USGA

I began to get involved in USGA, in a committed way, in January of this past year. It was a group that completely set me free on believing that gay groups couldn't exist at BYU. We existed. We thrived. We loved. I watched members of the group fall in and out of love with each other. I watched as some made the painful but rewarding journey out of the closet.

I attended the group with my dear friend, my "wife." Now, she is not my wife in any legal or romantic sense but we do love and care for each other as friends. We watched and participated in discussions about gender roles, the LDS Church's stance on gays, and about acceptance. Through it all we sought to create a place of safety and inclusion. 

When I think back over the year on USGA, I think of a place where friends could meet and feel safe. My life has been forever changed by the existence of this group. It has been forever altered by the lives of people I have interacted with. But it taught me something I cannot shake to this day.

USGA is a place to begin at. It is a safe starting point. By the end of the year I felt old. I had already been out for a couple of years. I had already discussed the same old topics and made peace and resolved many of them in my own life. I was much older than some of the people in the group.

I didn't belong. 

I know that many there would not accept that. But by the end of the year, I accepted that I no longer had a place at USGA. I had outgrown it. I still have a great deal of love for the group. I still want to visit it every once-in-a-while. But I now realize that I don't belong. It was this realization that I first came to when attending USGA in the fall that helped me realize that I no longer belonged at BYU, Provo/Orem, or anywhere down there. There was nothing left for me there. 

The home I had built had become too small for me now.