A stranger I met at the Salt Lake City airport insisted her husband drive me to my hotel instead of my plan to hire a ride. If this had happened anywhere but in Utah, that would be the start of a horror movie. But in Utah, smiles and help are freely given. These new friends were excited to hear about my purpose for traveling: I was a panelist at what was previously called Salt Lake City Comic Con, the second largest of its kind in the country. They were particularly excited by the subject matter of my panel: On-the-page queer representation in literature.
Oh, I should probably mention they weren’t Mormon, or rather members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, just Mormon-adjacent.
For all the good that the Mormon Church does, and they do some outstanding service work and foster a mindset of helping one another, for all those smiles and wholesome pictures of family togetherness that they love to put on billboards and into TV commercials, there’s a dark underbelly that’s of the Church’s own making.
The leading cause of death among Utah teens is suicide.
Not cancer, heart disease, car wrecks or anything else. In fact, Utah teens kill themselves at a rate of four times the national average as of the last census. It’s estimated that forty percent of them are known to be LGBTQ youth, but that number is likely much higher due to a real fear of “coming out” and parents erasing their child’s orientation post-mortem to save face in the Church.