Looking back, much of Sytske (“seet-ska”) Woodhouse’s life can be sorted by the before and after of one major life event that initiated an awakening. Before the last of her four sons was born in 2011, Sytske was a dutiful Latter-day Saint defined by titles: supportive wife, nurturing mom, housekeeper--roles she had fallen in line with for about 10 years. Roles for which she’d been well trained. As a child, Sytske’s Sandy, Utah-based family of origin was absolutely dedicated to the LDS church. Her father worked as President of Ensign college for 17 years where he frequently met with general authorities. He also served as a bishop and stake presidency counselor throughout Sytske’s adolescent and young adult years. Her family was the type who read The Miracle of Forgiveness as a togetherness activity, as her four older brothers were preparing to “date to marry.”
A product of her upbringing, Sytske now recognizes it was her personality to be a bit scrupulous. She remembers a childhood outlook of strict obedience to the point of self-righteousness and intolerance of the “sinners outside the church doing the things I didn’t agree with.” She also recalls struggling to understand why her high school friends would have to go to the bishop’s office to speak with her father on repeat about their weekend activities. She now laughs as she remembers thinking, “What is wrong with you people; what is so hard about keeping the law of chastity? I didn’t get the whole dating and romantic relationship thing. I had no feelings like this until my first year of college and then I thought, ‘Oh, now it all makes sense’.” Only it was women, not men, who Sytske felt drawn to. Still too observant to recognize it for what it was (“I didn’t even know what the phrase same-sex attraction was, let alone gay or homosexuality”), Sytske just thought she was a “really, really good friend” who would go out of her way to look out for her female friends and make their lives easier, seemingly “because I loved them. I’d get jealous when they had boyfriends. I still didn’t know I was gay,” she laughs.
Sytske was instead focused on the checklist she’d been handed—one she felt would give her structure, identity, and purpose. As a Mathematics major at BYU, she’d go to the temple to perform baptisms every Saturday morning. She found a man to marry in the temple and they got started right away on having kids. “I was just going through the motions; this part of my life was a blur. I wasn’t really alive, but just doing all the things a good, Mormon mom does.” Looking back, Sytske realizes she was missing out entirely on trying to get to know and become herself, instead following the edict: “If you do all the things you’re supposed to, you can create this perfect life of how things are supposed to go—missions, college, temples, kids.”
And then, in 2011, her youngest baby was born. Sytske and her husband began to notice their son, around the age of one, was not developing quite like the others had. An early intervention specialist came to evaluate him and surmised he was on the autism spectrum. “This blew up my entire construct of how I thought life was supposed to go,” says Sytske. Realizing her son might not serve a mission or even live on his own really changed Sytske. “I started asking questions I’d never asked before that had answers different from all the ones I’d been given since Primary. Questions like ‘what does life look like for him? How does he grow and become celestial’?”
Sytske’s older boys, who were 12 and 10 at the time, would say this was “the year mom changed.” The self-described helicopter, controlling parent stepped back and considered her kids for the first time as individuals with their own ideas and potential, not as people to be programmed to fit into a mold. “When I went through that experience and saw the box-checking I’d been doing, a voice went through my head that said, ‘You didn’t come here for this, to just fall in line and go through the motions’.”
Sytske credits this as the moment she decided to really get to know her kids and herself and uncover the shame she had not yet allowed herself to feel for the past 20 years. Sytske felt ready to deal with it. And it was a lot.
Three years later, in 2014, Sytske finally felt ready to acknowledge the attractions she’d had since those early college days. She came out to both herself and her husband. But she wasn’t ready to acknowledge her feelings publicly for six more years. Behind the scenes, Sytske and her husband sought marriage counseling for problems they were finally able to identify more authentically, and they both eventually concurred the marriage was not salvageable, though it took Sytske longer to get there than her husband. At the time, she was also battling the constant impressions she was receiving that to fully heal, she would need to explore the future possibility of dating women. “It was a wrestle because I was a very faithful member, and the shame kept eating at me.”
After she and her husband separated, Sytske asked for a priesthood blessing from her best friend’s son who had just returned from his mission and thought of her as a second mom. In it, he paused and said words Sytske sensed were divinely inspired, especially as she had not mentioned her private wrestle aloud to him. He said, “It’s difficult for us to be seeking for an answer and not find one, or not accept an answer that is given to us.” With this, it hit Sytske that it was indeed God telling her to date women. As she still struggled, feeling like she was fighting between what’s right and wrong, Sytske would reflect on Elder Uchtdorf’s quote: “We can block the growth and knowledge our Heavenly Father intends for us. How often has the Holy Spirit tried to tell us something we needed to know but couldn't get past the massive iron gate of what we thought we already knew?” Eventually, Sytske surmised the gate was now wide open, and she was able to clear her mental block and accept dating women without feeling it was wrong.
Sytske attended Northstar in early 2022, which was the first time she put herself out there in the LGBTQ+ space. At her first meeting in March, she met a woman named Angela. In May, Angela opened up and shared that she had experienced a similar life path as Sytske—marriage to a man, motherhood, and trying to do “all the things.” The spirit nudged Sytske to go talk to her; the two have been a couple ever since. Angela has since moved from Iowa to Utah with her children to be closer to Sytske, and the two go back and forth between their homes, their children now friends. Sytske has since found her spiritual home to be most comfortable with the LGBTQ+ affirming LDS group, Emmaus LGBTQ Ministry, who shortly after she started attending their FHE online group, invited Sytske to join their board. She loves working alongside founders, John Gustav-Wrathall, Erika Munson, and Valerie Green, to prepare devotionals and finds this to be her self-appointed calling, as her current ward has deemed her role as a single mother to a high needs child as busy enough. (Shortly after they divorced, Sytske’s ex-husband passed away, so she now has full custody of her kids.)
While at dinner on her oldest son’s 16th birthday, Sytske told him, “I have something I want to tell you. I’m gay.” He casually replied, “Oh, cool. I’m straight.” Sytske recognizes his nonchalance as a likely product of the fact that they had moved from Utah for a few years to a more progressive region in Oregon, where her kids had several friends at school with two moms or two dads. She also said his easy acceptance might not have been the same back when they were younger and Sytske was not the same mom. “Because I had spent so much time over the years getting to know my kids, they reciprocated and were very accepting. We talk openly about things; it’s in their nature to be open-minded.”
When Sytske started to come out to her Oregon ward, the bishop called Sytske just to check on her, with no attempts to discipline, which she thought was nice. She’d taught Relief Society for four years, and while the RS President was fine with Sytske mentioning her orientation in class, the bishop said he’d prefer she do a special fifth Sunday lesson on LGBTQ+ rather than “spring it on unknowing people in the ward.” This didn’t happen in Oregon, and while Sytske felt somewhat silenced there, when she moved back to Utah, she was touched by her new bishop’s warmth. Upon coming out to him, he said, “I’m so glad you moved into our ward; will you help me teach a fifth Sunday lesson?” In Provo, she says she’s felt not only included, but needed. Angela and Sytske take turns attending each other’s wards, where they feel welcome at both. Sytske honors her ward dynamic as something that “supports me instead of something I have to feel like I show up to ready to defend my community.”
While Sytske’s parents are now in their 80s and “it’s been a slower process for them to understand,” she credits her coming out as a state of self-acceptance that has transformed family gatherings from a space that once brought her anxiety to now being one in which all of her siblings, nieces, and nephews (some of whom are atheist and many of whom are nuanced LDS) can talk about hard things and disagree, but still love each other no matter what. Sytske says, “I used to blame my family for feeling I didn’t belong, like, ‘Why are they like this?’; but once I became myself, I started to feel I did belong and could love them more, because I now felt more like myself.”
A lover of volleyball, snowboarding, and playing the guitar, Sytske relishes activities that help ground her body and make her feel alive, much like how living authentically has done. “It’s so weird how I now finally feel peace, doing things I was told only lead to misery. I’m a huge advocate of following personal revelation, because no one else will know what your path is besides you, Jesus, and God. I often tell people to really get to know God and Jesus, because I think the ideas we have of them are not always accurate.” Sytske is grateful to have shed the days where she feared rejection and condemnation and instead got to know Them. “Whatever we know Jesus’ character to be, God’s is even more loving and inclusive. They’re not on opposite spectrums. I am no longer ashamed of myself and afraid to approach them, I can feel their presence. That’s why I’m able to go on, do all the work I do with Emmaus, and participate in church functions even when it’s hard to be in spaces I don’t always feel belonging and acceptance.” She continues, “I encourage everyone to ask God how He feels about you – you won’t be let down. We have so much turmoil in mortality, but there’s a peace that wipes that all away when you’re able to receive the love and grace that is freely poured into you.”
