1672: Being Gay at BYU - Daniel Spencer Pt . 2
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.6 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2022
⏱️ 127 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Content Warning: Mention of sexual acts, suicide, & suicidal ideation
Join us for a very special episode & guest, Daniel Spencer (@DanBamBam on Social Media) to share his heartwarming story with us. From growing up as a closeted gay Mormon teenager in a country where being gay isn't just illegal, but dangerous, to his mission experiences and discovering his talent not just for comedy but for starting important conversations at BYU and beyond! Daniel Spencer (@DanBanBam)
Trigger Warning: Suicides & Suicidal Ideation
In this part 2 of 2, Daniel returns to share what the remainder of his mission was like, his studies at BYU, dealing with his homosexuality, learning more about the Church's history and truth claims, and his attempts to learn to speak his truth out loud after decades of hiding who he was. Daniel attempts to use social media to bring attention to important issues as well as give people a chance to speak their truth, even if anonymously.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host |
| 0:03.3 | John Dillin. It's September 19th, 2022. And we are here in part two of an epic amazing |
| 0:10.8 | Zimbabwean Mormon story. We're here with Daniel Spencer, also known as Dan Bam Bam. He's a comedian |
| 0:19.4 | on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube. He also has a YouTube special on dry bar. And I still don't |
| 0:27.3 | know what that means. But if you tell me it's cool, I believe you. It's great. Yeah. Dan has 1.7 |
| 0:33.8 | million TikTok followers. But interestingly, we're not really talking about that. We're just talking |
| 0:38.5 | about his amazing epic Mormon journey. If you have not listened to part one, I encourage you, |
| 0:45.0 | Samantha encourages you to pause right now. Go back and watch part one because in that we talked |
| 0:51.7 | about his grandparents and his parents being raised Mormons in Africa, even during the |
| 0:58.4 | pre-student temple ban on black people in Africa. And when that was lifted, how his grandparents |
| 1:04.1 | and parents stayed Mormon as white Africans when a lot of other white Africans left the Mormon |
| 1:10.3 | church once they allowed black people to have full status. He talked about being raised in Zimbabwe. |
| 1:16.0 | Also as a gay Mormon teenage boy, how he had sexual experiences as a gay Mormon teenage boy, |
| 1:24.5 | which is actually quite rare from the dozens and dozens of LGBT Mormons that I've interviewed. |
| 1:30.8 | But eventually he straightened up, I say, he served a mission for the LDS church in British |
| 1:40.1 | Columbia, Vancouver, went to BOU for a little season before his mission. And we talked about how he |
| 1:45.7 | came clean and repented midway issue through his mission and how he was on the edge about whether |
| 1:51.9 | or not he was going to get sent home early. But eventually you make assistant to the president, |
| 1:55.6 | is that right? Or zone leader at least? Zone leaders. Yeah, never go to the assistant, but |
| 2:00.0 | was there at least a year or so. Yeah, we also talked about him learning about the gospel |
| 2:04.8 | topic, SSA's Honest Mission, which is when the Mormon church started to come clean about its history, |
| 2:09.6 | learning about the real curse of Cain doctrine and the, you know, Lamanite dark skin doctrine in |
... |
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