Internalized Harm

I came across Ms. Helfer's work when I was a young woman going through a faith transition. I loved that her work welcomed and supported faith at the same time that she addressed the harm that women like me experience growing up in the LDS church. The messages that I internalized from well-meaning but poorly executed lessons on sexual purity were part of what made me vulnerable to manipulation and abuse in a romantic relationship and decades later, I am still healing from those messages of sexual shame.

I ultimately chose to resign my membership and officially remove my name from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints because I witnessed the Church repeatedly perform acts of religious violence against people like Natasha. I saw the Church expel earnest members exercising their intellectual gifts to expand our understanding of complex issues with integrity and faith. I also saw and experienced both the institution and its members reject, vilify, and ignore survivors of sexual violence, and do the same to gay, lesbian, and trans children of God and their families. I saw and experienced how the sexual shame inflicted by the Church on boys and men can turn into physical and emotional violence against themselves and others.