Pray: I Spoke to You with Silence, and The Book of Queer Mormon Joy. Many people, including some here in queerstake, contributed their stories to these volumes. Thank you to everyone who participated in those books.

Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A MORMON EXAMPLE by D. Michael Quinn

Gay Rights and the Mormon Church: Intended Actions, Unintended Consequences by Gregory A. Prince

Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism by Taylor G. Petrey

Chosen Path: A Memoir by D. Michael Quinn

I Spoke to You with Silence: Essays from Queer Mormons of Marginalized Genders by Kerry Spencer Pray

The Book of Queer Mormon Joy by Kerry Spencer Pray

The Boughs of Love: Navigating the Queer Latter-day Saint Experience During an Ongoing Restoration by Nathan Kitchen

Dictates of Conscience: From Mormon High Priest to My New Life as a Woman by Laurie Lee Hall