LGBT Mormon suicides

Research

Suicide attempts and ideation

• Alex Cooper — Lesbian Latter-day Saint teen. Cooper was subjected to physically and emotionally abusive conversion therapy techniques under her Latter-day Saint parents' orders beginning in 2010 in an attempt to change her sexual orientation. She reported attempting suicide.
• Davyd Daniels — Daniels reported to The New York Times in 1986 that he had attempted suicide at the age of 12 due to the guilt caused by church teachings on his gay feelings.
• Clay Essig — Essig reported writing a note while at the brink of suicide after years of trying to change his attractions through therapy originally prescribed to him by his BYU bishop.
• Levi Jackman Foster — Foster is a queer artist/ photographer and activist raised as a Latter-day Saint in Alaska. He reported that, he feared rejection when he came out to himself at 15, was sent by his parents at age 16 to a conversion therapy program in Utah, had suicidal thoughts and ran away cutting ties with his family till 18.
• Tyler Glenn — Neon Trees lead singer Glenn stated that he was trying to reconcile his sexual orientation and belief in the LDS Church when the 5 November 2015 policy change was leaked leading to a feeling that church was a "toxic space" for him generating feelings of suicide.
• Judd Hardy – The teenage son of bishop David Eccles attempted suicide in early 1999 after coming out to family in 1995 and going through reparative therapy in an attempt to change his sexual attraction as church pamphlets said was possible. His suicide attempt happened right after a church meeting lesson on Sodom and Gomorrah. Hardy stated that it, "wasn't out of despair as much as it was almost out of duty.... The church wanted me to change, and... I couldn't change.... It was a quick resolution before doing the damage of falling into a life of sin. I believed too strongly in the church and the church's values, and I placed those above my own life." Hardy's parents would later become activists openly criticizing the LDS Church's teachings on gay people.
• Brenna McGrath — Bisexual BYU student Brenna McGrath stated in 2017 that she was attempting to overdose herself on medication after feeling isolated, and that church was a "toxic environment" for her.
• McLean — Latter-day Saint composer Michael McLean stated that his gay son was suicidal during the church's California campaign to ban same-sex marriage.
• Alison Kluzek — Kluzek reported that she was suicidal during a time after coming out to her religious parents as a trans woman while they initially refused her request to begin transitioning by hormone therapy. She felt that they would either have a dead son or a new daughter.
• Jordan Montgomery — In the 2013 short documentary Families are Forever, teenage Montgomery discussed his suicidal ideation as well as the attempts of a Latter-day Saint therapist to change his sexual orientation.
• Alex Shafer — Shafer reported sliding into a suicidal depression after enter a mixed-orientation marriage at the end of his university studies. He had participated in Evergreen, seen several therapists, and prayed to become straight, but felt like a failure when his romantic attraction to other men did not change.
• Craig Watts — In the 1999 PBS documentary Friends and Family: A Community Divided, Watts, then a young man, reported that he cried multiple times and thought of suicide again after coming out to local church leaders in Japan where he was studying and being excommunicated from the church.

  LGBT deaths by suicide

• Carlyle Marsden — BYU music professor Marsden committed suicide two days after being outed by an arrest for alleged homosexual activity.
• Unnamed — A gay BYU student committed suicide a few months into a mixed-orientation temple marriage encouraged by his stake president Richard Cracroft who was a BYU professor. Cracroft later stated in reference to the event that, "admittedly, not many of us know how to counsel homosexuals."
• Unnamed — Painter Randall Lake produced several portraits of suicide including one of his Mormon boyfriend who had hung himself a few days after he was ostracized when they both came out.
• Stuart Matis — 32-year-old Matis, a gay Mormon active in the church, committed suicide on 25 February 2000 on the steps of a California church stake center building. His death came during the height of the LDS Church's fight to ban same-sex marriage in California with Prop 22 also known as Knight's Initiative. Shortly before his death he wrote a 12-page letter to his cousin in which he states that when he heard the church was asking members to donate time and money in support of Prop 22 he "cried for hours in room" and he felt that the church's positions created an environment "hostile for young gay Mormons." The letter also stated "straight members have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up gay in this church.... It is a life of constant torment, self-hatred and internalized homophobia." The same month he also wrote a letter to the editor that was published in BYU's newspaper pleading for the acceptance of homosexual individuals in response to a letter published five days before which had compared homosexuality to pedophilia, bestiality and Satanism. Right before his death he wrote a note stating, "The church has no idea that... there are surely boys and girls on their callused hands and knees imploring God to free them of their pain. They hate themselves... God never intended me to be straight. Hopefully, my death might be a catalyst for some good."
• D.J. Thompson — Two weeks after Stuart's death a 33-year-old gay Mormon man in Florida committed suicide after writing a note referencing Stuart's death. The note stated that Proposition 22 was the "last straw in my lifelong battle to see peace in the world."
• Clay Whitmer — Three weeks after Stuart's death, another gay Mormon in California who was involved in his church community was a victim of suicide. Whitmer, who had become close friends with Matis while the two were serving an LDS mission in Italy had attempted suicide six times over the space of several years, but committed suicide on the seventh attempt after Matis' death.
• Bryan Michael Egnew — After 40-year-old Egnew came out as gay to his wife, she immediately left North Carolina with their children, his family shunned him, and local leaders excommunicated him within two weeks because he refused to denounce his sexual orientation. He committed suicide a few weeks later.
• Jack Denton Reese — Seventeen-year-old Reese was from a small town in Utah where over 90% of the residents were LDS. He committed suicide in 2012 after experiencing severe physical and verbal bullying at school.
• Harry Fisher — Fisher was a 28-year-old BYU history student and had come out on Facebook about two months before his death on the 12th of February. He reported hearing anti-gay rhetoric from individuals around him and leaving church meetings to cry in his car.
• Lincoln Parkin — Parkin was a 22-year-old man who grew up in Pleasant View, Utah and received an award in 2012 for reestablishing the gay-straight alliance at Weber High School after having a gay friend commit suicide. He attended Westminster College and had attempted suicide before having experienced significant depression for a decade but committed suicide on the 6th of April.
• Braxton Taylor — On the 23rd of September, 19-year-old Taylor, a student of Weber State University, committed suicide. His story gained media attention when an LDS political candidate criticized his suicide and sexual orientation as a sin of murder and homosexuality, a statement which received national criticism.
• Stockton Powers — After a suicide attempt in 2012, 17-year-old Stockton died from suicide in 2016. He reported in 2015 that many church members had stopped talking to him after he came out and excluded him from events, with even some mothers in his congregation stating they would not allow their sons to go to Scout camp if Stockton went.

  Church statements and suicide prevention efforts