Podcast version of this piece. Sunday morning in Salt Lake City, whenfaithful Mormons flock to worshipat neighborhood wards, my father’ssecret psychiatric patients slip insidethe back door of 508 East South Temple,for fifty-five-minute appointments.A nurse impersonator,…
Podcast version of this piece. Morning at homelistening to silenceand a solo cello,caressing old books,fog outside,fire inside. Treesin crystal veils,fog-doused sun,Earth’s palette replacedby soot and chalk. No color.Only grays,darker or lighter.No real black.No clean white.…
The Mormon Lit Blitz contest has tapped into a rich reservoir of Mormon short-short fiction, reaching a milestone this year with the publication of its first anthology. With a 1000-word limit, final winners selected by…
Her eyelids were closing. It must have been the stillness in the room that made her realize. The two young elders advanced their slides across the laptop screen and it felt late. She nodded slowly.…
Old George sat on an upturned half-barrel cleaning his gun. It only ever shot blanks these days, but that didn’t matter much. A fellow outlaw’d once told him the state of your gun’s the state…
I don’t know why they’ve asked someone else to play the organ. I’ve been playing the organ in this ward for forty-eight years. When I first learned to play, I had to pump the air…
Podcast version of this piece. I’m sitting in the bishop’s office. My dress is slightly damp, but I can’t determine whether the moisture is a result of the snowstorm or sweat beading beneath the cotton.…
Dialogue 54.4 (Winter 2021): 111–137
Ten years ago, my article “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology” was published in Dialogue. I did not know what to expect when it made its way into the world, but it ended up being a widely discussed piece and has been accessed tens of thousands of times. The public discussion about my ideas was both critical and appreciative. In the wake of the article, my own research and thinking have also developed.
Dialogue 54.4 (Winter 2021): 99–109
Reproductive gender essentialism claims exclude trans persons for their gender identity. However, these same arguments, when taken seriously, also exclude infertile and intersex women too. Such a strict definition of “man” or “woman” does not simply exclude trans folks but also any body not fulfilling its biological utility. After all, biological potential and utility is the basis of a biological sex assignment
Sporadically over the past few years I have been writing a personal document titled “What I Believe.” The reason for this is twofold. First, as I have learned more, my beliefs have shifted. This is…