howdy, I've been a member of this forum since my faith crisis in 2014. I'm trans and queer, and that's why I left the church (although I could barely admit it to myself at the time.) Recently I found out my parents lied/misled me and they are still paying full tithes and offerings to TSCC. you can read that previous post here if you want. I decided to take a break from talking to my parents for a while. I don't live with them, and our relationship has been strained ever since my faith crisis, but recently we had taken some HUGE steps to heal things. We had gone to therapy, and I actually felt loved and accepted by them. We grew extra close during the pandemic, and I would call them just to chat and shoot the breeze. All that went to shit when I found out they were still paying tithing, and I kinda lost it a little bit (a lot a bit?)

I asked my parents to stop paying tithing in 2018 because I found it was really difficult to let my guard down around them knowing they still financially support TSCC, and shared with them how damaging it was to live through the prop 8 debacle and watch all my family and friends jump up and proudly discriminate against and hate people like me.

Anyway, this is what I emailed them:

Dear mom & dad 

I am very sorry that I say hurtful things to you so much and all the time. I'm sorry that the only way I could communicate to you those feelings were through anger. I have tried eloquence, I have tried compassion, and I tried anger. I'm done trying for a little bit, this email is my last try. 

I'm sorry for the things I said in anger. It is not an excuse, but I was very very suicidal and fully intended on those being my last words. Ask my therapist if you want. It sucks to say that. I was doing really well before this month, but considering the bike accident & everything I'm having a hard time that turned into an almost impossible time.

I just want you to know that I am ok physically and do not intend on ending my life at this moment or in the future. The church's ideology forced me to consider death as the only option for exhalation as a trans person, because living as a girl was incredibly psychologically painful to me. It is hard to let go of a coping mechanism that I clung to for so long. But I refuse to give in to the ideology which you raised me in, but I am not strong enough to do that when you are in my life & financially supporting the same institution which has harmed me, and caused me to attempt to take my own life multiple times. 

I love you both more than life itself. There was a time I loved you more than I loved myself. Heck, you guy taught me how to love. But I know if I kill myself the church wins. But you're rooting for the church and I love you. But you're funding my oppressor. But I miss you so much it hurts, and I don't want to be alive without you guys. It's all too much cognitive dissonance for me, and cognitive dissonance is triggering because it took a LOT of it for me to believe I was ever supposed to be a "girl" "woman" (idk what those words even mean, I just know I'm not them.) 

I feel the need to apologize to you for being Non-Binary, for not being able to stomach living as a woman and forcing the shame and stigma that I know accompanies this in your culture and faith. I really gave it my all, I really tried to be a girl because I love you guys but I just can't do that. I can't live like that. I know those feelings are consequences of the church's queerphobia too. That is something I also feel the need to apologize for, but I won't apologize for being nonbinary. There is nothing wrong with being nonbinary. I have been this person since day one, but now I'm finally able to love myself. I could never do that when I was in the church. 

As cliche as it is to say this: God be with you till we meet again. I love you and I know that you love me, but for my own health, I cannot have you as an active participant in my life if you are paying tithing to the corporation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been very respectful of your faith by not sharing with you certain documents which led me to remove my name from the records of the church in 2015, because these documents leave no room to argue that Joseph Smith was a prophet of god who received divine revelation to translate reformed Egyptian or any other kind of Egyptian characters. I'm sure you two know this, but no one could read Egyptian hieroglyphics when Joseph Smith translated the book of Abraham or the gold/brass plates. But we can read them now, thanks to the Rosetta stone and in fact an Egyptologist by the name of Dr Ritner has translated the facsimiles that accompany the book of Abraham and discussed their legitimacy as actual translations of actual scrolls found in Egypt. I would encourage you to seek this out if you feel the need to do so, but out of respect for your faith and testimony I will not tell you what every prominent Egyptology will tell you. 

I love you both very much and hope that one day we can see each other again. Perhaps one day I will be strong enough to associate with people who financially support an organization which says my gender identity is a sin, and believes that organization to be the one true church of god on earth, but I'm not that strong right now, and I may never be. 

anyway. thought this might be of interest to y'all given my other post.