This might be a bit long, I apologize..

The first thing was the controversy that was being talked about around in my ward when gay marriage was legalized in America. A lot of people kept pulling straws, saying "hate the sin, not the sinner!!" and started saying "ohh, but this LGBTQ+ person was so much happier after divorcing their partner and joining the church!" and it put me off so much. At the time, I was just a dumb 14yr questioning my sexuality mainly because some girl admitted she had a crush on me. What made things even worse was when a fellow YW said that being in love with girls was gross.. but I'm proud to call myself a nonbinary (transmasc & genderfluid) lesbian now.

The second thing was when a ward I went to treated my family horribly. To make a long story short, my family and I moved up to Michigan to stay with a friend because we were homeless. The ward didn't like that... they gave us weird looks and didn't approach us. They also spread rumors that we were leeching off the church's money, which wasn't true at all. That ruined me and made me wary of any other ward I took part in.

The third thing is very recent, and it was the discovery of what Mormons did to Native Americans. To this day I'm still unsure if my tribe was also affected, given that we are also a southwestern tribe like the Navajo, but my grandmother lived through the time period the Indian Placement Program happened and she and my dad IMMEDIATELY said no to me getting baptized. I was a naive 12 year old and I didn't know any of this... and I'm still shaken up by it. I'm not a full native, but it still affects me really bad.