Every February is Bald Eagle Month in Utah, and Maddie Fox (she/her), takes full advantage of the season. A self-described amateur wildlife photographer, Maddie, 35, sets out early on one February Saturday a year to photograph her favorite creature. While she’s also garnered a frame-worthy collection of bison, elk, wild horses, and black bears, there’s something about the way the bald eagles soar overhead as they migrate south looking for food—so free and unencumbered—that captivates her…
JOSH HADDEN
Josh grew up feeling a bit different. He loved playing with girls' toys and even asked for a My Little Pony Dream Castle when he was four-years-old. His favorite colors were pink and purple, and he tended to get along better with girls than the other boys his age. This went on until around seven-years-old when Josh started to learn what the word “gay” meant, and then subsequently started to try and hide those parts of himself. He spent years trying to convince himself that he was not gay and that if he tried hard enough, he could hide this part of himself from everyone. In fact, Josh decided being gay would be something he would need to spend his life hiding, managing and changing. The frustration of that journey has only been alleviated in the past few years as finally, at age 26, Josh has come to trust that he was intentionally created as he is by loving Heavenly Parents.
MONICA, HORACIO, & CAYLIN
Monica Bousfield met her husband Horacio Frey in the fortuitous aisles of Babies R Us, where they both worked in the early 2000s. At first, they were just friends. Then best friends. Then after about a year of hanging out constantly, they surmised they must be dating. A year later, Monica nudged Horacio that it was probably time for them to go ahead and get married. After an eight-month engagement, they did, and while they eventually both left Babies R Us, their commitment to each other later resulted in two babies they would together raise. Through all this, Monica kept her maiden name—primarily because she’d never known of another couple like her and Horacio to last, and she didn’t want to complicate legal paperwork around having to undergo name changes twice. Monica had never heard of a woman marrying a gay man and having it not end in divorce. While she’d known Horacio was gay from their early days of hanging out, there were two other things she knew about Horacio: he was her best friend, and she wanted to marry him. Over two decades later, the couple is still making it work in Westminster, Colorado, where they have two children—Caylin, who is 17 and also identifies as queer, and Dominic—13.
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