Hey, welcome to not Somali Mormon podcast.

This is Katie.

I have a very intense yet amazing story to share with you today that was written into us.

I didn't get explicit consent to use this listener's name. So I am going to omit it, but this is amazing. I can't wait to

share it with you. So I'm just going to dive right in. Hi there. I enjoy your podcast and felt like you two would be a safe place for me to share something I wrote the other day. I'm not sure what to do with it, but part of me just wants to share it.

Dear Mormon Church, I'm angry at you, at the institution, at your tradition of female abuse and subjugation.

I let you determine my life, path, my worth, my value, my strengths, and weaknesses.

I let you devalue my humanity. I let you hurt my children. I'm angry. I've stayed quiet for 46 years, but no more. I've smiled. I've shrugged my shoulders. I've made excuses. I've bowed my head and closed my eyes for too long, and I cannot anymore.

I sat on my pew every Sunday with the men presiding over me, dictating my every thought and

action as a woman. The clothes we wear, the movies we watch, the volume of our laughter.

We shush the children we have born because of duty as you sleepily preside over us. You sit in the young woman classes I teach, listening, watching,

making sure I am not leading them astray. I have played by the rules, all of them, all of my life. I sat while

you asked me about my sex life, berated me for masturbating, berated me for not wearing the correct

underwear, garments, while at the gym. I've sat there being judged by a standard that I didn't

choose and that no one could ever possibly live up to and I'm angry.

I sat outside the closed door while you sat alone with my scared 14-year-old daughter asking about the underwear she was wearing during her sexual assault, asking her if she orgasmed,

she didn't even know the definition of the word. I'm angry. I've taught hundreds of young

women over the years that their sexual purity was their most prized possession, not their

intellect or their sense of humor, their purity. So ask me what happened to all

those girls who sinned sexually. What happened to their sense of self-worth, now that they are

damaged goods? Remember you can pull the nail out of the wood, but there will always be a hole.

Remember that example? Yeah, I'm angry. What have I learned from

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