I Lost 3,000+ Followers for Wanting a Family

On growing into your life and realizing not everyone will stay for it

I sang a solo at my high school graduation.

I’m from a town of about 3,000 people. I remember standing at the microphone, looking out at all those faces, and realizing what that number actually means when it’s in front of you.

Within hours of announcing that Ryan and I are moving forward with starting a family, that’s how many people unfollowed me.

I understand that social media isn’t a room. People follow and unfollow all the time. But 3,000 isn’t abstract to me. It’s a stadium full of every person I grew up around. And behind each of those unfollows is a real decision — not just about my content, but about me, and the family I hope to have.

I grew up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In my community, family isn’t just important — it’s central. I was taught from the time I was small that becoming a parent is one of the most sacred things a person can do. That building a home matters. That it’s worth shaping your entire life around.

It feels strange that the same people who worked so hard to instill in me a desire for family are the ones who struggle with me wanting it.

I understand where some of the tension comes from. In the doctrine I was raised with, families are centered on a man and a woman. That’s the model people are taught to hold sacred. So when a gay couple says they want a family, people don’t see it the same way.

But that understanding doesn’t make it feel any less isolating.

This isn’t the first time I’ve lost people for living my life honestly. It happened when I came out. It happened when I got married. There has always been a version of me people were comfortable with. As long as I stayed within it, I was easy to support. But each time my life moves forward in a visible way, a new set of people decide they’re done.

Being gay in this community often means your life is seen as one step behind what’s considered whole. You can be loved in theory, but not in practice. Supported in identity, but not in outcome. Accepted, until your life starts to look complete. So when you’re straight and you want a family, it’s treated as something sacred. But when you’re gay and you want the same thing—a marriage, a home, a family—it becomes a point of departure.

I know it shouldn’t matter what other people think. And I know there are far more people who support my husband and me than those who don’t. But that doesn’t change the weight of it. Because these aren’t strangers. These are people who knew me. People who read my book and told me it changed something in them. People who are part of the same faith I love and am still trying to belong to.

What I wish — more than anything — is that people could stay a little longer. Sit with the discomfort instead of leaving it. Because I really do believe that if you look closely enough at any person’s life, you find someone trying their best with what they’ve been given. We are all children of God. That’s something this community taught me too. And I think being a community — a real one — means being willing to seek to understand one another, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Especially when it’s uncomfortable.

So I think about my graduation. What it felt like to sing in front of everyone who had ever known me and have them listen without walking away.

I just wish more people could do that now.