Holey-lujah: Kevin's Realization (Part 1)

Matt: 00:00:11

Welcome back to Story Hole. I'm Matt and each week we dive deep into one gay person's story. The messy, the beautiful, traumatic and triumphant parts that usually get left out.

We've got loads of gay stories, so this season we have been focusing a lot on leaving the Mormon Church, largely because at the time of releases it is semi annual LDS General Conference time coming up in the first weekend of October, which means closeted gay Mormons are going to be sitting in their living rooms watching old men in suits tell them their deepest feelings are an abomination. So if you're one of those people, this episode's for you. But even if you've never stepped foot in a Mormon church, don't tune out just yet.

These stories aren't really about religion.

They're about shame, hiding, finding your people, learning to love yourself, navigating family rejection, discovering what you actually want, all the universal gay experiences we've been through. Religion's just the backdrop this time around.

Also, I'm poor and can't afford to leave the state to go get other stories just yet, so this is what you get.

Today's story is about a gay guy that was in the LDS Church hardcore, but also proof that if he can make it out, he anybody can.

Quick heads up though. We are dealing with religious trauma, depression and some dark thoughts in this episode. So take care of yourself and know that we love you.

Here's Kevin. Take it away.

Kevin: 00:01:45

I remember saying, you know, I'd rather have them have a gay dad than a dead one because I felt like it was. I never was suicidal, but it felt like it was. It was going there.

Matt: 00:01:59

Meet Kevin. He's had quite the journey so far in life.

He's 43 years old now, but this story begins with a 6 year old boy who knew something about himself that would take him three decades and nearly cost him everything.

To fully understand if you've ever felt trapped between who you are and who everyone expects you to be, Kevin's story is proof that the life you're dreaming of is possible, even when it feels impossible. Let's go back to the beginning. Kevin grew up Mormon in a family that seemed perfect from the outside.

Kevin: 00:02:45

Let's see.

I can remember as far back as five or six years old, mostly because we have a lot of family home videos and you can generally see me prancing around the house in either a cape or one of my dad's big T-shirts with a belt around it and wearing my mom's high heels like that was who I was at Five and six years old, I loved playing with Barbies. I enjoyed playing with all the neighborhood girls. I always wanted a Barbie. I also wanted a sewing machine.

I wanted all these things that girls wanted and I got along so well with them.

Matt: 00:03:22

Girl, that is some icon behavior. But Kevin wasn't just the gay kid hiding in plain sight. He was a whole person with real talents and genuine friendships.

Kevin: 00:03:36

But overall, I was just a very fun loving kid growing up. I loved to play the piano. It's very creative. I loved art. Those are the areas in school that I thrived in. I hated math, science, anything data driven.

I generally had plenty of friends. Most of them, the majority were girls. I also played in band. I played a number of instruments, the trumpet, tuba. What else did I do?

Oh, I've always loved swimming. Swimming has been like my passion since I was a child. So I could literally live in the water even today.

Matt: 00:04:22

But then real life started closing in as he got a little older. Religion, expectations, all the stuff that makes little boys hide their sparkle.

Kevin: 00:04:33

I think after age 6, 7, 8, you know, I started to be influenced by religion and conservatism and I started to try and fit in, you know, and mold my personality to fit into this environment, trying to act straight.

Matt: 00:04:56

But before that pressure fully kicked in, there was the shed.

Kevin: 00:05:02

Well, there's a difference in knowing I was attracted to boys and then identifying as gay or same sex attracted because my first sexual experience was at the age of six. And it wasn't an abusive situation. It was with another boy who was also 6. And he was like a good friend of mine.

And I don't remember a whole lot or how it started. Like, have no idea how this began. But I just remember we went into his shed and started playing with each other's little wieners.

It was so innocent, right?

Matt: 00:05:38

Okay, calm your tits, Gina, before you get your panties in a wad, realize these are just two little boys being little boys. This is less about scandal and more about Kevin realizing simply this felt good and he wanted more.

Kevin: 00:05:55

But that kick started some really strong emotions in me. It felt good, it was exciting, and I wanted to do it again.

Matt: 00:06:07

Six years old, most kids are worried about Legos or snack time. Kevin already carrying a truth he wouldn't get to foley name for 30 more years.

Kevin: 00:06:17

And there were a number of opportunities with other boys in the neighborhood where I was able to play truth or dare or, you know, these innocent activities with other boys. And so I had a number of sexual experiences up until I was maybe 15 years old. I could probably count them on two hands. But, I mean, they left a mark.

You know, they were exciting, they were fun. They were fun.

Matt: 00:06:47

And all the while, Kevin is also forming deep friendships with girls. That, too, felt completely natural.

Kevin: 00:06:55

My favorite was Nanette, who lived across the street.

And when Little Mermaid came out, like, we watched it eight times in theater, and then we would always dance around in her basement and pretend to be mermaids. And, you know, so it was. It was difficult to connect with boys. I didn't really know how, at least not in the way I wanted to.

Matt: 00:07:22

Around age 15, the Mormon pressure really kicked in. Time to prepare for a mission.

Kevin: 00:07:30

I started getting. I was really involved in church. I was very religious and decided. I mean, I had known for a while that I was sinning.

You know, at least that was the mentality at the time. And I needed to start preparing for a mission, to serve mission for the church.

But I never confessed anything to my bishop, and I'm glad I didn't, or they probably would have put me in some intense therapy.

Matt: 00:08:00

Oh, this is when it gets really explosive. This is the teenage boy taking too much time in the bathroom part of the story and having to get the talk, if you can even call it that.

Kevin: 00:08:16

I think I was probably 11 or 12 years old. I was that young. And I think I was just playing with myself in the bathtub, and they shot out, and I was like, what is this?

I also remember having wet dreams, and they were like, the greatest fantasies ever. But it was also innocent back then. And of course, I. I didn't know how to tell my parents about what I was experiencing.

I didn't know what was happening to my body.

And it wasn't until Maybe I was 15, you know, three or four years after I had been masturbating, you know, constantly, that my dad pulled me aside and he's like, kevin, I want to talk to you about masturbation. Do you know what that is? I'm like, what? I'm trying to play innocent. And he's like, that's just not something we practice. It was that formal.

And that was the entire conversation. I was like, okay, dad, thanks.

Matt: 00:09:22

That's just not something we practice. And boom. Welcome to Mormon Sex Ed, where the syllabus is basically silence and shame.

Kevin: 00:09:36

But I do remember telling my mission president, because it was just eating away at me because I was such a sinner, and I had never told anybody. I'd never confessed my sins. And I remember my mission president was like, well, just don't do it again, and you'll Be okay.

Just, you know, focus on the work and go home, get married as soon as possible and live your life and don't be gay.

Matt: 00:10:01

Go home, get married. Easy. Done. Like sexuality's just a bad habit you can kick.

Kevin: 00:10:11

We all trust our mission president.

Matt: 00:10:15

Kevin came home from his mission with the standard Mormon plan.

Kevin: 00:10:24

Well, when I got home from a mission, I was 21 and I quickly started dating and I met my a girl in college and we connected so well. Like, we were really good friends and we both fell in love and we got married by the time we were 22.

It happened all so fast, you know, And I remember thinking, you know, if I... If I get married, all these thoughts about men will go away. I truly believe that.

Matt: 00:11:00

What kind of world do we live in that we think this is legit real and we're teaching people this. Yeah. Spoiler. Marrying a woman does not make gay thoughts vanish. Shocking. I know.

Kevin: 00:11:15

And so we got married. And unfortunately, I still, it was tempted, quote unquote, to look at pornography, gay porn.

And, and I did that within the first year of our marriage. And even then I was like, I was feeling horrible about it. So I finally went to my bishop and said, I'm looking at this and I don't know how to feel.

The bishop didn't know how to respond because they're not trained therapists. And he's like, just don't, just don't do it again and you'll be blessed. But that's all the advice I got. I said, okay.

And he also advised me not to tell my wife about it. All right? I mean, I'm this young, stupid 22 year old.

Matt: 00:11:57

I don't know about you, but I think we can all cut you some slack At 22. Kids are starting to be born. Fast forward to 30 years old. This is when he suffered a horrible loss in his life.

Kevin: 00:12:15

In: 2011

And suddenly I was like really struggling with my same sex attraction and my marriage and everything. And so I looked up some resources, found an organization called Evergreen, which provided me some materials to read.

And suddenly I started feeling like, oh, I'm not alone in this. I experienced same sex attraction. Even by then, I couldn't say that I was gay. I was 30 years old at that time.

And that's when I was finally able to tell my then wife that I experienced same sex attraction.

Matt: 00:13:06

30 years old, Kevin could finally say the Words, same sex attraction to his wife. But he still couldn't say gay.

Kevin: 00:13:20

But understand that our marriage was still good. I still, I loved her so much and we had a great family, we had kids together.

Like there was so much I loved about my life and I wasn't about to say, I wasn't about to walk away from that.

So together we just prayerfully figured it out together, went looking for any resource under the sun that would help support us and went into an organization called North Star where we tried their resources and connected with other married couples who were in the same situation in mixed orientation marriages.

Matt: 00:14:02

Here's what people don't understand about leaving a high control religion when you're already an adult with kids and a mortgage. The stakes aren't just social, they're eternal.

Kevin: 00:14:16

I have to offer myself some grace in that. Knowing that I was extremely indoctrinated. I was dealing with the threat of losing my eternal salvation, which is scary.

It's really scary to think about that. And I still believed in God. I still believed that the church was true at the time.

And so it was extremely terrifying to walk away from all that, not knowing what was on the other side, not having hooked up with anyone yet or explored that since I was 14, 15 years old.

Matt: 00:14:54

And here's where Kevin's story gets even more complicated. Because by this time he was mixing career with religion.

Matt: 00:15:11

Alright, are you ready for a plot twist? Kevin was literally working for the LDS church while going through his own crisis, helping create their official response to gay members.

Kevin: 00:15:25

And by this time I was working for the LDS church in a church office building.

And eventually I came out publicly, you know, in a way that said I'm, I'm, I'm ssa, I'm same sex attracted but I'm still an active Mormon and I'm still temple worthy and, and by this time, you know, I hadn't hooked up with anyone still in my adult life and I was just trying to be a good husband and father, driving the minivan to church on Sundays, you know, like very typical suburban lifestyle.

Matt: 00:16:03

And he wasn't just in the closet, he was decorating it. Kevin basically became the poster boy for the church's look we have gays too campaign.

Kevin: 00:16:16

And my job was to be the story curator because I was already connected with all of these gay members of the church and started to become somewhat of a poster child for gay members.

But it was really amazing because I would receive stories from one end of the spectrum to the other from same sex couples who were happy, were married and were thriving in their marriage to mixed orientation marriages who were, you know, trying their best to. To make it work and everything in between. And I, having been able to read all 140 plus of these stories, it changed my.

My whole perspective on the gay lifestyle.

Matt: 00:17:14

Reading those stories didn't just give Kevin hope. It gave him a disturbing realization about every other mixed orientation marriage he'd ever encountered.

Kevin: 00:17:25

Yes.

Having been in a mixed orientation marriage and knowing what the struggle was every single day, every time I met another couple who was in the same situation, I was just like, listen, I know what you're going through. I know this is hard. I know we are denying ourselves something. And little by little, it just became.

It just became as if, you know, it's just a matter of time that we would all end our marriage, you know, because.

And then when I got to read stories of people who were gay and out and, you know, in whether they were single or married, it didn't matter because their stories just made such an impact on me. And I'm so glad I allowed myself to read them and to get to know them because it helped me realize, like, okay, this is possible. Like, I could.

I could find love with a man.

Matt: 00:18:25

Kevin read 140 stories from LGBTQ Mormons every possible way to be gay and Mormon, and some of them, to him were thriving.

Kevin: 00:18:39

I read and met these couples face to face, and I just was like, holy shit, this is what I want. Like you two are. They all became incredible examples to me of what a thriving marriage, a relationship should look like.

And my therapist at the time helped me understand that heterosexual marriages, where 2.

Both individuals are heterosexuals and attracted to each other, do have a thriving marriage, and they're not living with this struggle every single day. And so it really helped totally shift my mind.

Matt: 00:19:21

Then came the crushing realization about what the church actually wanted.

Kevin: 00:19:28

But another side of this was the fact that I presented all 140 stories to the brethren and said, this gives us a really good look at what the experience is from members of the church. And I think we should tell stories from one end of the spectrum to the other to get. And this is the journalist in me, right?

I was like, we need to tell all sides of the story. But then they came to me after weeks of seeing the reading these stories, and they said, well, we only want to tell these stories.

We only want to tell these 18 stories of temple worthy members of the church who are striving to do their best to be faithful. And I was like. It dawned on me. I was like, Shit, I have been manipulated my entire life.

They have been feeding me this narrative and telling me that this is the only narrative I should be listening to. It's truly cult like atmosphere.

Matt: 00:20:35

That moment changed everything for Kevin.

Kevin: 00:20:41

And I was like, I can't do this. I can't do this anymore. Because I know inside something is so true to me being attracted to men. It's so real and it is bringing me joy.

And I've witnessed these other couples who are experiencing this joy and fulfillment and authenticity. And I'm like, it suddenly dawned on me that these leaders of the church don't know what the fuck they're talking about. They really have no clue.

And they're keeping me in this toxic lifestyle that is not conducive for me.

And it was that experience that caused me to lose my faith, lose my testimony, and finally walk away from what really is just a business that is tax free. And I've never regretted it. Not one day.

Matt: 00:21:51

But Kevin wasn't done yet.

work, until finally, in late: 2017

Kevin: 00:22:14

But after seven years of that, after all the struggle it was, it became harder and harder and harder to deny my homosexuality. And it got to a really unhealthy point, actually, and to where I needed therapy and then I started needing antidepressants.

But in the fall of: 2017

And he came to Utah one week to visit family or something, and we ended up getting together for lunch or something. It was really started really innocent, but within that week, it got really intense and we saw each other every day.

And then he invited me over to his Airbnb where we got naked under the covers and jerked off together and made out. And it was so intense. I was like, holy shit. Like, that felt so good. Like, this is like my body was screaming, finally you've done it.

Like, this is what you were meant to do. This is who you were meant to be.

Matt: 00:23:36

36 years old, finally naked with a man for the first time. His body didn't whisper, it screamed, this. Finally! Yes!

Kevin: 00:23:54

il like one more Christmas in: 2017

And that was in January of: 2018

Matt: 00:24:31

Yeah. I'm not a doctor that can diagnose things, but if I were a betting man, at this point, Kevin is on the verge of a psychological meltdown.

Kevin: 00:24:45

So in a matter of. Well, it took a little while just because I saw the approach that the church were having towards gay members.

And let's just say it was a complete mind fuck. Okay. Like, and I was at my very lowest.

I was so depressed, and I was broken, and I was losing myself and having to navigate that and then take this scary step of walking away from my marriage and the church and my community and risk losing members of my family. It was all so much.

I remember just, like, going into a sound booth because I was a producer for the church and bawling my eyes out almost on a daily basis. There were many times I would just pull over to the side of the road and cry before going home.

There were days I'd sit in the driveway not wanting to go inside. There were Christmases and holidays where I couldn't enjoy my family. It was getting to be so awful. And so there was just no other choice.

I had to choose either. Either, you know, to choose my health, mental health, and physical health, or to continue to conform to a system.

And so I think losing my testimony did help me move past, like, leave my marriage and leave all of that behind to live a truly authentic life. But I lost everything because of it.

Matt: 00:26:29

Sure, there were so many unknowns that Kevin still didn't know about, but the scariest part, right in front of him, sitting down with his kids and saying the words out loud.

Kevin: 00:26:44

Yeah. Before the divorce, before the separation, I had let them know that I was gay. My kids started to know that I was gay.

They started to get to know other gay friends of mine who were also in mixed orientation marriages and all that.

And I started to realize that my children are getting a really warped view of what a homosexual is, what a gay person is, what the LGBTQ community offers to the world. And I didn't like that. I was like, I don't.

It doesn't sit right to me that they see a gay person as someone who is married to a woman and going to this very religious church every day, every week.

And I didn't like that because I started to fall in love with the LGBTQ community, with the pride movement, with all of these things that started to resonate with me, and I didn't want them to grow up with a dad who was not being authentic, who was depressed all the time, who couldn't be present in the home. So it was like an act of, you know, trying to be the dad they. I wanted them to have.

And I remember saying, you know, I'd rather have them have a gay dad than a dead one. Because I felt like it was. I never was suicidal, but it felt like it was, it was going there.

Matt: 00:28:12

Then that night, he finally told his mom.

Kevin: 00:28:19

I remember the night I walked out of my house and I had told my ex wife that I couldn't do this anymore. So I walked out and I just drove to my mom's place. I didn't know where else to go. And I walk in and I said, mom, I can't do this anymore.

She had been seeing this struggle for a number of years now. And she looked at me and said, like, okay, I was just waiting. Like I was just waiting for this day to happen.

I was waiting for you to make this choice. And she's like, I knew it had to be your choice, but in a very loving, accepting way, my mom just said, it's okay, Kevin. It's okay.

You're going to be fine. We're going to get through this.

Matt: 00:29:06

What an incredible moment with his mom. And it's crazy that all of the kids in this family raised by that woman. And yet how different a response to when Kevin came out to his siblings.

Kevin: 00:29:25

But then my sister and her husband immediately didn't want to talk to me anymore. They didn't want me in their life anymore or around their kids.

My brothers as well, questioned whether or not they wanted me in their home around their kids.

Matt: 00:29:48

Which, let's be real, wasn't about Kevin being unsafe at all. It was about them being uncomfortable. Very big difference.

Kevin: 00:29:58

It was, it was shocking actually, just how different I was being treated by members of my family and extended family. It was like I suddenly disappear.

Matt: 00:30:18

There was one family member Kevin couldn't come out to. His father had died years earlier and Kevin started to wonder about something.

Kevin: 00:30:31

ave received this. He died in: 2011

Though I had somewhat suspected that my dad could have been gay, having lived with him my whole life.

And there's just certain stereotypical things about him, like the fact that he just loves musicals and I Love Lucy and didn't have a whole lot of male friends. There is just something about him that I knew. He was also depressed and I don't know.

There was a struggle there, but I never really allowed myself to believe anything like that. But then my mom, we. We talk a lot. My mom and I talk all the time and always have.

And she happened to mention that she caught my dad looking at gay porn once. But my. Apparently my dad, who was bishop at the time, said he was just doing research.

Matt: 00:31:49

I'm a doctoral scholar then if we can call looking at porn, research.

Kevin: 00:31:54

Trying to figure out how to, you know, trying to understand the youth of his ward. And I was like, mom, I don't think. I don't think that's the case.

Matt: 00:32:06

So Kevin went to his stake president for advice, and he got more confirmation than he bargained for.

Kevin: 00:32:15

And then when I was struggling, I went to my stake president. This was before I got a divorce. And my stake president happened to grow up down the street from my dad, so they were like close friends growing up.

And he looked at me in this interview, you know, with my stake president, when I was saying, I think I need to get a divorce. I just can't do this anymore. I'm struggling. And he looked at me and said, you know, your dad dealt with this. And I was like, what? I.

Like this is like. Like the second confirmation that someone who knew my dad knew that he was gay or dealt with attraction to the same sex. And.

And that, like, confirmed it.

Matt: 00:33:04

The stake president thought he was saying, if your dad survived it, so can you. What Kevin heard was, do you want your life to look like that? Because it already does.

Kevin: 00:33:19

I think he was his intention in telling me that was to say, if your dad can do it, so can you. You know, But I'm like, you didn't grow up with my parents.

My parents were great, and they loved each other for sure, but I never saw a whole lot of affection growing up. My parents never. I didn't see that. My dad slept on the couch most of his. Most of their marriage. He always blamed it on restless leg ache.

You know, that's what he would call it. But I don't know. It was like in that moment in that stake president's office, a light bulb went off, and I was like, I don't want that marriage.

That's what my marriage looks like right now. We're not having sex. We're not passionate.

We're not, you know, experiencing marriage the way that I want to experience marriage, and I don't want to have that relationship.

Matt: 00:34:21

Religion was a huge part of Kevin's life. And losing the religion that raised you, it's not like, just changing the channel. It's like losing a language you've spoken your whole life.

Kevin: 00:34:37

For the first couple years, I think I was more agnostic. It was, you know, I would tell myself that there's, there's probably a loving heavenly father up there.

I don't really know what he they she look like, but I'm. I don't need to know. You know, I'm actually feeling better with not knowing.

And I having, you know, as a father myself, I'm just like, there's nothing my kids could do that would ever prevent them from being welcomed into my house. I can't think of anything.

Matt: 00:35:12

Kevin started with a gentler God, one that looked nothing like the Mormon version. But eventually even that wasn't enough.

Kevin: 00:35:22

And so, like, I just think. I think the idea or definition of what the LDS church had of God was flawed. Christianity as a whole was just flawed.

By the time I was still open to, to the idea of some kind of supreme being or power out there today, I can definitively say that I am a through and through atheist. I do not believe God exists.

Matt: 00:35:52

Church is out. Science is in. Dinosaurs, evolution, billions of years. Kevin's new gospel was evidence, not dogma.

Kevin: 00:36:06

Well, I think it was just a matter of critical thinking, like, you know, trying to understand how the Earth was created and how it happened over billions and billions of years and how there's been a number of different species that have existed on this planet during the time. I mean, the dinosaurs lived for like 150 million years.

And it was just like it was just kind of picking apart the creation from the religious side and realizing that cannot be real.

Matt: 00:36:41

Kevin became a convert to evidence over faith.

Kevin: 00:36:45

If you look at science and all of the ways different scientists have found evidence of the Earth and how it was probably created. And I just started.

I just started realizing, like, we can't just fill in these gaps that we don't know that science to science hasn't caught up to yet or discovered with religion. That just doesn't. I'm not doing that anymore. If something doesn't have evidence, I'm not going to believe it.

Matt: 00:37:19

Kevin knows that everyone has their own journey, just like he has. And when it comes to other gays in the church, he's got empathy for them. Still trying to make both worlds work.

Kevin: 00:37:32

I say to each their own. If they want to do that, if they feel drawn to that, there's just. There are guys who are just so on the fence and they want to be.

They want to exist in both places. But I See them continually struggle. But I actually know a gay couple who is married and they go to church every Sunday. They love that.

But every time they get on social media, they're like sharing some emotional, heart wrenching quote from somewhere saying life is a journey and life is a struggle. Sometimes I just want to be like, shake them and be like, just stop putting yourself through this religious abuse.

Matt: 00:38:15

Live, laugh. Stop putting yourself through this. Somebody needs to get them that decor for above their bed.

So we end part one of Kevin's story at the lowest point, but also at the most crucial moment. 36 years old, divorced, faithless, estranged from half his family. Everything he'd been taught to value was gone.

But for the first time in his life, Kevin was telling the truth about who he was.

Kevin: 00:39:01

Looking back, I think I would have.

It would have been easier on both of us if I had just ended our marriage after coming out to her and accepting this part of me and not putting us through so much therapy and retreats and conversion therapy and all this, these resources that I tried to stay in my marriage, to stay in the church and to conform, conform to this lifestyle. But at the same time, it's like I know that I tried everything to make our marriage work.

So it, it brings me some, some peace of mind knowing that I didn't just quit right off the bat, that I tried my best, but at the same time, it was like looking back, that was so unnecessary. Like you should have just come out and lived your life like you're living now. It was almost like it just delayed the whole process.

Matt: 00:40:07

Sometimes you've got to torch the whole damn thing. Faith, family, and marriage, just to clear space for the life you were actually meant to live.

Kevin had spent 36 years trying to be the person everyone else wanted him to be. Now he was finally free to discover who he really was. And spoiler alert, that discovery was gonna be one hell of a ride.

Kevin: 00:40:36

I was so happy to have a mom who was so loving and accepting in that moment and to give me a safe place to just spend the night.

Matt: 00:40:48

And then finally, the words he'd been waiting his whole life to hear.

Kevin: 00:40:56

It's okay, Kevin. It's okay. You're gonna be fine. We're gonna get through this.

Matt: 00:41:04

Sometimes home isn't where you start. It's where people accept you unconditionally. Kevin had found his way there finally.

Coming up in part two, Kevin enters the dating world at 36, with all the sexual experience of a sheltered teenager he meets.

Kevin navigates the new co parenting world with his ex wife continues his sexual awakening and launches some pretty hot events that have all gay Salt Lake talking.