Featured Contributors
Tom Christofferson
Tom Christofferson has spent his career in investment management and asset servicing, living in the United States and Europe. He has served as a director on corporate and nonprofit boards and was a founding board member of Encircle, a group providing resources to support LGBTQ individuals and their families in Provo, Utah. Tom is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and currently serves as a Gospel Doctrine teacher in his Salt Lake City ward.
Lisa Tensmeyer Hansen
Lisa Tensmeyer Hansen, PhD, is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and clinical director of Flourish Counseling Services, PLLC, which offers subsidized therapy to LGBTQ individuals, couples, and families in conjunction with the Encircle LGBTQ Youth and Family Resource Center in Provo and also now opening in Salt Lake City. She is an educational speaker on community/family support for marginalized youth and provides consultation to organizations regarding LGBTQ mental health. Lisa specializes in couple and family relationship distress, including issues of trust, power, emotion and attachment, recovery from trauma, and religious conflicts with sexual orientation and gender identity. Lisa’s worldview is informed by her faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where she currently sings in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She and her husband, Bill, together wrote “Nephi’s Courage, the “I will go, I will do” Primary song, and they are the parents of seven children, thirteen grandchildren, and a few extras.
Nathan Kitchen
Nathan Kitchen (he/him/his) grew up in Orem, Utah. When he was 15 he moved to Illinois and finished high school. He served a two year mission in Alabama, where on a lonely Tuscaloosa country road; he had a tooth knocked out during a head on collision. The dentist who saved his tooth was so cool; Nathan decided right then and there to become one himself. He received a BS from BYU Provo and a Doctor of Dental Medicine degree from Southern Illinois University. After a residency in Iowa, he came to Arizona and opened his private practice in Mesa.
Nathan is the proud father of five remarkable children who are the pride and joy of his life. When Nathan was 17 he came out to his bishop and, as was common in the 1980s, was counseled to ignore his sexuality, tell no one, get married, and things would turn out okay. Over the years Nathan faithfully served in the church twice as a counselor in ward bishoprics, as stake young men’s president, and the high council until the lack of authenticity about his sexuality slowly created a dangerous collapsing shell of a man. Realizing the path to self-care and healing for all involved was to abandon the counsel of the 80s; he came out to himself, spouse, siblings, parents, children, friends, and staff. Much was lost, including his marriage of 23 years. But much was gained. Nathan sits on the Board of Directors for Affirmation: LGBT Mormons, Families & Friends. He is the co-founder of Affirmation’s GBTQIA/SSA father’s group. In 2015 he spoke out nationally in print and television media highlighting the devastating ramifications of the Exclusion Policy on his children and LGB Mormons worldwide. He is a permablogger at Out of Obscurity (outofobscurity.org) where he regularly explores issues we grapple with as a community of LGBTQ Mormons.
Wendy Montgomery
Wendy Montgomery was born and raised in Southern California. She and her husband, Tom, were married in the Los Angeles Temple in 1995 and have five children. In 2008, she and her husband joined other members of the Mormon Church in walking the streets of Bakersfield, California in support of Proposition 8. They didn't know at the time that their nine year-old son was gay. They discovered this in January of 2012, when Jordan was just 13 years old. The story of the Montgomerys was documented in the Family Acceptance Project's award-winning short film, "Families are Forever." Their family has been the recipient of several national awards for their advocacy work.
Wendy is one of the founders of Mama Dragons and currently serves on its board of directors. She is also on the board of directors of Affirmation: Mormon LGBT, Family & Friends. Wendy is a vocal advocate for inclusion and equality for all LGBTQ Mormons who feel on the outside looking in. Wendy is a voracious reader, loves history, and is doing everything she knows how to make the LDS Church more welcoming and inclusive of its gay members. She is currently attending college, pursuing a degree in non-profit management. She and her family live in Chandler, Arizona.
Craig Nielson
Craig Nielson was born and raised in Springville, Utah. He studied Expository Writing, and received a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Utah in 2008. He later worked as a program manager at that university's Public Policy Institute, where he researched the socio-economic outcomes of school district splits. Today he works for a program at TD Ameritrade where he writes free investing software designed to help people learn how to save and invest. When it comes to hobbies, Craig describes himself as "desperately needing more hobbies, if for nothing else, to supply content for these kinds of bios." He is an avid horseman, and expert tomato grower, and a passionate reader.
From 2002 to 2010, Craig sought the counsel of psychologists recommended by the LDS Church to talk through his attractions towards men. Today, half of Craig's closest friends are believing Latter-day Saints and the other half are former members of the LDS Church who no longer accept its truth claims--and they all get along swimmingly.
Craig met Justin Utley in 2014 and it was "sort of love at first sight." They were married in 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Justin Utley
Born and raised in Utah, Justin Utley began his career as a Mormon-Contemporary singer/songwriter, and was a featured performer at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. After publicly breaking ties with the Mormon Church and sending his own “self-excommunication letter”, Justin became a noted activist and advocate for civil rights and LGBT equality in the United States, and an outspoken personality against the Mormon church’s use of conversion ex-gay therapy, a method Utley endured for two years after serving a two-year full-time mission for the church. In June 2010, Utley released Stand for Something a single written to inspire and motivate to take action towards securing LGBT equality in the United States. The single was nominated by the LGBT Academy Of Recording Arts for 4 OutMusic Awards, including Best Songwriter and Artist of the Year, winning Best Country/Folk Song of the Year. Justin has also gained many accolades in a short time including being a headlining performer at Pride and Equality Festivals worldwide, including Stockholm, London, Bristol, Dublin, New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta, San Diego and Las Vegas. He has been a contributor for CNN’s Faces Of Faith Sunday News segment, and testified in the first-ever hearing on LGBTQ Job and Housing Discrimination in front of the Utah State Senate. He is a keynote speaker at colleges and universities across the nation about his experience with conversion/reparative therapy, in addition to providing insight on issues of faith in the LGBT community. He is a two time recipient of the FBI of New Jersey's "Inspirational Person of the Year" award.
Voices of ALL
Colby
Gray
Arin
Hertig
Miles
Hunsaker
Liz
Macdonald
Ally
Snow
Program Outline
MORNING SESSION (10:00 AM - 12:15 PM)
Opening Remarks: Bryce Cook
Speaker: Nathan Kitchen - Identifying Supportive Communities As An LGBTQ Mormon
Speaker: Wendy Montgomery - To Love Without Conditions
Vocal Solo: Chad Millar - "Glorious"
Speaker: Lisa Tensmeyer Hansen - When I Walk Into the Thick of Trouble (Pslam 138:7)
15 MINUTE BREAK
ALL Panel Presentations: Miles Hunsaker, Arin Hertig, Ally Snow, Colby Gray, Liz Macdonald
LUNCH
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:15 PM - 3:00 PM)
Speaker: Craig Nielson - As It Were Unto Us A Dream
Speaker: Justin Utley - Sermon on the Amount
Speaker: Tom Christofferson - Of One Heart
15 MINUTE BREAK
Q & A Discussion with Speakers & Presenters
Closing Remarks: Kevin Davis