In 2017, Laurie Lee Hall publicly shared her remarkable journey as a transgender Latter-day Saint.
It took her through joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving a two-year mission, marrying and having children, being called as a bishop and stake president and becoming head architect for the faith’s sacred temples.
Transitioning to her “authentic self,” she said, caused her to lose her job, her marriage and her church membership. Yet she is more at peace with herself than she ever has been.
Hall details the twists and turns her life took as she moved inexorably toward acceptance of her real identity in a new memoir, “Dictates of Conscience: From Mormon High Priest to My New Life as a Woman.” She also discusses the stricter limitations her former faith has imposed on its transgender members.
Here are excerpts from Hall’s interview on The Salt Lake Tribune’s latest “Mormon Land” podcast.
Why tell your story now?
It really comes down to the inspiration I felt and the desperation I was feeling in both the political and the religious climate in which we were living in even these past couple of years in which we saw large-scale denial of the reality of gender identity. I wanted to humanize gender identity, to put a face to it, and to use my story as a vehicle to help others who might need to know and understand that gender dysphoria is a real medical condition that can be treated with proper gender-affirming health care — to educate and inform that social transition, medical transition, and even surgical transition at many times is necessary for an individual who experiences gender dysphoria to mitigate the challenges that are faced and to be able to go on to live healthy, normal and thriving lives.
What happened to your job at the church after your transition?
I reached a point where I needed to socially transition and present full time as “Laurie Lee” while I was still working for the church in physical facilities. I asked for the opportunity consistent with state law that allowed individuals to socially transition while maintaining their employment status. Of course, there’s an exception for religious employers who don’t have to follow that, but I asked the church straight-out if I could be treated in the same way that my colleagues and other employees in the state were being treated. Ultimately, I was forced to lose my temple recommend, which disqualified me from being able to continue to be an employee of the church. … I did begin to practice architecture privately while still in Utah, but very quickly realized that I didn’t have much of a reputation in the building community in Utah. At the same time, I developed a relationship online with a former friend and member of a family that I knew long ago. That has turned into a deep and abiding love, which brought me to live here in Kentucky, just outside of Louisville, where I am now. I was able to be licensed here in Kentucky and have lots of wonderful little projects going on here, including working for our county.
When you were excommunicated, what did leaders tell you was your sin?
That was a very complicated thing for them to try to describe, because there wasn’t [any sin]. There was concern that I had attended one [women’s] Relief Society meeting for a few minutes in my home ward or that what I was doing was the opposite of the [church’s] teachings. I explained how my beliefs were consistent with [its] teachings. I also demonstrated that I was not an apostate, attempting to convince others to believe as I believed. I certainly wasn’t trying to promulgate an alternate doctrine. I believed in the notion that gender is an eternal characteristic of who we are. I still believe that — just not the way that it’s currently being taught.
How did that removal from the church change your life?
It was something I grieved. … I discovered after the excommunication that being freed from doctrinal and policy constraints being not a member of the LDS Church, I truly was freed to worship God according to the dictates of my conscience. I was able to then take responsibility for my beliefs, my faith and my actions going forward in the way that I felt both about myself and the way that I felt about my relationship with deity, with the ministry of the Holy Ghost. But the loss of my membership was the primary driver of the separation, initially and, ultimately, the divorce that ended our marriage of 32 years. … The church that she deeply believed in did nothing to support or prepare her for her spouse losing membership. It’s very clear to me that she was harmed by that action against me.
But were there some “heroes” who treated you well?
I did have a couple of bishops, one at the time of my excommunication, and then one shortly after, when I attempted to find a safe place to continue to attend worship services, who really lived the spirit of their callings. They were about the sum total of men with Christian hearts. There were lots of Relief Society presidents and other sisters who were willing to even sit down with me and teach me how to do makeup. In the Liberty Stake, I had that wonderful little 10-month experience where the true love of Christ manifested so frequently in welcoming me — a nonmember, at that point — as a full, active, participating and serving part of their church community, of their ward family. That story is a bright light of hope in the midst of a whole bunch of turmoil that I was experiencing in other areas.
How did apostle Dieter Uchtdorf, who was in the governing First Presidency at the time, treat you?
I had been meeting with the First Presidency on a monthly basis for about five years when [the three leaders] became aware that I considered myself transgender. The first meeting I had with them after I became known to them as transgender, President Uchtdorf came into the room. He had the opportunity to just go around the table and go to his seat. I was the only person in the room at the time, so he went around the table the opposite way, so that he could greet me, which was out of the norm. He put his arms around me, drew me close to him, and gave me just a powerful hug, whispering in my ear, “We are so grateful that you are here with us.” I melted into his arms in a puddle of tears because of the personal joy and the personal message he was sending. Granted, at the time, I was still presenting as male and still walking the line of obedience. But I was known for who I was, and I was welcome.
What do you think about the LDS Church’s recent more restrictive policies on transgender members — limiting their callings, saying what classes they can and can’t attend, and even advising on restroom use?
If there was any bright spot with the church’s latest transgender policy coming out on Aug. 19, 2024, it was that we were right in the middle of writing the memoir’s afterward. We decided that we must respond directly to the church’s new policy of restrictions toward its transgender members, or, as they put it, individuals who have transitioned, socially, medically or surgically away from their assigned sex at birth. But anyone who’s socially transitioned now has to experience [those restrictions]. There’s no opportunity to teach anywhere. Working with children or youth has been prohibited. There are even complications for baptism of an investigator who socially transitioned or transitioned away from their biological sex at birth. These restrictions remove from local priesthood leaders any opportunity to develop flexibility and appropriate responses to the needs of transgender individuals and their family members.
How has your spirituality changed since you transitioned and have had all these experiences? Are you still connected to the church?
As I began living my life according to the dictates of my conscience, I didn’t, and I just honestly don’t, need institutional religion in order to have a spiritual relationship with the universe, with God. My little daughter asked me if I had felt the loss of the Holy Ghost, and the answer was an absolute no. I continue to be inspired and prompted in just the same way I was inspired and prompted to write the things that I’ve written when I wrote them. In my letter to the First Presidency, appealing my excommunication, I told them because I was living authentically, I was better prepared to be able to live fully in service and in receiving spiritual blessings, because I was now finally unfettered by the torture of gender dysphoria. Life is good when you’re not being tortured by your own demons.
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