If you haven’t read (or seen) Eric Samuelson’s _Borderlands_, you should look for it. I believe it was published in _Sunstone_ sometime recently. There is one gay Mormon character, but the play is not primarily about homosexuality. Instead it’s about the broader idea of what it means to live in the borderlands of Mormonism and to come out as someone who does. I saw the Plan B production of it in Salt Lake this spring and thought it was incredibly well done, though I haven’t read the text so I don’t know how it would stand up as a text rather than a production.

Just thought I’d mention it in case this is a topic of ongoing interest to you.

Given that Larsen has said she wrote the play by imagining what it would be like to be a lesbian Mormon (or Mormon lesbian), perhaps she was only able to go as far as writing a character having a crush on a particular woman, but not being a lesbian in a larger sense.

I can buy that, especially as I struggled to write from the same place of imagination, only my faithful LDS gay character is also male. And much older. And knows what he likes.

For Claire, though, her challenge would be to get over Brennan (especially after that last little bomb Brennan lobbed at her) (and Brennan was having her own this-is-what-I’m-expected-to-do-and-I’m-going-along-with-it moment too) before she could even begin to sort out who she is, and getting over Brennan seems like it would take a long time.

(I do think it’s unfortunate that we haven’t had any plays about gay Mormons written by a gay Mormon who is still active or practicing, because that’s a perspective that’s missing in this set. But perhaps the union of the sets “gay,” “active Mormon,” and “playwright” is too much to ask for.)

I haven’t seen Little Happy Secrets, but I have read it several times, and my take is sooooo different than anyone else’s:

I don’t see Claire as being a lesbian at all. The most I could allow is that she perhaps has a fairly fluid sexuality (as noted above, a theory with which I agree).

I see her as a socially awkward, very inexperienced (life in general) young woman who has had one meaningful non-familial, emotionally fulfilling relationship in her life and that happened to be with a girl.

In fact, I see it as a crush that doesn’t, in fact, define anything about her sexuality because not only do men not turn her on, neither have any other women. That doesn’t scream “lesbian” to me.

I can’t see Claire ever having a sexually intimate relationship with anyone, ever–unless she makes herself more emotionally available to people other than Brennan.

I think that this is a story of an unrequited crush and has nothing to do with gender or sexuality.

(Disclaimer: This is nothing I haven’t said to the playwright personally.)

Although I had read, seen, or at least heard of most of them, yet you surprised me with a number of them.

Excellent!

Most lesbians who I have met that come from a Mormon background( in fact, I don’t know any active lds lesbians), do not give much thought to Mormonism. If you don’t hear from them, maybe they are having better conversations.

While I have met women with a certain amount of fluidity, the viscosity varied. I’m as sexually fluid as formed granite

we are so used to thinking about homosexuality in fixed terms, as seems to so often be the case with gay men, that how women experience homosexuality doesn’t fit that narrative and perhaps might be perceived as less valid in comparison.

I had a good friend in grad school who self-identified as bisexual (based on past relationships), but was in a heterosexual marriage, and she talked about how some members of the gay and lesbian community didn’t want to accept people like her as being part of their community. I think their argument was that she got to “pass” for straight and have her relationship formalized by marriage, while they were still fighting for that recognition in many parts of society.

It kind of reminds me of the tensions in a non-white community when some members of that community can “pass” for white, even if they don’t self-identify as such. Again, it seems to come down to the “validity” of the experience.

Going back to the LGBTQI experience (Ben will be so pleased I remembered all six letters), members of that community have had to carve out a space for their respective sexual identities in a culture that didn’t originally have room for them, so it seems ironic that they would then turn around and tell someone else that they have to choose between being fully in the group or fully out of the group, but I do understand the human tendency to divide the world into “with us” or “against us.”

By the way, thanks for all your posts Katya

You are most certainly welcome!

Many who originally self identified as bisexual, later self identified as a lesbian while in a relationship with a women. And many who originally self identified as lesbians, later described themselves as bisexuals after having a relationship with a man. Many were uncomfortable giving any sort of label to describe their sexuality because of the common assumptions attached to a particular label that they didn’t feel represented their experiences and I can certainly relate to that.

I think this too may help explain a little more why we don’t hear more stories from “lesbians” as well — we are so used to thinking about homosexuality in fixed terms, as seems to so often be the case with gay men, that how women experience homosexuality doesn’t fit that narrative and perhaps might be perceived as less valid in comparison. I certainly don’t think it is less valid but I think needs to be examined and appreciated on its own terms.

By the way, thanks for all your posts Katya