Sammi t

BS Communication Disorders (‘18)

Describe your experience at BYU.

I started my undergrad at BYU in 2011 and had a great time. I felt like I fit in and that it was where I was supposed to be. I graduated, and it came time to start grad school, and I got into BYU. It felt like the perfect fit! It felt like home, and it was a great deal: all my friends were there, all my professors were there.

I started my grad program, and a couple months in, I started to realize that I was gay. It became difficult at that point to continue feeling like BYU was a place where I was meant to fit.

How did you realize you were queer?

You know, it had been building up for years and years, a decade at that point, you know how it is, we all have these little signs that we see in ourselves as we age and mature and grow up, and it’s always easy to explain away as one thing or another. And like a lot of other people, I just reached a point where I couldn’t explain it anymore, and I had an instant reckoning of all of these things I’d been shoving for years. It was terrifying and it was exciting. It felt like I was finally putting some puzzle pieces of myself together. A lot of things were starting to click and make sense, but of course it raised just as many questions as answers and a lot of uncertainty about the future, where I used to feel nothing but certainty. You know, we all have a life path laid out of us, a roadmap that we just tick all the boxes and we’ll be good. And all of a sudden that doesn’t work anymore, and it was scary. I felt alone.

Why did you choose to go to BYU?

It seemed like home. It was full of who I felt were my people. My family came here. It was supposed to be the place of perfect coalescence of all the things that I was interested in and all my values, all the things I wanted in my life, and I wanted to have that.

What did “coming out” look like for you?

I had a very distinct moment myself when I put the label on my experiences and kind of came to terms with what that was going to mean for my life. And then a couple months after that is when I started coming out to people. I went home to visit my family for a few weeks over the summer and came out to my mom, and then my dad, and then my brother, and then my sister. All separate conversations, all terrifying and painful, but exciting to start getting it all out in the open and figuring out how to move forward.

How has your experience been since leaving BYU?

I was really afraid before I left BYU that this little tight-knit community I’d found I wouldn’t be able to replicate anywhere else once I left BYU. And I didn’t really know where exactly I’ve been in BYU but I didn’t know where I’d fit into the rest of the world any better. So I was afraid to leave, but when I did, I found that I didn’t need that level of support anymore. I still had all of my friendships that I’d formed at BYU but I was free to just live like a normal person and have a job and make friends at work and have neighbors and still see my friends from college. I was more free to decide what options were available to me and what I was interested in pursuing. I was a little more free to really think about what my spirituality was and what I wanted that to look like, what I actually believed, and how I wanted to live my life, what I valued. I was free to date and be normal. And I got married this summer.

What were some of the mental health issues you dealt with as a queer student at BYU?

Difficult to stay present and focus on schoolwork when you’re grappling with things that feel eternal and have really far-reaching consequences for you and your family and your future. It was difficult to focus on schoolwork, difficult to feel hope that things would ever get better. You know, it’s easy to feel like I’m trapped in this awful situation. Thinking things like “It’s only ever going to get worse” and “I’m never going to have any of the things in my life that I thought I would have.”

What’s a piece of advice for a current queer student at BYU?

I would definitely say, look for people who are like you because there are a lot of them and don’t give up if it doesn’t click right away. I went to USGA in the fall semester after I came out and I felt like I went for a solid semester, maybe even two, before it really clicked and felt like I was building friends and a community, but it’s so important. It’s so worth the effort and those friends I still have today. And that’s how I met my now wife is through friends that I made at BYU. So I would say, look for that community and hold onto it and have patience that you will have options when you get out.

Answers to the questions are transcribed from Emily’s video interview and lightly edited for clarity.

Posted April 2021