He-Man Womun Haters Church
My thoughts on building post-mormon community with men
(signals, raise of the right hand)
“I... Stymie... Member in good standing of the He-Man Woman Haters Club... Do solemnly swear to be a he-man and hate women and not play with them or talk to them unless I have to. And especially: never fall in love, and if I do may I die slowly and painfully and suffer for hours - or until I scream bloody murder.”
Some would say we took our inspiration for the Lost & Found Club from this scrapyard clubhouse titled “He-Man Womun Haters Club” only inverse and with less handshakes and hand raising (for reasons). Ours is a women and genderqueer led club. While many of our events include men, we’ve deviated from our religious origins of centering them. And this deliberate choice has brought up feelings.
I’ve been participating in mormon support groups for the past nine years. It started in a little house in Salt Lake Valley where a then-stranger, Jay Griffiths, showed me there was another way. I attended the meeting as a way to better understand my newly married husband who had disavowed the mormon god faster than we could figure out the whole sex thing. I left with an abundance of empathy, and a bigger fear of where it would take me.
Spoiler alert—no longer practicing. I’ve since founded a FB support group for over 10k+ women and genderqueer people deconstructing mormonism and co-founded an 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Lost & Found Club, as a way to help increase access to the resources and friendships that found me when I needed them most. And just like that I’m back to cleaning up large auditoriums where attendees bond over their feelings about Joseph Smith. In Billie’s words, what was I made for if not this? To host, bake, and serve.
We routinely get men requesting to join the FB group and questioning in our dm’s where they fit in with the L&F events. They’ve left the church and as many of us know, there aren’t a lot of spaces catered to helping us find community—especially ones organized by men. I’ve really wrestled with this issue of how to bring post-mormons together in a way that doesn’t add to our undercurrent of trauma. I truly believe the only way forward is to include men in the community-building process. And, THERE’S SO MUCH TRUAMA!
In our religion, men are the scribes, the actors, the leaders. It’s a theology, like most, made by and for (white) men. It’s weird to think about now, but our male peers truly believed they would one day be a god who’d actually govern a planet!! (Can you imagine? Richard down the street casually lording over a cosmos?) Oh, and if lucky, they’d maybe spend some time playing prophet or apostle beforehand. I remember when a crush-turned-missionary asked me to email him all the details about the apostles’ academic trajectories while he was serving. I assume that meant he was hoping to follow in their footsteps when he got home—a vision I and many others were never afforded.
For a mormon man, there is no limit to power, companionship, and ego. Men are to presume the position of being right, centered, and spiritually adhered to solely based on the merits of being born a man. According to mormon god, this y chromosome felt like the best way to decide who’d be worthy of holding his one, true power here on earth—the priesthood. And with this totally earned, not-at-all coincidental feature, mormon men are set apart on a trajectory that is unrecognizable from that of the women in their lives: It’s the disproportionate money funding their youth programs. The targeted leadership and educational training for “future leaders”. The codified power to be stewards of the home, family, and ward. Apologists will debate semantics, but we all know boys as young as 12 acquire more visible power than their mothers—the ones currently driving them to prepare the sacrament bread—will ever have in the LDS Church.
This overt level of mormon bigotry is backed by all of our eternal-saving rituals, policies, excommunication practices, and every modern-day prophetic revelation to date.
It reminds me of this Sue Sylvester meme. Like, the LDS Church really said let’s create an environment steeped in such egregious power imbalances where only men can serve as lawmakers, witnesses, jury and judge and act surprised when abuse goes unreported, mismanaged and worse.
I’ll never forget when Amy flipped the script with Dear Mormon Man, Tell Me What Would You Do? Because when you see it all laid out on paper like that, there is such a sinking disbelief that I and all the people I love looked at this system and said, “yes, this is the way.”
So, here we all are. Having discovered the fraudulent ways of Joseph and needing friends who too regret singing “Praise to the Man” but are uncertain to proceed not knowing how much of the matrix some of us have actually deconstructed. And that can be scary. It’s one thing to analyze hieroglyphics in the Book of Abraham, and quite another to reroute the neural pathways in our brains. The pathways that have us all beating our chests saying, “Men Good Right Powerful In charge.” “Women Subservient Follower Caretaker Helpmeet.”
What’s worse than a boy who grows up believing he’ll one day be god? A man who dethrones that god and crowns himself as the new, ultimate source of truth.
I’m only partially kidding.
Out of curiosity, I polled my IG friends made up of mostly post-mormon women asking about what their experiences are like with post-mormon men. This is obviously not an objective study, but out of almost 200 responses, there were a few clear themes.
By far the most common response is the iteration of ‘they deconstruct the church but not the patriarchy’. Here it’s said in ten different ways:
“Deconstruct Mormonism but not racism, queer-phobia or patriarchy even when they left for those reasons.”
“You can take the man out of the church, but (can’t) take the patriarchal programming out of the man?” (dead emoji)
“Still carry a lot of patriarchy with them. It’s like part of who they are.”
“Why do you assume you’re the smartest in the room? (Is what I want to say to them)”
“It’s mixed. But mostly they haven’t deconstructed enough for me to feel safe w/ them.”
“Many left the priesthood; not actually pulled it apart & repeat the same patterns other ways.”
“Shiiiiitttttyyyy. They deconstruct the church, but hold dear to the patriarchy. Fuck ‘em.”
“Think they’re enlightened and don’t realize the patriarchy is still in their veins. Mostly nice.”
“Unless they’re queer, I’m fairly cautious. They change what they believe, but not patterns.”
“The religion might be gone but the misogyny usually remains, sometimes in more subtle ways.”
There were definitely some Katy Perry Hot & Cold responses:
“Either the best of the best or WORST OF THE WORST. Zero Grey area.”
“Either kind, empathetic and curious OR entitled, undeconstructed misogynists”
"There's typically two types, those that unlearn the patriarchy and those that don't"
“Some really beautiful, evolved humans. Also still patriarchal, evangelical vibes in others.”
And even worse:
“Almost as bad as practicing Mormon men”
“Fucking dumpster fire”
“Man vs Bear isn’t exclusive to TBMs”
“I specifically AVOID exmo men”
“They need therapy”
“Trash! Seems like they only deconstructed what benefits them, so they are often still very misogynistic”
While the majority of the DM’s were critical, there were some positive messages. Many of which came from partners, spouses, and friends of post-mo men:
“Feminist and supports me and doesn’t make me feel bad about my baggage (guilt!)”
“My therapist for the last 5 years has been a post-mo man and it has been incredibly rewarding.”
“They are so much kinder and understanding. I love no longer having to explain myself.”
“My husband is the only one I know and he’s fantastic!”
“More critical thinking, deeper and more honest conversation, willing to be more vulnerable and feminine”
“Biggg fan of postmo men who have also worked to deconstruct patriarchy”
“More thoughtful, educated, and passionate about the church than its own members!”
One vulnerable DM that stood out to me from a male follower summarizes most of the feedback I see both on the FB group and at in-person events:
“I’m a man. Takes lots of work to see the entrenched sexism. Benefitted from a spouse willing to show me.”
I really appreciate this message because it says the quiet part out loud. SHOW ME. And to those post-mormon men willing to pivot when presented with lived experiences that differ from their own—you make great partners and community members, and we love you for it.
Speaking for myself, it was so much easier to do emotional labor for men when my world centered them. Like Truman, once you awaken to find yourself on a sacrificial altar, with men at the helm, the ask to serve them feels much more audacious. There was a lot at stake playing the game of mormonism—for some more than others. My personal goal with L&F is to center the respite around those whose stakes were the absolute highest—where education and career opportunities were forgone. And purity culture had its tightest grip. I hope to center those who are trapped by domestic caretaking and financial dependence. And those whose leadership muscles have atrophied and believe they truly don’t have it in them to be anything more than a follower. We’re in the game of building ego, and that requires some safety.
So, I knooow it looks like we’re in our Spanky era over at L&F, excluding men willy nilly, but I hope to express just how much thought and intention is going on behind the scenes. We want a community where all can find healing, friendship and belonging. I’m not entirely sure what that looks like, so I took a page out of Kat Stratford’s book and decided to stand in front of the class and read a love poem to the post-mormon community. I wish things could’ve been different for us and am hopeful one day they will be.
To the mormon men that got us here:
I hate the way you ask me to lead and the way you call prayer when it’s time to feed I hate the way you call me sister I hate the blessings you whisper I hate the way you fund their camps and the touch of your hand when the jumpsuits damp I hate the faux-pas pedestaling And the way you describe purity culture drooling I hate the interview questions you ask and the domesticated callings you task I hate the way you veil my face and how I can’t bless my child dressed in lace I hate your white shirt and ties and other symbols of your patriarchal lies But mostly I hate the way I've grown to hate you It wasn't always you It wasn't always me Let's start with equity at home Then maybe there will be chance in community
Big Amen to this Chels. We had a little post Mormon couples group here and one time we read the fictional book “When Women Got the Priesthood,” which like Amie’s article flips the script to make a point (except this one was written by a man). The men’s minds were blown and the women were like…. Uhhh yeah. Except if we were in charge we wouldn’t do any of that shit.
From my perspective, L&F is thriving precisely because it has firmly held the line on this front. (Not that every group should be exclusionary in this particular way — just that it's essential for a group with these particular exclusions to exist in this space!)