Jana Riess: A drag queen in the Queen City says he’s a better Christian since leaving the LDS Church

Being a drag queen is “freedom,” said Michael Wilson, a Cincinnati-area human resources administrator who entertains and raises money for charity as Molly Mormen. “When you’re in drag, you get to be who you are and just have fun. You’re going to poke fun at people in the audience and engage with them, you’re going to tell stories.”

Wilson, 40, said some of those stories relate to growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in suburban Salt Lake City.

Wilson had all the Latter-day Saint bona fides: He was “born in the covenant” to parents who’d been sealed for eternity in one of the faith’s temples. As a young adult he went to the church’s flagship school, Brigham Young University, and served a full-time mission for two years.

He was particularly hoping such faithful missionary service would bring an answer to prayer: that God would “fix” him and make him not gay anymore. Though he wasn’t yet out to anyone, he had long understood that he was different. He sensed deep disappointment and fear from his parents, so he did what he could to please them by participating in manly sports like wrestling, excelling in school and dating girls.

But nothing made him heterosexual. Wilson remembered the crushing disappointment he felt when he was officially released after two years of full-time missionary service, and he was still gay.

“I remember walking out, and I was kind of shell-shocked,” he said. “It was literally the acknowledgment that I was never going to be enough for what the church wanted from me, or what I thought the Lord wanted from me. At no point in the future was I ever going to be in a situation again where I was doing nothing but serving the church, the Lord and the people around me. So if that two-year stint didn’t change me, then I knew that nothing else was going to either.”

That was “probably the true beginning of the end” for his church membership, he said, but he continued trying for years after that, still doing what the church asked of him. He went back to BYU to finish his degree, was active in the church and volunteered in the temple. He had serious relationships with women, even picking out rings a couple of times before getting cold feet and calling it off.

Coming out

Then he cautiously began coming out to friends and dated a man for the first time — a Utah Valley University student who also lived in Provo. Same-sex dating at BYU is strictly forbidden, so this was carried out in secret. Wilson wound up graduating a semester earlier than planned because he was afraid that if they were caught, he wouldn’t be awarded his degree.

He did get his degree, which was a relief. The next year he came out to his family, which was a disaster. In a heated exchange with his mother, she asked, “How can you do this to our family?” For months afterward, she would leave “drive-by” gifts as attempts to get him back on the straight and narrow (here’s a book about staying in the closet! And here is a new framed picture of Jesus!). She placed these on his doorstep while he was at work so as to avoid a conversation.

It took years for his parents to come to terms with Wilson’s sexuality, and he said they still are not supportive in any visible, tangible way. Not long ago, his dad asked him when he was going to come back to the church, to which Wilson replied, “Why would I come back to a church that doesn’t want me?”

In our Religion News Service interview, Wilson was generally diplomatic about Mormonism, which he explained is partly due to his degree in public relations and partly because he sees ongoing anger as counterproductive.

“I’m not saying it doesn’t flare up, because it definitely does, depending on the experience, what is happening in the moment,” he said. “But I also try really hard not to let myself fall down that path because it’s a thief of joy. I want to do what I can to experience joy and live in a way that’s meaningful for me.”

For Wilson, that kind of joy has been far more readily available outside the church. He respects LGBTQ+ members who choose to stay active in the church, as he once did, but he came to find the pace of institutional change “taxing and exhausting.”

Instead, he has chosen to pursue one of the main values he learned in growing up a Latter-day Saint: His job is to “be the best version of myself and to help other people,” as he put it. His persona as Molly Mormen helps with that: She is happy, funny and committed to raising a boatload of money for charity.

Molly has been performing drag since the 2010s with the Imperial Sovereign Queen City Court of the Buckeye Empire, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that, according to its website, has raised more than $1.6 million for various charities. Molly herself has served as the organization’s “empress” twice, raising more than $160,000 during her two-year-long reigns.

Since that time, Wilson became a founding board member of Queen City Charities, another drag-driven nonprofit whose purpose is to “have fun, raise money, and give it away.” Since its inception five years ago, said Wilson, it has raised more than $500,000 for charities supporting the Greater Cincinnati LGBTQ+ community.

The rise of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment

Today, Molly does events as a side job, appearing in regional drag comedy shows and hosting Sunday bingo in southern Ohio, northern Kentucky and nearby Indiana.

Not long ago, she was averaging three such gigs a week, though there has been a recent downturn in bookings. Wilson attributes the decline to the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and legislation in various states, including where Wilson lives and works.

“Gay bars are closing across the country,” he said. “When I moved here in 2013, there were 19 or so gay bars. Now I think we’re technically down to four, and only one of those is a true drag-style bar. So the opportunities to do drag in the traditional queer spaces are very limited right now.”

The Ohio Legislature earlier this year reintroduced a “drag ban bill” that would make it a crime for “performers or entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s gender assigned at birth” to perform outside of a designated adult cabaret space. In other words, no more drag queen story hours at the library or drag bingo in community spaces. As of this writing, the proposed ban is still in committee.

Across the river in Kentucky, a similar bill was recently introduced that would criminalize public drag performances. Wilson said that the Ohio and Kentucky bills would also criminalize drag at pride festivals, since they occur in public, many on publicly owned land.

Despite the haters, Molly Mormen is soldiering on and living her best sequin-studded life. Michael Wilson, meanwhile, believes he is a better person today than he ever was as a Latter-day Saint.

“I say it wholeheartedly, that leaving the church has made me a better Christian,” he explained. “I am a better person of faith because I am kinder and more empathetic. I’m more in service to my fellow men because I’m no longer worried about whether the person I’m serving is ‘worthy’ of the service I’m giving them. I don’t care about whether somebody is drinking coffee or some woman’s skirt is too short. I care about the person.

“And if I hadn’t left the church and opened myself up, I don’t think I would have that level of empathy and charity I have now.”

Note to readers • The views expressed in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.