Welcome and Introduction to the Event

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everybody. Yeah. Let's have a round of applause. Thank you so much for coming. My name is John Dehlin. For those of you who don't know, it's March 9, 2016. We're very, very excited to have you with us today at Club 50 west here in downtown Salt Lake City. We want to welcome all those with us in Periscope land.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] Want to thank everyone for joining us. Few housekeeping rules before we begin. As always, we're really grateful to the good people at club cafe at 50 west for sponsoring us. Let's give Jake and all the good people here a hand.

John Dehlin [00:00:46] We love this venue and we're super grateful to be here today. Want to thank everybody, all those who are listening and those of you who are supporters of Mormon Stories Podcast or the Open Stories Foundation. Your donations are what make this possible.

John Dehlin [00:01:06] Those of you who don't know the COVID charge you guys paid tonight to be here in person, some of that will go to the Open Stories foundation to keep the lights on. But we're also going to donate a portion of that to Planned Parenthood, which is Kate's organization.

John Dehlin [00:01:22] So we're excited about that. But I just want to give a shout out to all my listeners and to those who support us because that's what makes all this possible. So thank you. We're really, you know, you can find us@mormonstories.org for those of you who don't know, that's our website, and this is the Mormon Stories Live series. This is, I guess, our second official Mormon Stories Live event.

John Dehlin [00:01:49] We had one on medical marijuana a few weeks back. We also had Jeremy Runnels here as well recently. But we plan on doing these events every. Every week or two here in Salt Lake City. So we're grateful that you guys are supporting this series, and we hope you'll join us again for more in the future.

John Dehlin [00:02:11] So that's kind of all the housekeeping rules for now, and I think we're ready to roll. Ready to roll. All right, so today we are super excited to have back with us on Mormon Stories, Kate Kelly. And Kate Kelly's been on Mormon Stories a few times, but it's been a while since we've interviewed Kate, you know, since kind of her excommunication. So those of you who don't know, Kate Kelly has been, you know, in her former life, she.

Kate Kelly's Background and Advocacy Work

John Dehlin [00:02:45] She worked as a human rights attorney for quite a while. She's always been involved in social justice kind of activities. But awareness of Kate really picked up. Was it 2013? When does ordained women start.

Kate Kelly [00:03:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:01] January, January 2013. And that's when Kate kind of burst on the scenes. And it was very fun for Kate and I to receive twin letters about our disciplinary councils in 2014, June of 2014. So we were sort of joined as if we weren't joined before then. We became eternally sealed, so to speak, at that point. And many of you will know that Kate was excommunicated from the church that August was it, of 2000.

Kate Kelly [00:03:41] I was excommunicated June 26th of 2014.

John Dehlin [00:03:45] Okay. So it was June, and then my stuff came a little bit later. So we've covered that quite a bit. For those who haven't heard, you can listen all about that process on Mormon Stories in the past. But today we have a really full menu of things to talk about. We want to talk about Kate's life since excommunication. We're going to talk about what that's been like for her.

John Dehlin [00:04:11] Some of you will know that her relationship status changed a bit, so we'll talk a little bit about that as well. But then Kate has come back to Salt Lake City and has been very active as sort of an advocate or an employee of Planned Parenthood. So we're going to be talking about female reproductive rights. We're going to be talking about healthy sexuality. We're going to be talking about abortion and contraception. I think Kate even brought some safe sex kits so we can talk about that as well.

John Dehlin [00:04:44] So we've got a lot of fun things to talk about, and we hope to get to your questions as well. So we've got a lot of fun stuff. So without any further ado, everyone, please give Kate Kelly a warm welcome to Mormon Stories Live. All right, Kate, welcome back.

Kate Kelly [00:05:03] Thanks for having me.

Reflecting on Excommunication a Year and a Half Later

John Dehlin [00:05:06] So it's been a little while. It's been almost a year and a half maybe since your excommunication. Yeah. So why don't we start there? Like, looking back now, I'm sure people could have all sorts of questions, like, are you happy? Are you not happy? Do you look back with sadness or regret? Happier than ever. Talk a little bit about what kind of your reflections on just that, that experience, if you have any. Any thoughts.

Kate Kelly [00:05:34] I mean, is it true happiness, though, John?

John Dehlin [00:05:37] I don't know. I don't know. So, yeah, your light is dimmed a little.

Kate Kelly [00:05:41] It has dimmed.

John Dehlin [00:05:42] Or maybe it's gotten brighter.

Kate Kelly [00:05:43] It has dimmed.

John Dehlin [00:05:44] Is she brighter? Dimmer. What do you guys think? I think the crowd is voting.

Kate Kelly [00:05:49] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:05:50] Brighter.

Kate Kelly [00:05:51] My countenance. Yeah, it's funny because right when I got excommunicated, I also moved to Nairobi, Kenya. And so it was this really big, like, got excommunicated, had all this press, did all these things, also moved to Africa, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Kate Kelly [00:06:13] So it's been like a large amount of change in a very short amount of time. Yeah. Which I actually really, I like because I'm a person who just really likes to be as authentic as possible. I learned through conversation and through engaging and doing all these different things, and I want to be as authentic as I can in the moment. So it's been. I mean, it's been very, very difficult for obvious reasons in a lot of ways, but it's also been great. Yeah, I feel really good.

Kate Kelly [00:06:46] I went to Kenya, but I'm back. I moved back to Salt Lake City. And everyone's like, why did you come back? And I think, yeah, there's a lot of reasons why I came back, but one of them is, I think my talents and my, you know, the way that I have learned how to be an activist and a feminist can be best utilized in the Mormon and post Mormon communities. And so, yeah, I'm back.

John Dehlin [00:07:14] Welcome back.

Kate Kelly [00:07:14] Yeah, thanks. I think a lot of people thought like, oh, they saw the excommunication, had a lot of press around it, and they saw me crying and all these different things, and then it just dropped off. So I was like, oh, and then she died or like, went away. And so, yeah, it's hard to help people understand that the narrative continues and, and that it was very painful and difficult to be excommunicated for a lot of reasons, and a lot of them I talked about on Mormon stories before, but also that, like, the growth continues and life goes on.

Love for Mormonism and the Spirit Behind Ordained Women

John Dehlin [00:07:51] So I've known you well enough for enough time to know that your engagement with Mormonism wasn't out of a disrespect or hatred for. For Mormonism, but instead was out a really deep seated love for it. At least that's how I always perceived you. And so I know that in many ways, excommunication is sort of every believing Mormon's worst nightmare. So looking back now, you know, people would say, is she miserable? Is it awful? You know, has your light gone out? Like, talk about what that's been like for you to not have the church in your life, and is it better than you thought, worse than you thought? How has that been?

Kate Kelly [00:08:39] I think the reason that.

John Dehlin [00:08:40] Do you miss it?

Kate Kelly [00:08:42] I actually don't at all. Sunday Brunch is really great, guys. If you haven't been yet, just try it. And that's a really flippant way to. To say that. I actually don't miss Mormonism. I don't miss, like, singing the hymns and going to church and all those different things, really, at all. But I understand why people do. And I understand, you know, for me, I don't know, it's just been. I have such a rich and fulfilling life outside of the church that it wasn't. I think my transition out of Mormonism was probably easier than for some people, for my parents, for example, who live in Provo, Utah, and dedicated their whole lives to the church or, you know, a big portion of their lives to the church.

Kate Kelly [00:09:33] And so for me, it's been relatively. And again, this is relative to what I've seen other people struggle through. Painless. You know, the day after I got excommunicated, I just took off my garments and put them in a garbage bag.

John Dehlin [00:09:47] Yeah, we saw that. We noticed those shoulders.

Kate Kelly [00:09:51] Day right after Shoulder gate. Yeah, yeah, I bought that dress. I was prepared, John. I had my excommunication dress ready. And I think it's just so funny because it's been a quick transition, but it's also hard to remember what it was like. It's hard to remember what it was like. It's hard to remember how you felt and thought, like, the way that I feel now. People are like, oh, so you didn't really believe in Mormonism? Oh, oh, so you didn't really care. Blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no, I just changed my mind.

Kate Kelly [00:10:22] People, not just Mormons, but all people, have an aversion to changing your mind, like, changing your mind about something. And I change my mind a lot about really fundamental things. And I try to keep an open mind and keep. There's only a very few things that I haven't changed my mind about yet. And having children, getting a tattoo, those things haven't changed. I'm just so.

John Dehlin [00:10:47] No tattoo.

Kate Kelly [00:10:48] No tattoo.

John Dehlin [00:10:49] No tattoo and no children as of now. Okay.

Kate Kelly [00:10:53] But I think, you know, it's. I don't know. I don't miss the church, and I also don't have an antagonism towards it. I understand, again, I understand why people do, but I think that's why it was easy for me to come back to Utah and go to, like, I just went to the Provo Temple dedication or. Sorry, not the dedication. Not allowed to that. The open house. So I went to the Provo open house, went through the whole temple.

John Dehlin [00:11:20] What was that, like, for you to. To be in a temple.

Kate Kelly [00:11:23] It was. I mean, it was. Again, it's like, I don't feel this angst. I think, like, I go to church occasionally. Like, my sister had a baby blessing. I went. I didn't participate.

John Dehlin [00:11:33] Did you participate?

Kate Kelly [00:11:34] I was gonna ask, for obvious reasons,

John Dehlin [00:11:36] did you get to hold the baby?

Kate Kelly [00:11:37] I did not hold the baby.

John Dehlin [00:11:38] Didn't hold the baby. Okay.

Kate Kelly [00:11:39] Nope. I did not. I didn't run up there and squeeze in the circle. And, you know, I respect folks who stay in the church. I understand. I very, very, very keenly understand why they stay, but it just. I don't. I didn't do anything wrong. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Like, if anyone has anything to be ashamed of, it's them. And so I don't feel any compunction, like, going to Temple Square, going to church, going to. You know, if I want to go see what the inside of the Provo Temple looks like, I go because I don't feel bad. I have nothing to be ashamed of.

Looking Back at Ordained Women's Tactics and Regrets

John Dehlin [00:12:15] Looking back, when people say, oh, they were too bold or they were too strident or the actions were too aggressive, when you look back, do you regret either way being too aggressive or not being aggressive enough, or do you feel at peace with how you handled ordained women?

Kate Kelly [00:12:33] I mean, ordain women was just is and was at the beginning just this very, like, organic grassroots thing of Mormon women getting together and trying to raise our voices in the best way we could. There wasn't like. I mean, I will be the first one to admit there wasn't like, a long game. It was just like, we want to speak up. We want to do a direct action. This is what we're going to do. And it evolved over time. And so if I regret anything, it is actually that we weren't bold enough. I think we did the first action, and then we repeated the action, which I actually voted against. But at that point, we had built a leadership structure, and it was more people and lots of voices in conversation. And so if there's anything I regret, it's not being aggressive enough. Not everyone agrees with that.

John Dehlin [00:13:18] Sure. Have you talked at all about your kind of separating from ordained women, or is that something you haven't talked about, or do you want to talk about that? Sure.

Kate Kelly [00:13:27] I mean, I'm actually not separated from ordained women. I'm still on the advisory board board. We're very structured now. We have an executive board that controls the day to day and the actions they're doing now and, you know, runs the Website and all that kind of thing. They still get profiles. If anyone here hasn't submitted one, I encourage you to do so@ordainwomen.org but I'm not involved in. For emotional reasons and for just practical reasons, like I don't have as much time. I'm not involved in the executive board, but there is an advisory board of people who kind of just chime in and help when necessary. So I still am on that, and I'm still connected, very much connected to the group.

John Dehlin [00:14:05] When the church kind of came after you, I think there were many of us who sort of felt like the strategy was, he kind of cut off the head and the snake dies, so to speak. I hate to be that graphic, but.

John Dehlin [00:14:16] And this is tough because I know pretty much most of the current Ordained Women board. I really love them all. I really respect them. I really wish them well. But if I'm being totally honest, it feels like they really. In my perception, it appears as though ordained women lost a lot of steam, almost to the extent that you could say that the Brethren kind of maybe succeeded when they got rid of you, because we haven't heard much from them. Maybe whatever actions they've done haven't been sort of haven't reached the same level.

John Dehlin [00:14:52] And so it's almost like you could say they kind of won. Talk about ordained women's profiles since you've left. I don't want to. I would never want to split or create tension with you and the other people in the organization, but how might we think about that? Is it still relevant? Like, do you even have thoughts about that that you can share?

Kate Kelly [00:15:13] Yeah, I know obviously, all the people who are on the boards and the new chair that's coming up in April is going to be Brindis Roberts, who started was one of the founders.

John Dehlin [00:15:24] Brindis is great.

Kate Kelly [00:15:24] Brindis is great. She's one of the founders of Femwalk, as well as Feminist Mormon Women of Color, Feminist Women Mormon of Color, which is a great blog. And then also involved in Feminist Mormon housewives as well as ordained women. She's very engaged. When she started as part of Ordinary Women, she was the Relief System president in her ward in Atlanta, Georgia, and they released her.

Kate Kelly [00:15:48] And so Brindis is amazing and I think has a lot to bring to ordain women. I think it's just a really tough spot. Like, there, you know, we were. I would say we were in, like, the zenith of, like, hope.

Kate Kelly [00:16:05] When you interviewed me before, it was like, everything's gonna change. And, like, I have faith in the institution to do the right thing and all that. And then the church really took that away. They, you know, it was kind of this cat, or it was. What's the game? What's the. When you drive at each other?

Kate Kelly [00:16:24] Chicken. Chicken. Yeah, it was. I was like, it's an animal name. So it's like. It was like a game of chicken. You know, who's gonna. Like, who's gonna peel off first? And then we just kind of collided because, like, neither of us was gonna peel off.

Kate Kelly [00:16:39] And so I think the church revealed itself for what it is. I think a lot of people had hope. Like, it's not like the 90s anymore. You know, the Internet exists.

John Dehlin [00:16:49] And so they've stopped excommunicating people.

Kate Kelly [00:16:51] They've stopped excommunicating people. It's fine. And I was one of those people. You know, I really thought that things were different now. And the church proved itself to not be the institution that we hoped it would be. And that's true of, you know, that's true of feminist issues. That's true of LGBQIA issues. That's true of, like, the way that they're interacting with people of color.

Kate Kelly [00:17:17] So it's true across the board in the various oppressions that they propagate. And I think it's just the more and more we find out and the more candor that they use, the more we realize, like, okay, this is what we're dealing with. Like, this is the institution. Institution that we have to change. And so I think even the institution, like, the perception of the institution that we have to change has changed in the last two years. And so the Board of Ordained Women now is in a really tough place where people are beaten down.

Kate Kelly [00:17:48] People are, you know, just because of, for example, the policy on children of gay parents in the church. Like, so many people feel really, really beleaguered. And that's a difficult place. It's not the place that we were in before where everyone was like, hope change. Yay.

Kate Kelly [00:18:05] And so they're in a really tough spot. But also, the unique contribution of ordained women is like, we are Mormon people who are staking our claim to our Mormonism and saying that the institution should change. So it's hard for me as an outsider now to say, like, oh, whatever, I'm on the outside of the church. They excommunicated me. I have no investment in the institution. And it's easy for me to criticize and say, well, you should do this. You should do this. You should this. But I don't teach Sunday school, I don't go, I'm not a primary teacher, I don't go visiting teaching. I don't do the things that a lot of the people involved in the organization still do.

Kate Kelly [00:18:44] And so I think that's the struggle that it's in right now is like when we've been so, just treated so violently and so poorly by the institution we're trying to affect, where do we go, what do we do from here? How can we raise our voice but still participate in an institution that has been so. We've been so wronged by.

Kate Kelly [00:19:11] So it's tough. I think they haven't gotten as much attention and there's a lot of reasons for that. Again, I think personally that the organization should be more confrontational. But again, I don't have to show up, I don't pay tithing, I don't, you know, my family isn't involved in the institution anymore.

John Dehlin [00:19:31] Yeah, yeah, well, that's. Well, we wish them lots of success and they are in a tough spot.

Kate Kelly [00:19:37] You just have to keep poking. You know, as long as you're just annoying, as long as you're just like pestering the patriarchy infinitely, I think you're doing a great thing. They're not going away. They're still doing actions, they're still accepting profiles, they're still poking, they're still prodding. And I think that is valuable. Even if it's not on the COVID of the New York Times. The work that they're doing is extremely valuable.

John Dehlin [00:20:01] Well, we wish them all the best.

Kate Kelly [00:20:03] Yeah, I'm just glad I don't have to do it.

John Dehlin [00:20:05] Jordan. Women. So, so just kind of a, kind of a wrapping up this little segment. Like when you look back, I'm not sensing from you a lot of kind of nostalgia or sadness. And I honestly like, I think picture you in those T shirts with your BYU T shirt and you're like pom pom sort of. You know, I think of you as such a Mormon girl. Like it's a little weird to not have you kind of in a misty eyed, kind of teary way talk about how you're sad or you wish, you know, it kind of feels like emotionally you've moved on.

Emotional Toll and Personal Cost of the Ordain Women Campaign

Kate Kelly [00:20:42] Oh yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:44] I wouldn't have expected that.

Kate Kelly [00:20:45] Oh really?

John Dehlin [00:20:46] Yeah.

Kate Kelly [00:20:47] I don't know, it's been a couple years.

John Dehlin [00:20:49] Yeah, yeah.

Kate Kelly [00:20:51] And I think again, like, I think I left in a way that was very like a lot of Mormon people who leave have this like long drawn out, like angst ridden years, long Process.

John Dehlin [00:21:05] I know a little bit about that.

Kate Kelly [00:21:07] And I was like, gung ho until I wasn't, and then I was out. And so I was like, pretty happy up until the end. And then I was like, well, I did what I could and the organization proved itself to be, like, fundamentally misogynistic. And I don't think I did anything wrong. And so I just had a really. It was like ripping off a band aid. Like, some people are like, plucking that band aid off like one tiny millimeter at a time, one hair at a time. And I was just like fully ripped off. It wasn't ripped off by myself. Someone else ripped it off.

Kate Kelly [00:21:44] It wasn't my choice to leave the church, but once I did, it was a pretty clean break. And also, I'm just a person who integrates new ideas. And I'm a very process oriented person. I never was a goal oriented person. I never was like, you know, in young women's they do personal progress. I always hated personal progress. I thought it was just ridiculous.

Kate Kelly [00:22:03] I didn't like doing goals. I didn't like keeping a journal. I didn't like doing all these things. I like to learn through the process. And so the process took me to a place where I had absolutely no loyalty to the institution. I actually, I liked my mission. Like, I loved my experiences. I loved going to byu. I still tell people I think it's a good school to go to for certain things and for certain reasons, but I just, I have almost no nostalgia for Mormonism. And I think the reason, part of the reason is also that I have a very supportive family.

Kate Kelly [00:22:38] So I don't have anyone luring me back in. I don't have anyone telling me, like, oh, you should come to church with us. Oh, will you say the prayer? Oh, well, da, da, da. We're going to give a blessing now. Like, you're in the room. You know, I don't have anyone putting that on me, and a lot of people do. And so I think that's another way that I had like a quicker transition out than a lot of people. So my parents also left the church. Two of my brothers are not active, and then I only have one sister who is.

John Dehlin [00:23:05] So one member of your family remains active?

Kate Kelly [00:23:07] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:23:10] A lot of us wondered whether after our excommunications, if the excommunications would continue. It looks like they are. Just talk briefly about your reflections on that process.

Kate Kelly [00:23:22] Well, I didn't attend my trial, so it was a little different for me. I submitted a written defense and so I Think it would have been much different if I had gone. I had already moved out of the ward where it took place and they wanted me to fly back. I'm like, yeah, no thanks.

Kate Kelly [00:23:38] Thanks, but no thanks. And so I didn't go. It was also really quick. Like it wasn't like this long. Like we had multiple meetings and we had a back and forth. I literally met with them twice. Once in December, once right before I moved. And then they sent me emails from there on out. Like my excommunication letter I received via email.

Kate Kelly [00:24:00] And so it was. I mean, the process is just so absurd anyways. It's a kangaroo court. In the case of women, there's only three people, as opposed to men, or there's 15. No one speaks for you. The whole thing was like a total sham.

John Dehlin [00:24:19] And so what about how you experienced it, being in the public eye and sort of like the scarlet letter, so to speak?

Kate Kelly [00:24:28] It's funny because, I mean, I would say Mormonism, I'm pretty infamous. And fewer. And people, fewer and fewer people recognize me, et cetera, as time goes by. But when you hold a certain, like a place in the zeitgeist of a certain era or a certain community or certain place, people have really high expectations of you, but also feel very like they have an invitation to also criticize you. And so, you know, I never said I'm perfect. I never said I'm a perfect feminist, I never said I'm a perfect person person. But anything that I did that people disagreed with, they really felt like they should tell me or tell other people on the world wide Gate.

John Dehlin [00:25:14] Laptop Gate, right.

Kate Kelly [00:25:14] Oh God, that was really something.

John Dehlin [00:25:16] She tried to raise money for a laptop once and the world fell apart, basically.

Kate Kelly [00:25:20] That really did. In fact, Laptop Gate, which I did a fundraiser on my personal Facebook page with my friends and family, people tried to insert that into my Wikipedia page and it was one of the most debated things I've ever seen on Wikiped in the back, like, yeah, we should tell the world about this scandal. And I'm like, well, if that's my scandal, then all right, that's like the grand scandal of my life.

Kate Kelly [00:25:46] I think that raising money from my family and friends, that is totally not compulsory. I think it's probably fine. But it does. I say that very glibly. And I say that I think the reason that a lot of people don't think that that negatively impacts me is like, I'm a pretty buoyant person. I have a pretty cheerful personality. I can move on from things I'M also smart and articulate, and so I think. But it does affect you. It does wear you down.

Kate Kelly [00:26:15] I remember during what we affectionately call Laptop Gate, I was in New York City, and I'd never experienced, like, an anxiety attack before. And I'm like, I never had any mental health issues of any kind, so. So it was hard for me to sympathize with people with depression and anxiety issues. And I had an anxiety attack, and it was. I didn't even know what it was.

Kate Kelly [00:26:39] It's very hard to describe if you've never experienced it before, but it feels like because you're so anxious, it feels like you're gonna die. I thought I was walking down the streets of New York City. I thought I was gonna die.

Kate Kelly [00:26:52] And I was explaining to my husband at the time, I'm like, I can't explain it. I just feel like I'm gonna die. Like, it's just a pressure that it's crushing me mentally. And that was. I mean, that was for a lot of reasons. A lot of things were happening. But I think I understand why cyberbullying and all these other things are so important to talk about and so important to try to eliminate, because it really can hurt people.

John Dehlin [00:27:22] It was almost. Was that more traumatic than your actual excommunication?

Kate Kelly [00:27:25] In some ways, yeah. Yes. Because why? Because the villain.

John Dehlin [00:27:29] Can I just say, white men raise thousands of dollars for themselves, myself included. Right. To support my family or whatever.

Kate Kelly [00:27:38] Right.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] A woman asks for $500 for a laptop.

Kate Kelly [00:27:41] Yeah. The Internet breaks.

John Dehlin [00:27:43] Really? Yeah.

Kate Kelly [00:27:44] I remember.

John Dehlin [00:27:44] It's a really unfair standard. Right.

Kate Kelly [00:27:46] You particularly reached out to me and you were like, tell people how much money I make. Tell them it's unfair that they're criticizing you and not criticizing me. And I really appreciated that. But I'm like, I'm having an anxiety attack. Nothing you say can help me.

John Dehlin [00:28:00] And so.

Kate Kelly [00:28:00] But I think the reason. Not that in particular. I mean, that was, like, one day of my life, and it was really bad. But I think the reason in my excommunication, like, the villains were very clear, and I expected what they did to me. Like, they were the villains and they did this bad thing, and they're part of the patriarchy, and of course they're going to do what they're going to do. I didn't think in the end that they actually were going to excommunicate me. But it wasn't totally unexpected. You know, it was part of the script. But when people who you think should be your allies, who you expect to have your Back.

Kate Kelly [00:28:32] Don't. It's very, very hurtful. So when, like, random haters on the Internet, like, one guy used the hashtag horror, horrible human. For me, that was like his favorite hashtag on Twitter. People are insane on Twitter. I think we know this.

Kate Kelly [00:28:48] So my hashtag is horriblehuman. And I think, like, from horrible human, whatever. That's funny. Some person I don't know on the Internet uses unintentionally hilarious hashtag. But when it's a feminist or someone who I think should understand my plight, who I think should understand where I'm coming from, who should understand that it's actually really hard and difficult for women to be vulnerable and say, like, I need something. I need whatever it is. Like, I need this laptop for a million reasons. I'm going to Kenya and you can't buy them there. And I need it now because I'm flying out tomorrow. And blah, blah, blah, blah.

Kate Kelly [00:29:20] Whatever the reasons are, like, it's actually one of my friends, Sarah Burlingham, who's part of fmh, she reached out to me. She's like, oh, my God, I can't believe you did this. You never ask for help. You never show anyone that you're vulnerable. This is a really big deal.

Kate Kelly [00:29:34] And so she saw it as a very positive thing. But then when you get criticism from people who should know better, who you expect to be in your corner, it's very, very hurtful.

John Dehlin [00:29:47] It's hard. Super hard.

Kate Kelly [00:29:49] Yeah.

Life After Excommunication: Moving Forward, Not Breaking

John Dehlin [00:29:52] When you're kicked out of the church, I think people expect you to be miserable and sad and dark and crazy. Right. And talk a little bit about that. Do you feel happier, healthier? What is it? How would you describe sort of your level of joy and happiness and health right now, two years out of the church?

Kate Kelly [00:30:19] Well, I should do a lot more yoga than I do. But I think actually what people expect

John Dehlin [00:30:26] from you, they say wickedness never was happiness.

Kate Kelly [00:30:28] I know. I think what people expect, not so much that you're not happy because you could be happy, but that you. That you're scary. Like, I remember. I mean, because I was on the other end of this coin not so long ago. Like, when we first started ordering women, we had a big debate, which I'm now very ashamed to tell about whether or not Margaret Toscano should be allowed to submit a profile because she would be very stigmatized. I know, I know. Hey, listen, I was a true believing Mormon at the time. You gotta give me a break. And I was the one who was saying no.

John Dehlin [00:31:06] Wow.

Kate Kelly [00:31:06] I was saying no, she's gonna unfairly stigmatize the organization. Like, this isn't for people like her. Da da da da da da. All these things, the common things. And honestly, I think I was just afraid of her. And obviously that's why the church does that. That's what they want. They want people to be afraid of people of X men. They want to take away their platform. They want the most orthodox people who are very, very rule following to not listen to them. And so I had like a growing platform where very orthodox Mormons were listening to us and they had to shut that down. And I've seen that work in the ways that I was susceptible to that.

Kate Kelly [00:31:45] The same thing happens to me. So I see when people meet me and are very nervous because they think I'm scary or people will say, oh, you're like, nicer than I thought you would be. Like, I don't know why you thought I wouldn't be nice.

Kate Kelly [00:31:59] But the church does a very good job of controlling the narrative about what excommunicants are and how scary or frightening or unhappy or miserable they are. And it's really hard to disprove a negative. So it's really hard to. I mean, how do you combat, like, you're not happy? Like, okay, well, I don't care what you think. Like, it's not my job to convince you that I am happy, but I think I am. I mean, it's a difficult transition. But the church also gave me, like, a very unique opportunity, an opportunity that not very many people have to have, like, one day in their life where they're like, when you have to.

Kate Kelly [00:32:37] When you're faced with a choice and the choice is everything you've known before or a principle that you believe in. And like, how many people have an opportunity to cross that divide? How many people have an opportunity to say, you know what, like, women's rights is more important to me than social belonging and community and family and everything I've ever known and the entire way I've constructed my entire life, like, not very many people have that opportunity. And so I'm grateful to the church for their candor and for revealing themselves to be what they are, which is very patriarchal and misogynistic because it gave me this opportunity, it gave me this platform, it gave me, like, courage to be who I am now.

Kate Kelly [00:33:21] And so, yeah, I think I'm pretty happy. I have good days and bad days. Sometimes I'm just really happy. Sometimes I'm like, laying on the floor because I'm tired or sad and I Read an article about a Hindu goddess and it's called. Its goddess is called Never not Broken, the goddess of being never not broken. And I think that's what I am. Like, that really resonates with me because I'm never.

John Dehlin [00:33:49] That's always broken, right?

Kate Kelly [00:33:50] Yeah, that's always broken.

John Dehlin [00:33:52] Is that right?

Kate Kelly [00:33:52] Yeah. Never not broken.

John Dehlin [00:33:56] You're always broken.

Kate Kelly [00:33:57] You're saying, I'm always broken. And what that means to me is that I'm never set in one way of being. Like, I'm never like, this is how it's going to be for the rest of my life. This is how my trajectory is. And again, that goes back to being process oriented. That goes back to being authentic as you can in the moment. That goes back to my general personality. But I think Never not Broken really leaves you open to new possibilities in a way that having a preconceived notion of how everything is going to turn out in your life before it happens. When you're 12 years old, you already know how your life is going to.

Kate Kelly [00:34:30] To turn out. It's so much. It's far preferable, in my opinion. It opens things up. It's a little bit scary. I know that human beings, not just Mormons, really like to have predictability, and I really like unpredictability. And so I just think I have a different.

Kate Kelly [00:34:51] I don't know what it is, I have a different desire, but it's, it's more rich, it's more full, it's difficult. But it's also, I don't know, it's hard to describe to Mormons. Like, any Mormon listening to this would be like, yeah, sounds like she's pretty unhappy.

John Dehlin [00:35:07] Sounds like sin.

Kate Kelly [00:35:08] Basically, I'm like, it's wonderful to never not be broken. But I think it's hard to describe unless you've experienced it. But coming out of Mormonism, it opens up possibilities that you never thought were possible before. It makes you realize the things you thought before were absurd. So absurd. Like drinking for the first time. I've never talked about this before, so here we go, guys.

Divorce, Relationship Changes, and Starting Over

John Dehlin [00:35:32] Here we go.

Kate Kelly [00:35:35] Now all the Mormons who are listening to this are just going to be like, solidly confirmed that I have gone down the slippery slope. But I do occasionally drink. And I thought when. The first time, the first time I ever had a drink of alcohol, I was with another, my former husband and my friend Jill, and we were on the beach in Kenya and we decided, like, we're gonna do it. Like, we're, we're gonna do it.

Kate Kelly [00:36:03] I didn't want to be with any like, non Mormons. Cause I'm like 35 and they will not understand why I don't even know what alcohol is. And also I thought, like, I genuinely thought, like, I'm gonna take this one sip and like end up in a gutter after having an orgy and becoming a cocaine addict. Like, that was inevitable, obviously.

Kate Kelly [00:36:32] And so I was just like, I did not, I did not know what was gonna happen. Like, how do you know? So I took whatever. I had some like, cocktail and I took like. It was so hard to drink because if you don't have a palate for it, it's very, very. It's gross. It's just disgusting. When you first taste it, it's like, oh, this is a really great juice drink with something really, really bad in it.

Kate Kelly [00:36:58] And so it took me like probably an hour to drink the whole thing. And I'm just like, prepared. Like, when is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? But of course, the longer you wait, the less effect the alcohol has. And it turns out it's actually really. You have to be committed to get drunk. You have to be really committed to the project, both monetarily and time wise.

Kate Kelly [00:37:23] You do not get drunk from one drink, even if you've never had anything before. My partner at the time, he had a drink and we're like, oh, yours is good. Like, mmm, give me some more of that. Yum, yum, yum. So I kept drinking his and then we're like, let's order another one of that. And we got the menu and it turns out his was a virgin drink.

Kate Kelly [00:37:43] So we're like, it's just juice. That's why it was so good. And so you think all these things, like, okay, you take one sip of alcohol and like, your life will totally change. And like, it's gonna be like so crazy to be drunk. Like, no, Also when you're having alcohol for the first time in your 35, like, you've got impulse control, you've got like financial concerns, you've got like, you make like rational decisions. So you're not just like getting plastered. You just occasionally socially drink. But it's just so funny, like, to think back to that time and think how it felt to be in that moment and just like take the sip of your destiny and then just be like, wasn't that cool?

John Dehlin [00:38:30] So, I mean, oddly enough, I still haven't tried alcohol. And part of that, you know, there are a lot of reasons for that, but Part of it is I carry. I kind of feel like I carry this responsibility that there are these perceptions about post Mormons, right? The stereotypes that they're gonna do all these crazy, bad things, right?

Kate Kelly [00:38:50] Even with my divorce, I was, like, holding out, holding out. And I didn't want to tell anyone. Cause I'm like, I know this is. Is gonna, like, confirm all of their suspicions.

John Dehlin [00:38:59] That was my question.

Kate Kelly [00:38:59] And I'm so mad. Like, I don't, like. Of course, in the end, I was like, well, I certainly shouldn't be making life decisions on really maintaining my facade for active Mormons, but it's so frustrating. It's infuriating to know that the decisions that you make, no matter what you do, will confirm their preconceived notions about what it's like. So, like, if I get divorced, if I stay married, if I drink, if I don't drink, if I do this, if I do this, like, whatever it is, they're going to say, you see? You see?

John Dehlin [00:39:32] That's what happens.

Kate Kelly [00:39:32] That's what happens. That's what happens to people who are apostates. And so. And like, I work in Planned Parenthood now, so it's like I'm at the very bottom of the slippery slope.

John Dehlin [00:39:43] So what. What do you want to. What are you comfortable sharing about Neil and kind of the divorce? Like, you haven't spoken publicly about it, right?

Kate Kelly [00:39:53] I. The last Mormon Stories podcast I did was with Neil, who is a wonderful person and someone I really care a lot about and so. And also is a very private person. Like, I had to convince him to do that Mormon Stories interview is a very private person. And so I prefer not to say anything about it just because I respect him, his privacy and autonomy, and he's someone I care about.

Kate Kelly [00:40:18] But I can say that the reason I got divorced is not a reason, actually. There was. No, you know, it wasn't. He was. He's a wonderful person. He is kind. He was extremely supportive. He's not. He's no longer involved in the church. He is a feminist. He supported ordained women. Like, he is just a really wonderful person.

Kate Kelly [00:40:40] And so there isn't. You know, there isn't. It's really hard because people want to know, like, what happened behind the scenes. And it's hard to describe, and it's hard to tell people that there isn't, like, one thing that I can point to.

Kate Kelly [00:40:55] I actually brought this because I was like, I bet he's going to ask about my divorce. I brought a book. It's called Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed, who's a feminist author and has, like, an advice column. And she explains it in a way that I could never explain. Can I read it?

John Dehlin [00:41:13] Yes, please.

Kate Kelly [00:41:14] Okay, so it says, there was nothing wrong with my ex. She's writing to women who have asked her questions about getting divorced. There's nothing wrong with my ex husband. He wasn't perfect, but he was pretty close. But there was something in me, was an awful thing from almost the very beginning. A small, clear voice that no matter what I did, would stop saying, go, go. Even though you love him, go. Even if he's kind and faithful and dear to you, go. Even if he's your best friend and you're his, go. Even if you can't imagine your life without him.

Kate Kelly [00:41:44] And so she goes through and she says, because wanting to leave is enough, get a pen and write that last sentence on your palm, all three of you. The women she's writing to, and then read it over and over again until your tears have washed it away. Doing what one wants to do because one has to do it is hard for a lot of people, but I think it's particularly hard for women.

Kate Kelly [00:42:04] But an ethical, evolved life also entails telling the truth about oneself and living out that truth. All of the reasons are true enough in their specificity of, like, things that built up to her divorce, but they all boil down to the same thing. I had to leave because I wanted to.

John Dehlin [00:42:23] Wow, that's powerful. And so I un Mormon in the sense of that's not how we're raised. Right.

Kate Kelly [00:42:33] And that's not how everyone is. And so I think a lot of people want to say, well, is that what you're telling everyone to do? Should everyone leave their spouses because they want to? No, but women should think about it in a different way.

Kate Kelly [00:42:47] And shouldn't. I think Mormons think about relationships in this weird puritanical. It's like capitalism. You just walk, work hard, and in the end it works out, you know, just like input x vending machine output, like, comes out the slot and you have it.

Kate Kelly [00:43:06] And so that's not how relationships work, in my experience. Not successful relationships. And so, yeah, I think you just need to think about it in a different way. If you want to leave, if you feel compelled to go, if you feel like that's a decision, you need to separate yourself from the culture and the environment and the teachings that you've been raised and make a decision for yourself. And that's hard. And it's easier for me because I don't have kids. And I am an attorney and I have a lot of autonomy and there's a lot of reasons why it's easier for me than for other women.

Kate Kelly [00:43:40] But if you need to go, then you should. And you need to find the support to facilitate, Facilitate that. So it's. I'm trying not to be opaque.

John Dehlin [00:43:50] No, no, no, no, you're not being opaque at all. Here's my follow up question. And so a pattern that I've noticed very common is you go through the faith crisis, you're married, you've got three or four kids, and you hit almost as early midlife crisis because it often happens now in the 30s or early 40s. I went through this. It's where you have this sort of.

John Dehlin [00:44:17] All your morality was tied to the church, at least it was for me. And all those decisions you made all along the way were sort of because you were following the plan. And you know, for Some it takes 5, 10, 15 years into a marriage, but at some point, maybe it's not as exciting as it was, maybe it's not as fun as you thought it'd be. But most importantly, you sort of look back and you say, wow, I just gave 30, 40 years of my life to something that turned out to be for some, a fraud. And in some ways, what that can do for many is taint everything.

John Dehlin [00:44:54] It like pollutes who you're married to, it pollutes your children, it pollutes your life. And it makes you say, I don't know if I want any of this anymore. And then that's when people sort of sometimes just really come unglued. And you sort of go from having all these really solid beliefs and standards and values to saying, I don't know if I care about any of it.

John Dehlin [00:45:20] And it leads people to try all sorts of things, from infidelity to opening up the marriage, to experimenting with drugs and alcohol, to who are you pointing at me?

Kate Kelly [00:45:32] No, you were pointing at me so

John Dehlin [00:45:34] I could be pointing at me.

Kate Kelly [00:45:36] Drug addict.

John Dehlin [00:45:36] Everyone, all of us a little bit. But how do you know what to keep? Right? And it's not like leaving the church automatically means you're going to be happy and healthy. And people can make a lot of mistakes, right? You can fall into some pretty dark holes. How do you make sense of all that?

Kate Kelly [00:45:56] It's really hard, but it's also exciting. So I think a lot of people are like, oh, wait, my teen and twenties and I've only had sex with one person. And like, damn it, why? But it's because you're reevaluating. It's like a rug is ripped out from underneath you and then you're like, oh, the entire construction of my life is based around Mormonism. Like, I went to byu, I went on a mission, I got married in the temple. I did this for a lot of women. It's, I didn't get an education, I have seven kids, I'm a stay at home mom. Da da da da, da da da.

Kate Kelly [00:46:34] And then when the rug is ripped out from underneath you, you're really like bewildered. And what do I do now? What is true, what isn't true, what do I still believe, et cetera. And so for me, I called it my dismantle and rebuild phase, where I had to really dismantle most things in my life in order to select the things that I still believed in. And so it's not an easy phase for anyone.

Kate Kelly [00:47:05] And for some it's quicker than others. But I think everyone goes through that adolescent period in their late 30s and it's difficult. And especially when it involves things that are dangerous, like sex can be. If you don't know about consent and you don't know about contraceptives and you don't know how to have these conversations and all of a sudden you're having sex with people that can be dangerous or if you don't know about alcohol or drugs and you try those things and it can really. It's weird because you're also like a professional and in your 30s and you know, doing things that like teenagers do. For example, I have at least two more, probably more friends who basically got teen pregnant, but they were 28 and so.

John Dehlin [00:47:49] What do you mean by that?

Kate Kelly [00:47:50] So it was like I didn't, they didn't know about contraception, they didn't know how to control it. They ended up like adopting out the baby. It was like very. It mirrored a situation like from 16 and pregnant, the, you know, the MTV show.

Kate Kelly [00:48:05] But they were old and had like a master's degree and were very educated. It's just that the situation is such that we don't have a literacy in a very specific area. And so some things that most adults have eventually learned by the time they're 35, people leaving Mormonism don't know or whenever they leave. And so that's really difficult. So I think a lot of people go through this pretty chaotic time and again. I don't have kids and I wasn't reliant on my partner financially. So for me it wasn't as chaotic. But it is difficult. And I Think a lot of people go through. I don't know, this is.

Kate Kelly [00:48:41] Is, like, taboo. But a lot of people go through a polyamorous phase, which means they're just like, oh, damn it. I didn't, you know, like, sleep with anyone else, but I'm married. But I still want to be married to you. But I also want to.

John Dehlin [00:48:52] Don't want to wreck the family.

Kate Kelly [00:48:53] Don't want to wreck the family.

John Dehlin [00:48:54] Don't want to disrupt the kids.

Kate Kelly [00:48:55] Also want to have sex with other people. And so that's actually really, really, really common.

John Dehlin [00:49:03] No. Like, every major city where there's a critical mass of post Mormons, there is a substantive percentage of those people that are experimenting with open marriage.

Kate Kelly [00:49:14] Totally. Which I was shocked by. I was like, whoa, we're talking Salt

John Dehlin [00:49:18] Lake, Utah County, Phoenix, Boise.

Kate Kelly [00:49:21] Well, also, that exists.

John Dehlin [00:49:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kate Kelly [00:49:24] And so people, like, when I announced that I was getting divorced because I wasn't a man's property anymore, like, a large number of post Mormon men contacted me immediately. Like, literally, like, the day of. It was very creepy. And we're like, hey. I was like, okay. Like, let's not do this. And so it's just, like. It's weird. It's very, very strange. And I hadn't experienced it one, because I think I was pretty Pollyanna. Ish. And also because I was married. And so no one had approached me. But it was pretty quick after I said that I was getting divorced, that all these people, it was like, and this isn't just me. Like, this isn't me because it's me. This is, like, happens to a lot of feminist Mormons who leave the church.

John Dehlin [00:50:18] And we're gonna do a Mormon Stories episode on non monogamy soon because it's huge.

Kate Kelly [00:50:24] It's such a big deal.

John Dehlin [00:50:25] It's huge.

Kate Kelly [00:50:26] And I think, yeah, it's hard to navigate those roads. It's hard to know what's okay, what's not okay. I personally haven't been in a polyamorous relationship, but I understand why people think that they should try that. It's very, very, very hard to navigate polyamory. I've seen very few successful polyamorous relationships, but our tradition has a pretty solid base. And polyamorous relationships. I hate to break it to you guys.

Rethinking Relationships and Intimacy After the Church

John Dehlin [00:50:56] It's so Mormon, right?

Kate Kelly [00:50:57] It's so Mormon. And so I think there is this edge of, like, okay, that's not that weird. You know, like, we know that, for example, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, like, all of the early prophets did it. And so, yeah, it's this very strange thing where. But the thing is, there's a lot of abuse, too. Like, very, very predatory, progressive Mormon men who will approach women and try to gain their confidences through their feminism, which is just really repugnant, in my opinion. And so it's important to know about it, it's important to think about it. It's important to be aware of what's happening, even if you're not going to be involved. But, yeah, it can be very, very hard.

John Dehlin [00:51:39] And I mentioned a few cities, but the truth is, it's everywhere. And it's not just Mormonism. It's just. It's something in the 21st century that everyone's kind of confronting. My Mormon self. I have to fight my tendency to sort of judge it and say, oh, that's bad, or it's immoral, or it's wrong.

John Dehlin [00:51:59] So that's. And I don't want to be that way. If people find joy and meaning in a way that's healthy and sustainable for them, I want to say, who am I to judge? On the one hand. On the other hand, I've talked to a lot of friends who have either been a part of this or have sort of known a lot of people who have been friends with people who've been a part of it. And there's sort of this perception that, you know, polyamory is kind of what you do right before you get divorced. Like, it usually ends badly. Like, it's super complicated.

Kate Kelly [00:52:33] It's another slippery slope.

John Dehlin [00:52:35] Yeah. So, I mean, I guess I'm not expecting you to sort of be the authority on this, especially since you say you've never even been a part of it.

Kate Kelly [00:52:43] But I think, like, the thing that I've observed is that the reason it can be like a gateway drug to divorce, so to speak, is because a lot of those relationships are ending anyways. And so it's this transition of, like, I'm tied to you and I married you for eternity, and they're probably ending

John Dehlin [00:53:04] for the same reason yours ended. Right. In the sense that people say, I would have made very different decisions if I hadn't have been on this Mormon plan.

Kate Kelly [00:53:12] Right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:13] And it's like this. This isn't working. Now that the church isn't there, it isn't working anymore.

Kate Kelly [00:53:17] Well, it's the biggest thing we had in common, you know, and so, like, we met at byu. Like, we did all these things. And so people are reimagining what their lives look like now that neither of them or one of them is involved in the church. And so it's really hard to reevaluate that. But the first is, okay, maybe we should just have relationships with other people and see how that works. And then. I don't know. This is my personal opinion. I don't think. I haven't seen a lot of very successful, healthy polyamorous relationships. And so I see it more as, like, a transition phase. But it's hard. It's hard to know, like, is it right? Is it not right? Is everything Mormonism taught you wrong? Are some things wrong? You know, And I am in a monogamous relationship now, but I don't know. It's hard.

John Dehlin [00:54:06] It's hard. And really, we don't have good data. We're all speaking anecdotally. A lot of people in these sorts of relationships just don't want to talk about it. They don't want to be honest in scientific studies. And so we shouldn't even necessarily create the impression that we know that they're rarely successful. We kind of don't know. But we're gonna have to start learning about it, because I think it's. I mean, it's. It's reached people very close to me.

Kate Kelly [00:54:34] I would also say even if you do it, like, anonymously or however, I think people need to talk about it. Like, the thing that annoyed me is I was like, whoa. Like, so many people are involved in this and no one talks about it. Like, once I real. Like, once I was separating people, like, oh, yeah, this, that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, people started talking about it, and I was like, what? I had no idea. Like, I had no idea because no one ever talks about it. And honestly, I just get sick of being the only one who talks about hard things.

John Dehlin [00:55:03] Yeah.

Kate Kelly [00:55:04] So I'm like, you.

John Dehlin [00:55:05] I'm not the only one.

Kate Kelly [00:55:06] Not the only one. But, like, you talk about this. You know what I mean? Like, talk about it publicly, let people know that this is, like, a struggle or this is something that people do. And so I understand. It's like, really, really, really, really, really negatively stigmatized, et cetera. So, yeah. Yeah.

Sex, Consent, and Healthy Sexuality for Post-Mormons

John Dehlin [00:55:24] So let's talk about sex. Oh, I got some. Cheers. Yeah. That's what you've been waiting for, right? That's what they came for.

Kate Kelly [00:55:33] We put it in the title. So

John Dehlin [00:55:36] Periscope. I'm getting lots of hearts right now.

Kate Kelly [00:55:38] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:55:39] Hi, Periscope. So what are some basics about healthy sexuality that someone even in their 40s or 50s in Mormonism might not know? Give us some healthy sexuality. 101. For the people in or coming out of Mormonism? Are there some basics?

Kate Kelly [00:55:56] Okay, so to be clear, I'm an attorney, not a sex educator. Although I do work for Planned Parenthood. And I think for Mormons, like, the biggest thing for me is understanding about consent. Like, it's very, very basic, but also really important.

Kate Kelly [00:56:13] And the reason that it's so hard for Mormon people or post Mormon people, I think, is because it requires, like, a really tough. Or it just requires a conversation. And so it's talking about something that you're not used to talking about. It's talking about with someone you might not have a really long relationship with. It might be someone you just met. It might be someone that you've dated for a short amount of time. It's not someone you've been married to for 10 years, for example.

Kate Kelly [00:56:40] And so it requires, like, difficult conversations. It requires a lot of candor. And so, yeah, consent is a really tough issue for Mormonism. And when I say consent, I mean that both people or all people involved in a sexual interaction have expressly consented to participating in that interaction. Just because you consent one time doesn't mean that you're consenting for the next time. Just because you're consenting to one thing doesn't mean that you're obligated to do it again. It's kind of like a continual conversation. And the hardest thing, I think, I don't know what you guys think.

Kate Kelly [00:57:13] For Mormons to talk about is sex harder than any sort of substance, harder than, I think harder than any other subject, is to talk about sex. And that's very much how I was raised. I can remember even a few years back when people having conversations about sex, and I would basically opt out.

Kate Kelly [00:57:32] Like, if there was like an opt out button on the conversation, I would just be like, okay, no, thank you. Because it's really. I don't know, the way that we're raised, it's very heavily stigmatized. It's like, don't know, don't do this, don't do this. Don't touch yourself. That's bad. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, if you do anything, you have to talk to your bishop, who is an old man who will shame you in private when you're a young woman. Like, that seems unhealthy.

Kate Kelly [00:57:59] And so you have all these, like, super negative experiences. And then you get married and you're like, all right now it's gonna be wonderful. And then it's not. Or maybe it is for some people, but for me, you know, I talk about this on feminist Mormon Housewives podcast. But for me, I had, like, so much build up and so much trauma and so much, like, negative teaching that I literally spent my honeymoon, like, crying in the bathtub. Like, I just could not. Like, you don't. You can't switch it off and on like that. And so it's very difficult to have those conversations. So now, ironically, I work at Planned Parenthood, and basically, like every staff meeting, we're like, talking about vasectomies and talking about, like, all kinds of sex and how to promote safe sex. And I think it really starts in Mormonism with learning how to have those conversations. And that's hard.

John Dehlin [00:58:54] Yeah. When you talk about consent, like, why. And this is going to sound maybe naive or ignorant, but why is that such, number one, why is that such an important topic to talk about? When can that go wrong? Or when is that essential? But also, isn't that kind of a mood killer? I'm intentionally being sort of a little bit offensive or stereotypical. But I, you know, but I mean that I think it's important to kind of address it at that level because I think there's a lot of people that are like, what, consent?

Kate Kelly [00:59:22] Yeah. So it really depends on the type of relationship that you're in and the communication that you have with your partner. I think the reason it's so important is, like, so much non consensual sex is happening where it's like, oh, we didn't really talk about it, but I thought it. She was cool with it. And then, you know, we did it and then it was terrible or something bad happened or, you know, there's just. Or we just didn't have a conversation.

John Dehlin [00:59:45] She calls it rape or he calls it rape, right?

Kate Kelly [00:59:47] Yeah. And I'm not even talking about, like, the legal definition of sexual assault. I'm just talking about a conversation or an interaction where both people don't feel, like, fully invested in it and good about it. And so, yes, it is a conversation and it is something that has to continually happen. But that's. And the. And the reason that you might say like, oh, that's a buzzkill, or that that's difficult is because that's not the way we were raised. Like some people, it's like very much like in queer culture, for example, a lot of times, like, a lot of my queer friends are like, this is just part of the interaction. Like, of course you're gonna have, you know, you're gonna talk about STIs, you're gonna talk about interactions, you're gonna talk about what's.

John Dehlin [01:00:24] Tell us what STIs are.

Kate Kelly [01:00:26] Sexually transmitted infections. It's the newer term. STDs is an older term because diseases are incorporated. And a lot of infections, like chlamydia, for example, is just an infection and it's curable. So it's to destigmatize what is an STI.

Kate Kelly [01:00:41] And so up at the legislature, I'm always like, STIs, blah, blah. They're like, STIs. What's STI? So that's what it is. And so those are important conversations. Like, when you think about it, that's like a life or death situation. Like, if you're having sex, unprotected sex, protect, particularly with someone who has an sti, you could die from that interaction. You could contract a disease that will lead to your eventual death. So you'd think that that would be worth having a conversation about, or you could get pregnant. Unintended pregnancies are difficult to deal with. And so it's important.

Kate Kelly [01:01:20] It's one of the most important things to have a conversation about, but it's one of the most difficult things to have a conversation. Conversation about. And I will say that from my personal experience. Again, I'm always, like, railing on people who won't talk about things. So it's hard. It's hard for me. Like, I have sex with my partner now, and it's.

John Dehlin [01:01:36] Wait, what?

Kate Kelly [01:01:39] Yep, guys, I drink and I have sex again. I'm at the bottom of the slippery slope. So, yes, I have a sexual relationship with my partner. His name is Jack, and he's here.

John Dehlin [01:01:55] Hi, Jack. Let's give Jack a hand, everybody.

Kate Kelly [01:02:01] He also blushes really easily, so he's probably blushing right now. But. And, yeah, and. But it's a continual conversation that we have to have because we were both raised Mormon, and we both have a lot of, like, negative socialization around sex. And so it's hard. Hard. It's hard to. It's not hard. It's just, you know, you have to work through it. And, like, you have to have these conversations. You have to talk about things you have to say, you know, you have to ask questions. You have to, like, especially for a Mormon woman. And I think almost every Mormon woman can sympathize with me on this fact.

Kate Kelly [01:02:33] If you were raised Mormon, it is very difficult to articulate your desire. Like, very difficult to say, like, I want this, because what you've been raised to be is very deferential to give other people what they want, to serve other people, to put other People's needs before your own at all costs. Like your children, your husband, like the church. You're not supposed to be in a leadership position. You're not supposed to speak up. You're not supposed to do these things. So our entire socialization, people think of me as this very brave, brash person, which I think is so funny because I don't think of myself as that at all.

Kate Kelly [01:03:08] Every time I do a protest and I'm leaving a group of people, people, I'm just, like, having this internal dialogue of like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. But I can't say that because I'm in the front. So I'm just like, sally forth, everyone. Don't worry, we'll be fine.

John Dehlin [01:03:22] What do the voices inside say? I'm just curious.

Kate Kelly [01:03:24] Just like, we're not supposed to do this. Like, I. You know, the first order in women action. I was like, this is just. It's so taboo. Like, my. It's almost like my primal instincts are like, don't do this. He's in charge. Like, you. You should listen to him.

John Dehlin [01:03:37] What about, am I worthy enough?

Kate Kelly [01:03:41] Yeah, Are they gonna listen to me? Is this okay? I'm breaking the rules. I'm breaking the rules.

John Dehlin [01:03:44] Am I back?

Kate Kelly [01:03:45] I am a real rule follower. Ironically, like, I'm very like, unless a rule is wrong, and then I think the rules should be changed. And so, like, I remember following rules. Woo. I think I remember a BBC reporter was interviewing me, and she. It was a radio, so she just had our little recorder, and we were going to Temple Square, and I'm like, sitting on the sidewalk, and it's like, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. Like, I'm just waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. And then it's like the green man. And then I go. But there's no cars, not for, like 20 miles. There's like, no cars, no people. Like, I easily could have gone. And she's like, this is so funny to me. And I'm like, what? She's like, you just waited for, like, two minutes when no cars were coming just because, like, there was no sign that said you could go.

John Dehlin [01:04:30] Go.

Kate Kelly [01:04:31] And I was like, yeah, I'm actually quite a rule follower. And so I think all of that socialization builds up, combined with our negative socialization on sex, that makes those conversations hard. But you just have to break through it. You have to figure out ways to have those conversations. A lot of times, and this may sound very cowardly, a lot of times I'll say things about sex in text messages because it's hard for me to like, have that conversation in the moment or have that conversation in person. It's like a little bit hard. And so sometimes, like, the hardest things to say, I will say by text.

Kate Kelly [01:05:07] And Jack's like, should we be having this conversation by text? But I think whatever it takes to get through that. Like, to get through that. Whatever it takes to like, get to a place where you feel comfortable, where you can talk about things, where you can talk about contraception, where you can talk about all these different things. I have an IUD, which is 10 year long birth control. I have a copper IUD, which is the best. IUDs are the greatest. I'm an IUD missionary.

Kate Kelly [01:05:36] There's also a hormonal IUD that you can get. So it's semi permanent birth control. You can have it removed if you want to become pregnant. And so there's just different layers of conversation. And, and it has to be an ongoing conversation. It's not just like, oh, we talked about that, so we're good. And that's why consent is so important to talk about.

John Dehlin [01:05:56] But it doesn't have to be a mood killer.

Kate Kelly [01:05:58] I don't think so again, like, you can talk about it at any time. You can, like when you feel safe, when you feel like it's appropriate, you

John Dehlin [01:06:05] can, I can imagine, actually enhancing a relationship.

Kate Kelly [01:06:09] Yeah. Because part of a relationship is having that conversation. And Mormons, like, don't talk about sex in. So for a lot of Mormons, like, I remember one of the Mormon therapists, like sex therapists has a list about like, couple, like intimacy or something like that.

Kate Kelly [01:06:24] She accidentally sent an email to everyone without bccing. And I was like, oh, that's probably like a breach of whatever confidentiality. But also I was like, oh, that person. Oh, that person. Oh, they're all like, everyone I know is on that list, you know, and it's because everyone I know is having the same issues. We were all wrong. We're all messed up in the same ways. And so we have that commonality. So it's not just you, it's not just your partner, it's not just your marriage. Like, it's everyone, man. And it's not just Mormons either. It's a hard topic because of the puritanical culture that we're raised in. And so, yeah, it's everyone. Like, don't think you're the only one.

John Dehlin [01:07:00] And a super obvious question, does consent apply to married people? And how does, how does it.

Kate Kelly [01:07:06] Okay, thank you for asking that question. Consent does apply to married people. There is such a thing as marital rape in most states. Actually, there was a legislator last year in Utah who made this major gaffe. But at the legislature, they never think they're making a gaffe. They're just like, I feel totally unashamed to say something super crazy because no one is going to call me on it.

Kate Kelly [01:07:29] But this legislator said that it was appropriate to have sex with your wife if she was unconscious. And just FYI, that is not appropriate. Also, what circumstance is that occurring in? Like, I'm unclear. So no one asked a follow up question.

Kate Kelly [01:07:48] But yeah, it's very, very important, I think, in marriage. And a lot of, for example, men might think, oh, you did that once, and so you're gonna be okay with doing that again, or like, just because you, you, you know, whatever. Or they might try anal sex when you haven't consented to that and you don't want to. Or it can just lead to a lot of, like, problems. And so it's very important in marriage. It's very important to a healthy marriage. And especially if you have multiple partners. If you're.

John Dehlin [01:08:20] Did you just point at me? No, just pointed at me.

Kate Kelly [01:08:22] If you have multiple partners, one partner. John has one partner. To be clear, Internet, do not get mad at John.

John Dehlin [01:08:31] Margi, do not get mad.

Kate Kelly [01:08:32] She's awesome. So, yeah, I think it's just, it's hard to talk about and like, I don't know, I, you know, even again, if you know the mechanics of things, like you're in your 30s, you like, you understand what a condom is and you understand how to put it on. Because you, like, saw the video. If you, if you, if you live in Utah, you did not ever see condom death demonstration in school. We do not have comprehensive sex ed.

Kate Kelly [01:08:56] But you know, they exist, but you might not know how to use them. And again, I think personally that the most difficult part of this interaction is like how to have a conversation about like, okay, now we put the condom on.

Kate Kelly [01:09:10] And so that's hard. So I have safe sex kits here if anyone wants to get one and try one, even if you're married, just to know what they're for. It has lube and condoms and dental dams which present dental what it's called a dental dam. It prevents STIs when you have oral sex.

Kate Kelly [01:09:27] So you can also turn a condom into a dental dam if you just have a condom. You can just cut it into a square. So if anyone has more specific questions, I can answer them after getting a little uncomfortable here.

Kate Kelly [01:09:41] But you know, it's something. You can know the information. Like, you can know the science, you can know the information. You can know the body parts. You can, like, have taken anatomy. You can be an educated person and still not know how to have those conversations and still have unprotected sex, even though you know it's dangerous and still, you know, not have conversations with your partner about things that are important to you.

Kate Kelly [01:10:10] It's hard. It's a process, but it's also beautiful. I think you're right. Having those kinds of conversations make it more intimate. I think it makes sex much more beautiful.

Planned Parenthood, Abortion Access, and Reproductive Rights

John Dehlin [01:10:26] Let's talk about Planned Parenthood.

Kate Kelly [01:10:29] So

John Dehlin [01:10:32] much of the perception around Planned Parenthood has to do with abortion. So talk. Just give us a primer on what Planned Parenthood is, and then let's talk about abortion 101. Like, why that's such a issue of importance for you and for women.

Kate Kelly [01:10:48] Okay. So Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides basic reproductive healthcare services for women and men. In Utah, that's 15% men. So we do phasectomies, we do STI treatment.

John Dehlin [01:11:02] You can get a vasectomy at Planned Parenthood.

Kate Kelly [01:11:03] Yes, you can.

John Dehlin [01:11:04] Wow.

Kate Kelly [01:11:04] Planned Parenthood association of Utah.

John Dehlin [01:11:06] Is it, like, discounted or.

Kate Kelly [01:11:07] Yeah, it's discounted. We actually. We actually.

John Dehlin [01:11:09] I have no idea.

Kate Kelly [01:11:10] We have a very. You guys know that guys get vasectomies? It's somebody go, woo woo.

John Dehlin [01:11:18] Vasectomies.

Kate Kelly [01:11:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:21] Rock and roll.

Kate Kelly [01:11:22] I think it's very important for men to take control of vasectomies. Vasectomy is actually a minimally invasive procedure

John Dehlin [01:11:32] that I've had a vasectomy.

Kate Kelly [01:11:33] You what?

John Dehlin [01:11:34] It's time for disclosure. I've had a vasectomy. Ah, great. We have to get comfortable. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Kate Kelly [01:11:39] I applaud you for taking control of your reproductive life. And actually, we have a big wait list for vasectomies because it's like, very low cost at Planned Parenthood. It's like a very popular procedure. So. So, yeah, vasectomies.com but I think the misperception about Planned Parenthood is that we only do abortions or a large percentage abortion is a very important part of reproductive health care and is safe and legal. And we provide those and have provided them in Utah for 40 years.

Kate Kelly [01:12:13] However, it's a pretty small percentage of what we actually do. So we do education. We have, like, in Utah, we have a teen counter. So we do sex ed to teens. And those teens do peer education. So they'll go to high schools. They'll go to middle schools, they'll reach out to other groups they can do, you know, they teach other teens and adults about sex. And these teens are actually really cool teens. They know a lot more about sex than a lot of adults in Utah do.

Kate Kelly [01:12:38] And so it's, you know, we do education programs, we do, like I said, we do cancer screenings, we do STI screenings, we do well woman exams, we do like a really, really full range of sliding scale services. So if health care were like Planned Parenthood for all health care it would basically be single payer healthcare, but we only focus on reproductive services.

Kate Kelly [01:12:59] And so we'll do pregnancy tests, we refer people that, we will counsel them on their options. We refer to adoption agencies if that's what the pregnant person wants to do. If they want to carry the child to term, then could refer them to an obgyn. We do not, you know, we don't have those services. And then also termination.

John Dehlin [01:13:17] If somebody were to accuse you guys of like nudging people towards the abortion, what would you say in response to that?

Kate Kelly [01:13:23] I mean those people should just come to the clinic like you can do.

John Dehlin [01:13:27] How are people trained in terms of neutrality?

Kate Kelly [01:13:30] So yeah, it's actually very open. They discuss all the options and then they let its values neutral and so they let the woman like indicate what she wants to do. Ah, it's a novel concept.

John Dehlin [01:13:44] Wait, what?

Kate Kelly [01:13:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:45] What?

Kate Kelly [01:13:47] And so I don't, I mean nobody is pro abortion. Like literally zero people on earth are like more abortions. It's a necessary healthcare service. It's, it's important for women to be able to terminate their pregnancy if they so choose. And that's why we provide them. Planned Parenthood in Utah actually didn't used to provide abortion services, but there was a really terrible bill in 2010 that said that abortion providers had to sign a specific registry that they're an abortionist and provide their public information. So basically really negatively stigmatizes abortion care providers. So it went from like 12, 10 or 12 all the way down to 1 and then planned Parenthood stepped in and started performing them because there was no else doing them.

John Dehlin [01:14:32] So yeah, so this is like really basic. But yeah, somebody saying you're killing babies and the baby has the right to life and you know, you shouldn't be making that decision for the unborn. What is your response to all that?

Kate Kelly [01:14:49] Well, I would start with the vast, vast, vast majority. 90 plus percent of abortion care takes place in the first trimester. So we're not talking about a baby, we're talking about a fetus or an embryo or a fertilized.

John Dehlin [01:15:02] Someone say that's just a way to depersonalize.

Kate Kelly [01:15:05] Well, I would say that the opposite is trying to anthropomorphize something that is not actually an unborn child. And so that's fast. What.

John Dehlin [01:15:13] That was good.

Kate Kelly [01:15:16] And so I think it's important to step back if you do consider abortion to be, quote, unquote murder, to step back and think about what is real. What is real is that the woman who is pregnant is here, can feel, can think, can make decisions about her body and should be able to do that, you know, if. And again, we're talking about a fetus. And so it's, it's. And most of the procedures take place pretty early in the pregnancy. You know, the vast. I think there was a bill up at the Utah state legislature about abortions taking place after 20 weeks. And it's something like 17, like 17 abortions took place in Utah after, after 20 weeks. In a year.

John Dehlin [01:16:10] In a year.

Kate Kelly [01:16:10] So it's, it's rare, it's super rare. It's a handful of people, most people. And those circumstances are, a lot of them are very dire. You know, you didn't find out you're pregnant, you didn't find out there was a fetal anomaly, you know, rape, gang rape, or a young girl who wasn't able to report because of sexual abuse. Like there's a lot of reasons that you might wait until later in the pregnancy, but a lot of them create like really high risk or dire situations. So that needs to be available to those women. I think very few people, even the most quote, unquote pro life people would say that a 13 year old who's gang raped should have to carry the pregnancy to term.

Kate Kelly [01:16:49] And so, you know, I think of course that women should be able to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy on their own with no restrictions, because it's an important part of our lives. And then there's all these laws. And because Roe vs. Wade happened and it's legal in all 50 states, what the anti choice movement has done now is try to put access limitations. So in Utah there's a 72 hour wait period. If you're 18, you can't get an abortion without parental consent and notification when the procedure happens. The only way to get around that is if you get a judicial bypass. So as a teen girl, you have to go before a judge and convince them that your parents shouldn't know about your reproductive life.

Kate Kelly [01:17:33] It's very cumbersome. There's also consent. So you have to have a consent session which tells you about the procedure, and you have to wait for 72 to two hours. And there are only two places that provide abortion, like scheduled abortions in Utah. One is Planned Parenthood, which is in Salt Lake, and one is. It's called Whole Women's Health Clinic. It's also in Salt Lake, but it's a tiny private clinic. So if you live in St. George, if you live in Hurricane, if you live in Logan, if you live in all these different places, like, you have to come far to have the procedure performed.

John Dehlin [01:18:02] There's a Planned Parenthood in Logan, but it doesn't perform.

Kate Kelly [01:18:05] There's only one clinic in Utah, Planned Parenthood Clinic, that performs abortions, and it's in Salt lake. The Title 10 funding, the federal funds cannot be used for any abortion care. And so it has to be a totally separate clinic. Like, abortions don't take place in all the clinics because it has to be separate funding.

John Dehlin [01:18:26] And this is gonna sound like a trope, but for those who say, hey, these women shouldn't have had sex if they didn't want to get pregnant, honestly, what do you say to that? They should have thought of that before they had sex.

Kate Kelly [01:18:36] Right? Yeah. I was at a hearing in the Senate, or, sorry, in the House at the Utah State legislature yesterday, and someone said, and these pregnancies are all caused by the thing that you do that results in pregnancy.

Kate Kelly [01:18:49] I was like, also known as sex. So kind of amazing. But I think there's a lot of answers to that. One is not all sex is consensual. So a lot of people, even if they're with a partner or if they're in different situations, not all sex is consensual. Sexual assault exists, et cetera. But even if the people who are saying that think, and this is something a legislator said, that STIs and pregnancy are the natural result of a sin, and so we should not teach children how to have sex without consequences.

Kate Kelly [01:19:27] So they think that they should legislate based on something they see as a sin. And this is a consequence of sin. That's just wrong. That's not true. If you think that you should re evaluate that sex is a natural part of human relationships. And no matter how you think about it, that's fine. You do what you want to do. But that doesn't mean that I should have to be legislatively prohibited from doing what I want to do.

Kate Kelly [01:19:55] And Mormons believe in agency. That's our thing. We really believe in that. I think if you believe in agency, if you believe that people should be able to choose, if you believe that you're on this planet because you're here to progress and make choices, that. That this is a choice that women should be able to make.

John Dehlin [01:20:12] Got it. Okay, so can you share with us some stories of women's experiences that help illustrate why the access to abortion is really important? Just a few stories.

Kate Kelly [01:20:31] Yeah. Actually, we had a Roe vs Wade event in Salt Lake City where six women publicly told their stories, and those are going to be available on KRCL radio. So I'll send you the link so that people can listen to those stories because they're really interesting. And a lot of them were raised Mormon. The women who told the stories, one of them was a woman who was really heavily involved with a man who was very abusive. So when he told. When she told him that she was pregnant, he was in the car and he reached across and. And punched her in the face and broke her nose and then started beating on her stomach.

Kate Kelly [01:21:07] And she felt like she was not only in a. Like. Basically, she explains her termination for pregnancy not only got her out of that relationship, it saved her life. And so that's a situation where you have to choose between really hard options, but you have to be able to choose.

Kate Kelly [01:21:27] And there are a million different circumstances why women might choose to terminate a pregnancy. Maybe they're in school, maybe they are. Also, the majority of women who terminate pregnancies already have children, which is something not a lot of people know.

Kate Kelly [01:21:41] They might have two kids already, they might have three kids already, they might have seven kids already, and they just don't feel able to add another person to their family. So it might also be a question of survival of their family. And the thing that people don't understand about abortion is that criminalizing abortion doesn't stop it. Like, it's gonna happen.

John Dehlin [01:22:02] It's like prohibition and alcohol, right?

Kate Kelly [01:22:04] It's going to happen because some women are in such a desperate situation that they absolutely must terminate the pregnancy, that criminalizing it is not going to stop them. It's only going to make it unsafe. And it's going to make them, you know, it's going to put them in danger for being criminalized or for being imprisoned. You know, the. One of the. I just learned this today that one of the highest search terms, like, you can see the search terms that people search to find your website, and one of the highest search terms to find our website is DIY Abortion, do it yourself Abortion. Do it yourself abortion.

Kate Kelly [01:22:39] And that's because women, because it's so heavily stigmatized, because women have to go so far because there's so many barriers. Like women are in such a state of desperation that they will like, not terminating the pregnancy is not an option. And so they have to do something that's dangerous. They have to do something that just absolutely should never, nobody should ever have to do.

Kate Kelly [01:23:02] I really recommend for anyone who is thinking about this issue and wants to know more, there's a really good film. It's called Trapped. It's about laws that are called trap laws. They're targeted regulations against abortion providers. And so the film is going to be screened in Utah in May. And I can send you the link to that too. But it really gives like some really concrete examples and stories of women. One of them was a girl who was 13 who was gang raped in Texas, had to drive seven hours to try to get the abortion terminated by. But because of the situation, they weren't able to get a doctor in.

Kate Kelly [01:23:40] And so she couldn't do it. They told her she would have to go to New Mexico and pay $5,000 and a whole litany of blocks for her to get the abortion care she needed. And so in the end, what they were really telling her is you have to carry this baby to term.

John Dehlin [01:23:58] Yeah. It's probably worth noting that the LDS Church has an abortion policy, right.

Kate Kelly [01:24:03] So there are exceptions. And the LDS Church is actually picketed and protested by pro life, extreme, anti choice people because their policy is too liberal. And so the one time the LDS church is too liberal on something, and so there's exceptions for life of the mother, survival of the fetus, rape, incest, sort of the moral exceptions. But the problem is, I think with the culture that people don't see that as abortion, it's like it's okay, it's morally allowable, it's morally permissible for this woman to terminate it, but not this woman. So like, who gets to make that judgment? Who gets to decide who is able to access this healthcare and who isn't?

Kate Kelly [01:24:44] And I really don't think it should be 15 men in salt Lake City. I honestly don't think they should be making decisions about any woman's life under any circumstances. But it, it certainly shouldn't be men. And so yeah, I think it's very, very, very important that we keep this accessible and we will. I mean, it's the law of the land.

John Dehlin [01:25:07] What would you say if somebody said, you know, these barriers that they put up to make it difficult, that like, it's kind of a serious decision. And it merits a few, it merits whatever structures need to be put in place to ensure that this is a careful, thoughtful decision that the person isn't going to regret later and that it's done in a way that isn't sort of disrespectful to life. What would you say about someone who said, yeah, a few barriers or some structure is good to make sure it's not done carelessly?

Kate Kelly [01:25:38] Well, that's really implying a lot of things. And one of them is that women who choose to get abortions are not responsible decision making makers, which is just really fundamentally insulting and untrue. I think also that implies that the people that should be making medical decisions are not doctors and their patients. They are politicians or church leaders or other people. The people who should be making those decisions are doctors and their patients and that's it.

Kate Kelly [01:26:04] And so if you say, oh, well, it's really serious, you just take that seriously. Yeah. So it was a colonoscopy. Like more people die from the getting a colonoscopy than from terminating a pregnancy. But no one's like, let's give them 72 hours on that. They really need to think that through.

Kate Kelly [01:26:20] Or any other medical procedure. Like, what other medical procedure can you think of that people have to like, sit back, get a consent form, have a session, wait for 72 hours, like travel 600 miles, get their parents permission, get their parents permission. Like, is there any other medical procedure where that's the case? No. The point of the roadblocks to abortion care is not to make sure it's safe or to care for the unborn child. The point is to negatively stigmatize a procedure which people morally oppose. And so they want to put their judgment on it, they want to stigmatize it. They want to make women feel bad.

Kate Kelly [01:26:55] They want to make them feel like murderers and compare it to a crime. When it is safe, it is legal and it's actually one of the safest procedures. So it's like a very, very small percentage of people who terminate their pregnancies have any complications. There's also a medical abortion. I didn't know about this. Maybe other people do, but you can actually terminate a pregnancy within the first nine weeks by taking a pill. So there's no invasive procedure because of laws. You have to take them at the clinic, but you can take a pill and then you take another one the next day. It's a series of pills and then you, you terminate the pregnancy. So it's actually not even a surgery.

John Dehlin [01:27:34] What would you say? Let's sort of take it to the other extreme. If you were to learn about a young woman who just liked to have sex a lot but didn't like contraception, and so she, as an extreme example, used abortion as just her form of birth control, would you be opposed to that? Would you say that's, you know, not right?

Kate Kelly [01:27:56] Okay, well, first of all, all forms of birth control are, I think, important to access. But also that's another way to stigmatize it. Like you're making a bad choice as opposed to any other point. Like, if you use plan B, is that bad? You know, Plan B is something you can take. It's called emergency contraception. And you can take it the day after.

John Dehlin [01:28:19] That's the morning after.

Kate Kelly [01:28:20] It's the morning after. So with. Within 72 hours. And so is that wrong? You know, at what stage does another person get to decide what you're doing is wrong? You know, no one. There are very few people who are just like, this is awesome. Like, I want to do this thing that's pretty, like, time consuming and expensive and emotionally difficult because everyone is judging me. And all these other things, like, people aren't using. That's just basically a myth. Like, people are not using abortion as birth control.

Kate Kelly [01:28:49] But if you don't have sex ed, if you don't know how things work, if you haven't been raised to have these conversations and you don't have access to free or affordable contraception, then that makes it more likely that you will have to terminate a pregnancy. I think what Planned Parenthood does, actually I'm like a Planned Parenthood missionary.

Kate Kelly [01:29:11] What Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide education and access to contraception do is prevent anyone from having to terminate a pregnancy. Like, if you have an IUD and you know how to have sex in a way that keeps you safe, you won't have to terminate a pregnancy because you won't get pregnant. I've had an IUD since I got married, and of course I didn't have sex before I got married.

Kate Kelly [01:29:36] And so I've never had to terminate a pregnancy. And so I think if people really strongly oppose abortion for fundamental moral reasons, they should donate money to Planned Parenthood because we are the ones that are out there helping people understand how to prevent pregnancy and giving them the tools to do so.

John Dehlin [01:29:58] So this is going to be slightly repetitive, but if the Utah legislature or believing Mormons or whoever, evangelicals, want to minimize the number of, you know, fetuses that are, you know, that are terminated, then they would invest in Planned Parenthood. Meaning what? You just said it. But I just want to make it really clear. Yeah, I think what are the things that prevent unwanted, you know, pregnancy?

Kate Kelly [01:30:26] I think it's very clear that the things that prevent unwanted pregnancy, it's not abstinence only education. Abstinence only education is so sex ed.

John Dehlin [01:30:33] Thumbs up.

Kate Kelly [01:30:34] Comprehensive sex ed. Comprehensive sex ed teaches about contraception and STIs as well as condom demonstration. Condom demonstration has been very linked to preventing STIs and pregnancy. So you can not just like, this is a condom anyways, blah, blah, blah, blah, never have sex before you get married. That's essentially what Utah sex ed is. It's called abstinence plus. So you can say that STIs exist, you can say that contraception exists, but you can't demonstrate it, you can't advocate it.

John Dehlin [01:31:05] You're talking, pull out the banana, the whole deal.

Kate Kelly [01:31:07] Right. Just show kids how to use it.

John Dehlin [01:31:09] Okay, that helps.

Kate Kelly [01:31:10] Yeah. And it doesn't. It also does not cause kids to have sex because we've taught them how to have sex consequence free. You know, you can know about sex and still choose not to have it. You know, a lot of kids who have comprehensive sex ed don't feel ready or, you know, choose to wait. That's fine. But that doesn't mean that we should deprive children and adolescents of information about their bodies. So comprehensive sex ed. Also access to contraception. So a lot of people can't afford permanent contraception. For example, IUDs are expensive.

Kate Kelly [01:31:49] It's a one time cost that obviously lasts for 10 years. So in the end it pays off. But it's a high upfront cost. So any larc, any long acting contraception is expensive. So if people have access to that, vasectomy is also expensive, or tubal ligations, et cetera, there are lots of options that are more permanent. There's also implants. So there are lots of ways to prevent pregnancy. But again, they have to be accessible. People have to be able to get those with their insurance or be able to afford them.

Kate Kelly [01:32:19] And so I think a combination of accessibility to contraception and education, like it just. I know it's hard to use logic with Mormons, but like it just makes logical sense. And so,

John Dehlin [01:32:33] yeah, I don't want to put you on the spot. Didn't Colorado implement some sort of IED program that had some pretty significantly positive Results?

Kate Kelly [01:32:41] Yeah. So Colorado implanted a LARC program, which is basically IUDs and implants to provide them for Free. And then they. I think their abortion rate went down by something like 60%. It was very, very steep dive. And also teen pregnancy. So their teen pregnancy rate also plummeted because they were providing this contraception. And we're also starting an IUD program in Utah. So if anyone's interested in. They should check that out.

Audience Q&A on Sex, Body Image, and Parenting

John Dehlin [01:33:11] All right. Okay, I'm ready to open things up.

Kate Kelly [01:33:15] You thought it was going to be fun sex talk, not like a lecture.

John Dehlin [01:33:20] That'll be the next interview. No, this is great. Anything you want to say about Planned Parenthood or sex or anything sort of before we open it up to questions?

Kate Kelly [01:33:31] I mean, I think for me, the main part is, like, many things post mortem Mormonism, to understand that those can be like, really, that can be scary. Like, these conversations can be scary, but also really enriching and pleasurable. And like, you having these conversations also makes you feel like an adult. I feel like in Mormonism, a lot of times you don't feel like an adult. Like, even if you have kids or especially if you don't have kids, if you don't have kids, you're like sitting at the kids table for the rest of your life.

Kate Kelly [01:34:00] Even if you're married, especially if you're a woman. People would always comment how young I was. They're like, oh, you're so young. I'm like, really? That young. Actually, I was invited to present on a youth panel and I was like, 32 and had a JD and like, I'm like, pretty solidly not youth at this point.

Kate Kelly [01:34:18] But I didn't have any kids, so I was. I was young. But I think these conversations, like, it can. It can make you. You can transition into a place where you, like, very much feel like an adult, very much feel more in control of your life. And sex can be, like, really beautiful and pleasurable and like a very enriching. I don't know. It's not like, Okay, I feel like I'm sounding like soul symbols and sacraments right now. That's not where I'm trying to go.

Kate Kelly [01:34:45] And I think, like, inserting God into sex is kind of creepy, honestly. Like, why is there this other mystical, mysterious man involved in this decision? But that's also where I am spiritually. So. But I think, yeah, I think it can just be like a beautiful experience. And so I want people to know that even if it's hard, you can get there.

John Dehlin [01:35:08] What's the website? Planned Parenthood.

Kate Kelly [01:35:11] So I think I will. One of the best places to go right now is pro Utah.org and it's a new campaign we have and there's several stories, including one from an active Mormon man who works for Planned Parenthood. And so, yeah, pro utah.org proutah.org all

John Dehlin [01:35:26] right, questions for Kate Kelly.

Kate Kelly [01:35:30] Sorry, I took the mic. I wanted it first.

John Dehlin [01:35:33] That's great.

Kate Kelly [01:35:35] So I want to be public about my name. My name is Diana Hansen Ribera, and I don't want to be closeted about being a full supporter of Planned Parenthood. Mormon stories, anything that is controversial in Utah right now. And I say that because I have a semi public family. And the question I want to ask is, as an eating disorder survivor and a convenient Mormon, which is I'm Mormon when the situation suits me technically Mormon, I would like to know what your thoughts are on the high rates of depression and eating disorders in Utah. And do you think that the shame that accompanies women and sex, especially premarital sex and being made forever unpure from premarital sex, contributes to poor body image and self esteem in LDS women?

John Dehlin [01:36:14] Love that question.

Kate Kelly [01:36:15] Thank you, Diana. I kind of just want to know what you think about it, but here I am, so I'll give my two cents. But I do want to know what you think about it because I've never had an eating disorder, but I have friends who have. First thing, I think another person who said a lot of really great things about this is Elizabeth Smart. And she speaks out about this and she basically, she gives the analogy and she says, I didn't run away because I thought I was garbage. Like I, I was chewed gum at that.

John Dehlin [01:36:48] She didn't run away from her captor, her kidnapper.

Kate Kelly [01:36:51] Yeah, she didn't run away from her

John Dehlin [01:36:52] because she felt like she was garbage.

Kate Kelly [01:36:54] She didn't run away from her kidnapper who raped her every day because he raped her because she had been violated and she had been taught. She. You know, in Mormonism we have these lessons where it's like they pass around a piece of gum and everyone like chews it. Or that's gross. I don't know, is that the thing? Or maybe everyone chews a piece of gum.

John Dehlin [01:37:13] There's the lick. Licked cupcake.

Kate Kelly [01:37:14] Okay, there's the lick.

John Dehlin [01:37:15] We'll go pass around the candy bar. There's the board of wood with the nail.

Kate Kelly [01:37:20] There's roses that are like the petals are ripped.

John Dehlin [01:37:22] Smash the rose.

Kate Kelly [01:37:23] Yeah, you smash the rose. So anyways, she had been given this object lesson. She said it was at school. And I'm like, okay, I don't think that was at school. I'M pretty sure that was at church. But she didn't feel like she could run away and she didn't feel like it was worth it because she had been, she had already had sex, even though obviously she did not consent. And so I think that's, I mean, I couldn't say it any better than she says it, that women should be taught that they have worth and value outside of their sexual relationships and that anything that they have to contribute to society is not negatively impacted with how much sex they have.

Kate Kelly [01:38:04] And so. But I also think that it goes to your larger point of like, what value are women in our society? My parents live in a ward in Provo and in their Provo ward, it's like a lot of really wonderful people, but a lot of older women, like much older, who really only focus on being super fit and lots of plastic surgery. Utah in 2007 was named by Forbes magazine. Salt Lake City was named the most vain city in the United States of America because of per capita plastic surgeons. And so it's higher than la, it's higher than other places here. And you can see that just driving down i15.

Kate Kelly [01:38:46] It's just huge amounts of pressure on women to conform to unnatural beauty standards. If someone wants to do that, that's fine. But it's hard when women are pressured into. The only way they can achieve a beauty standard is with invasive surgery.

Kate Kelly [01:39:03] And so I think it all combines into one. And going back to these women who are in my parents ward, I just wonder like, man, they're like super tan all the time and like you can tell that the thing they invest the most time into is how they look.

Kate Kelly [01:39:16] And I like fashion. I'm not against that. But it just, it's sad to me because the underlying message is my value is and always has been how I look to men. And so if you. And it's hard to separate things and

John Dehlin [01:39:32] what satisfaction I give to men.

Kate Kelly [01:39:33] Yeah, absolutely. And so it's hard to separate those things. It's hard to say, like, well, I just like fashion or like, I just like having big boobs. But it's so hard to separate those things in Mormonism because we've been so socialized.

Kate Kelly [01:39:48] But it's tragic to me that you would have to have certain or you would have to have disordered eating or these different things because our only value is how we look and how we can please or be attractive to men.

Kate Kelly [01:40:04] And so that's just devastating. And I'll give like a tiny example that's not even remotely comparable to an Eating disorder. But when I was studying for the bar in Utah, I would drive up back and forth between Salt Lake and Provo a lot. And then one day, I just randomly started doing. Does anyone know what microdermabrasion is? Maybe you're in Utah, so you probably know what it is. But it's like this weird thing where you, like. It's like sandblasting your skin, sandblasting your face, basically. And my husband was like, why are you doing this? This is so weird. Why are this so out of character?

Kate Kelly [01:40:39] And I was like, I don't know. I just really feel like I should do it. And I realized that it was, like driving back and forth and seeing all of these advertisements, like, all of these messages, like, you're not pretty enough. You're not. Your skin has to be perfect. What does that even mean? But it's like, it's very. Even as a feminist, even as an educated person, it's very hard to not be susceptible to the messages that you're receiving. And so I can imagine young girls, particularly, like, if that's the only message that you receive, like, they're actually responding in a logical way. That is very tragic. Is this on?

John Dehlin [01:41:19] Yeah.

Kate Kelly [01:41:20] Who was the guy that said, women, put on some lipstick? Or there was one of the guys I remember.

John Dehlin [01:41:25] Ballard. Ballard.

Kate Kelly [01:41:26] Because I remember him talking. Because I got a tattoo when I was 18, got breast implants when I was 20, had to have them removed from severe reactions. But I was shamed for the tattoo, applauded for making my body more sexy, in a sense. So I just always can't stand that guy. Don't put on lipstick. F that. Yeah. Unless you want to. In which case it's fine. If it makes you feel good, great. But don't do it because someone's telling you to. Absolutely. And I also think, like, another. And I'm making this sound like a weird Lala land, but Provo kind of is. So some of the young women in my parents get breast implants as a high school graduation gift.

Kate Kelly [01:42:06] That's, like, a thing people in Utah. And so it's like, can you imagine, like, your dad being like, all right, honey, now you can have bigger boobs? Like, I can't even imagine anything more awkward. And Mormons hate awkwardness. But it's just so tragic, so deeply tragic to me that that's something that a man or a parental figure would suggest that you need.

Kate Kelly [01:42:33] And again, I think it just goes back to, what is your value in Mormonism? It's procreation and I think this actually goes back. I'm just gonna go full Mormon here. I think this goes back to polygamy. And I think that, you know, it's very unexplored in my opinion. But the lasting legacy of, of polygamy. You know, Lindsay Hansen park did a great series on feminist Mormon housewives podcast about this. But the lasting legacy of polygamy on control of our reproductive lives and control of our saleability to men.

Kate Kelly [01:43:05] And so I think that that needs to be talked about a lot more. And I think also particularly control of our reproductive lives is very tied to this lasting legacy of polygamy.

John Dehlin [01:43:18] Thanks, Diane.

Kate Kelly [01:43:19] Should do a podcast about that.

John Dehlin [01:43:22] Great question. Other questions or. Yes.

Kate Kelly [01:43:27] Hi, I'm Nicole. I wanted to attend because I just love both of you. You're both a large part of my husband and my own story of transitioning out of the church.

John Dehlin [01:43:38] So.

Kate Kelly [01:43:39] But I also, I wanted to attend as a parent tonight because I guess the conversation about safe sex is odd when you're in a monogamous marriage type relationship. But I wanted to attend as a parent and I know you've mentioned several times you're not, you don't have children, but I think you have a great knowledge about this. And John, also.

Kate Kelly [01:44:11] And so I'm just wondering what you would recommend advise us parents in Utah or parents in America, maybe I'm in whatever regard, what would you like us, what would you advise us to tell our children, especially young children? You know, I have a toddler and one on the way, so I don't have someone. I'm gonna be like, let's sit down and look at these anatomy books right now. But how do you start that conversation at home? I think it's really important to start it at home because you're not gonna get it in school.

Kate Kelly [01:44:48] Not in Utah, not in Utah, no. So, yeah, I'd just like to hear both of your ideas. Well, I'm not in a great position to give parenting advice because I am childless by choice. And I think that's a very important way to say it because I'm not infertile. Most Mormons are like, oh, she doesn't have kids, she must be infertile.

Kate Kelly [01:45:09] No, I am childless by choice and I have been my whole life. But I think first of all, it's great that you're asking the question. I think it's really important to think about those things beforehand. And also, a lot of parents in Utah are like, we think parents. Only parents should teach about sex Ed. I'm like, yeah, but are Those people really teaching their kids about sex? I don't think so. Like, those Eagle form ladies are not giving a comprehensive sex education.

Kate Kelly [01:45:37] And so it's really important to understand, like, what's age appropriate. But start that very young and let kids know, you know something. Consent is something that you can talk about really early on so that they know about abuse. They know about these different things like sex. Childhood sexual abuse is a plague and is wildly common, far more than it needs to be or than it ought to be. There should be zero instances of childhood sexual abuse, and part of that is tied to education.

Kate Kelly [01:46:05] And so. And I would say, you know, I don't. I think another thing, honestly, this, again, I'm a planned parent missionary, but Planned Parenthood does have an education program. So if you're not getting what you need or the resources that you need in school, then you. We do have an entire education department. You know, even if you're an adult and you need that education, we can do, you know, if you want. If you want Planned Parenthood to come teach at your Relief Society, we could do that. I think it's really just from a personal experience. And I'll let John chime in, because I think he probably knows more about this than I do as having kids and teens.

Kate Kelly [01:46:41] But from a personal perspective, it. It's important to just have open conversations about it between you and between your kids. I remember my mom, bless her heart, and I really hope she never listens to this podcast for so many reasons, but I remember my mom. My mom got pregnant when she was 15 and had a baby and gave her up for adoption. I didn't know that at the time. I didn't know that until I was 18. And she found our family, and she's now part of our family.

Kate Kelly [01:47:09] But the daughter. Yeah. So I was raised the oldest, but I'm no longer the oldest because my sister, who was adopted out, found us. And so I remember my mom having. I overheard a conversation my mom was having on the phone with a friend, and she was talking about how she was scared that I was gonna get teen pregnant to her friend, but she never said anything to me, like, I overheard that conversation. And I'm also like, why did she think that?

Kate Kelly [01:47:39] But at the time, I didn't know that she had gotten pregnant when she was 15. And so it's just weird that my mom would have that conversation with another adult, but not with me. And so I think it's important to have those conversations. Like, again, in Mormonism, it's just like, we have so much baggage when it comes to sex. But if you can't untangle that baggage as a parent and have those conversations, then. Then you're not going to be able to teach your children healthy sexuality,

John Dehlin [01:48:09] so.

Kate Kelly [01:48:09] But you're a parent. You got a child.

John Dehlin [01:48:11] Yeah, I have four kids. You know, two things come to mind, really. One is pornography, masturbation. How to talk to your kids about that. Cause really being in the church and even coming out of it, that's often where the conversation can begin with your kids. And because there's a decent chance, whether you have a boy or a girl, that you're going to at some point. Look, if you want to look at the Internet, I've never done this, actually, but sometimes siblings can look at the Internet history of their other siblings and discover that your kids have been looking at porn. And that's pretty much going to happen to almost everybody's kids at some point.

John Dehlin [01:48:52] And I don't want to, you know, share things about my own family, so I'm going to sort of create a fictitious child of mine. I'll call him Billy. Right. And you could. I just want to say something interesting about that. That. And I'm going to speak kind of in vagaries here, but I. I can imagine sort of how I would have that conversation with Billy as I was an active, you know, believing Mormon or even a progressive, semi believing Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:49:23] If I were to discover that Billy was looking at porn or masturbating, whatever, I could imagine the way I would react would be like, alarm and, oh, my gosh, this is terrible. And why did you do this? And a lot of guilt and shame about what did I do wrong? And how do we control the environment so that this never happens again?

John Dehlin [01:49:43] And trying to have these conversations where there's just a lot of guilt and a lot of shame and a lot of stigma and a lot of sadness. And, you know, without going into any too much detail, there's a whole new conversation that can be had that's actually quite beautiful and empowering.

John Dehlin [01:50:02] And so imagine a scenario where you do discover that, let's just say your son has looked at pornography. And instead of it being one of shock and sadness and shame, it's like, oh, son, this is awesome. Come sit down, let's talk about this for a second. And then when you engage in that conversation with your son, you start out by saying, you know what, son?

John Dehlin [01:50:24] This is totally normal. It's okay. Like, pretty much every kid out there is doing this, and it's natural. The human body is a Beautiful thing. Sex can be a wonderful thing. It's completely natural to be curious. And so you, you're doing pretty much what every kid does at your age. And it's okay, you're not bad, don't feel sad or shame about this. But instead, it's so great that we're talking about this now. I hope you're always comfortable talking to us about this. And let's talk about it. Let's talk about what pornography is. Let's talk about kind of what the downsides of it are. Let's talk about how it depicts women.

John Dehlin [01:51:06] Women. Let's talk about how it depicts sexuality sometimes in a way that may not be realistic or, you know, healthy modeling for what, you know, what you might experience someday. Let's talk about how you know what it is that draws you to it. And maybe the child will say, well, dad, I was just bored. Or maybe the kid will say, you know what, I don't know anything about sex and I was just curious. Or I had a friend mention it. You can just say, well, that's wonderful and that's exciting and that's okay. But then you can actually process it with the child and you can say, hey, how did you feel looking at it?

John Dehlin [01:51:42] Did it feel exciting? Did you feel sad? You could feel guilty. Let's say the kid says, you know what? Yeah, it was kind of interesting and exciting, but I also felt kind of bad. And instead of having it be this angst, shame, guilt ridden thing, you're teaching them to explore their own feelings, to explore their own understanding. You're teaching them that when they do something that you're safe to sort of explore that with them, that they're not going to be shamed. And then it turns into a really educational, healthy discussion about what is healthy sexuality and what type of life do they want to live and what are their values.

John Dehlin [01:52:18] And all I can say is that if I were to have had this conversation with one of my children, I can tell you that it became a really beautiful, empowering teaching moment where by the end of that conversation, my conversation with this fictitious child was actually really edifying. Like we're hugging each other and saying, I love you, dad, and I love you, son, and life is beautiful and let's keep learning together and let's talk about this anytime. And I just want to say that that's a conversation I don't think I would have been able to ever have sort of five, 10 years ago. And it's a really beautiful thing that's come out of sort of My evolution and that same sort of thing extends into sort of the idea of my teenage daughters ever being sexually active.

John Dehlin [01:53:14] Like, of course, one of the really odd things that happened as soon as I was excommunicated is all these Mormon boys in my daughter's high school started hitting my daughters up for sex as if their dad being excommunicated meant that they were now easy open for business, you know, and it was a really shocking thing for them. Right.

Kate Kelly [01:53:34] Yikes.

John Dehlin [01:53:34] And most of these were kids who were going to be going on missions in a year. That was really shocking. But even so, I would have thought, oh my gosh, I can't really rely on the church and the law of chastity to sort of say, do this because the prophet said so or do this because that's what we do as Mormons. And that was really petrifying for me. And it still is in some ways, except to say that it's become a really beautiful thing. Like, I have to sort of treat my children as adults. I have to not just rely on authority, as in shame as and rules and control as the way to try and mold or shape or manipulate their behavior.

John Dehlin [01:54:18] Instead, all that I have is sort of love, connection and information and reason. So you get to have these beautiful conversations about what is an sti? What does it mean to be safe? What does it mean to protect yourself? My conversations with my daughters are about their own self worth. It's. And it's not about their self worth is dependent on whether or not they have sex. It's more about what are your goals in life, what do you want to accomplish? Who do you want to be? How do you want to be treated? Okay, how does that tie into what decisions you want to make in your life?

John Dehlin [01:54:56] And interestingly enough, like, even though my children aren't necessarily bound by the same rules that they had before, I. I think their behavior is sort of. I mean, one thing is you hear about what high school kids in Utah are doing, and there's a lot of crazy stuff going on amongst kids who are six months away from a mission or 18 months away from a mission. So it's certainly fallacious to think that just because you're in the church and teach a law of chastity that your kids aren't having sex.

John Dehlin [01:55:27] They're having all sorts of different types of sex. And sometimes really crazy things like it's anal, you know, I don't want to get pregnant and I don't want to have sex. And so I'm going to have anal intercourse as if that's sort of safer or, you know, more moral in some twisted way. But aside from all that, you won't

Kate Kelly [01:55:46] get pregnant from that.

John Dehlin [01:55:47] That is true, as far as we know. But it's been really neat to see that my daughters, the extent to which they are deciding not to be sexual, it's from a place of empowerment, it's from a place of education, it's from a place of what they want their life to be about.

John Dehlin [01:56:09] And hopefully they carry with them a sense that sex is a positive and a beautiful thing and that it's something, if they ever have it, that they can look forward to and that they'll be comfortable talking to us about. And that's. Isn't that what you want as a parent? You want your kids to feel comfortable telling you anything? And this has been a real gift to me, to Margi and to our family because sex has gone from something shameful and forbidden and regulated and controlled and dark to something that's brought us together in a way. So I don't know if that's helpful, but that's how it's played out for my family. I hope that's ok. And tell me if there's anything. I said that.

Kate Kelly [01:56:55] Oh, no, I was just going to say, I also think that one of the problems with the way that we're raised and socialized in Mormonism sexually is that then after leaving Mormonism, like, I've heard this from lots of people that, like, you can't, you know, arousal is tied to whether it's wrong.

Kate Kelly [01:57:12] And so, like, that's another thing that leads to, like, infidelity or polyamory is because they're like, you know, people just feel like, oh, this have this weird connection with Mormonism and, like, sex being wrong. And then when it's not wrong, it's not entertaining or it's not, like, enticing. And so I think that's a, like, real disservice that we do that we teach kids that, you know, these things like pornography on the Internet or different things are just bad. And so it's like, so enticing and tantalizing. And then like, when you say, like, oh, isn't that kind of a buzzkill? I'm like, no, actually, as a woman, I feel like it's actually very, like, it's real, it's.

Kate Kelly [01:57:51] I don't know, like, turn on isn't the right word. But, like, it's very, like part of the loving experience is having that conversation and so to say, like, oh, it's a Turn off to have a conversation about it. I'm like, no, definitely not.

Kate Kelly [01:58:03] And so I think we have to, like, reverse that socialization in order for it to be like a loving, like, part of a healthy sexuality. I also have a word to say concerning pornography. I think that pornography in the church is this, like, crazy obsession by the leaders of the church who are like. I mean, there's like five pornography talks, like, per general Conference or something. It's like always hit on, you know, like the priesthood session. Definitely gotta have a porn talk. But the way that they feel, fixate on it and the way that they talk about it is so not constructive

John Dehlin [01:58:41] to invent for their own goals, for their own ambitions.

Kate Kelly [01:58:45] It's not constructive for their own ambitions. Utah's the highest Internet pornography paid Internet pornography consumption. So we'll access porn, but we'll pay for it. And I think that it's just so unhealthy the way that they focus on it and create pornography addiction, which actually doesn't exist. Like, it's not in the dsm.

Kate Kelly [01:59:08] It's not a real thing except for when it's created by. Almost like it's created by, like, a religious fixation on avoiding pornography, a negative shame spiral. And there's like a lot of really relevant and legitimate critiques of pornography, like you said, like the way that women are viewed, the way that they're treated, the way it glorifies violence and consent isn't a part of it, and et cetera, et cetera. So there's a lot of legitimate critiques of mainstream porn that I think are valid.

Kate Kelly [01:59:38] But I don't think that the way that the Church treats pornography is constructive or valid at all. And I actually think, like, when you look up on the stage in General Conference and you see women in a segregated section as completely, like, you know, in their Easter colored outfits, as completely sexualized objects which are only for reproduction. Like, that is porn, I think.

Mormon Feminism, Ordination, and Closing Reflections

John Dehlin [02:00:00] All right, other questions or comments?

Kate Kelly [02:00:06] Oh, I had a question specifically for Kate, but I'd love for John to also contribute. And that question is, how did your understanding of the Divine Feminine when you were a member of the Church influence your feminism? And where is your perspective on that subject now that you have no longer those feelings of loyalty to the institution?

Kate Kelly [02:00:42] And also, John, if you have any particular views on what role perhaps the Divine Feminine could play in making this particular area more responsive to the needs and potential of women in the church or out of the Church.

Kate Kelly [02:01:02] So I think. Thank you. I think that the Divine Feminine and Heavenly Mother is like a really interesting caveat in Mormonism, but it's kind of like a caveat. Like you don't pray to Heavenly Mother. You don't talk to about Heavenly Mother. There's no paintings of Heavenly Mother. There's no discussions about Heavenly Mother. There's conference talks about Heavenly Mother. Like, who is she? Like, I heard someone say, I can't remember who it was. I'm like, heavenly Mother is kind of like a jerk because she totally abandoned all of her children. Like, there's no like, or weak.

John Dehlin [02:01:32] And she's just not strong enough to raise her voice.

Kate Kelly [02:01:34] Or she's, you know, Heavenly Father's single parent. And so I think that the, the concept of Heavenly Mother is one that I think is unique and interesting, but not particularly power. It was not particularly empowering for me because it was never discussed openly. And so I think it has a lot of potential, but I don't think that potential is even remotely close to being coming to fruition and didn't actually impact my life very much at all. I do think it's like, again, it's a rich doctrine, especially for cherry pickers who are like, look, we have a Heavenly Mother and a Heavenly Father. Like, we're super equal.

Kate Kelly [02:02:12] But I think that it's not explored. It's very, you know, it's very hush hush. You're like expressly forbidden from talking about it. So it's not actually that empowering. I don't think for Mormon women, if you do worship Heavenly Mother, if you do pray to Heavenly Mother, you have to do so in complete secrecy. And so how empowering can that really be? And that kind of goes to my, my larger point about the future of Mormon feminism. I think a lot of Mormon feminists say, like, well, you know, we just, we can't. Ordained women is asking for permission from the institutional hierarchy. So that's inherently a weak position to be advocating from.

Kate Kelly [02:02:50] But I think that's untrue. And I think a lot of women like Joanna Brooks and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and other Mormon feminists have said to me, Laura Thatcher Ulrich literally said to me, she's the one who said, well behaved women rarely make history or seldom make history.

Kate Kelly [02:03:07] And that quote has been extrapolated and reported out. She said to me, you just seem like you feel really oppressed. And I was like, excuse me, this is at a retreat, a feminist Mormon retreat. They do these retreats in the woods.

Kate Kelly [02:03:26] And I said, you know, with all due respect, you're a temperament, tenured Harvard professor. Like, you can't expect that your experience reflects that of most Mormon women. Most Mormon women have no access to, like, you know, do loads of research about Heavenly Mother, loads of research about the history of the Relief Society or all these different things. Like what we have is our lived experience. And our lived experience is one where we are so fundamentally oppressed, where we are so closed off from the feminine divine, that I don't find that to be particularly redeeming. Part of Mormonism.

Kate Kelly [02:04:01] Now that I've left Mormonism, I would say that my spirituality is totally different. I call myself, someone called it the other day an apatheistic. I just feel like there are more important questions than whether or not God exists, whether or not God is male or female. Like, that's just not important to me. Like what, Again, what grounds me and what's important to me is my lived experience and the lived experience of other women. So can women control their own bodies? Can women control their own fates? Can women access education? Can a person down the street, does she have enough to eat? Does she have a place to go? Those are the things and the questions that are important to me. So I actually don't think about God much at all.

John Dehlin [02:04:43] Yeah. On the one hand, growing up knowing that there, or believing there was a heavenly mother out there seemed really beautiful to me. It seemed one of the most beautiful and distinctive teachings of Mormonism. So I always loved that.

John Dehlin [02:05:01] And if we're going to anthropomorphize God and God's just male, that just seems wrong and messed up. So in theory, I've always loved. And for those who continue to want to believe in an anthropomorphized God, it's got to be that way for me, or it's just a non starter.

John Dehlin [02:05:21] I love the promise of Mormon theology because it has the potential to be so empowering for women, because there are a few other religions that offer a female deity. And if you think about these little girls and the chance that they have, and even young boys, to pray not just to a male figure and not just pray, but to look up to not only a male figure, but a female figure, I just. I think it's just completely beautiful. But the only thing worse, I think, than not having a female counterpart to a male God is to have that female counterpart, but to have her remain nameless and silent and completely invisible.

John Dehlin [02:06:08] Like that's almost reinforcing the bad modeling that we have in our lived experiences here in our mortal existence. So it's kind of tragic. And I think I heard this from Michael Quinn Once that in many ways, some of the most beautiful elements of Mormon doctrine and theology, we kind of mothball and hide and sort of sell our birthright so that the evangelicals will be a little bit more friendly to us, you know, even though they hate

Kate Kelly [02:06:38] us in the end.

John Dehlin [02:06:39] Yeah, yeah. So I'm all for. If we're going to have gender associated with deity, man, bring on the women for sure. I love it. Yeah. So I think it's beautiful, and I think it's empowering. And just one of the things I loved about ordained women was that it's basically just saying, we would be a better people, we would be a better organization, we'd be a better church. Our women would be stronger, our men would be stronger. Everyone would benefit if we elevated the status of our women. We're sort of taking half of our intellectual capital, half of our talent, and sort of sticking it in this little box. Who would do that? You know, who wanted to have the healthiest and best thriving community? So.

Kate Kelly [02:07:25] And I think this is one of the things that's really like, sure, you can worship Heavenly Mother on your own. Sure you can. Like, a lot of women are like, we should just like, you know, you should take the power for yourself. And I'm like, I actually don't even know what that means in a Mormon context. Like, should I just run up there during a baby blessing and, like, just kind of elbow my way in? Like, that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't give substance to the fact that you feel exclusive, excluded from ritual.

Kate Kelly [02:07:53] And so I don't like secretly worshiping Heavenly Mother. That's not meaningful, in my opinion. I mean, it's meaningful to the individual, but that doesn't. And I think that's the beauty of ordained women is that, you know, we're fighting for institutional recognization of what we already know, which is that we are equal.

Kate Kelly [02:08:13] So it's not like begging the church to acknowledge that we are equal so that we can feel so ourselves. We know that we're equal. We feel that. We acknowledge that in our everyday lived experience and in our lives and with our partners. But we want the church to acknowledge that and recognize that and integrate this talent. And so, sure, I could leave. I could not be part of ordering women. It doesn't matter. But what does that do not only for me, but what does that do for my niece who's three years old and who is growing up Mormon and is going to learn when she's 12 that boys are better than her?

Kate Kelly [02:08:44] Like, what does that do for the women that I met in Kenya who understand institutional racism more than almost anyone else in the world and want to change the church and make it a better place. It's almost like. It's funny because Mormon women are supposed to be very selfless, but I'm like, it's a very selfish thing to say. I'm just gonna do what I wanna do and leave the rest behind. I think the women who are continuing to do work in ordained women are doing, like, a very selfless and beautiful thing to change the institution.

John Dehlin [02:09:15] Thanks for that question. All right, any final questions or comments? Yes, we have. It's great.

Kate Kelly [02:09:24] Hi, guys.

John Dehlin [02:09:25] My name is Andrew, and I figured if we're talking about Mormonism and sex, we have to talk about Joseph Smith.

Kate Kelly [02:09:31] So my question is more of how

John Dehlin [02:09:33] do we talk to Mormons about the

Kate Kelly [02:09:35] church's sexual past in a way that

John Dehlin [02:09:38] is not taboo and that we are trying to, you know, cause a problem when in reality, we're just talking about facts that exist. And so, you know, what's your take

Kate Kelly [02:09:47] on that, both of you? I mean, you have to have, in my experience, to talk to orthodox Mormons about the realities of the history of the church, you have to have a really open relationship with. With them, and you have to come from a point of, like, mutual respect and understanding. And that's really hard because. And I know this sounds really condescending, but a lot of Mormons are just like, la, la, la, la, la, la la, la, la la la la, la, la, la. And then they, like, take one out, one finger out, and read one thing, and then they're like, oh, crash and burn.

Kate Kelly [02:10:24] Everything is terrible. I learned everything. And so it's really hard. It's hard, hard to have those conversations where it's like, well, did you know, like, fact, you know, did you know? Like, I remember before I started ordering women, I would randomly try to bring things up in Relief Society lessons. So I would be like, hey, yeah, you know, the great thing about Emma Smith was she was Joseph Smith and Brigham Young's wife. Or, like, I don't know, random factoid. Random factoid.

Kate Kelly [02:10:56] Just, like, to start integrating things so I didn't feel like a crazy person, like, knowing the truth and then having people tell a totally different narrative. But it's hard. It's very difficult. I think it's really important. Like I said, polygamy. It goes back to polygamy for me. So it's really important to understand polygamy in order to understand, like, sexual repression, in order to understand control of women's reproductive lives in order to control. In order to understand that our sole value is for our reproductive capabilities.

Kate Kelly [02:11:23] Like, a lot of that goes back to the bedrock of polygamy. And if you don't know that polygamy existed, or if you do know, you very recently learned it and you only read, like, the church's sources that were created to inoculate people against knowing those facts. Like, it's really hard to have those conversations. So I don't know. I'm, like, not in the greatest position to be like, this is how you have great conversations with orthodox Mormons about really hard subjects.

Kate Kelly [02:11:49] But I think if you really do want to have a conversation with them, it has to come from a place of, like, they feel safe that you accept them. Because in any situation where you're doing something that you feel is morally superior, even if you don't say it, they think that you're judging them. So, like, when I was on my mission, I decided to go off sugar, and I just wouldn't eat desserts. But people were, like, afraid.

Kate Kelly [02:12:14] Like, people are like, no, you have to eat this, like, cream, whatever pie. You have to eat this flan. You have to eat this thing. And it almost, to me, seems like people didn't want to acknowledge that they could also make that choice for themselves or that I was judging them for, like, eating the dessert. And I never was judging anyone. I just. I made a choice for myself. And so it's really hard to make that choice for yourself while simultaneously making other people not feel judged for making same choice.

John Dehlin [02:12:40] Yeah, My quick response would just be that I don't know that this is true for all believing Mormons. But I sort of look at the orthodox mindset as, like, this really heavy metal bar that you kind of have to hold with two hands to keep it from falling down. And there's this other bar over here that's just as heavy, which is sort of a different mindset. And it's almost as if to ever be able to have an attempt to hold this other bar, you have to drop the bar that you have. And it's kind of a weird metaphor, but my point is, I don't know that you can be an orthodox believing Mormon and really have the ability to sort of take on an alternative mindset and consider it with objectivity without fearing the unraveling of your own worldview.

John Dehlin [02:13:38] And I don't say that to belittle anybody. That's just my experience in trying to have these sorts of conversations. What I know is what Kate said Which is trying to push information on people is psychologically you create resistance the moment that you try and force information towards somebody. So that never works. It usually backfires and you create stronger sort of retrenchment on the other end.

John Dehlin [02:14:05] It's great when people are curious and interested, and that's really the only way you really should have a conversation is if somebody's coming to you saying, what was it about? Sexuality or polygamy. And one of the great services that the Church has provided is sort of these essays as a starting point to at least substantiate many of the basic historical claims around Joseph Smith's polygamy and sexuality. Now, obviously those essays have a lot of problems with them and they leave a lot to be desired. Having said that, they do acknowledge some pretty basic important facts, and we need to sort of acknowledge that that can be a really positive thing.

John Dehlin [02:14:46] But even the essays, if forced upon an orthodox Mormon who isn't willing or interested in actually reading them, you've all heard the crazy responses, right? That that's anti Mormon literature, that someone has hacked and taken over lds.org and placed false information there. You really just can't have a conversation with somebody who isn't interested in open to that point of view.

John Dehlin [02:15:11] And interestingly, one of the most damaging things I've seen is sort of a lot of the twisted logic that many apologists use use to justify what I think is some pretty egregious sexual behavior in early Mormon history. So if somebody's going to have an orthodox believing Mormon mindset, I almost don't want them trying to think about or rationalize or justify a lot of the behavior that's happened because I just don't think it's justifiable. And so I don't feel super optimistic about attempting to have those conversations when people aren't ready and desirous to have them. I think it always backfires. So instead, just love people, model a happy, healthy life and wait for them to come to you with information.

John Dehlin [02:15:58] And once they are genuinely interested and open, then you can share with them not only the essays, but other very credible, reputable history that can give them the full story. And. And once they're open and ready, they'll weigh the evidence and come to their own conclusions.

Kate Kelly [02:16:15] I think one of the most infuriating things though, about Mormons is that the practice of reversibility is almost never true. So they can evangelize to you, they can tell you that they're praying for you. They can tell you that your choices hurt their lifestyle or whatever.

Kate Kelly [02:16:33] But you can't do the reverse. So you can't say, well, interesting that you should mention that. Did you know X, Y or Z or, well, I wrote a letter and I'm praying that you leave the church because your institution fundamentally oppresses women, gay people, people of color, marginalized communities. I think that what you're doing is morally wrong and you should stop paying tithing. You never get to say that. You never get to say the reverse, but they always get to say the thing to you.

Kate Kelly [02:17:02] And so I think, like, I don't know, I think we should navigate that a little bit differently and have just like the reverse. Like, have the audacity that Mormons have sometimes. Like, you know, if I'm ever going to get married again, like, maybe I'll have a wedding where we check temple recommends at the door. And people who have them aren't allowed to come in because I don't consider that to be worthy of attending my wedding.

Kate Kelly [02:17:25] So, you know, the reverse is like absurd. Like, oh, that's totally absurd. Who would ever do that? Only a sociopath. And it's like, oh, wait, no, all Mormons.

John Dehlin [02:17:35] That's fun.

Kate Kelly [02:17:38] And on that note, at least one more question. Oh, good. Hi, Kate.

John Dehlin [02:17:43] Hi, John.

Kate Kelly [02:17:44] Hi.

John Dehlin [02:17:46] Rape and sexual assault is an act of violence and sometimes leads to pregnancy. As a taxpayer, I'm happy that federal dollars go to helping victims in that category. On the other hand, seems to me that most abortions are the product of consensual recreational sex. And I'm not happy that my tax dollars pay for someone else's recreation any more than asking a federal program to buy me a Snowbird, ski pass or new sports equipment. So that's where I would draw the line. Comment on what I just said. Does it seem reasonable? And do you get clients of Planned Parenthood from both categories? And both categories draw on federal funding?

Kate Kelly [02:18:46] Okay, I want to know what recreational sex is. I thought all sex was recreational except for non consensual. So I think, again, the fundamental root of the problem in that question is it's posed in a way to say that some people are making a moral choice and some people are allowed to terminate their pregnancies and some people are not allowed to terminate their pregnancies. And I want to choose what I do with my tax dollars. So, for example, I think that heterosexual. This isn't what you said, but this is an example. Heterosexual parents are doing the moral thing and having children. And so I want my tax dollars to go to them, but I don't want my tax dollars to go to homosexual parents because I disagree with their lifestyle or all the millions of different things that people could choose their tax dollars to go for.

Kate Kelly [02:19:35] I don't believe in war. I think war is an act of aggression and universally wrong. But I don't get to check the box on my taxes that says I don't to want want my wars to fund my taxes to fund wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kate Kelly [02:19:48] And so I think that's just fundamentally a decision that we don't get to make in a cooperative system of democratic governance. Second of all, I think that it's not up to you to say whether or not most abortions are the result of consensual sex. I don't know that there are statistics on that. But again, I think it should be up there, the woman to the side. And that's a very tricky distinction to make. So if you actually fall into the exceptions of rape or incest, do you have to report it to the police? What if you can't report it to the police? What if it's a result of incest?

Kate Kelly [02:20:20] What if it's a loved one that's very close to you and you can't. So there's a lot of reasons where someone would have a non consensual sexual encounter and they would not be able to report that as a crime. So it's not up to you and it's not up to any man to decide whether or not I had a consensus consensual interaction that resulted in a pregnancy. And I just don't think also federal tax dollars do not go to any abortion care procedure except for they are covered by Medicaid in very limited circumstances. But again, those circumstances are circumstances that people in positions of power have decided that their moral authority decides that it's okay for you to do this in this circumstance, but it's not okay for you to do this in a different circumstance. And I think that is fundamentally flawed and absurd.

John Dehlin [02:21:07] So if federal dollars were to go to Planned Parenthood and or abortion, could you make an argument for why that would be in the taxpayer's interest to support that?

Kate Kelly [02:21:18] Yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons. First and foremost we should have single payer health care where everyone has access to universal health care so that no one has to go through any sort of medical emergency without having that funded. That's just a basic human right and that should exist.

Kate Kelly [02:21:35] It doesn't. And so I think that there are a lot of reasons why people should support women who want to terminate their pregnancies. Again, this myth of women who are just, like, doing it for fun, like recreational abortion, that does not exist. Abortion actually is going down. 2014 was the lowest year ever of abortion in Utah. And a lot of that is because access to contraception is improving. And also education is improving.

Kate Kelly [02:22:03] And so I think, you know, if we're wanting to eliminate or reduce abortions, what we should do is fund heavily fund programs that educate and provide contraception. But I think that there are, you know, can you think of any other procedure, medical procedure, where people are like, that's covered by Medicaid. But I morally disagree with that. So I don't want that to happen. I don't want anyone getting a colonoscopy because I think that's wrong. Or do Jehovah's Witnesses not to get to contribute their tax dollars to blood transfusions because they think they're wrong.

Kate Kelly [02:22:36] There's no other medical procedure where people would get to decide whether or not they get to fund that or not fund that. And so, again, it goes back to, it's not actually a medical question. It's a question of my moral superiority and my, you know, I think that I get to decide whether or not it's wrong or right. You don't get to decide whether it's wrong or not. I get to decide as a woman whether it's wrong or white, wrong or right. And so I think that that question is really problematic because it reveals an underlying tone of misogyn.

John Dehlin [02:23:13] Thank you. All right. Thanks for the question. Well, if you don't mind, please join me in giving Kate Kelly a round of applause for. Speaking as a Mormon and as a post Mormon. I just want you to know I'm really proud to, you know, to have been walking alongside of you during our years together. And I'm proud to call you a friend. And I really admire you for your courage and your intellect and your passion and your strength, and it's just so wonderful to see you alive and thriving and fighting for things you believe in and. And you're an inspiration to so many people. So thank you for being you and thank you for coming on Mormon Stories.

Kate Kelly [02:24:10] Thank you.

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