mormonsLGBTQ_LizTyler

Title: The Unthinkable Brink (working title)

Elisabeth Dee & Tyler Brooks

Kim: I would say keep your head down. I would say be careful. I would say that self-preservation is your upmost responsibility because until you can come out in a safe and open and caring environment, the system that you’re growing up in is designed to destroy you. So you may have to keep your head down. And it may be the thing that drives you to the brink. The unthinkable brink.

Elisabeth #1: I’ve known Kimberly for eight years. She taught photography at my high school, right outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. There was something about her I was drawn to. I felt like she saw things in me I didn’t know where there. When she came out as intersex and transgender, I realized why we had been pulled into each other’s orbits: we were both outsiders. We were both Mormon and queer and struggling.

Anchor #1: We regard same sex marriage as a particularly grievous or significant serious kind of sin that requires church discipline.

Anchor #2: Well the number one killer of Utah’s kids is suicide according to new numbers from the state health department. And there’s no definitive reason for this abrupt rise in suicide among Utah youth but there are many pointing to Utah’s religious culture.

Tyler Glenn: Please don’t let this be a summer of more gay suicides, please make a space for your gay members, please tell them they are okay and they are made in the image of god.