Episode 887: Javier Aguilar, Bisexual BYU Student, Non-English Focused LGBTQ Podcast

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2026

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Javier “VJ” Aguilar (RM, from Mexico/Texas, Age 25, Current BYU Student) joins us to share his story. Javier talks about his journey to understand his sexual orientation and come out to family in a culture that is very different from the United States. Javier talks about the difficult conversations with his parents raised in a culture where this is compared to additions that can be “cured”. Javier—who has grace and loves his parents—talks about his journey to accept/love himself, find hope during deep depression, and find support. Once Javier removed the shame and accepted himself, he talks about his desire to help others—from a deep place of love. He talks about leading the Rexburg Pride parade and also start a podcast. The podcast focus is queer LDS stories where English is a second language. Javier talks about their work to name the podcast—finally ending up with “One More Seat at the Table”. Love this name! Please listen/share this podcast and connect with Javier’s podcast (see show notes). Thank you Javier to being on the podcast. You are brave and your work (along with your friends) is so needed in our community. Links: Javier’s Instagram: @vj_ag00 Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/un-lugar-m%C3%A1s-en-la-mesa/id1821754247 Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/25J076HVloGCw7PADv10v5?si=DEm_xgz7SNq2V1zMXpFV4w

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love hosted by Richard Osler.
0:08.6	My guest on today's podcast is someone I met at a gather event, and we were in the same
0:14.1	breakout group, and I got to meet Javier Aguilar. Welcome to the podcast, Javier.
0:20.7	Thank you very much for having me here.
0:23.0	It's such a pleasure to be here.
0:25.9	I may not have pronounced your first and your last name correctly.
0:29.9	Will you just say it the way it's supposed to be said?
0:32.7	Yeah.
0:33.6	My name is Javier Agila.
0:36.2	All people just call me VJ. That's right. And if you find him on social media, it's Vavier Aguila. All right. Or people just call me VJ.
0:38.3	That's right.
0:39.3	And if you find him on social media, it's VJ Aguilar.
0:42.3	So, and we'll link to that in the show notes.
0:44.3	But Javier is going to share his story as a bisexual Latter-day Saint.
0:48.3	He's at BYU.
0:50.3	He's working.
0:51.3	He's a junior in animations and communication. He grew up both in Mexico and Texas. He served a mission in Brazil and then COVID happened. And he landed up and landed in Mexico City West to conclude his mission. I guessed his age because I've got a son that that happened to. And I guessed his age correctly at 25, because our son, Ben, was in Samoa, and instead of going to Mexico West mission, quote, unquote, he just married his high school girlfriend at age 18 and went straight to BYU.
1:26.5	So good for him. So he's 25 and married and getting on
1:30.5	with his life. And you are likewise. Um, Javier is going to also talk about his podcast. He started a
1:38.7	podcast based on kind of the format of questions in the closet, especially for listeners and guests that
1:46.6	English isn't their first language.
1:48.2	They've done episodes in other languages.
	...

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