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Brenna McGrath shares a hymnbook with Sam McGettigan as they sing with others during an Understanding Same Gender Attraction meeting Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, at the Provo City Library. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald

Isaac Hale, Daily Herald

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Guest speaker Tom Christofferson shares personal experiences as he speaks to the crowd during an Understanding Same Gender Attraction meeting Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, at the Provo City Library. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald

Isaac Hale, Daily Herald

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Attendees are reflected in a window as they listen to a speaker during an Understanding Same Gender Attraction meeting Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, at the Provo City Library. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald

Isaac Hale, Daily Herald

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Sarah Pace shares her personal experiences with the crowd during an Understanding Same Gender Attraction meeting Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016, at the Provo City Library. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald

Isaac Hale, Daily Herald

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The following is the third part in a weekly series detailing the community of LGBT students who attend Brigham Young University and the unique challenges they face.

Attending a funeral for a member of the LGBT community who died by suicide has become almost routine for Aubree Lyman. In her six years as a student at Brigham Young University, she’s been to about a dozen of them. There’s even more memorials, counting vigils, for multiple people who have killed themselves that are held every few months.

And she believes it’s far from over.

“We know there’s going to be another one,” Lyman said.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth are more likely to have suicide attempts, have higher rates of depression and are three times more likely to report they have seriously considered suicide than their straight peers, according to the American Association of Suicidology.

It was when Aidan Cano, a sophomore at BYU, told someone he was going to a memorial for 50 LGBT people who had died that he realized the numbers had become a statistic to him.

“I was surprised at my own emotional detachment, and then horrified,” Cano said.

Factors

LGBT students at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-owned BYU have their own set of mental health challenges. The university’s honor code, which students commit to obey in order to attend, doesn’t ban homosexual feelings, but does prohibit homosexual behavior.

The students overhear homophobic jokes from people who don’t know they are LGBT, and Lyman said it’s easy to feel like they’re under a microscope from people who are waiting for them to break the honor code. The students say they can feel like they are broken and dirty. When they do hear about the LGBT community, it’s often negatively.

With a campus culture that focuses heavily on dating, it can be easy to feel alone.

“From the time I was born, I was taught that my purpose in life, my plan in life, God’s plan for me was to be a wife and a mother,” Lyman said. “That was my job, and I wanted that. I wanted that just as much as I’m sure many straight women at BYU want that. And then as I started to really come to terms that dating boys just wasn’t working, it felt like God never came up with a plan for me. That his plan for me was to sit on a shelf and wait until I’m dead so he can fix me and give me, after I spent my whole life alone, give me what straight people got without having to try for it. And I really felt like my life was pointless. I was just waiting around to die anyway, so what’s the point in sticking around?”

Brenna McGrath, a senior who recently came out, has heard similar words — that after she dies, she’ll be straight. For those struggling with depression, it’s not always comforting.

“There is this thing members like to say, that it will all go away after death, like you will be made perfect after death, you will be fixed after death,” McGrath said. “I hate to think there is anything wrong with who I am, but there is this whole idea that everything is better after, so what am I waiting around for?”

Lyman said her relationships with others has become superficial. If she’s friends with a woman, she’s afraid someone will look for something that could be a violation of the honor code. If it’s a man, then there’s still the idea of keeping her distance and not making anyone uncomfortable.

“I have done it for six years, and it is exhausting,” Lyman said.

In addition, it’s rough having to constantly answer questions and clarify things from straight students who have little knowledge of the LGBT experience at BYU. At panels, Lyman said she’s often anonymously asked if gay people are gay just for fun. But it’s not all parades and rainbows.

“It’s super, super fun until the first time that your roommates tell you you need to leave the apartment,” Lyman said. “It’s super, super fun until your bishop starts comparing you to a drug dealer or a child molester. It’s super, super fun until your mom calls you sobbing asking why you are breaking apart your family. It’s super, super fun until the first day you get harassed and you know instinctively that this is how dozens of other gay people have died. This is how their murders started and you just have to hope it’s not you. It’s super, super fun until it’s not anymore. And it’s really not.”

J.D. Goates, a senior and vice president of Understanding Same-Gender Attraction, a student-run organization that’s not sanctioned by BYU that aims to create a safe space for LGBT BYU students and students who identify with experiencing same-gender attraction, was depressed and thinking about suicide when he was outed in high school. Logically, Goates said he knew life would get better, but he wasn’t sure if “better” would end up being worth it.

“What I needed to know was that it gets better and it’s worth it,” Goates said. “I needed people to just hear me, listen to me, not just tell me things. I needed to not feel isolated. Isolation is where suicide ideation and depression thrive and feast.”

Harry

LGBT student suicide came to the forefront for many when 28-year-old Harry Fisher went missing this February, one month after he publicly came out on Facebook. He was found later that month in Saratoga Springs after shooting himself in the head.

He’d come out to his sister, Heather, earlier while they were eating pizza, but she had thought he was joking.

“It was a serious conversation we had,” Heather said. “It was one minor statement that was immediately shrugged off.”

Heather never suspected that her brother, who yearned to be a homicide detective, was gay. Harry was quiet, Heather said, intelligent and analyzed everything, researching every side of an issue. But he was also a silent type.

Harry had made it clear to Heather, who isn’t Mormon, that he wasn’t going to leave the church, but would lead a life of celibacy. He never mentioned any internal struggles or depression to her, but had previously posted on Facebook about overhearing conversations where others said gays were an abomination.

The most emotionally open conversation they had was at an airport the day before he died, over pizza again, when he said he was unsure about his future. He had been on his way home from Washington, D.C., after failing a test to be an officer by a few seconds and Heather was going on vacation to Colorado. When he went missing, she didn’t think it was suicide.

“I thought maybe he had gotten the job and was going deep undercover immediately and couldn’t tell his family,” Heather said. “Or had just wanted to be let alone and not talk to people for awhile.”

More than 100,000 people joined a Facebook page for the search. It was only after his death that Heather learned about resources and groups, like the Momma Dragons.

“I know that Harry didn’t want to hurt anybody,” Heather said. “He loved us and he wouldn’t want to inflict pain in our lives.”

Resources and hope

Turning to resources for help isn’t always simple. Going to a LGBT resource in the general community means having to take valuable time to explain the culture and rules of BYU. At BYU, students spend time explaining the experience and unique struggles of being gay there.

There’s a counseling center, but the only LGBT-specific mental health resource is a recently-formed support group that can hold less than 10 students. There’s no specific LGBT student center or official club, and Lyman said that some students won’t speak to a school counselor because they don’t know the session is confidential.

As one of the leaders of Understanding Same-Gender Attraction, Goates, who has undergone training for suicide prevention, is working to save lives.

In the association, the majority of students have experienced suicidal thoughts or have had attempted suicide. As far as they know, no active members of the group have committed suicide so far. But with students attempting suicide or dying by suicide without ever coming out, it’s hard to know how many deaths are occurring in the Provo LGBT community.

“We don’t even know how many people go home from BYU over the summer and just never come back,” McGrath said.

Having a support system is vital in fighting depression and suicide. When someone tells the USGA leadership they are thinking about taking their life, the group privately jumps into action, getting the student on the phone with a crisis counselor and setting them up with a mental health professional. They arrange for people to stay with the student and bring them meals so they know they are eating.

That process happens more than two or three times a month, frequently weekly.

The group is constantly on the lookout for the red flags of an impending suicide attempt, including someone mentioning that life is hopeless or watching to see if a student is withdrawing.

“Depression is a nasty monster that thrives and feeds off isolation,” Goates said.

For McGrath, the hope is that BYU will add LGBT-specific resources, including mental health resources and safe spaces where students can freely be themselves.

“There is a uniqueness to being LGBT at BYU compared to other schools,” she said. “If other schools need the resources, we almost need it more.”

She also challenges people to think about what they’re going to say before saying anything potentially hurtful.

“Negative words stick with you,” McGrath said. “I still remember phrases that were said in my home ward. I remember them with startling clarity and that was before I even knew I was part of the LGBT community.”

If something hurtful is said, Goates encourages others to say something.

“Unless you speak up, that silence is going to affirm to the commentator that everyone agrees with what they just said,” he said.

Lyman said it’s time for the straight community to listen to the LGBT community about their experiences and struggles, and to advocate for attributes, like kindness, the LDS Church already advocates for. All everyone else has to do is listen, she said.

Heather Fisher’s advice is more drastic — that LGBT students should leave both the church and Utah.

She also wants others in the community to let it be known they are friends to the LGBT community so those who are both out and not know they have allies, are loved and supported.