Holdaway

BS APPLIED STATISTICS / ANALYTICS & BUSINESS (‘19)

What was your experience like as a queer student at BYU?

It was all the adjectives. Sometimes it was great and sometimes it was horrible and then it was lots of things in between. Overall, I definitely had a lot of great experiences that I wouldn’t have had anywhere else. I also had a lot of not great experiences that I think I also would not have had if I was somewhere else.

Why did you choose to go to BYU?

I chose to go to BYU . . . I don’t know if I actively chose it necessarily. It felt like in a lot of ways the choice had been made for me, ever since I was a little kid. My parents went to BYU, all my aunts and uncles went to BYU or BYU Idaho or it used to be called Ricks College. My grandparents went to BYU. My great grandfather was in charge of a department at BYU. This is the school that we go to. I didn’t even apply anywhere else. I applied to BYU and BYU Idaho as a just in case. And this was always, this is the track that I had been on since I was a little kid wearing BYU shirts.

What were some of the good experiences you had at BYU?

I had a ton of great experiences with USGA, which is the unofficial organization for LGBTQ students at BYU, as you know, of course, but yeah, really loved participating there. Loved being involved just in the community, as well as the activism. We also had a lot of education that I just love all that kind of things. I love volunteering. I love working with other students, meeting other students. And I also had some really good experiences working with some BYU administration. Again, yeah, some great experiences, a lot of frustrating experiences, lots of good things we did. And then lots of disappointments of things.

What were some of the mental health problems you dealt with while at BYU?

Yeah, it was a really difficult atmosphere. I think college is difficult for everyone, of course, but there’s a lot of extra layers with BYU. I definitely had a hard time in a lot of different ways. I was able to meet with a couple of therapists at CAPS, got diagnosed with depression and anxiety, just kind of the classic college things, but yeah, I was able to get some help and some support there, but it definitely was difficult at times.

What is one piece of advice you would give to a current queer student at BYU?

My number one piece of advice for current students would definitely be to try to find some kind of community, build a support network, whatever that looks like for you. There’s a lot of great people and people who want to help and people who understand who are at CAPS that can definitely be a great resource. It’s such a great resource that a lot of people want to use it and can sometimes get overwhelmed, but if you can have support there, that’s a great place.

I personally loved attending USGA and being really involved there and found a lot of wonderful friends and people there that I really resonated with and I was able to give support to and they gave support back. That was a huge help for me. So I would definitely recommend making sure that you have that support network, kind of whatever shape that might take for you, but definitely have people that you feel comfortable to talk to about serious things and also just non-serious things, but making sure that you have people who are there to support.

What does your spirituality look like today?

I think I’m actually a very spiritual person. I think there’s a difference between being religious and being spiritual, right? I’m not a religious person in a way that I don’t identify with specific religion, but I think I’m a spiritual person because I do want answers. So usually I like to have specific answers for specific questions and that’s usually how my brain works. And that was really hard for me because when I left the church, the church had all the answers for my questions, but then when I realized that I didn’t believe some of those things, I was like, okay, so everything just went down the drain, and I have to start over—do I even believe in God? What kind of person do I want to be? Is this right? Is this wrong? Is this good? Is this bad? And I realized that it’s a lot more about the journey of finding answers than finding the actual answers to all my questions. You know, how can I be a better family member to the people in my family? How can I be a better friend? So my opinions now are mine. I maybe have less answers, but they’re mine. I got them on my own.

What’s a piece of advice for a current queer student at BYU?

Sometimes when you’re queer, you tend to isolate yourself because you think people are going to judge you. And what I’ve learned is to just give people a chance to get to know you. My roommates, one of them, I was really scared of coming out to him because he was this butch masc Hawaiian boy, and he was just like into football and stuff like that. And I was like, oh my gosh, like woo. And I remember when I came out to him, it was a little tough at first, I felt like he was a little weirded out. But then with time he started asking questions, like, when did you first realize you were gay? When did you do this first? Like, how did your parents take it? Graduation day, we were in line together and he turned to me and he said, “If I have a gay son, I’m not gonna have a problem with that.” And I remember like, I, I started crying a lot because it was one person that I got to change when I was at BYU and I could have easily stayed in the closet the whole four years. But I thought, I was like, you know what? Maybe I should give him a chance, you know, to get to know me and we’re still good friends. Don’t be scared of showing who you are because I would say 99% of the time people are going to be interested and people are going to want to learn more about you.

Answers to the questions are transcribed from Holdaway’s video interview and lightly edited for clarity.

Posted June 2021