I Am Simon Beans

2026-08-11

When you leave Mormonism, you're expected to reject everything that you found in it, to turn against every piece as if it's the plague. This is an expectation I've seen from members and ex Mormons alike.

Mormonism isn't for me. I have no desire to be a trad wife, pretend to be straight, have a boatload of kids, or sit through 8 hours of listening to old people tell me how to live my life twice a year, on top of attending church (2 hours) every week, reading scriptures and praying daily, donating 10% of my income to a multi billion dollar organization, volunteering countless other hours with zero acknowledgement, and avoiding coffee, tea, alcohol, and weed...

Just so I can go to the temple where I'll give them even more of my time to be told the same mason-influenced story over and over by a Fancy PowerPoint Presentation, only to feel embarrassed at the veil because no matter how many times I went to the temple, I never could memorize the exact words needed to get into heaven because my brain doesn't work by rote memorization.

But.

At the same time.

There's a lot of good in Mormonism.

(To be clear, I don't think that's because of Mormonism.

I think it's despite Mormonism.

Humans have goodness in them and there are truths in almost everything so of course, a religion with millions of members would have goodness in it.)

There's so much I hate about Mormonism and most of what I hate isn't in that list I already shared.

Yet hidden in all that gunk are some beautiful gems.

The problem with Mormonism is it expects you believe all of it or none of it. If you're raised in that culture, you're taught to believe that the world exist in a binary of good vs evil. Everything is black and white. So when you walk away, you're expected to reject it all.

I think that's bullshit.

True black and true white are almost never found in nature. The universe isn't shades of grey either. It's all the colors of light waves we can see. If we had more prisms in our eyes, we'd see even more colors. Human existence is also beautiful, complex, heartbreaking, and inspiring. It's so much more than what you see on the surface and every person who looks at it will see it differently. So it cannot be defined as black and white.

I refuse to accept my entire upbringing as evil when I know it's not true. I will never bring my daughter into a Mormon church, but I have kept the good I found in Mormonism, while making it my own, making it beautiful, colorful, vibrant. My version of these things is in a color only I could make.

In many ways, I'm currently living a "trad life". I, an AFAB human, bake, I cook, I clean, and I take care of my beautiful daughter. I'm at home almost 24/7. We have a garden in the backyard. An entire box by my desk is for clothes I'm altering, but clothes aren't the only thing I do that with. I thrift, repurpose, and alter everything possible to get more life out of it.

But none of it looks like the trad wife life I was raised to have.

First and foremost, I exist in the world as a man. Despite the "we can always tell" crowd's exclamation, I am more likely to be mistaken for a trans woman than a trans man because of my earrings and clothing choices. I fuck with gender in the way I dress and have as many femme clothes as I do masculine. But I am not non-binary. I'm a man. I just think the idea that certain clothing, hair, jewelry, etc. only belongs to one gender is stupid. I think everyone should decorate themselves in the exact way that makes them smile when they look in the mirror, whatever that is.

As a man of integrity, I live what I preach. My closet is very neatly organized, but not by gendering clothing. I have bottoms, separated by length on one side and tops, separated on sleeve length and buttons (or a lack thereof) on the other side. I mix and match gender based on vibes. What makes me happy is usually bright or pretty. I am a very flamboyant man.

And while I do defer to my husband in almost everything, and I do regularly submit to him, it's because he's my Dom.

(Also, we're both trans men, so whether you believe I'm a woman or man, I'm still gay and am submitting to my same-sex partner.)

I get to exist as Dad, too. I bake with my daughter, create with my daughter and educate her, meeting her special interests with sincerity (such as our current deep dive on the French Revolution). The last couple of days I've been getting her up and ready for her summer camp. I sing to her the good morning songs my mom sang to me but instead of yelling, I snuggle her out of her morning grumps. And every day, instead of scriptures that teach compliance, I use stories from video games, movies, books, songs, religion, History, and my own life, to teach her how to create her own morals based in kindness and a desire to always keep growing. I don't shy away from telling her what I believe and why I believe it, I just don't dictate my opinion as the end-all-be-all and definitely not infallible. She knows that the way I live my life is based on the quote "do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better" (attr. Maya Angelou). Which means, she knows that I make mistakes and that I'm still learning too. But I share with her what I see in the world, including how to do better. So we have hard conversations, such as when I use stories of the French Revolution to talk about why war is always heartbreaking, even when it's necessary (and what things sometimes make it necessary) but then I let her draw her own conclusions. Will she be influenced by me? Absolutely. But she's already disagreed with my assessment many times, so I know she's not just believing everything I say. She, at 9, gets to do something I was never free to do until I left Mormonism: She is creating her own identity and moral code as a human in relationship to other humans. It's beautiful to watch.

She has a unique childhood with adventures in the woods picking blackberries, regular trips to the beach, a Found Family that shows up for her and loves her like blood even though she's not, and phd students answering her questions and taking her down rabbit holes to expand her understanding. Her life is magic. I often turn to Tommy in awe as I talk about how beautiful her childhood is.

But my daughter is also trans. She's my warrior princess and while I believe if she could fight God, she would (and probably win), she's also a little blonde haired pixie of a child, with a height in the 3rd percentile. She is wild and free and so, so kind. The idea that anyone would call her dangerous in order to break her most beautiful parts makes my blood boil.

This is how I know that I am a girl dad.

And still, if early Christian leaders could choose to celebrate the birth of Jesus in December with no religious based reasons, simply because the winter holidays in most pagan European cultures were at the same time, then I can choose the parts of Mormonism I like and make them mine.

Mormonism demands black and white, but I know that's fake because my existence is very colorfully built around the framework Mormonism left in my life.

I am a trad dad, not a trad wife.

I have a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering and would rather be at home with my kid than in research lab. I still work because I also really want to work, but I've yet to see a BME job that lets me stay at home and completely adjust my schedule to my daughter's with no guarantee of dedicated hours at any point. Instead, I've found ways to get exactly this as a freelancer, an independent contractor, and just a dude with some big dreams and some weird skills. I'm still working out bugs, and we're still relying on help from Found Family (including some of my biological family) to survive but we aren't just surviving, we're thriving.

We're poor, but we're happy.

Also, I do not suffer from "Same Sex Attraction".

I revel in it.

I have never loved a human the way I love my husband, Tommy. I worship him and do so because he's human. The night we got engaged (aka 36 hours before our unplanned wedding), I pointed out how we had been rotating around each other for years before so many strange things happened just perfectly for us to be where we were right then. These were not all pleasant attachments. Many moments discussed were heartbreaking and soul crushing. The beauty wasn't found in much of the journey. The beauty was in bringing us together. I didn't believe in soulmates before I found him, but the only word that captures the magic of us finding other and being so perfect for each other is kismet.

Now after watching the same pattern again, I can see how that journey has given my daughter the reality she needs right now. If there is a god, it clearly wants me, Tommy, and B here in Vancouver in this exact house at this exact time. Her life has had devastating moments, including losing access to her homeland based on her existence as herself, and she is acutely aware of loss. But she is happy. Not every moment, no, but if you looked at the sum of her moments and average it out, it's more happy than sad. And when you add the complexity of other options, it shines even more vibrant and bright.

And my relationship with my husband is that way too. I have never experienced so much joy as I have each and every day with him. I'd rather have our worst fight every single day than not have him with me because even on that worst day, I had more joy than I'd ever had without him. And when you compare all the best fights I've ever had with any other partner, with that worst fight, I'd rather relive the one with Tommy. Because the depth of our relationship makes working through hard things so beautiful in a way I never had before.

It turns out, the more I stop fighting who I really am, the more I realize that who I was is critical to who I am. I don't want a soul to go through anything I had to that left me so fractured inside. But what it took to get me in this house with my husband and daughter is mind boggling. I am exactly who I need to be to have the most perfect trad dad life with the most beautiful humans I've ever met.

And for me, that means I need these pieces of my Mormon upbringing that bring me joy. But I need them my way.

I need them in color.

Because I am not Cynthia Jean.

I am Simon Beans.