Brandon Sanderson on LGBTQ Stuff + RIP Brandi Weaver

I've had a reddit account since I don't know when, but until the last few weeks I only used it once in a great while to speak up when I saw something egregiously stupid, so I ended up with negative "karma" from people downvoting my comments. But I got into the positive a few weeks ago and, as the designers obviously intended, it gave me a bit of a dopamine rush. Haha, I thought, I hope I don't get addicted to this feeling. Of course I did. Anyway, the other day I saw that bestselling fantasy author and Latter-day Saint Brandon Sanderson had done an AMA (Ask Me Anything) and I was very impressed with his most popular response to the most popular question, so I'm going to pass it along here and save myself some actual writing for today. The question was asked by someone calling themself ​RattusRattus:

How do you feel about the fact that queer people are treated better in your novels than on the campus you teach at? How do you reconcile donating to a church that promotes purity culture, homophobia, and anti-Semitism with writing books for the general public?
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Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/mormons-holocaust-victims-baptism-lds-church

BYU is pretty awful to queer people. In the 1960s and 70s it conducted witch hunts against closeted gay students with the object of forcing them to undergo conversion therapy (which didn't and doesn't work) or leave the school. A couple years ago it removed a ban on "homosexual behavior" from its Honor Code mid-semester, then for two weeks told confused gay students that yes, they were now allowed to date and hold hands and kiss just like straight students do, before the church commissioner of education who apparently had been asleep for two weeks told them that no, they still can't. Many students felt that they had been tricked into coming out of the closet. Hence the semi-regular protests since then. Ignorant people often ask why they go to BYU in the first place, and the answers include but are not limited to family pressure, the cheap tuition for members of the church that owns it, and the fact that people in their late teens and early twenties are often still figuring out their sexuality in the first place. An entire tax-exempt charity, the OUT Foundation, exists just to help LGBTQ+ students escape from BYU. So anyway, Brandon responded in a livestream that was subsequently transcribed thus:

Thank you for a bold but not insulting phrasing of that question. So the church’s general stance on LGBTQ people is not where I, as a liberal member of the church, would like it to be. That being said, I have faith in the church, I have had spiritual experiences, confirming to me that this is where God wants me and that God is real.

There is a passage in the Book of Mormon where someone is asked a question that they can not answer. Their response is just to say, “I don’t know the meaning of all things, but I know God loves his children.” This is my answer in some cases to some of the difficult questions we get asked.

That's not to say we shouldn't change or listen. If you look through my own history with LGBTQ people, I needed some education as many did. (I still do, honestly.) It is a process where we learn from listening and we get better and hopefully become better people. Both as a culture and as individuals. If I want an institution or person to change, I personally believe that to ostracize them is not the right move in most cases. Ihis is different from how most people see it--and these people may be right and I may be wrong, time will tell.

Still, my belief is that--by being a more liberal member of the church and remaining with the church and remaining at BYU--I have a better chance of positive change. If everyone who is a little more left than the institute leaves it, that will not help the institution or the people who go there. For example, if people who go to my class know that I am doing my best to be an ally, then perhaps they will feel safer and the whole thing will work out better.

I don't have all the answers, though. Again to use a religious metaphor, God gave 2 contradictory sets of commands to Adam and Eve and said "Figure it out." I believe in LGBTQ+ advocacy and in listening--then changing my behavior and the way I approach the world based on the things they say. I also believe that the leaders of the church are chosen by God, and lead his church well. These things don't quite meet in the center yet. Perhaps they never will, and I will be forced to make different choices from the ones I have so far. But right now, I believe I'm in the right place, where I should be, and I believe in the message, doctrine, and teachings of the church.

That said, I still want to listen better. I have been actively trying to do so. I think that by continuing to teach at BYU and doing my best to portray LGBTQ+ people accurately, lovingly and respectfully in my work, I can do the most good. Tell me which way I'd do more good: Quitting the church and BYU over the one thing that I don't really get yet in our doctrine, despite my overwhelming belief in all other aspects of the church's teachings? Or continuing in my faith, and writing books that are read by a disproportionately large number of LDS people? Books where a faithful member of this church does his best to present LGBTQ characters with nuance, care, and concern--hopefully being the change I want in the world. Change where we all listen a little better, and see each other as people, not as faceless forces of evil.

On the next question I don’t understand the anti-semitism part. This may be too much nuance for an AMA.

(NOTE THAT HERE, ADAM EXPLAINED TO ME ON THE LIVESTREAM THE EXAMPLE LISTED: THAT OF THE CHURCH DOING PROXY BAPTISMS FOR THE DEAD, INCLUDING FOR HOLOCAUST VICTIMS, A PRACTICE IT DREW CRITICISM FOR AND THEN BANNED IN THE MID 90s)

​This is an example of the church making a mistake. They admitted that mistake and said “we aren’t going to do this anymore.” They thought it was insensitive; I thought it was insensitive. I think that Christianity in general has a line to walk in treating the Jewish people, from whom our religion came. That is a difficult line to walk, but we absolutely should be called on when we make a mistake.

(Note: The line here I was referencing, and didn't explain, is this. We believe that everyone will need to become Christian eventually in order to get into heaven--though there's more nuance to it in our particular doctrine. This could be see as anti-Semitic, as basically in most Christian denominations, you have to believe that all other religions are wrong--which is an attack, if done wrong, on people's very identities.)
There is some misunderstanding about how this doctrine (baptism for the dead) works. According to our doctrine, Christ said that you must be baptized to get to Heaven. So it’s like “how do dead people get baptized?” The answer, in our church, is that you can do a surrogate baptism for an ancestor who was not baptized. They get to choose, in the afterlife, if that is something they want. It does not enter them into the church. These people are not counted on church records.

It was absolutely insensitive to do that to Holocaust victims. But, from the church members’ perspectives, it was trying to be loving. The church recognized how tone deaf this was, and and backed off on it. You can still be baptized by proxy for one of these people if you are Jewish, but only if it is truly your ancestor. (Note after the fact: this is the rule, but proxy baptism is mostly crowd-sourced to the individual members. Some are going to break the rule, and it's a difficult thing to prevent. So many names repeat that even having a list of, "You can't use these names unless you get cleared" is difficult, since if someone submits the same name but the date of birth is one day off, the system wouldn't flag them.)

(NOTE, THIS NEXT PART IS A MOSTLY UNRELATED RAMBLE. SORRY ABOUT THAT! LEFT HERE FOR POSTERITY.)

One key thing to our church is that we have a structure. We have leadership and every time we make a decision or a doctrine, we put ourselves out there. There is a certain amount of respect I give our leaders for that, because in most of the Christian world, there is no centralized leadership.

Making decisions and declarations is going to lead to mistakes. We believe that we are fallible, while God leads the church the people are fallible. Best we can do is clear up those mistakes, and continue forward.

​(EDITS FOR CLARITY AND EXPLANATION AFTER THE STREAM. SORRY FOR HOW MUCH I RAMBLE ON SOME OF THESE! GOOD QUESTION, THOUGH. --Brandon)

This gives me so much to think about. I've recently become even more convinced by the movie Lightyear that neutral or positive portrayals of LGBTQ+ characters in media are essential. I thought the movie was pretty mediocre, but these people having aneurysms because two women in it love each other can get bent. Disney has produced scores upon scores of movies where men and women kiss each other (or men kiss unconscious women, or whatever). One same-sex couple is not "forcing their lifestyle down your throat." It is not "grooming your children." It frightens me that some grown adults in this day and age still believe their children will turn gay if they ever see anyone being gay. For heaven's sake, see a therapist if you're that insecure in your sexuality. I grew up with heterosexuality constantly being shoved in my face by all the straight people who flaunt their lifestyles without a second thought, and I still thought sex was gross from the moment I learned what it was. What these media portrayals actually strive to accomplish is to demonstrate that LGBTQ+ people are just normal people with the same hopes and dreams as anyone else, thus reducing prejudice and making LGBTQ+ children (and adults) hate themselves less. No one can make me believe that isn't a worthy goal.

As an aspiring author myself, obviously not worthy to even mention myself in the same post as Brandon Sanderson, I never had much of an agenda to do this. My as-yet-unpublished novel references the same-sex relationships of a couple of very minor characters for no other reason than to acknowledge that this is a fact of the world now and in 2153 when it takes place. Just recently when I revised it yet again, I realized that my protagonist is a little bit bisexual. She's mostly into men but she flirts with women just because she can. I never planned for her to flirt with women. I don't even know how to flirt with women. She just went ahead and did it. Similarly, in a story that I wrote for a graduate school class and then incorporated into my thesis, the protagonist and her best friend developed a camaraderie that seemed like a bit more than just best friends, and the professor pointed it out, so I went ahead and made them lovers and barely had to change anything. It was neither essential to the story nor agenda-driven. It just happened because the characters wanted it to happen. So maybe I'll just continue along those lines in my writing career if I ever have one.

Brandon's response went over well. HandOfMaradonny said: 

I'm just super impressed you answered and didn't ignore.

These are the types of questions that are almost always ignored in AMAs.

I also think this was a pretty dang good response, well done....

I read "A Study in Scarlet" as a kid and saw Mormons portrayed in shows like South Park. This lead to an almost lifelong stereotype that I held until your response to this question. I try hard to not let stereotypes influence my opinions on individuals, but so often it is subconscious or even conscious but my brain thinks it's justified.

Anyway, I ramble even when I type, so I am going to stop early. I just wanted to say your books are awesome and I appreciated your willingness to respond to a tough question. It helped me grow a little as a person and challenged my preconceived notions about your religion. I love when folks are able to talk about this sort of thing, ignoring it never helps. Also geeked you responded to me haha.

Brandon later responded directly to the original asker of the question:

Honestly, I'm really glad you asked this one.

I get a lot of softball questions, which is good and fine. People want to know about the writing process or the characters, and I appreciate those questions. They're meaningful to me.

But I became a writer in part because I want to wrestle with difficult ideas, difficult questions, and my own internal inconsistencies. You see me working them out on the page regularly, so rather than getting upset by questions like this, I find them invigorating--particularly asked as well as you asked your questions.

So thank you, sincerely, for giving me something to chew on in this AMA. I just did a revision to the transcribed answer that I think is a little more clear. Either way, spice is appreciated, and thank you. A lot of people don't see that asking a confrontational question like this, even anonymously, can actually be a stressful and difficult thing to do for many--and you showed both bravery and decorum in the way you presented yourself.

Wow. Brandon Sanderson wants to wrestle with difficult ideas, difficult questions, and his own internal inconsistencies. A mind after my own heart. I think I'm in love.

RIP Brandi Weaver

I went to a small school where everyone in grades 7-12 knew everyone else's first and last name. When Kyle Cootware died in a four-wheeler accident in 2009, everyone mourned. A palpable gloom engulfed the entire school building. College hasn't been like that. Through the years I read in the news that a student I never heard of had died in a bike accident, and that a couple of students I recognized but never met had died by suicide, and that someone a couple blocks from my apartment had been murdered by her ex-boyfriend. But there wasn't the same sense of community and the same universal mourning. So anyway, I didn't know Brandi Weaver particularly well and I'm afraid I don't have a lot to say about her, but I did know her a little and it is a bit jarring and sobering that she's suddenly gone from natural causes at such a young age. I think I was in ninth grade when I sat at the same lunch table as her. It's been so long that I don't even remember, but I remember that she was always nice to me. She was one of those older girls who treated me like I was super cool even though I was the biggest dork. She smiled and joked a lot and just seemed to have a great attitude toward life. My condolences to her family and especially to her fiancé and children.

Her most recent Facebook profile picture