Just Don’t Go

If you don’t fit the stereotypical BYU mold—straight, white, middle to upper-middle class, active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—you are subject to persecution for your enrollment. Students of color and queer students have reported time and time again that their institution makes them feel unwelcome and unsafe in their learning environment. Now, even fellow community members and allies are posing a question to marginalized students that they already find themselves answering daily:

“Why do you go to BYU if you’re ______?”

BYU students facing criticism for their choice of university is nothing new. Many outside of Utah and/or the LDS culture question students on their decision to attend such a rigid, socially-intense university. However, with the rise of social media posts showcasing the callowness of a large group of BYU students, this ridicule has increased exponentially. While it is important and necessary for these students to be educated on their ignorant behavior, some on social media have used this as an invitation to criticize the very BYU students that this ignorance predominantly affects. This includes students of color, students who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, and other marginalized groups on campus. For these oppressed communities, comments that were once sprinkled throughout their collegiate careers have now become a flurry of prodding and invasive questions on and off social media.

“Whenever I talk about being lesbian and trans while attending BYU, I'm inundated with comments of ‘Why do you go there?’ and ‘You can just leave.’” Payton Harris said, a BYU student who is both multiracial and part of the LGBTQ+ community. “Going here can be extremely difficult, but so many of us are determined to stick it out because we can't go elsewhere. We refuse to let BYU's alienation of queer people on campus work.”

For many queer students and students of color, “just leaving” is not as easy as it sounds. There are countless factors that go into transferring colleges. One must consider not only the practical hurdles, such as transferring credits and overall logistics, but also the interpersonal challenges that come with going to a completely new school. For many, it’s not as simple as not attending classes anymore. It’s picking up extra shifts to pay for tuition, starting over socially, or transferring to freshman status because your previous credits were not accepted. Those that see “just leaving” as a solution fail to consider all the challenges that changing institutions causes.

Additionally, many students don’t even have the option of leaving. Some have scholarship commitments or financial contingencies with family members. For many, changing schools is a time-consuming, exhausting, and mentally draining experience. And it may take more emotional effort than staying at a potentially harmful institution such as BYU.

“It’s more than just leaving and transferring schools,” Karla Perez, a Hispanic woman attending BYU, said. “Not all of us can pick up our stuff and go to a new college. BYU is sometimes the only option for some of us, and it’s frustrating when they can’t understand that.”

So, why do members of marginalized communities attend BYU?

A common theme in their enrollment is the financial opportunities that BYU presents. Currently, the most expensive tuition you could pay at BYU is $14,636 per semester as a non-LDS graduate student in the business program. This is still less than half of the average tuition for an undergraduate at another private university in the U.S., which is $39,723. However, with the majority of BYU students being enrolled as undergraduates, the average price of tuition for those students is around $3,152 per semester. This number is nearly 92% less than what an undergraduate would pay at any other private university.

“As marginalized students, we have different lives financially than non-marginalized students,” Karla said. She has experienced firsthand the benefits of cheaper tuition. 

“Some of us weren’t fortunate enough to come from wealthy families or middle class families, so that’s a big factor. People don’t realize that this might be the only college a person of color or a person from a marginalized community can afford,” Karla said. Unfortunately, this advantage goes hand in hand with the harassment she has received for attending BYU. 

In addition to more-affordable tuition, BYU also offers a niche community that is difficult to find anywhere else. Marginalized students who grew up as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have unique and sometimes negative experiences that can only be properly understood by members of said community. Ethen Petersen and Cami Bartholomew both came to BYU as out queer individuals and currently still attend the university. In coming to Provo, they have both found communities that have provided a sense of belonging in a place usually ripe with seclusion.

“I wanted to find a community of people who had grown up in the same church, would know all the same terminology, and would understand what I’ve gone through,” Ethan said. “All of my friends, or at least a lot of them, are all queer people or people of color at BYU—it just turned out that way. For me, that’s just been the most wonderful thing. I’ve been able to grow so much from that.”

Coming to BYU and finding this community has allowed Ethan to distance himself from his conservative, strict LDS upbringing. 

“When your eyes can’t see past the end of your nose, you can let your ears make up the difference,” Ethan said. “Listening and attempting to empathize with friends has helped me to see more in the long run.” 

“I think it makes it easier to become friends with people who grew up the same and are queer,” Cami agreed. “Like if I went to [another university] I wouldn't have been able to find this niche of a group and bond as well as I do with people here.”

All four students have been on the receiving end of questioning for their BYU enrollment. Often, criticisms come from individuals looking to “protect” queer students and students of color. Some on social media take it upon themselves to be saviors over these students. These students have experienced comments like these from multiple different communities—Ex-Mormons, members of the queer community, random onlookers, and Deseret Nationalists, a right wing extremist group of LDS members. 

What follows are several specific examples:

“Why are people offended/surprised that BYU isn’t cool with same sex relationships. Like bro, they’ve been saying that for 100 years. Just go to a different school, you know what you were getting yourself into,” one tweet read.

“If you’re some gay black person, why not go to a state school?” another person wrote.

“I chose not to go to BYU because I didn’t like the culture and would never move back to Utah because of the culture. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. I did. There are a million other places you could go, yet you choose to stay somewhere you are unhappy?” said another Instagram comment.

Those who have made comments, like the ones above, have also commented on the state of these marginalized students and treat them as if they are “not enough” of a minority because of their attendance. For Ethan, his personal experiences revolve around his queerness being invalidated. 

“It’s very infantilizing… I feel like they don’t see me as a legitimate queer person,” Ethan said. “It feels like they say these things because they want to put themselves on a pedestal, as if they are the ‘real’ queer person in this scenario. And they get to say what makes someone queer or not.”

This infantilization of BYU students ultimately invalidates the overall experience of marginalized communities at BYU as a whole. When a marginalized student is already struggling at BYU, invalidation of their experiences is the last thing they need, especially from seemingly allied communities.

“It’s like, I’ve heard this everyday. This isn’t something new to me. That’s part of the infantilizing part of it [...]they assume I haven’t considered other options,” Ethan said. “They assume that I didn’t know going into it that it was gonna be difficult. It’s like, do you, honest to God, think that I don’t think about this everyday? That transferring is an option?” Ethan said.

The problem lies within the very question people pose to these students: “Why do you go to BYU if you’re _____.” This question insinuates that you should not attend BYU if you’re queer, or a student of color, or any marginalized community used to fill in the blank.

While BYU has a long way to go in creating a more open and welcoming environment for non-white, non-straight, able-bodied students, this does not mean that spaces do not exist at the university. There are many students who are a part of these communities who are actively making room for current and future marginalized students. By not recognizing that space, it creates a narrative that BYU is only for straight, white students, and that students should only attend if they are such. 

“It’s a scary thought that both sides are saying we should just leave. That means that everyone at BYU would be the same and you wouldn’t be exposed to queer people or many people of color, because it’s such a white university,” Cami said.

“It’s not even realistic to think all queer people or all people of color would leave BYU, it’s just never gonna happen. There will always be queer people and people of color here,” said Ethan.

For marginalized students, this makes it feel like they have no one to turn to, and their avenues for support become even more limited. The perpetuation of a homogeneous culture at BYU creates an even less of a safe space, especially when it’s, sometimes unknowingly, pushed by allied groups.

“You get people from both sides saying you shouldn't go to BYU because you don’t share the values of BYU, and that you’re taking the spot of someone that does share those values,” Ethan said. “And then you also have those people who frame it as ‘It’ll be better for you if you leave,’ and ‘You’re stupid for staying.’ At the end of the day, they both agree that you shouldn’t be there.”

“In labs or with friends, I’ve mentioned that I feel like sometimes I don’t belong,” Karla said. When speaking about this to her friends in marginalized communities, they share similar experiences and feelings. However, when speaking to friends that fit the stereotypical BYU mold, their responses are apathetic at best. “I’ve heard them say ‘Why don’t you transfer schools if you don’t feel comfortable here?’[...]it’s hard hearing that from friends. Like, you don’t want me to stay? You don’t want to do anything for me to stay?”

At the end of the day, there will always be marginalized communities at BYU. These students deserve to take up space at their university and have an education just like everybody else. While they go to a university that already does not support their identities and life choices, facing persecution from both sides of the aisle creates an uncomfortable and isolating experience that nobody deserves. 

“I wish folks understood that we don't need to hear their constant criticism of our education choices,” Payton said. Many of their queer friends have left BYU because of the mental and emotional toll it takes on their health. “It's discouraging to see BYU's tactics working[...] We are actively fighting for change. And being constantly [harassed] by groups that should be our allies doesn't make this whole thing any easier.”

“I don’t think I deserve any less to be a student here because I’m a queer person, and I think that even though it’s a private religious university I should be able to attend here,” said Ethan, “There are still people here fighting for their right to be here. And to erase that completely is very dismissive and inconsiderate.”