I am a 35-year-old mother and wife. I grew up in the heart of Mormondom at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains and I was raised in a loving LDS home. At an early age I noticed things about the Church that did not seem fair when it came to how differently women and men were treated in the Church. As I went through the Young Women’s program, I continued to feel burdened and hurt about the differences I saw between the Young Men’s/Scouting Program and the Young Women’s. Too scared of what I would conclude, I decided to put these concerns on the back burner and try to ignore them. In 2010, I stopped attending church for personal reasons, much of which was attributed to the issues simmering on the back burner for all those years which were now boiling over. Although I do not attend or believe, I still feel drawn to the community. It is in my blood and I still claim it. Nobody can or will take it from me. I support Women’s Ordination. I support my Sisters who are advocating for change.
I stand beside my Sisters because Mormonism is something I treasure and still love, just as they do. I am a shoulder to my Sisters because I know the heartache they feel because they are treated differently as women. Now my time has come to help make things equal within the Church, something I so desperately yearned for when I was younger. I am here to make the Church better for future generations of Mormon women. I am Gabrielle. I am a mother and wife. I am a feminist. And I AM Mormon.