Bennet grew up in a strict Mormon household, deeply immersed in the faith from an early age. With church activities filling nearly every day of the week, Bennet was constantly surrounded by the teachings and expectations of Mormonism. Yet, despite his efforts to be a faithful believer, he struggled with overwhelming anxiety and an ever-present fear of divine judgment. As Bennet grew older, he began to discover parts of himself that clashed with the church’s rigid doctrines—first bisexuality, then the realization that he was a transgender man.
Desperate to reconcile his identity with his faith, he kept his feelings hidden, fearing rejection from his family and congregation. Bennet’s journey out of Mormonism was not a straightforward path; it was filled with internal conflict, exhaustive late-night research, and attempts to suppress his doubts. But in the end, survival meant letting go. Leaving the church allowed him to embrace his true identity, build a life he genuinely loves, and find true happiness.
I work with dogs. I am a trans man married to a fellow trans man. I grew up with a lifelong LDS mom (from generations of Mormons) and a convert dad (he converted because of drug and alcohol recovery in his youth). It was a very strict upbringing. I was a Mormon.
I was at the church doing something almost every day of the week. Despite always being in the house of the Lord, I never felt His presence. I was riddled with anxiety every waking moment since well before I was baptized. Being Mormon taught me that even thinking bad thoughts was a sin. If I had an unkind thought or I accidentally saw something my mom would disapprove of, I would panic and try to erase it as fast as I could before God found out. My anxieties only grew with age: when I was told that I was apart of the “chosen generation” or that we would see the second coming in our lifetime, I would panic about the end of the world.
Basically, my life was one constant anxiety attack. I lived in a blur, too caught up in my own head to take notice of what was going on around me. To this day, I can hardly remember what elementary, middle, or high school was like, but I can remember exact anxieties I would have. I left because I had tried to kill myself.
Leading up to this period of my life, I realized I was bisexual. A year later, I heard the word “transgender” for the first time. It changed everything. Secretly finding out the password to our family computer, I snuck on in the middle of the night and Googled “transgender”, “transgender man”, “can you be transgender without a surgery”, “if i’m a girl can I be a transgender man”, for hours I was locked onto the computer screen, reading people explain feelings I had pushed away as the devil speaking to me for ages. It all clicked. I cleared the browsing history, logged out, and went back to bed.
The next morning at school, I told two of my closest friends I thought I was trans. That really was the beginning of the end. Instinctively, I knew I couldn’t tell anyone at church or anyone in my family. I kept it a secret for a long time. I was trying desperately to reconcile my faith with my newfound identity. I was a firm believer in God, in Joseph Smith’s righteousness, in my duty to spread the good word. I did everything to remain a devout follower and prove to myself it wasn’t a sin to be Mormon AND trans.
When I was 15, a girl who was a member of my ward and who went to my school, a girl I thought was my friend, had found out from someone else that I was trans and that I was dating a girl. She waited until a day I was sick and not at church and told my parents everything. My home life got significantly worse afterwards.
Eventually, it got to the point where I was passively ready to die at any moment. I was slowly losing my faith, sneaking onto the internet at night and doing research into church policies, exmormom accounts, history. Sometimes it got to be too much and I would log off and try to repent, but that never stopped the “what ifs” and the “whys” running through my head. I was miserable, I was suffering. Why was God doing this to me?
I would take my shower in the morning, fill the tub up with water, and lay face down. It never worked, but each morning I gained a little more determination to do something more drastic, more real. One day, I finally had the courage to committ the more drastic action. Obviously I survived, but it DID kill the remaining belief in the church. No matter how hard I tried, I could no longer summon up a testimony, could no longer pretend to pray, could no longer act the part of the good Mormon girl. I had to give in to who I knew I really was. And that meant leaving.
I am so much happier in the life I live now than the life I might have pressured myself into if I had stayed. I wouldn’t have started my transition, I might have married a man I didn’t love, we might have had children, I wouldn’t be working in the field I am now. I live on my own terms, I love my husband dearly, I like my job and I like working on Sundays, and I like not having kids. I am exploring my mental health issues, healing, and becoming a better person every day.
Bennet
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