SIO195: A Mormon #metoo Reckoning, with Colleen Dietz

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 195, I'm your host Thomas Smith, and okay, yeah, I was off last week, wanted to get something out, but you know, we were on a rare vacation and I just didn't get to it, and I figured you fine folks would allow me a week off in my time of great need, but we are back today, and, I have an interview, a very good interview with Colleen Dietz of the Mormon Happy Hour Podcast, podcast. Now, do need to give a bit of a content note here because we do talk about sexual abuse that Colleen, unfortunately, did suffer at BYU. Don't worry, it's not like too into the gory details or anything, but as much of it is necessary to tell a proper story.

0:01:19 Thomas: So I just want to give you a heads up on that. But this episode is about just how bad BYU and the larger Mormon community is at dealing with sexual assault. It's awful. It is victim-blamey. You know, it's as bad as you can imagine when it comes to the Mormon Church's response. Now, Colleen, on the other hand, is delightful. She's great. She is a fantastic guest. So, I hope the kind of the negativity of the topic doesn't dissuade you from listening because she's great. You're going to love her. And I also encourage you to check out her show as well, Mormon Happy Hour, but why don't we get on over to the interview, here we go, here's Colleen.

0:02:06 Thomas: Colleen, thank you so much for coming on the show.

0:02:09 Colleen: Thank you for having me.

0:02:10 Thomas: It's my pleasure. Way to lighten you know, it's so funny, just this morning, I mentioned this to you, but we were already scheduled to record and The Daily had this absolutely mind-blowing episode about a Mormon who was abused by a pretty famous infamous Mormon within the church, although it wasn't a church official or anything. He was the guy you probably know more about than I do. The guy who started the film festival was what's his name?

0:02:34 Colleen: Van Wagman, and he, not only did he co-found Sunstone with Robert Redford, but he was also a professor at Brigham Young University, which is the church's university at the time of the abuse,

0:02:43 Thomas: Right, right, right. It is. I would recommend everybody listen to it. But it's it's definitely not easy listening. It's it'S amazing. This victim like confronted him later on and recorded it and talked to it's very interesting. But I just thought it was a very interesting coincidence that on the day we were scheduled to record, I pop in the Daily podcast and there it was. And it's like, wow, maybe that means this stuff is going more mainstream and we'll gather more attention. But we can talk about that. For now, let's give listeners a little bit of your background. So, you know, who are you and what's your mini bio so people know where you're coming from?

0:03:06 Colleen: Certainly, so before I get into who I am, I do want to just say that my podcast is Mormon Happy Hour, and I try and take a lot of lessons from levity and humor when I digest a lot of these more heavy topics. So I definitely will try and do that moving forward. But these topics that we're going to be discussing today are definitely on the heavy side. So, I do apologize in advance.

0:03:46 Thomas: You know, That's okay. My podcast is often a bummer, so, why I said that, feel free, we can just bum everybody out, it's fine.

0:03:54 Colleen: Well, I, no, I like to be, Iike to poke fun at it because I find a lot of healing within the humor. So that's Just my style. So my personal history is that I was, because, born and raised in the LDS church, I was born and raised a Mormon, which coincidentally enough, Mormon is now no longer a word that they are allowed to use, per the prophet of the church, that God is offended when you use the word Mormon and now it is a win for Satan. So I love to use the word Mormon now because it's a win for Satan every time.

0:04:00 Thomas: That's Good, I it's So curious The

0:04:29 Colleen: But anyway, it

0:04:29 Thomas: Timing On this, like, it took God a while to, like, get You know, get to the typewriter, write a letter, uh, even though you've been around For what, a hundred, whatever years, I'm just now getting around to informing you, isn't that funny, weird how that works?

0:04:37 Colleen: Is Really, really funny. And they've already spent millions of dollars on campaigns, like, I'm a Mormon. Their own website is called mormonnewsroom.org. So, you know, they themselves haven't stopped. It's just, it's a personal pet peeve of the new guy in charge. So that's what's going on. So, and the new guy in charge isn't God, by the way, that's Russell M. Nelson, to you know, clear up any confusion.

0:05:07 Thomas: I Would, yeah, you could have told me either way, I wouldn't have known, I can't, I'm not, I'm not in the ex-Mormon world, but so thanks for bringing all the non-M Mormons and non-ex Mormons along with you on this. But so not God in charge, but some, you're telling me it's a human in charge of this religion. That is unheard of.

0:05:26 Colleen: Right, unheard of. So I was born and raised a Mormon, and I went to Brigham Young University, and when I was a freshman, my first semester, I started, you know, summer term, right after graduating high school, I unfortunately had the unfortunate but all too common experience of rape, acquaintance rape, and the, the rape itself was a horrific experience, I don't want to again bum out your listeners too much, but the, the most damaging part of the whole experience was when I finally decided to tell someone, I went to my on-campus bishop, a bishop is like the, you know, the leader of your congregation, which is your local ward. So I went to him and I told him of my experience, an experience that included, you know, being locked in a basement room for 48 hours.

So clearly, clearly this is not a consensual circumstance. But instead of handling it appropriately, he decided that I needed to repent and which is, you Know, I have sinned, so therefore I need to repent. And so he prescribed, I was no longer allowed to take the sacrament each week, which is, you know, Mormon communion, if you will, each Sunday, which has a very public way of, you know shaming and labeling me as a sinner. So and he also asked me to read a book called the miracle of forgiveness, which Is a book written by a past prophet of the church, Spencer W. Kimball. And one of the passages within it says that basically you should die physically fighting off,

0:06:04 Thomas: Wow. Oh

0:07:09 Colleen: Fighting to defend your virtue rather than live within, you know, basically the shame and the sin of losing your virtue. So, yeah, so according to the prophet of the Mormon church, I should have died rather than survive my rape, that it would have been better off for me to just die. And so that was upsetting, obviously.

0:07:28 Thomas: God. Can we step back a sec? Yeah. Yeah. Obviously. Can we, if we could step back in a sec. So this was your first year at BYU a first semester.

0:07:36 Colleen: Yeah, my first semester, summer semester.

0:07:38 Thomas: Semester. Oh, and and was it on campus that someone locked you in a room on campus?

0:07:42 Colleen: No, he actually, it was a, again, like, the details are a little gross and terrible. And I've learned a lot about them, you know, looking back as an adult and learning more about how sexual assault and rape works. But he was an acquaintance and he lured me off campus to his house, promising me, an 18-year-old in the middle of Napster crash, that he would burn me all of these CDs off of his computer of all of the music that I so badly wanted to listen to. And so I said, awesome, let's go. But I double checked and made sure, like, your roommates are going to be home, right? Oh, yeah, they're home. And you live only this far away, right. Oh, yeah, totally. Totally. And again, this was in 2001. So I didn't, this is before the time of cell phones and all of these other newfangled security measures. And so I went having faith that that's what was going to happen. And that's not at all what ended up happening. So. So,

0:08:42 Thomas: Well, I mean, I, the way you put it, I mean it sounds like you should, it sounds, your tone of voice makes it sound like you could have known better or something, but, like, also you should be able to live in a world where you could go to somebody's house and just, like, get some music and that's fine, you know, like, I feel like you're, maybe it's time, I don't want to project, but it sounds like you are blaming yourself for that, and I really hope you are not, because, like, it's also his fault if someone's awful and lies to you, like wow

0:08:44 Colleen: Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, that that'S really an interesting thing that you picked up on because that is kind of, it's something that I have focused on a lot in my activism. And it's a problem that is very widespread within Mormonism. And something that, you know, I believe in therapy, and that's somethingthat I've taken to my therapist many times is, you know, why did I fall victim to a predator?

And why, when I told my parents about my experience, why did my, you know, my parents have maintained, you you know, up until the last time we spoke about it was in 2016. You know, my parents have both asked me, why didn't you know what his intentions were before you went to his house? And that question has shook me to the core because it's a question I ask myself all the time. And to hear my parents also blame me for my experience is devastating. And so it's something that I've had to work through. And the conclusion that I have come to is just that I was an incredibly naive, naive 18-year-old that was raised in a culture that was very conservative, very traditional, very sex-shaming and sex-controlling. And I just was not given the opportunity to learn the type of warning signs and red flags that absolutely were present that would have clued me in that he was a predator. And so,

0:09:54 Thomas: Really

0:10:25 Colleen: No, I don't at all blame myself today, but I absolutely have most most of my life.

0:10:25 Thomas: What could you yeah Well, that, that there's a lot there that's interesting. Still, I, um, still the way you phrase it, I mean, it still sounds like you're putting it on yourself, that you should have realized all this stuff, but, like, what well, I guess, could you give an example, and possibly, maybe this would be helpful to somebody, um, what, what are, what are red flags that maybe you think you should have recognized? Yeah.

0:10:44 Colleen: Sure. So, and this, I'm going to tie in another movement that's going on currently within Mormonism that has, that kind of helped me realize really what happened to me. There is a movement started by a former bishop within the Mormon church. His name is Sam Young, and he started a movement called Protect LDS Children. And his campaign was to speak out against bishop, Bishop worthiness interviews that happen with children from age starting at age like seven and 11 months. So right before your eighth birthday, when children are baptized, that's when your first worthiness interview happens. And then they continue at a rate of about twice a year until you turn 18. And within these interviews, the law of chastity, which is basically sexual purity within the LDS faith is a major focus of the interview. And so bishops ask questions about masturbation. They ask questions About, you know, sexual thoughts to children.

0:11:48 Thomas: I've I've heard a little bit about this, and it sounds like the creepiest thing I could, it sounds like an excuse for creepy, you know, uh, men to like pry into the sexual lives of children. Does that sound accurate?

0:12:03 Colleen: It does, but unfortunately, it is a whole lot deeper than that, because it's, it's a, it's an, it's a mechanism. And so you, you will obviously get creepers in there asking questions of children, but you will also get men who are cogs in a machine who basically bow down and say yes, and they're told to ask these questions, and so they do, they're sold to pry, and so they do, and so it's, it's a horrible situation where people just need to be made aware that these type of interview tactics and questions are wholly inappropriate. And what I realized as an adult, looking back on my own personal rape experience and why did I fall victim to a sexual predator, this is what I came up with, is I was groomed starting at age eight and all the way through my adolescence that men asking questions about my sexual behavior, private questions, I learned that it was commonplace, and it wasn't something that should make me uncomfortable because all my life it was asked of me by priesthood holders, men that were authority within my church that were to be trusted.

0:12:21 Thomas: Right.

0:13:19 Colleen: And so that's the grooming that happened when I was a child, and that's what I was taught. And this is the red flag that I mention now that obviously looking back, I'm like, oh, I get it. But this acquaintance of mine, as he would get to know me, he would ask me questions about like, you know, well, how far have you gone with boys in the past? Well, what did you think of it? Did you like it? And he would asked me these questions. And at 18, I didn't think anything of it. He was also 27 at the time. So he fit the definition of all of the men in my past that had always asked me this, these questions, he was a member of the church, he had a recommend to attend the sacred temple, which means he was, you you know, he was approved.

0:14:04 Colleen: He was doing all of the right things. He went on a mission for the church. You know, He wore His sacred temple garments. Like, He was definitionally, He fit the profile of the men and, you know. The bishops in my past who would ask me these questions. And so, it didn't faze me at all like it should have. So, yeah.

0:14:23 Thomas: I didn't realize he was 20,

0:14:24 Colleen: That's, yeah, yeah

0:14:25 Thomas: 27. Yeah. Asking those questions at 27 of an 18 year old is pretty creepy.

0:14:31 Colleen: It is. It absolutely absolutely is. So, you know, looking back, I can see the, and I don't blame myself in these failings, but I blame, you know, my, the environment that I was raised in. And I see the limitations and the grooming that happens and the real danger in the way Mormonism as a culture handles sexuality and chastity and, you you know, purity and sexual purity and things like that. And I see now very clearly how damaging it can be because it, you know it absolutely damaged my life.

0:15:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Could you talk about the decision to come forward and try to tell somebody about what happened? I mean, what was that like going through that thought process?

0:15:16 Colleen: Well, just to run back to the conversation I was having with my bishop when I was 18 years old, after he was the, he was the one person that I felt like I could go to at the time because I didn't have the vocabulary vocabulary of rape. I didn't have the vocabulary of sexual assault or consent or anything like that, that none of those concepts had ever entered my life in any way. And so all I knew at that time that something, that something had happened to me that I didn't want to happen. And, you know, things had gone in a direction that I, I was preparing to save until marriage, until, until those things happen, because that's the, you know, the culture that I was raised in. And and so I felt, I felt used. I felt worthless.

0:16:01 Colleen: I felt horrible. And so I went to my bishop seeking comfort, and you know, like I had mentioned previously, he decided that instead of comforting me then, he, that he would walk me through the steps of repentance, which this is another caveat that I have learned and have a little bit more compassion on him personally, is that bishops are not trained in how to handle sexual assault. They are trained how to bring people unto their divine figure, which is, you know, bring people under Christ, and the avenue that they are given to do that is repentance. And so he saw me in distress, and so that, that's the only vehicle he had really in his wheelhouse to provide me with, to to find peace. But unfortunately, obviously, as you and I know now, that is absolutely the the most inappropriate thing ever.

0:16:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:16:54 Thomas: Well, there wasn't any discussion of, you know, what the consequences for your rapist should be. There wasn't a talk about that.

0:17:02 Colleen: Absolutely not. No. But the last thing that he told me before I left his office, and this is kind of where this is the first trigger in my mind that this does not feel right, is he told me, if you discover that you're pregnant as a result of this experience, then you will need to leave BYU. And that was devastating to me because, you know, I grew up Mormon. And I grew up in a family where all of my aunts and uncles went to Brigham Young University and graduated. Both my parents went to Brigham Young University. That's where they met. They were married there. I was born there. Like BYU was in my blood. When I was applying to colleges, I applied to all three BYU schools.

0:17:47 Colleen: There's one in Provo, one in Idaho, and one in Hawaii. And those are the only schools that I applied too. I didn't have a backup plan. Like, this was the the only life that I knew to live. And so the thought of being removed from BYU was absolutely devastating to me when all I wanted to do to cope with what had happened to me was to dive into school and move on with my life. And that's the first time that I was like, well, why would I be be punished more later when you find out that I'm pregnant? Like, nothing in my behavior would have changed between this meeting now and then, me finding out that I'm pregnant. And so that got my brain churning to say, oh, it's not about me at this point, that's about image and your school and your church, and the fact that you can't have an unmarried pregnant girl walking around BYU, you know, you have have to remove her. And so that was kind of the beginning of, like, oh, this doesn't feel right, you know?

0:18:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:50 Thomas: Yeah, I mean... Believe me, I know. I can't even believe what I'm hearing. I mean, it's just so disturbing to imagine. It sounds like with how the school responded, with how your parents responded, and some of what you had internalized too, everything is about what you could have done, what you did wrong. 100% focus on you, and I'm not hearing any focus whatsoever on who actually did the crime, like who actually was was a rapist. Is that still, was that, did that ever come up? I mean, is it still to this day? Nothing, no consequences, nothing for this guy?

0:19:26 Colleen: Yep. In short answer, absolutely, yes. The long answer is that I began the repentance process with my bishop. And I finally, after a few weeks of miserably enduring that, I did finally tell my parents what had happened. And my father, thank goodness, through all of their victim blaming, my father at least had the common sense and the, you know, forgiveness and love enough to say this isn't right. And he immediately called my, he's the one that said, Colleen, you've been raped. And that was the first time I heard the word.

0:20:09 Thomas: Oh, so you didn't even know to call it that.

0:20:11 Colleen: And, and hard for, no, No, I didn't have the word. I didn't have the vocabulary. And so he was the one that said, you've been raped. And I didn't want to accept it because, I mean, I don't know if you are familiar with, you know, being a victim of sexual assault or a victim at all. But, you know, we as human beings don't want to be victims. And we want to maintain at least an illusion of control of our life.

And it's scary to feel like, you know, you could could be a victim at any time. And so I didn't want to accept that it was rape because that put me in absolutely in the seat of being a victim and not being in control of what had happened to me. And so not only was the victim blaming coming from my culture, but it was also absolutely coming from me because all I could think about in my mind was where did you go wrong?

What could you have done differently so that you could avoid this type of situation ever happening to you again in the the future, like that's what you do, you go back and you probably you troubleshoot to say where did this go wrong, and and so I obviously didn't, I very, very, very deeply did not want to be a victim.

And so part of like my internalized victim blaming was me trying to have control over the situation and trying to say this is where I messed up, so I had control, I let it happen. Like, it's, it's, it's ass backwards, and it feels so weird to say it out loud and to get people to understand where

0:20:53 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:40 Colleen: Where my brain was, but that's absolutely, that's the thought process of a victim, really.

0:21:45 Thomas: Yeah, well, especially a victim within an institution that, you know, is completely backwards in how they're looking at this. Like, I don't, I just, I'm just flabbergasted that that nobody in the school or the church or whatever, in any seemingly in any position of authority, ever thought to be like, okay, who's this guy? Let's get him out of here. What's going on? You know, it's, it's absolutely shocking.

0:21:55 Colleen: Right. Right. Yeah, my, no one ever told me to file a police report. No one never told me until I told my father to go to the hospital. So I went to the hospital, like a month and a half after it happened, was when I finally made it to the hospital. And, you know, I started getting regular STD testing. They have to do it like once every three to six months for like a year to make sure that you're safe.

And it was quite the horrific process. And so obviously, you know, and in my mind, I'm like, well, you know, it's been so long, as part of the experience, you know, looking back. There was a lot of self-doubt right after it happened. I think I had some sort of a concept that what had happened was wrong and illegal, but I rationalized it away very quickly because he, he bathed me before he dropped me off back at my dorm, and so in my mind I'm like, well, he washed away all the evidence, so it'll just be a hearsay, like if I, if I go to the police, they won't have any evidence, they won't believe me. And so I just convinced myself that it was a terrible idea and

0:23:20 Colleen: And ironic

0:23:19 Thomas: This is like a cold calculating rapist. This is really troubling.

0:23:21 Colleen: Yes. Yes, he absolutely is a career rapist, um, and and he told me so, during the experience he told me of all the other women that he had done similar things to, so I was, I was very much aware that I was not the only one, and I was aware that he knew exactly what he was doing, and there was no way that I could, you know, receive, received justice. And I just wanted to move on with my life. You know, like, that's just how I, that's the only way I knew how to, how to survive, basically. I, I did decide to go to the police 15 years later as an adult. And that was also a very interesting experience because the, the city, this is a little, little weird to go public with, but I filed a police report in American Fork, Utah, which is where the rape happened.

0:24:10 Colleen: And in the process of doing the report, they wanted an address and a location. And I'm like, there's no way I could ever produce an address. I have no idea where I was. That was the first time I'd ever been to his house. So I began describing the inside of the house because that I knew. I didn't know what the outside looked like. I knew what the inside OF the house looked like because I spent so many hours within that home. And so I described the inside of the house to the detective and to the lieutenant in American Fork, Utah. The lieutenant immediately recognized the interior layout of the house, also that it was a duplex. There are maybe a half dozen duplexes right around the the Timpanogos Temple, which was where his house was located. So finding it was super easy.

And the the reason why the lieutenant recognized the internal layout of that house is because he owned the house that I was raped in when I was raped. And so it was right around that time that suddenly they closed my case and nothing went forward and there was nothing I could do. I tried to fight it so many times, get in touch with so many different victim advocate agencies within in Utah County, and they would all like get two or three phone calls in and then I'd get ghosted. So it isn't something that I pursued, but it all smells a little fishy. But at this point in my life, there's just no, there's no gain for me, there's just more trauma, and so I've just kind of packed it up, and there will be no justice, but that's okay, I

0:24:34 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:25:07 Thomas: No.

0:25:46 Colleen: Can still speak out

0:25:47 Thomas: Well, I, I guess I don't even understand what it, It's not as though if somebody was, you know, renting this place to a rapist that they're like liable for all the crime that was, you know? Like, why would it even matter that the officer owned it? I guess I don't understand. Or is this, is, Know, is your rapist still in some position somewhere where this would, you know, like where that would, You don't know? Okay.

0:25:47 Colleen: Yeah.

0:26:10 Colleen: That's What? But I don't know. I lost touch with him. Like I said, he was an acquaintance. I don't I lost touch with him very quickly after it happened. I don't know where he is located. I couldn't even tell you. I don't but I do know that the American Fork Police Department was able to positively identify him through the information that I provided, but then they were not able to go any farther, um, and so why they closed my case right after the lieutenant discovered that he owned the house, it was a rental, obviously he was renting to, you know, a house full of of men at that time, and so what, the what his possible relationship to my rapist may have been, I don't know, I don't have any answers, but all I can do is speculate.

0:26:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:57 Thomas: Well, that is a mind-blowing story. Sorry. Weird coincidence, but also disturbing. I wow. So that you say they closed it. It wasn't just like this is, you weird for it to be actually closed. You know, did they does that mean they concluded something or they what did they tell you about?

0:27:11 Colleen: They Just decided that there wasn't enough evidence and they closed it even Even though they had told me that they had a photo lineup that they were prepared to send me, they then decided that they couldn't even do that after the lieutenant and discovered that it was his home.

0:27:21 Thomas: OK, I

0:27:32 Colleen: So, yeah.

0:27:32 Thomas: Wonder if they're yeah. Sorry. I'm just it's just so disturbing that this guy is out there, you you know, like who knows what he's done since then. And Like, I, it's, have you ever heard from, through this process of telling your history, I was wondering if you've ever heard from anybody, any other victims ever come forward to you or anything, by chance?

0:27:40 Colleen: Right?

0:27:51 Colleen: Unfortunately, no. That would be my dream come true to help others, but no.

0:27:55 Thomas: Oh, that, I mean, obviously a guy like that has, well, you already know he has plenty of other victims, but who knows, as a result of no one giving a shit about rape victims in BYU and in the police. Like, this guy's been out there this whole time. I mean, how horrendous is that? It's just absolutely horrible. So, wow. Sorry, that's a lot to process because it's just so infuriating. But, I mean... It sounds like we did skip ahead to this police report, but through all of this, you know, what was your... How did you get through it? I mean did you finish at BYU?

0:28:12 Colleen: Yeah. Yeah.

0:28:33 Colleen: I Did, um, I, my, my coping skills began, became music and Running and just throwing myself into school, my, I, I became very, um, I isolated myself a lot. I, I was very withdrawn, obviously, after that had happened. I failed a lot of my morning classes. But, I mean, I ultimately did kind of pull myself out of it. And I did graduate. I didn't fail any classes, thank goodness. Um, but then, uh, because of this experience, I, I feel like it, I, I made some other decisions, um, in regards to dating and relationships and marriage that I wouldn't have made if I didn't have this experience that left me feeling very worthless. Um, don't know if you are, if you, you want me to fast forward a little bit to talk about kind of why I decided to become active in in this arena, like, it's kind of a happenstance activism.

0:28:40 Thomas: Hmm. Hmm.

0:29:38 Thomas: Yeah, because I mean, based on what we've been talking about, it sounds like you were still a Mormon all the way through all of this and into into almost, you know, what, two, three years ago. I do have to ask, though, I mean do you Think you had any, like, PTSD? I mean, were you, how psychologically, I'm just amazed that you were able to just kind of, I mean, obviously it wasn't easy, but, how, talk about that. I mean, you, through some combination of choices and natural resilience, just be able to continue on at the school that this, you know, happened at.

0:29:40 Colleen: Yeah.

0:29:49 Colleen: Pretty Much. Yeah.

0:30:13 Colleen: Um, I, I don't think that I at the time really connected the school with my PTSD. At the, the time, my trauma was really about the rape itself. And I didn't connect it to the school until I was an adult and Until I began to have more doubts about the church. That's when I really made the connection of, oh, you know, the reason why my rape has been so devastating was because of how it was handled by the church.

That realization didn't come around until I was in my 30s, so There Was A, there was, there was lingering trauma and PTSD, but it didn't really manifest until I became sexually active for real, because I was a Mormon and sex wasn't really on the table until I was married, and so I didn't have any experiences that would trigger those feelings until I was married. Um, but yes, there were definitely symptoms. Like, for instance, I, I could not, during the kidnapping slash rape experience, he took my clothes from me and hid them, and I was locked in his room naked for 48 hours. And so when I became sexually active for, you know, consensually with my spouse, I had to always have my clothes looped around my arm or in my hand at all times.

0:30:32 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Oh

0:31:34 Colleen: Like there were, there were definitely lingering symptoms that are gory to talk about. But yeah, I mean, those are things that I definitely had to overcome.

0:31:42 Thomas: My gosh. Yeah. Wow. I mean it sounds, it just absolutely sounds horrific what you went through and I, sorry Sorry to make you relive any of this, but we can, we can definitely skip ahead to, to when you, it sounds like you accidentally became an activist. What does that mean?

0:32:00 Colleen: So we can fast forward a bit to I finally divorced my coincidentally sexually predatory husband that I married at BYU in 2012. And through that process, it kind of reignited a lot of past trauma. Like I said, it wasn't until I was an adult that I kind of realized that the trauma of of my rape, really, a lot of it had, you know, was rooted in the church. And my bishop at the time of my divorce, he did a lot to defend my husband, who was sexually predatory against 16-year-old girls in my home that were, they were Chinese exchange students that lived with us for for a month.

0:32:46 Colleen: And when we both went to our bishop to discuss this, the bishop then called my husband to serve in the young men's organization of our ward a week later. And that was devastating, that there were no negative consequences, no protection for the ward and the youth of the ward from my husband that I had, you know, finally after nine years of marriage, well, eight at the time, eight years of marriage, of knowing his predatory behaviors, I finally got myself in a place where I was strong enough to speak out against my husband. And and then it was just like I was rejected. I, you know, he, he was exalted and he was given a calling in the ward instead of, you know, instead of actual consequences for his actions. And, and I did call the police. That was the first thing I did.

0:33:41 Colleen: But because they were Chinese exchange students, they could not pursue charges because China doesn't extradite. They don't cooperate with our legal system. So all they could do was turn in the report to his employer, because he was currently employed as a child therapist at the largest nonprofit in the city where we lived. So he got fired that day, but then the church did nothing but continue to, you know, my bishop did nothing but to continue to protect him and promote him. So that was devastating. So this kind of reignited all of the feelings of betrayal that I experienced when I was 18 and at BYU, you know, when my bishop at that time had failed me. So once again a bishop had failed me when it came to protecting victims over sexual predators.

0:33:46 Thomas: Really?

0:34:34 Colleen: And so I got a divorce. I moved. I left town. And I decided at that time that I could no longer be a part of, I could not longer attend and be a Part of congregations that protected sexual predators because I didn't feel safe anymore. And all of that, that discomfort and fear of, you know, because I had experienced what I had when I was 18, all of that fear came back. And I just, I had to withdraw and only let things into my life one at a time. And one of the things that I threw out, obviously, was a community that I felt, you know, absolutely protected sexual predators. So I was, I was inactive, but still in my heart believed the tenets of Mormonism. I believed it to be true, because because that's all I had been taught.

0:35:21 Colleen: And so it wasn't until 2016 that I was connected to a woman who lived in Provo, who also was raped when she went to school at BYU, and she had started a nonprofit to support victims of sexual assault in the Provo area. We were connected through a mutual friend who knew we both shared that experience. And so I was excited to share her nonprofit. And for the very first time in my life, I spoke out publicly saying, hey, I was raped. And I made a post on Facebook that was public and just said, hey, were you raped at BYU?

0:36:06 Colleen: Here's a nonprofit that's full of support. Please join us. And that was it. It was very simple. And, you know, I got a lot of people reaching out. I had no idea, blah, blah. You're so brave. And then a week after that happened was when the the news broke of Maddie Barney, who was a student, a current student at BYU who had been raped and whose police report she did not go to the school. Her police report was leaked to the Honor Code office at Brigham Young University. And she began immediately to be disciplined for her rape experience by Brigham Young University and the Honor Code Office specifically. And so all that,

0:36:46 Thomas: This is, so tell, tell me around when this was, because I'm not sure if you were just talking to somebody who is telling an old story or this happened in 2016 or,

0:36:55 Colleen: Maddie Barney case was ongoing and current in 2016. She,

0:37:00 Thomas: So safe to say nothing had, had improved at all since your experience in, in, even the slightest way. Okay. Just making that clear.

0:37:06 Colleen: Bingo. Go. Yes. Yes. Um, so if anything, it had gotten worse, if that was at all possible. Um, so, so yeah, um, in, in my, my personal experience, does not, thank god, it does not involve discipline from my school. But, and this is, this is the thing that I, that I stress when, when I talk about BYU and the honor, and all of this controversy, is even if BYU makes changes and says that, oh, well, you know, we're not going to punish through the honor code for victims of rape and whatever other things that they punish for, the problem is that they give bishops anywhere in the church, meaning anywhere in the world, in order to attend BYU, you have to have what's called an ecclesiastical endorsement, which means you have to go and have a worthiness interview with your local bishop of your congregation, whatever war that you currently attend in.

You have to Go to them, have another worthiness, interview, you know, make sure that you are sexually pure and that you're following all the tenets of Mormonism and they approve you to, you Know, to attend BYU. You cannot attend BYU without an ecclesiastical endorsement. And BYU gives bishops more power over admission and attendance than anyone else at BYU. So a bishop alone can make the decision of whether or not you should be expelled from the school or not.

0:38:46 Colleen: Any bishop, anywhere. And so that's really terrifying and frightening, and it makes all of the so-called changes that Brigham Young University makes hollow, because they can say anything they want and then they can just pass the dirty work on to bishops and by encouraging them to appropriately discipline through whatever avenues, you know, they find appropriate, victims of sexual assault or or any other horrific thing that happens, that that, you know, instead of the school kicking them out, they wash their hands of it and say, oh, it's not us, we didn't do it, you know, we can't control. They literally in statements have said we can't control the actions of bishops. That's not within our, you our control.

0:39:32 Colleen: And so that's that's kind of the doublespeak. And the problem that I see in these situations is they, you know, everything's hollow. Nothing's really changing. What happened to me could continue to happen forever because they're not doing anything to address bishops, you know, expelling students.

0:39:48 Thomas: Sounds like this latest story, this 2016 story gained more national attention, it also sounds like you're not optimistic that that's doing anything to really put pressure to make change.

0:40:01 Colleen: Now, it made a huge splash in national and worldwide news with the Maddie Barney case, because many of us came forward. That's when I, you know, came forward with my story. I was quoted and interviewed extensively in, you kno, countless national newspaper articles. I even did a television special with Elizabeth Smart, who also is a household name now because she was an LDS victim of kidnapping when she was a child. She was kidnapped and held by a crazed rapist for nine months before she made it back to her family. And so she speaks out against these type of issues, but she is still an active Mormon, but I went on a television special with her to talk about these issues at BYU, because it's something that she definitely is actively fighting against. And so I made a big splash, and then I received a lot of criticism immediately from my faith community, because I was seen as an anti-Mormon. I was seeing as trying to burn the church down, and I was being seen, obviously, as as a liar and a fabricator.

And, and so it was, that was kind of what started me on my faith transition, if you will, because I was obviously not expecting that. I was a believer and I felt myself 100% a member of that community, and to have them reject me in that way was devastating. And it really made me question what the community was all about.

0:40:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:41:35 Colleen: If the community as a whole would reject me for speaking out against my experience with rape.

0:41:42 Thomas: You mentioned that Elizabeth Smart is still a Mormon. I was going to ask, Do you think that it's possible for Mormons to, you know, to really see the issues here? I mean, obviously there's going to be, it sounds like there are some, but did it, was it necessary for you to like become an ex-Mormon and realize the faith was kind of bullshit in order to fully see, you know, how problematic all of this stuff is? Or do you think there's room for people who still want to be Mormons and still want to believe, you know, the kind of whatever stuff, whatever weird tablet related stuff? I don't really understand. Is there room for People to still within the church make these changes?

0:42:20 Colleen: Yeah. I think there is in, on the member level within the, you know, the actual root members of the church, within the individuals, there's room. When you try to climb up the authority ladder up to the top leadership of the Church, there is absolutely not room, not room at all. Everything about the doctrine and policies of the Church to this day are absolutely to protect sexual predators. There have been countless cases in the news where the LDS Church spends billions of dollars in non-disclosure agreements and lawsuit settlements when it comes to victims of sexual assault within the Mormon congregations who have been assaulted by members of the church. The church will pay for the legal defense of the predator and then pay off the victims and silence them. So absolutely no, there's no room within the the top leadership for Mormonism to still be true because it's led by people who financially protect sexual predators. But within the membership, yes, there's definitely room for people to realize I have hope in the members.

0:42:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:43:38 Colleen: I have faith in the members that they they can there.

0:43:39 Thomas: But is it a question of Just like, is there? It's one thing to, it's hard. Is it just too difficult for them to see what's happening? I mean, maybe if you could somehow get them to understand what's happening, they would not necessarily have to, like, deconvert in order to want to change the church. But is it a question of, you know, sort of like the conservative versus liberal battle and, you know, conservatives getting all their information from Fox News. Is it a question of Mormons are, you now, not going to see this? Are they not going to get the information they need in order to see what's actually happening?

0:44:16 Colleen: Yeah, that is a big roadblock because, yeah, Mormons are taught. There's, I get a lot of flack for using the C word, but Mormonism is cult-lite. It may not be full-blown cult, but it's cult-light. And there is a lot of control when it comes to information that is approved and allowed to be ingested. And so if it's coming from unapproved sources, then its is questioned. So that's why I was ostracized, because I was speaking out against a church school and then obviously my bishop, and so that's not allowed. And so, yeah, it is a very tricky situation where they, in order to really fully understand the depth of which the church protects sexual predators, they do, you know, members would have to kind of acknowledge that the men that lead the church are corrupt and they are doing terrible things.

0:44:32 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:45:25 Colleen: And, you can't really reconcile that with believing. So yeah, it gets really tricky when you get that far down the rabbit hole. I, it's it's very, some people do, um, but it does lead a lot of people out of the church when they get to realize and really understand what's going on. Yes.

0:45:44 Thomas: On a scale of one to complete patriarchy, it sounds like Mormonism is still complete, but like, is it just the leadership is just 100% patriarchy?

0:45:57 Colleen: I mean, that's one of the huge problems with, um, you know, the fact that the church protects sexual predators, um, with Protect LDS Children movement, um, these worthiness interviews, is there, there are, no, one of the absolute first things to do to safeguard children and things like this is to put women in leadership. Because, you know, if you're only having a one-gendered authority within the church and women are silenced and not listened to and not given any authority whatsoever, it really undermines women and children. And they have no one to protect them because no one's speaking for them.

0:46:17 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:37 Thomas: It really seems to be, uh, unfortunately organized religion throughout the ages, doesn't it just feel like it's a way for men to control people and get away with a bunch of horrible stuff? It

0:46:49 Colleen: Very jaded view, but I tend to agree, yes.

0:46:51 Thomas: Wow. Well, uh, so it, uh. How has it been this experience of, of a, you know, losing your Mormon faith, but also speaking out, finding others. I know it sounds like you've gotten obviously some, some horrible people commenting on the internet and all that. And some, you don't know, maybe otherwise totally non-horrible people being horrible because of what the church kind of makes them do. Um, but how, how has it Been? In. I mean, do you feel a sense of progress? Do you feel a sense accomplishment? You know, are there any positives at this point for the, in this battle?

0:47:25 Colleen: You know, it's hard to really keep a pulse on what is occurring within the church because I have removed myself from the church. But I will speak to the fact that in my own life, I am absolutely in a better place. And I'm so glad for that. I have spoken out that I have finally addressed, you know, the trauma within my past. I went to therapy for the first time in 2016 for a rape that had occurred in 2001. And, you Know, I, I've come a long ways. I actually married from in my, I'm married again. My second husband is a, he's a never mo is what we call them. He was never a Mormon.

0:47:39 Thomas: That's great.

0:48:08 Thomas: So not somebody who's within the Mormon church and a horrible sexual abuser. That's good.

0:48:14 Colleen: And he was actually a good friend of mine from high school. So it was definitely a safe place. And I am so, so very grateful that I have him in my life. And part of my healing has been obviously losing the faith transition itself was, was, it was traumatic. I was dealing with, all in one year, I was dealing with a faith transition where I kind of realized that it's all bullshit. That was rough. And dealing with a rape that I had never dealt with, that was rough, and then I was still dealing with divorce. And so I had all these things kind of coming to a head in one year, and it was a rough year, not going to lie. Lots and lots lots of therapy. But this podcast that I have created, Mormon Happy Hour, kind of came from that because I needed an outlet and I needed to continue my activism work because I really felt like the best way for me to heal from what had happened in my past was to help others who were in my same situation or similar also heal.

And so I really wanted to take what happened to to me and make it positive and kind of reframe it in my life. And so I created the podcast to address a lot of the social justice issues and concerns and also to bring a lot of levity and humor to,

0:48:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

0:49:42 Colleen: You know, trauma and sexual shaming that we all have kind of experienced within Mormonism and kind of walk everyone through my healing journey and kind kind of also I do a lot of crowdsourcing on my podcast where I'm like, oh, this is an issue that that we've all kind of experienced. Let's talk about this particular topic. And so I do a lot crowd sourcing and the post and ex-Mormon community is absolutely huge and responsive and wonderful. So that's been great. That's been wonderful.

0:50:09 Thomas: Yeah, That's really cool. I am. I'm amazed, I'm amazed. I'm super impressed. I just can't believe that you have had such an amazing bounce back from such awful experiences, you know, really from every angle. I mean, your husband, your ex-husband, I mean the church, none of, no one of those things is easy to get through. And it's remarkable that you've been able to do all that and turn it around and try to make something good and help other people with it. So that's that's incredible. And I wonder, let's definitely point people toward Mormon Happy Hour podcast. Do you think there's anything else to point people towards if they are interested in either interested in these issues or interested in trying to help out regarding, you know, the BYU stuff and those kind of reforms? You know, is there any, are there any other resources or areas you want to point people to?

0:50:51 Colleen: Yeah. Yeah, sure. I definitely check out Mormon Happy Hour podcast. It's everywhere you find podcasts. The website is angelsonfire.org. You mentioned the Sterling Van Wagon and the topic that was just discussed on The Daily. I interviewed Ryan McKnight of Mormon Leaks back in February when it was initially leaked, and that's episode 58. So if anyone wants more information on that, check out episode 58. I also love to talk about, since the culture is all about sexual shaming, one of my very favorite segments that I do on Mormon Happy Hour is called Mormon Sex Myths. And they are shocking and hilarious. Because like, and this is one of the more fun ways to kind of handle our past trauma. There's episode 28 is called Soaking is is fundamental. And I'm sure that you probably don't know what soaking is in the Mormon context, do you?

0:51:54 Thomas: Really?

0:52:06 Thomas: No, no. Yeah. I feel free to, uh, to, to enlighten me. What?

0:52:13 Colleen: So a lot of these myths come from, they come out of BYU, where, you know, sexually charged adolescents are trying to navigate their own biological urges and still remain at the school and not, you know, and fight their own internal guilt and shame. And so soaking, there's on episode 28 I actually include a little cartoon that is, it's a couple on their bed with a T-Rex crashing through the ceiling that has a T-Rex with a head of white hair just like God. And So it has the definition, it's, it says soaking is a practice used by some young Mormons to engage in premarital sexual activity without angering God. Basically, a guy, quote, soaks his penis inside a girl without moving, because it's the motion that makes it a sin. This is effective because God is a T-Rex, and the vision, and his vision is based on movement.

0:52:49 Thomas: Oh, I was wondering where the T-Rex tie-in was. Okay. I see. So this is one of those, like, uh, is it? Uh, God's loophole kind of things. Like this is One of the ways that people try to, I see. Yeah. I feel like every religion has that.

0:53:28 Colleen: Yes. It. For sure, and then to step it up, um, if you want to step up your soaking game, you can do what's called earthquaking, where you need a wingman, and you need a bunk bed, and you and your partner are on the top, excuse, and then your wingman is on the bottom bunk. And so you soak, that's why it's called soaking, this fundamental, because it's really the root of a lot of myths. You soak, and then your wingman will bounce the, the, the mattress, and so then you are not personally liable for the movement because you're not actually creating it, right?

0:54:04 Thomas: This is this is insane. I mean, how is This is really something people do, like they think they're getting out of, like getting out on a technicality with this? Yeah.

0:54:07 Colleen: Unfortunately. Yes, yes, it, it helps to create a rationalization in your mind, which would prevent you from feeling like you had to turn yourself in and get kicked out of your university, or, you know, face any other kind of consequence. So, yes, it's it's real.

0:54:25 Thomas: I mean, I guess I'm, I'm rooting for him, really, like, go ahead and find every way to get out of this stupid rules, but like, you would hope that people could just realize, well, this is stupid, like, there's no, this means that this religion is dumb, but I guess they can't make that step, oftentimes. That's incredible, that sounds, uh, that sounds fun, so everybody, uh, definitely check, check that out. And

0:54:46 Colleen: Yep, exactly. Maybe two other things. Definitely check out Protect LDS Children. It's a very important movement that needs support. And then also there's an Instagram account called Honor Code Stories that is a current movement to challenge a lot of the honor code practices happening at BYU, because, even, you know, it's not 2016 anymore, now it's 2019, but there's still obviously a lot of problems at BYU. So support those two things, um, check it out, obviously I, I talk about it a lot, on Mormon Happy Hour, so you can find information on Mormon Happy Hour as well.

0:55:28 Thomas: Now, you say honor code and to my naive non-Mormon ears, that would sound like something a school might use to say, hey, don't rape people in the honor code. But the way you're saying it,

0:55:42 Colleen: You're very naive to have that assumption, the

0:55:46 Thomas: So it's not that, that's not what's happening, what, what is that, could you explain that briefly, like, why, what's the honor code tie-in there, what does that mean? So

0:55:54 Colleen: Honor code is a, a code of conduct that all students are required to sign before they begin, you know, going, attending BYU, and it regulates things like, you know, basically, are you following the tenets of Mormonism turned up quite 100 degrees. So, you know, you're not allowed to have a member of the opposite sex past a certain threshold in your apartment, like certainly not in your bedrooms, not in your bathroom, curfews, very strict dress codes. You know, word of wisdom, like you can't, you know, be associated with alcohol or coffee, or they just recently have changed their, their, their beliefs on caffeine. So it used to also include caffeine.

0:56:41 Colleen: Just I mean, if you if you visit the Honor Code Stories account on Instagram, you'll get a full picture on the type of things that people are often disciplined for. And unfortunately, yeah,

0:56:52 Thomas: Is that, yeah. I'm just trying to understand the basic, like, why is it called honor code story, so people have been punished for really stupid things, is that what it is?

0:57:00 Colleen: It's BYU fosters a, and Mormonism as a whole, like BYU is kind of like this petri dish of Mormon culture as a whole, it's very concentrated, and so things that happen at BYU also obviously happen on a large scale within Mormonisms, but it's just, it's thick, and so people are, it's a very self-policing culture, there are lots of addresses by, you know, leadership that command you to turn in your friends, turn in anyone that you see breaking the law, because if, you know, it's your responsibility to watch after one another and turn people in that you see, you know, breaking rules, because if you don't, then your eternal salvation is also at stake because you didn't do what you needed to do to help another, and so it becomes this very toxic environment of people that you know, and, and if you, people use it to their advantage, like, there's reports of, you know, know, someone wanted to, like, on sports teams at BYU, if you, um, want to move up from second string to first string, then you just turn in the first string people to the honor code and get them off the team, then all of a sudden you're first string, you know, like it can be used maliciously, and it often is, and the honor code office fully supports, you know, anonymous submissions of people breaking. So that's part of

0:58:25 Thomas: McCarthyism.

0:58:25 Colleen: The toxicity that exists.

0:58:26 Thomas: Basically, very Maccarthy-esque. So, what, but again, when this, I'm, I know this is probably one of those questions that's too basic. So you're not even understanding that. I'm like, I, like, why is it called Honor Code Story? Are they, so are these people like, I don't even understand which angle this Honor Code Stories thing is from. Is it a good, is it people trying to, yeah, no, that's okay.

0:58:47 Colleen: Oh, okay. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'll back up. So

0:58:51 Thomas: It'S one of THOSE questions. No, I totally get it. ItS when you're like steeped in something, you know, you can't understand a guy who has total ignorance about what it is, you're trying to ask a basic question.

0:59:00 Colleen: The, so the account came about because a student graduated, had had terrible experiences with her honor code, with the honor code at BYU. As soon as she graduated, she created the account and started to tell her story of, you know, negative interactions, you know, false allegations with the honor code office and how it destroyed her life. She published her experiences and then began accepting anonymous stories from from others. And so it became this anonymous platform where current students could report what they were experiencing without negative, you know, positive consequences for speaking out. And so it became this kind of like, if you will, again, kind of the WikiLeaks of terrible Mormon, Mormon honor code at BYU stories. And so that's, that's what the platform is, is it's, it's stories, it's students' stories, and parents that have been involved in their own children at BYU, just terrible stories of, of, of life devastating things that have occurred through the honor code office at BYU.

0:59:45 Thomas: I see.

1:00:07 Colleen: Thank

1:00:05 Thomas: Okay. Okay, well, Colleen, thank you So much for coming on the show today. And I, you are amazingly brave. I am I'm just so happy that that you've been able to make the progress that you've made and be able to turn it into something positive. I really hope people will check out your show. And I just wish you all the luck in the world going forward.

1:00:26 Colleen: You so much I really appreciate the opportunity

1:00:49 Thomas: Want to thank Colleen again so for coming, that was educational and it just tells us how much more progress needs to be made, not only within the Mormon church but other churches, I mean, I know it is a cynical thing but doesn't it just feel like organized religion is just a breeding ground for awful abusers of all types, you know, to kind of get away with it, to be shielded by a hierarchy and all this stuff. I mean, it's just awful. Tons of work to be done. Okay. Well, thank you for listening. And again, you can support the show at patreon.com/seriouspod. I really recommend you do that to keep it going. If you can't, that's okay. I understand, but please share it out when you, when you think it might be something somebody else would want to hear, share it out.

1:01:37 Thomas: That's free. It's something everybody can do and it keeps the show going. So thank you so much to everybody, both patrons especially, but everybody listening and sharing. And I will see you next week.