Ex-Mormon resources for life after Mormonism

The easy way, the DIY way, and the "maybe not yet" way.

Free, attorney-handled records removal. Skip the bishop meeting entirely. Skip it so hard.

The honest pros and cons, with no pressure either way. Your timeline is yours.

The practical one. Deciding whether to leave, telling your family, protecting your mental health, and how to order coffee without looking like a missionary on P-day.

Heads up: Links to her Wikipedia page: her own site has no book page yet.

The original survival guide for leaving a high-control religion, from the psychologist who named Religious Trauma Syndrome. Written for ex-fundamentalists, but you will recognize basically all of it.

Not about the LDS church

A free, readable explainer on why leaving can feel like your whole operating system crashed: the symptoms, the causes, and what recovery looks like.

A therapist's trauma-informed guide to what high-control religion does to your nervous system and how to actually heal from it. Gentle, clear, and not trying to sell you a new church.

Heads up: Published by a Christian imprint, but it is about healing, not about getting you back into a pew.

The classic on undue influence from a former Moonie turned counselor. Useful for seeing how control works, whatever you decide to call the group that did it.

Heads up: Uses the word "cult" freely, which can sting for family still in. Take the ideas, skip the label if you need to.

A checklist of Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotional control. Read it once and garments, tithing interviews and 'don't read anti-Mormon literature' start making a different kind of sense.

Heads up: Uses the word "cult" freely, which can sting for family still in. Take the ideas, skip the label if you need to. The PDF download may ask for an email address.

A sociologist and a therapist on how high-demand groups pull people in and what recovery takes afterward. Thorough, practical, and kind to the reader.

Heavy topic

A third-generation Jehovah's Witness missionary loses her faith while preaching in Shanghai and has to build a life from zero. Different church, extremely familiar feelings.

Not about the LDS churchHeavy topic

Raised by survivalist Mormon parents in Idaho with no school and no doctors, she taught herself enough to get into BYU and kept going. About education, family loyalty, and what it costs to see your childhood clearly.

Heavy topic

Heads up: Her family was a fringe survivalist household, not a typical Latter-day Saint home.

Four-part docuseries following Lena and Sal, two Latter-day Saint moms who fell in love, left the church and their marriages, and planned a wedding. Leaving, but with a happy ending attached.

Paywall

Heads up: Streams on Hulu (also listed on Disney+).

A young woman flees her Hasidic community in Brooklyn for Berlin. The community, rules and family pressure are different from ours; the walk out the door is the same walk.

Not about the LDS churchExplicitPaywall

The Neon Trees frontman's first solo single after leaving the church over the 2015 policy on same-sex families. A breakup album with an institution, and he means it.

Heads up: The video shows temple signs and spitting on an altered image of Joseph Smith. Believing family will find it very offensive, and some exmos will too.

An anthropologist spent a decade with ex-Mormons in Utah and documented the 'world collapse' of losing a faith you were fully committed to. Proof it is not just you, with footnotes.

Academic

Interview study finding that devout members usually leave slowly, through a chain of pivotal moments, while rebuilding their emotional lives. Women also had to unlearn internalized misogyny on the way out.

Academic

Survey research on younger members and former members: who leaves, why, and what they say about women's roles, LGBTQ+ treatment and race. Numbers for when someone says 'nobody leaves for real reasons'.

Academic

Heads up: The author is a practicing member. It is survey research, not advocacy either way.

Peer support hotline and chat for people leaving any faith.

Volunteer-run, LGBTQ+ affirming support groups and events for anyone in a faith crisis, a mixed-faith marriage, or life after a high-demand religion. Find a group near you, see upcoming events, or start a group or host an event in your area. Associated with Mormon Stories.

Heads up: Group leaders are volunteers, not therapists. In a crisis, call or text 988.

Religious trauma recovery from the psychologist who named Religious Trauma Syndrome: coaching, an online support group, books and videos.

Not about the LDS church

Research, articles, and recovery workshops on psychological abuse in high-control groups, including a library sorted by topic.

The endorsement rules, what resigning does to your enrollment, what you keep, timing, and where to transfer. The only syllabus at a church school that admits it has a prerequisite.

Meeting people, blocking, reporting, and the rules we hold everyone to.

An interactive, step-by-step safety plan covering home, work, kids, tech, and your own wellbeing. It does not store what you type, and there is a quick exit button.

Heads up: Use a device the other person cannot monitor. Work and school devices may be watched.

A free, research-built app that asks private questions about your relationship, helps you gauge danger, and builds a safety plan that fits you. It has a PIN, a decoy code, and a changeable icon.

Heads up: Someone who checks your phone could find the app. Use a device they cannot access.

A safety plan built for dating relationships, especially for younger people and anyone dating for the first time as an adult.

The book many survivors say finally made it make sense. A counselor who worked with abusive men for years explains how they think, the early warning signs, and why it is never your fault.

Heavy topic

The book that named coercive control: abuse that works through isolation, monitoring, and micromanaging your life rather than bruises. Academic, but it gives you the words for what happened.

AcademicHeavy topic

A case for trusting your gut. Useful for people raised to override their own instincts and be nice to everyone, especially when meeting strangers, dating, or dealing with someone who will not take no.

Heavy topic

Plain guides on phone and account safety, location sharing, stalkerware, and documenting online harassment. Good reading before you change passwords or move out.

How to tell if someone may have put tracking software on your phone, and why it is often safer to make a plan before removing it.

Heads up: Removing stalkerware can alert whoever installed it. Read their guidance first.

Practical privacy guides on secure messaging, passwords, two-factor login, and locking down social accounts. Useful if you want to keep your exit private until you are ready.

Free 24/7 help (1-844-878-2274) if intimate images of you were shared or threatened without consent, including sextortion. They help with documenting, takedowns, and attorney referrals.

Heavy topic

State-by-state legal information on protective orders, custody, and divorce, written by lawyers, plus a free confidential email hotline. Open to anyone, any gender.

Free civil legal help for Utahns with low incomes, including protective orders, divorce, and custody.

Utah's statewide domestic violence network. The 24/7 LINKLine, 1-800-897-5465, connects you to local shelter, counseling, advocacy, and protective order help.

Utah's sexual assault coalition, with a directory of local rape crisis centers and advocates who can walk with you through reporting, or not reporting.

Heavy topic

Peer support for people sexually abused in any religious setting, not only Catholic. Independent of every church, with local chapters and online groups.

Heavy topic

The AP investigation into the church's abuse help line, where lawyers told a bishop not to report a father abusing his child. Essential context for why you should report abuse to police or child protective services directly.

Heavy topic

Heads up: The church disputes the reporting. AP has not retracted it.

A state-by-state summary of whether clergy must report child abuse and when clergy-penitent privilege applies. Useful for knowing what your bishop is and is not required to do.

A peer-reviewed paper defining spiritual abuse: control through scripture, obligation to leaders, enforced secrecy, and coercion dressed up as faith. Helps validate an experience people often get told is not real.

AcademicPaywall

Research, articles, and recovery workshops on psychological abuse in high-control groups, including a library sorted by topic.

Four-part series on Warren Jeffs and the FLDS, told by people who escaped. A different church from the LDS one, but a clear look at how religious authority gets used to hide abuse.

Heavy topicNot about the LDS churchPaywall

Heads up: The FLDS is a separate church from the LDS one.

The classic on undue influence from a former Moonie turned counselor. Useful for seeing how control works, whatever you decide to call the group that did it.

Heads up: Uses the word "cult" freely, which can sting for family still in. Take the ideas, skip the label if you need to.

A checklist of Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotional control. Read it once and garments, tithing interviews and 'don't read anti-Mormon literature' start making a different kind of sense.

Heads up: Uses the word "cult" freely, which can sting for family still in. Take the ideas, skip the label if you need to. The PDF download may ask for an email address.

A sociologist and a therapist on how high-demand groups pull people in and what recovery takes afterward. Thorough, practical, and kind to the reader.

Heavy topic

Shame, identity, and the sex ed "For the Strength of Youth" skipped.

Find a certified sex therapist. Zero chance they ask about your garments.

A sex researcher explains the orgasm gap, the anatomy your youth leaders never named, and how to close the gap. Turns out the clitoris was not covered in For the Strength of Youth.

Explicit

The book that tells you you are normal, with science. Explains brakes and accelerators, why shame slams the brakes, and why nothing about you is broken.

Explicit

Heads up: The link is her free worksheets for the book. The book itself is in every library.

Nagoski's follow-up for couples: how long-term partners keep wanting each other. Spoiler: it is not 'schedule it after FHE.'

Explicit

Memoir plus twelve years of interviews with women raised in evangelical purity culture. Swap the purity ring for a chewed-gum object lesson and it will feel very familiar.

Not about the LDS churchHeavy topic

A tattooed Lutheran pastor takes apart church sexual shame from the inside. Christian, yes, but the opposite of a bishop's interview.

Believing perspective

A sex therapist on how conservative religious messaging plants sexual shame and how to dig it back out. Her site also has a free sexual shame self-assessment.

Believing perspective

A UBC sex researcher's mindfulness program for low desire, built on clinical trials. Gets you out of your head, where the Young Women manual still lives rent-free.

Radical self-love for bodies that spent years being covered, measured, and apologized for. Shoulders are allowed now.

Why safety and desire pull in opposite directions in long marriages. Required reading for couples who married at 21 because it was that or nothing.

A clinical psychologist argues that 'sex addiction' is mostly morality wearing a lab coat. Useful counterweight if you were told twice-a-month porn made you an addict.

One-sided

Heads up: Argues one side of a live clinical debate. The Grubbs research below is the other half of the picture.

Feeling 'addicted' to porn tracked most strongly with religiousness and moral conflict, not just how much people actually watched. Free to read.

Academic

The meta-analysis behind the idea that a lot of 'porn addiction' is really the distress of breaking your own (or your church's) rules.

AcademicPaywall

A survey of 5,489 Christian women linked purity culture beliefs to more sexual pain and less satisfaction. Data for what your body already told you.

AcademicPaywallNot about the LDS church

A historian traces how LDS teaching on sex and gender has shifted since WWII. Useful when someone says it has always been this way. It has not.

Academic

Three-episode docuseries on women's pleasure: bodies, minds, relationships. The sex ed seminary should have been.

ExplicitPaywall

A comedy about a teen sex-advice clinic that accidentally teaches adults more than a decade of youth firesides did.

ExplicitPaywall

A love song aimed squarely at an institution that calls love and sex sin. Many people's first un-ashamed anthem.

Heavy topic

Heads up: The official video shows a homophobic hate attack.

Reports on an 8,500-person survey of current and former members about garments, body image, and sex. If you thought it was just you, it was not.

Fifty minutes on LDS sexual teaching, recorded when the church went after a sex therapist for saying masturbation is fine. Calm, sourced, and Utah public radio.

An AASECT-certified sex therapist who was excommunicated for saying sex is healthy. Therapy, groups, and the Mormon Sex Info podcast for people healing from purity culture.

Free, inclusive, plain-language sex ed. Written for teens and young adults, but plenty of grown ex-Mormons are learning it here for the first time, no shame.

Explicit

Research-based video guides to women's pleasure, from studies with thousands of women. Pricey, practical, very not-church.

ExplicitPaywall

What garments do to how people feel about their bodies and their sex lives, and how a couple can talk about it when only one of them still wears them.

Believing perspective

Built on a survey of more than 4,500 members, a study of what garments mean to the people who wear them and how they work as control around sexuality and gender.

Academic

Crisis support for LGBTQ+ young people, 24/7, by call, text, or chat. Real humans, no lectures.

Research-based help for families learning to support their LGBTQ+ kids. Good one to send to parents who are trying.

Community for LGBTQ+ people with Mormon roots, wherever they landed.

Moms of LGBTQ+ kids who will fight anyone for them. Send your mom.

LGBTQ+ rec leagues in Salt Lake (10+ sports, all year), low-cost and beginner-friendly, plus free socials like board game nights. Allies welcome. Kickball with zero priesthood involvement.

Not about the LDS church

Homes in Provo, Salt Lake City, Ogden and St. George where LGBTQ+ youth, young adults and families get community, weekly programs, friendship circles and affirming therapy.

Not about the LDS church

Salt Lake's LGBTQ+ community center: peer support groups, game nights, square dancing, an LGBTQ+ NA meeting, and education for allies.

Not about the LDS church

Northern Utah nonprofit with youth outreach, Queer Connections socials, a college alliance, a seniors group, a queer dance night, and the Ogden Pride Festival.

Not about the LDS church

A Salt Lake men's choir for 40+ years, a member of the GALA Choruses network, open to men 18+ of any orientation or gender identity. You already know all the parts from sacrament meeting.

Not about the LDS church

Nonprofit counseling for LGBTQIA+ people, couples and families in Orem, South Jordan, Salt Lake and by video, with donor-funded reduced-cost sessions.

Not about the LDS church

Statewide advocacy for fair treatment of LGBTQ Utahns and their families, at the legislature and the ballot box. Policy, not a social group.

Not about the LDS church

Boise's LGBTQIA+ community space since 1983: support groups, events, a lending library and a food pantry.

Not about the LDS church

Arizona (Phoenix, Mesa, Gilbert, Flagstaff and more): social and support programs for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults, ages 11 to 24.

Not about the LDS church

Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds, raised LDS, takes a hard look at how the church treats its LGBTQ+ members and throws a festival in Orem about it. Earnest, loud, and full of real Utah families.

Believing perspectiveHeavy topicPaywall

Heads up: The link is the official trailer. The film streams on HBO Max.

How the church organized money and volunteers behind California's Prop 8, and what that did to gay members and their families. Angry, pointed, and well sourced on the receipts.

One-sided

Heads up: Hard to find streaming now. The link is the American Library Association review.

A brash gay activist and a tiny Salt Lake law firm take on Utah's same-sex marriage ban and somehow win. Utah history with a happy ending, which is rarer than it should be.

A short film about Wendy and Tom Montgomery, devout LDS parents who campaigned for Prop 8 and then learned their 13-year-old son was gay. Watch them choose their kid.

Believing perspectiveHeavy topic

A short, tender film about Eri Hayward, a trans woman from a Utah LDS family, filmed just before her surgery. Her parents show up for her. Fifteen minutes, free, worth it.

Believing perspective

Fifty years of church policy on homosexuality, from Hawaii to Prop 8 to the 2015 exclusion policy, built from 50,000 pages of records and interviews. Short chapters, big receipts.

Stories of LDS families who lost gay loved ones to suicide, estrangement, and broken marriages, alongside families who stayed close. Pearson's own gay husband story (Goodbye, I Love You, 1986) is where it starts.

Believing perspectiveHeavy topic

A graphic memoir about a man who did the whole prescribed path (mission, marriage, kids) expecting it to make him straight, then came out at 32 and built a life as a gay dad. Hard parts, good ending.

Heavy topic

Plain-language answers to the questions parents are too nervous to ask out loud, from 'did I cause this' to 'what do I say to Grandma.' No doctrine required.

The go-to handbook for parents of trans and nonbinary kids: development, school, mental health, medical decisions, and how to actually be on their side.

Survey of 1,612 current and former LDS members with same-sex attraction. Mixed-orientation marriages had a 51% divorce rate, projected to reach 69%, and same-sex marriage and leaving the church tracked with better wellbeing.

Academic

Most LDS respondents tried to change their orientation, usually for years and through church methods. It did not work, and the religious methods were rated the most harmful. Fasting harder was not the missing step.

AcademicHeavy topic

The landmark Family Acceptance Project study: highly rejected LGB young people were more than 8 times as likely to attempt suicide. The single most useful number to show a parent.

AcademicHeavy topic

Annual survey of LGBTQ+ youth. Supportive homes and respected pronouns cut suicide attempt rates sharply, and only 5% said their place of worship felt supportive.

Heavy topic

Peer support for straight spouses and partners of trans people after a partner comes out. A real human calls you back, which is more than most of us got from the bishop.

Not about the LDS church

The original group for parents, families, and allies of LGBTQ+ people, with local chapters and virtual groups, including ones for grandparents and parents of trans kids.

Not about the LDS church

Sivan wrote it about being fifteen and in the closet, wondering whether being gay meant giving up love, family and heaven. The video sets it to real Pride, wedding and protest footage, Harvey Milk included.

Four-part docuseries following Lena and Sal, two Latter-day Saint moms who fell in love, left the church and their marriages, and planned a wedding. Leaving, but with a happy ending attached.

Paywall

Heads up: Streams on Hulu (also listed on Disney+).

The Neon Trees frontman's first solo single after leaving the church over the 2015 policy on same-sex families. A breakup album with an institution, and he means it.

Heads up: The video shows temple signs and spitting on an altered image of Joseph Smith. Believing family will find it very offensive, and some exmos will too.

A historian traces how LDS teaching on sex and gender has shifted since WWII. Useful when someone says it has always been this way. It has not.

Academic

A love song aimed squarely at an institution that calls love and sex sin. Many people's first un-ashamed anthem.

Heavy topic

Heads up: The official video shows a homophobic hate attack.

A 64-page pocket book that takes 'gender is an eternal characteristic' and gently pulls the thread. Short, kind, and readable in one sitting.

Not about the LDS church

A small-town church girl moves to the city to dance, and her mom doesn't get it. Play it the first time you wear what you want.

A comedy special that starts as stand-up and then quits comedy on stage, on purpose. You will laugh, then you will sit very still.

Heavy topicPaywall

You're judged if you do and judged if you don't, so do what you want. Kiss the girls if that's your thing. Sardonic, sweet, and a little bit 'roll up a joint.'

A profile of USGA, the unofficial LGBTQ+ student group at BYU, which marched at Pride in 2024.

What to order first, what the words mean, and why not to have a venti at 4pm.

The stuff most people learned at 19 by making mistakes. You get notes.

The free federal guide to what a standard drink actually is, how much is a lot, and how to tell if it is getting away from you. Calculators included, judgment not.

Free, confidential, 24/7 treatment referral and information for substance use, in English and Spanish. 1-800-662-4357.

Science-based, secular mutual-help meetings for addiction, online and in person, with no higher power required. Has a separate program for family and friends.

The official word on how much caffeine is fine for most adults (about 400 mg a day) and what too much feels like. Read before your third cold brew.

A former World Barista Champion explains buying beans, grinding, brewing, and espresso without making you feel dumb for asking. Thirty years of lost coffee time, compressed into one book.

Free, calm, extremely thorough coffee videos from a guy who will test 12 grinders so you do not have to. Start with his beginner brewing videos.

A friendly walk through the six kinds of tea (green, white, yellow, oolong, black, pu-erh) and how to brew each. Herbal tea was never the forbidden one, it turns out.

Wine explained with color-coded charts and maps instead of snobbery. Learn what you like and how to order it without panicking at the list.

Beer styles, flavor, and how to actually taste the stuff, from a writer the Cicerone program recommends. Fewer frat-party lessons required.

Four guys cram for the Master Sommelier exam, one of the hardest tests anywhere. Studying this hard used to be reserved for seminary.

What can go wrong with tattoo ink (infections, allergic reactions) and how to lower the odds. Read it before the appointment, not after.

The industry safety group's checklist for finding a clean, competent piercer: sterilization, jewelry quality, what to ask. One pair of earrings is no longer the limit.

A historian traces swearing from ancient Rome to now, including how oaths were once worse than obscenities. Turns out 'oh my heck' has a long tradition behind it.

Volunteers kept their hands in ice water longer when they were allowed to swear. Science says stubbing your toe and yelling 'fudge' was leaving pain relief on the table.

AcademicPaywall

An artist makes the case for unscheduled time, birdwatching, and paying attention to where you are. Good reading for your first Sunday with nowhere to be.

Peer support hotline and chat for people leaving any faith.

Find a therapist who will not suggest you pray about it.

Volunteer-run, LGBTQ+ affirming support groups and events for anyone in a faith crisis, a mixed-faith marriage, or life after a high-demand religion. Find a group near you, see upcoming events, or start a group or host an event in your area. Associated with Mormon Stories.

Heads up: Group leaders are volunteers, not therapists. In a crisis, call or text 988.

Religious trauma recovery from the psychologist who named Religious Trauma Syndrome: coaching, an online support group, books and videos.

Not about the LDS church

If you spent years re-confessing, re-praying, or terrified you took the sacrament unworthily, that might have been OCD wearing a white shirt. This page explains scrupulosity and the treatment that works.

A hands-on workbook for unwanted thoughts and compulsions, from two OCD clinicians. Covers moral and existential obsessions, which is where scrupulosity likes to live.

Not about the LDS church

Free guided meditations and exercises from the researcher who made self-compassion a field of study. Practice being as kind to yourself as you were told to be to everyone else.

Grief for losses that never get a funeral: the eternal family plan, the version of you that was going to be sealed, the parent who is right there but cannot really see you. Boss coined the term.

Not about the LDS church

Twenty minutes on the difference between guilt ('I did something bad') and shame ('I am bad'). A culture built on worthiness interviews taught a lot of us the second one.

A peer-reviewed paper describing the depression, anxiety and 'world collapse' many ex-Mormons go through, and why standard counseling often misses it.

AcademicPaywallHeavy topic

A national survey estimating that roughly a quarter to a third of U.S. adults have experienced religious trauma at some point. You are, statistically, in a crowded room.

Academic

Heads up: A small journal, and the method has critics. Not Mormon-specific.

The widely read book on how trauma lives in the body and what helps, from talk therapy to yoga to EMDR.

Heavy topicNot about the LDS church

Nonprofit counseling for LGBTQIA+ people, couples and families in Orem, South Jordan, Salt Lake and by video, with donor-funded reduced-cost sessions.

Not about the LDS church

The original survival guide for leaving a high-control religion, from the psychologist who named Religious Trauma Syndrome. Written for ex-fundamentalists, but you will recognize basically all of it.

Not about the LDS church

A free, readable explainer on why leaving can feel like your whole operating system crashed: the symptoms, the causes, and what recovery looks like.

A therapist's trauma-informed guide to what high-control religion does to your nervous system and how to actually heal from it. Gentle, clear, and not trying to sell you a new church.

Heads up: Published by a Christian imprint, but it is about healing, not about getting you back into a pew.

A checklist of Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotional control. Read it once and garments, tithing interviews and 'don't read anti-Mormon literature' start making a different kind of sense.

Heads up: Uses the word "cult" freely, which can sting for family still in. Take the ideas, skip the label if you need to. The PDF download may ask for an email address.

An anthropologist spent a decade with ex-Mormons in Utah and documented the 'world collapse' of losing a faith you were fully committed to. Proof it is not just you, with footnotes.

Academic

Interview study finding that devout members usually leave slowly, through a chain of pivotal moments, while rebuilding their emotional lives. Women also had to unlearn internalized misogyny on the way out.

Academic

Annual survey of LGBTQ+ youth. Supportive homes and respected pronouns cut suicide attempt rates sharply, and only 5% said their place of worship felt supportive.

Heavy topic

The free federal guide to what a standard drink actually is, how much is a lot, and how to tell if it is getting away from you. Calculators included, judgment not.

Free, confidential, 24/7 treatment referral and information for substance use, in English and Spanish. 1-800-662-4357.

Science-based, secular mutual-help meetings for addiction, online and in person, with no higher power required. Has a separate program for family and friends.

Two body-image researchers from Utah (yes, they know about the modesty lessons) on getting out of your own mirror. Practical, warm, and backed by actual research.

The largest study yet on LDS teaching and body image: 126 interviews and 1,333 surveys. Includes the billboard that says 'God's remodeling His temple.' Utah, never change. Actually, please change.

AcademicBelieving perspective

A religious trauma therapist on why the holidays can hurt for years after you leave, with practical tips: small choices, boundaries decided in advance, and a support network.

Not about the LDS church

CAPS says it does not share client information with parents, professors, ecclesiastical leaders or the Honor Code Office without your written consent. Counseling for BYU students.

A free crisis chat and tip line app for Utah K-12 students, college students, parents and school staff.

Heads up: Utah only, so not for BYU-Idaho or BYU-Hawaii. Tips (not chats) can be passed to your school.

The questions that broke a lot of shelves. Free to read.

Straight from the source. The church wrote these. Really. Footnotes and all.

Believing perspective

The big Joseph Smith biography by a believing Columbia historian who still put the seer stone, the treasure digging, and the plural wives on the page. If a TBM relative will read one history book, it's probably this one.

Believing perspective

The 1945 biography that got its author excommunicated. Sharp, readable, and still the classic skeptical take on Joseph Smith.

One-sided

Emma Smith, mostly written out of the Utah version of the story, gets her own biography. Turns out she had opinions about polygamy.

Biographies of at least thirty-three women married to Joseph Smith, told from their own diaries and letters. Long, careful, and not the version from the manual.

Heavy topic

The whole polygamy arc in one book: Nauvoo secrecy, Utah, the 1890 Manifesto, the quiet marriages after it, and the fundamentalists who kept going.

A longtime church seminary and institute teacher lays out what he learned about the Book of Mormon, the witnesses, and the First Vision. The church disciplined him for it, which tracks.

One-sided

A recent one-volume history from 1775 to 2023, written for normal humans. The best place to start if you want the whole sweep without a 700-page biography.

Scans and transcripts of the actual documents: revelations, journals, the First Vision accounts, the Book of Abraham papyri. Free. Go see for yourself.

Believing perspective

Krakauer uses the 1984 Lafferty murders to dig into Mormon fundamentalism and early church history. Gripping, and very much a true-crime book.

Heavy topicOne-sided

Heads up: True crime about fundamentalists. Many historians call its line back to early church history overstated.

A faithful Latter-day Saint historian from southern Utah wrote the first honest account of the 1857 massacre, when nobody official wanted it written. Still the classic.

Heavy topic

Three episodes on Mark Hofmann, the forger who fooled church leaders with fake documents, then set off bombs in Salt Lake City in 1985 to cover it up.

Heavy topicPaywall

A four-hour PBS documentary that interviews believers, historians, and people who left. Calm, even-handed, and a decent thing to watch with a family member who's still in.

The federal government's own write-up: Ensign Peak used shell companies to hide a $32 billion stock portfolio, with the church's knowledge. $5 million in fines. Not a rumor, a press release.

Former Ensign Peak portfolio manager David Nielsen explains the roughly $100 billion fund on national TV, and a church bishop pushes back.

Allegations

Survey research on younger members and former members: who leaves, why, and what they say about women's roles, LGBTQ+ treatment and race. Numbers for when someone says 'nobody leaves for real reasons'.

Academic

Heads up: The author is a practicing member. It is survey research, not advocacy either way.

Fifty years of church policy on homosexuality, from Hawaii to Prop 8 to the 2015 exclusion policy, built from 50,000 pages of records and interviews. Short chapters, big receipts.

A Pulitzer-winning historian reads the diaries, letters, and quilts of early Mormon women who lived polygamy and also voted early. Polygamy is not sanded down, and the women get to be complicated people instead of props.

Believing perspective

A Virginia housewife co-founded Mormons for ERA, testified to the Senate, and was excommunicated in December 1979. Her book about it: From Housewife to Heretic (1981).

Heads up: That the ERA was the real reason is her account and her supporters' account. The church's stated charges were different.

The actual order, not the spin. From 1997 to 2019 Ensign Peak skipped the required 13F filings and instead filed through 13 LLCs created, per the SEC, for the sole purpose of keeping the church's stock holdings out of public view. The SEC says the First Presidency approved it. $5M total penalty.

Heads up: A settled order: the church and Ensign Peak neither admitted nor denied the findings.

A historian excommunicated in 1993 (one of the September Six) spent years in the money records. 597 pages, 21 appendices, from a cash-strapped church to a global conglomerate.

Heads up: The link is a 54-minute Utah Public Radio interview about the book, not the book itself.

The definitive book on Masons and Mormons: why they were joined at the hip in Nauvoo, how the endowment borrowed from the lodge, and the century-long cold war after. A lawyer-historian with receipts.

Academic

How the endowment grew from Kirtland foot washings to Nauvoo to the version you sat through, traced through diaries and letters. Turns out "never changes" had a lot of drafts.

The primary sources themselves: apostles' diaries, Quorum minutes, First Presidency letters about the temple, 1846 to 2000. Skip the commentary and read the memos.

Uses adult development research to frame a faith crisis as growth instead of failure. Good one to hand a believing parent who keeps asking what they did wrong.

Believing perspective

The best general guide to a marriage where one of you believes and one of you doesn't. Talk about values, not doctrine, and you may find you agree on more than the bishop predicted.

Not about the LDS church

Essays on raising good, curious kids without a church doing half the moral instruction. Covers death, holidays, and what to say when Grandma asks about baptism.

A book for believing family and local leaders on how to love someone who questions without trying to fix them. Survey-based, kind, and a decent thing to leave on a parent's nightstand.

Believing perspective

A therapist's plain guide to saying no and meaning it. Useful when 'just come to sacrament meeting, it's one hour' is said for the ninth time.

The family-specific follow-up to her boundaries book. How to spot old patterns, decide what relationship you actually want, and stop rehearsing the argument in the shower.

Not about the LDS church

From the Harvard Negotiation Project. How to have the 'I don't believe anymore' talk without it turning into a three-hour testimony meeting in your parents' kitchen.

Not about the LDS church

The book version of Emotionally Focused Therapy. When a faith crisis turns into a fight about whether you still feel safe with each other, this is the map back.

Not about the LDS church

For parents whose kid stepped away from the family faith: how to keep loving them without confusing control with care. A good one to send a believing parent.

Believing perspective

A short list for believing relatives: honor boundaries, skip the judgment, and plan family events that don't revolve around church. Short enough that they might actually read it.

Believing perspective

A family therapist on what to do when your parents keep texting about scheduling the grandkid's baptism. Covers boundaries, guilt, and making a choice your kid can understand later.

Not about the LDS church

Leaving religion tended to strain relationships with parents, and the key factor was how much warmth parents kept showing. The good news: mother-child relationships often recovered over time.

Not about the LDS church

Research-based help for families learning to support their LGBTQ+ kids. Good one to send to parents who are trying.

Moms of LGBTQ+ kids who will fight anyone for them. Send your mom.

Homes in Provo, Salt Lake City, Ogden and St. George where LGBTQ+ youth, young adults and families get community, weekly programs, friendship circles and affirming therapy.

Not about the LDS church

Raised by survivalist Mormon parents in Idaho with no school and no doctors, she taught herself enough to get into BYU and kept going. About education, family loyalty, and what it costs to see your childhood clearly.

Heavy topic

Heads up: Her family was a fringe survivalist household, not a typical Latter-day Saint home.

Four-part docuseries following Lena and Sal, two Latter-day Saint moms who fell in love, left the church and their marriages, and planned a wedding. Leaving, but with a happy ending attached.

Paywall

Heads up: Streams on Hulu (also listed on Disney+).

A short film about Wendy and Tom Montgomery, devout LDS parents who campaigned for Prop 8 and then learned their 13-year-old son was gay. Watch them choose their kid.

Believing perspectiveHeavy topic

A short, tender film about Eri Hayward, a trans woman from a Utah LDS family, filmed just before her surgery. Her parents show up for her. Fifteen minutes, free, worth it.

Believing perspective

Stories of LDS families who lost gay loved ones to suicide, estrangement, and broken marriages, alongside families who stayed close. Pearson's own gay husband story (Goodbye, I Love You, 1986) is where it starts.

Believing perspectiveHeavy topic

A graphic memoir about a man who did the whole prescribed path (mission, marriage, kids) expecting it to make him straight, then came out at 32 and built a life as a gay dad. Hard parts, good ending.

Heavy topic

Plain-language answers to the questions parents are too nervous to ask out loud, from 'did I cause this' to 'what do I say to Grandma.' No doctrine required.

The go-to handbook for parents of trans and nonbinary kids: development, school, mental health, medical decisions, and how to actually be on their side.

The landmark Family Acceptance Project study: highly rejected LGB young people were more than 8 times as likely to attempt suicide. The single most useful number to show a parent.

AcademicHeavy topic

Peer support for straight spouses and partners of trans people after a partner comes out. A real human calls you back, which is more than most of us got from the bishop.

Not about the LDS church

The original group for parents, families, and allies of LGBTQ+ people, with local chapters and virtual groups, including ones for grandparents and parents of trans kids.

Not about the LDS church

Grief for losses that never get a funeral: the eternal family plan, the version of you that was going to be sealed, the parent who is right there but cannot really see you. Boss coined the term.

Not about the LDS church

Free audio of a Sunstone panel of couples and therapists on staying married when you no longer share a church. The title is the whole thesis.

Interviews and a survey of believing spouses whose partner left. The ones who did best used forgiveness and closeness to turn toward their spouse, not moral superiority to turn away.

Academic

For the household where she still runs everything because that's what a 'righteous mother' does. A card game that makes invisible labor visible and divides it like adults.

Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy. The politest possible way to tell a ward busybody to back off.

The dinner prayer, the "are you still going?" question, temple weddings you wait outside of, Conference weekend, kids and Santa, and an exit plan. With a car as a boundary with cupholders.

Three parts with one family: a mixed-faith marriage, a parent sitting outside their own child's temple wedding, and what did and did not work when talking with believing relatives.

Most of the siblings wait outside the temple during their sister's sealing, so the family later holds its own outdoor ceremony that everyone can attend. A gentle, free personal essay about weddings across belief lines.

A novelist on holidays after her faith changed: being the one who always makes the compromises, and building a chosen family of friends for the season.

A feminist magazine and blog for Mormon women and gender minorities, running since 1974. Personal essays, poetry, and art from every point on the belief spectrum, including the far end.

The group that asked, politely and in public, for women to be ordained to the priesthood. Its founder was excommunicated for asking. Read the profiles for hundreds of women saying it in their own words.

Believing perspective

Forty-plus years of Mormon women arguing with the patriarchy, collected in one place. The best single map of where Mormon feminism came from and who carried it.

Academic

The 1992 anthology that dug up how much authority early Mormon women actually had, from a Relief Society built parallel to priesthood quorums to talk of a Mother in Heaven. Its editor was excommunicated in the 1993 purge for it.

Academic

A Pulitzer-winning historian reads the diaries, letters, and quilts of early Mormon women who lived polygamy and also voted early. Polygamy is not sanded down, and the women get to be complicated people instead of props.

Believing perspective

Built on a survey of 8,000+ Mormons and former Mormons, this book names the fear a lot of women carried quietly: that heaven might come with sister wives. Naming it helps.

Believing perspective

Two body-image researchers from Utah (yes, they know about the modesty lessons) on getting out of your own mirror. Practical, warm, and backed by actual research.

The largest study yet on LDS teaching and body image: 126 interviews and 1,333 surveys. Includes the billboard that says 'God's remodeling His temple.' Utah, never change. Actually, please change.

AcademicBelieving perspective

A survey of 1,862 Mormon feminists from the Pants Day and Ordain Women years, including what speaking up cost them. Spoiler: callings, friends, and a lot of patience.

Academic

In 2012, women wearing slacks to sacrament meeting made national news and drew death threats online. The church had no rule against pants. That was the whole point.

A good church woman wakes up to the patriarchy around her and goes looking for a version of the sacred that includes her. A classic for women whose faith shift started with the gender stuff.

Not about the LDS church

For the household where she still runs everything because that's what a 'righteous mother' does. A card game that makes invisible labor visible and divides it like adults.

For the men who were raised to preside and are tired of carrying it. hooks makes the case that patriarchy hurts men too, and that men can learn to feel and love on different terms.

Not about the LDS church

A 64-page pocket book that takes 'gender is an eternal characteristic' and gently pulls the thread. Short, kind, and readable in one sitting.

Not about the LDS church

A documentary about boys learning to 'man up' and what it costs them. Anyone who sat through a priesthood lesson on being a provider will recognize the script.

Heavy topicNot about the LDS church

A small-town church girl moves to the city to dance, and her mom doesn't get it. Play it the first time you wear what you want.

The double standard, set to a bop. Good for the day someone calls your ambition 'a phase.'

Interviews and essays from Latter-day Saint women, including a mixed-faith marriage series. Mostly faith-forward, so think of it as a window into how believing women talk about this.

Believing perspective

A sex researcher explains the orgasm gap, the anatomy your youth leaders never named, and how to close the gap. Turns out the clitoris was not covered in For the Strength of Youth.

Explicit

The book that tells you you are normal, with science. Explains brakes and accelerators, why shame slams the brakes, and why nothing about you is broken.

Explicit

Heads up: The link is her free worksheets for the book. The book itself is in every library.

Memoir plus twelve years of interviews with women raised in evangelical purity culture. Swap the purity ring for a chewed-gum object lesson and it will feel very familiar.

Not about the LDS churchHeavy topic

A UBC sex researcher's mindfulness program for low desire, built on clinical trials. Gets you out of your head, where the Young Women manual still lives rent-free.

Radical self-love for bodies that spent years being covered, measured, and apologized for. Shoulders are allowed now.

Three-episode docuseries on women's pleasure: bodies, minds, relationships. The sex ed seminary should have been.

ExplicitPaywall

Reports on an 8,500-person survey of current and former members about garments, body image, and sex. If you thought it was just you, it was not.

Emma Smith, mostly written out of the Utah version of the story, gets her own biography. Turns out she had opinions about polygamy.

Biographies of at least thirty-three women married to Joseph Smith, told from their own diaries and letters. Long, careful, and not the version from the manual.

Heavy topic

Part memoir, part feminist rant, all very loud. Her test for whether you're a feminist: do you have a vagina, and do you want to be in charge of it? Congratulations.

Explicit

Essays for anyone who loves pink, hates the patriarchy, and is tired of being told you have to pick one. Permission to be an imperfect feminist, granted.

Heavy topic

A painfully shy kid grows up into a woman who argues with comedians about rape jokes and talks back to trolls. Very funny, very fat-positive, very done being quiet.

Explicit

The essay that gave the world 'mansplaining' (she didn't coin the word, a man probably explained that to her). Opens with a guy explaining her own book to her. Funny, then not.

A 'busy working dad' gets all the advice women get. 'How to look great at the office AND remember your kids' names.' Flip the genders and the absurdity is suddenly obvious.

Heads up: Instagram may ask you to log in.

A comedy special that starts as stand-up and then quits comedy on stage, on purpose. You will laugh, then you will sit very still.

Heavy topicPaywall

Thirty minutes, free, and funnier than you'd expect. The talk Beyoncé sampled. Her definition of feminist is simple enough to text to your mom.

Crash test dummies, office thermostats, phone sizes, medical trials: the 'default human' is a man, and it shows. Infuriating in the most satisfying way.

A former Christian mommy blogger stops performing the good wife and starts listening to herself. Her line about being a caged cheetah lands hard for anyone raised on Proclamation-style roles.

Believing perspective

How media sells girls the idea that their value is their looks, and what that does to who runs things. The companion to The Mask You Live In.

One-sided

A Virginia housewife co-founded Mormons for ERA, testified to the Senate, and was excommunicated in December 1979. Her book about it: From Housewife to Heretic (1981).

Heads up: That the ERA was the real reason is her account and her supporters' account. The church's stated charges were different.

Marry young because everyone does, settle in, repeat. Musgraves called it 'anti-settling.' If you grew up in a ward full of 21-year-old brides, you already know every line.

A boss who takes the credit and the pay gap, set to a typewriter beat. From the movie where three women tie up their sexist boss. Dolly knew.

A 1963 pop song that says no, you can't tell me what to say or do, and means it. A feminist anthem before the word was trendy.

A short, sharp history of Mormon ritual: sealings, adoption, women's healing blessings, and how priesthood got redefined around 1900. Best Mormon Studies book of 2018 per the MHA.

AcademicBelieving perspective

The official essay on women, priesthood and the temple, including the Relief Society's Masonic-era start. Useful to have open when someone says "the church never said that."

Believing perspective

The 2023 revision: more Jesus, more egalitarian language, and the covenants now explained up front so first-timers can give informed consent. Which raises a question about everyone before 2023.

Paywall

January 2019: women stopped covenanting to hearken to their husbands, and Eve finally got more lines than Satan. Took until 2019.

Sleeveless garments arrived in 2025, after women asked for at least 15 years. The church cited humid climates. The women cited the 15 years.

Built on a survey of more than 4,500 members, a study of what garments mean to the people who wear them and how they work as control around sexuality and gender.

Academic

Part memoir, part feminist rant, all very loud. Her test for whether you're a feminist: do you have a vagina, and do you want to be in charge of it? Congratulations.

Explicit

Essays for anyone who loves pink, hates the patriarchy, and is tired of being told you have to pick one. Permission to be an imperfect feminist, granted.

Heavy topic

A painfully shy kid grows up into a woman who argues with comedians about rape jokes and talks back to trolls. Very funny, very fat-positive, very done being quiet.

Explicit

The essay that gave the world 'mansplaining' (she didn't coin the word, a man probably explained that to her). Opens with a guy explaining her own book to her. Funny, then not.

A fake women's magazine that sounds exactly like the real ones, which is the joke and also the problem. Headlines that read like a Young Women's lesson with the mask off.

Heads up: Satire. Some headlines read as real at a glance.

A 'busy working dad' gets all the advice women get. 'How to look great at the office AND remember your kids' names.' Flip the genders and the absurdity is suddenly obvious.

Heads up: Instagram may ask you to log in.

A comedy special that starts as stand-up and then quits comedy on stage, on purpose. You will laugh, then you will sit very still.

Heavy topicPaywall

Thirty minutes, free, and funnier than you'd expect. The talk Beyoncé sampled. Her definition of feminist is simple enough to text to your mom.

Crash test dummies, office thermostats, phone sizes, medical trials: the 'default human' is a man, and it shows. Infuriating in the most satisfying way.

The short, plain-language classic. Written so anyone could pick it up and understand it, which was the whole point.

A former Christian mommy blogger stops performing the good wife and starts listening to herself. Her line about being a caged cheetah lands hard for anyone raised on Proclamation-style roles.

Believing perspective

How media sells girls the idea that their value is their looks, and what that does to who runs things. The companion to The Mask You Live In.

One-sided

A Virginia housewife co-founded Mormons for ERA, testified to the Senate, and was excommunicated in December 1979. Her book about it: From Housewife to Heretic (1981).

Heads up: That the ERA was the real reason is her account and her supporters' account. The church's stated charges were different.

Marry young because everyone does, settle in, repeat. Musgraves called it 'anti-settling.' If you grew up in a ward full of 21-year-old brides, you already know every line.

You're judged if you do and judged if you don't, so do what you want. Kiss the girls if that's your thing. Sardonic, sweet, and a little bit 'roll up a joint.'

Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy. The politest possible way to tell a ward busybody to back off.

A boss who takes the credit and the pay gap, set to a typewriter beat. From the movie where three women tie up their sexist boss. Dolly knew.

A 1963 pop song that says no, you can't tell me what to say or do, and means it. A feminist anthem before the word was trendy.

Two best friends, one abusive husband, and some black-eyed peas. A murder ballad played as a cheerful singalong. Very dark, very funny, not advice.

Heavy topic

Heads up: Domestic violence played for dark comedy. If that is close to home, the Safety section is the better stop.

Memoir plus twelve years of interviews with women raised in evangelical purity culture. Swap the purity ring for a chewed-gum object lesson and it will feel very familiar.

Not about the LDS churchHeavy topic

A survey of 5,489 Christian women linked purity culture beliefs to more sexual pain and less satisfaction. Data for what your body already told you.

AcademicPaywallNot about the LDS church

A feminist magazine and blog for Mormon women and gender minorities, running since 1974. Personal essays, poetry, and art from every point on the belief spectrum, including the far end.

The group that asked, politely and in public, for women to be ordained to the priesthood. Its founder was excommunicated for asking. Read the profiles for hundreds of women saying it in their own words.

Believing perspective

Forty-plus years of Mormon women arguing with the patriarchy, collected in one place. The best single map of where Mormon feminism came from and who carried it.

Academic

The 1992 anthology that dug up how much authority early Mormon women actually had, from a Relief Society built parallel to priesthood quorums to talk of a Mother in Heaven. Its editor was excommunicated in the 1993 purge for it.

Academic

A Pulitzer-winning historian reads the diaries, letters, and quilts of early Mormon women who lived polygamy and also voted early. Polygamy is not sanded down, and the women get to be complicated people instead of props.

Believing perspective

Built on a survey of 8,000+ Mormons and former Mormons, this book names the fear a lot of women carried quietly: that heaven might come with sister wives. Naming it helps.

Believing perspective

Two body-image researchers from Utah (yes, they know about the modesty lessons) on getting out of your own mirror. Practical, warm, and backed by actual research.

A survey of 1,862 Mormon feminists from the Pants Day and Ordain Women years, including what speaking up cost them. Spoiler: callings, friends, and a lot of patience.

Academic

In 2012, women wearing slacks to sacrament meeting made national news and drew death threats online. The church had no rule against pants. That was the whole point.

For the household where she still runs everything because that's what a 'righteous mother' does. A card game that makes invisible labor visible and divides it like adults.

For the men who were raised to preside and are tired of carrying it. hooks makes the case that patriarchy hurts men too, and that men can learn to feel and love on different terms.

Not about the LDS church

A documentary about boys learning to 'man up' and what it costs them. Anyone who sat through a priesthood lesson on being a provider will recognize the script.

Heavy topicNot about the LDS church

A small-town church girl moves to the city to dance, and her mom doesn't get it. Play it the first time you wear what you want.

The double standard, set to a bop. Good for the day someone calls your ambition 'a phase.'

The official essay on women, priesthood and the temple, including the Relief Society's Masonic-era start. Useful to have open when someone says "the church never said that."

Believing perspective

January 2019: women stopped covenanting to hearken to their husbands, and Eve finally got more lines than Satan. Took until 2019.

Sleeveless garments arrived in 2025, after women asked for at least 15 years. The church cited humid climates. The women cited the 15 years.

Free audio of a Sunstone panel of couples and therapists on staying married when you no longer share a church. The title is the whole thesis.

Interviews and a survey of believing spouses whose partner left. The ones who did best used forgiveness and closeness to turn toward their spouse, not moral superiority to turn away.

Academic

A Utah occupational therapist turned coach, temple-married and now in a mixed-faith marriage herself. Faith transitions, mixed-faith marriage, and bridge-building from both sides. She also runs a free mixed-faith marriage masterclass.

Heads up: A coach, not a licensed mental health therapist. Instagram may ask you to log in.

Mixed-faith marriage coaching for both spouses, with a free mini course and a stay-or-go worksheet for the hardest stretch.

Heads up: One-on-one coaching is paid. The free mini course is a good first look.

About ten episodes from a Latter-day Saint therapist on marriages where one spouse believes and one does not. Both of you can listen to this one without anyone storming out.

Believing perspective

What garments do to how people feel about their bodies and their sex lives, and how a couple can talk about it when only one of them still wears them.

Believing perspective

A therapy practice in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, with a specialty in mixed-faith marriages and families.

Paywall

A sex therapist and a faith-crisis coach on keeping a marriage close when the church is no longer the thing you share.

Explicit

A couple walks through their top ten mistakes after one of them stopped believing. Learn from theirs, skip yours.

She stopped believing while he was serving in a ward leadership calling. How they kept talking through it.

Heads up: Her husband later left the church too, so the ending is not every couple's ending.

A neutral, university-extension take on a faith crisis inside a marriage. A safe one to send a believing spouse.

BYU researchers summarize what helps relationships survive a difference in belief. Written for believers, which is exactly who you might want to read it.

Believing perspective

Active Latter-day Saint women married to men who are not members, or who left. A window into how the believing spouse is living it.

Believing perspective

A Christian woman's memoir of her husband losing his faith and her figuring out how to stay married and stay herself. Not LDS, and not trying to convert anyone.

Believing perspectiveNot about the LDS church

Discernment counseling is a short process for couples where one is leaning out and one is leaning in: not fixing the marriage yet, just deciding what to do about it. This is the directory of trained counselors.

Not about the LDS church

Find a certified sex therapist. Zero chance they ask about your garments.

Volunteer-run, LGBTQ+ affirming support groups and events for anyone in a faith crisis, a mixed-faith marriage, or life after a high-demand religion. Find a group near you, see upcoming events, or start a group or host an event in your area. Associated with Mormon Stories.

Heads up: Group leaders are volunteers, not therapists. In a crisis, call or text 988.

Uses adult development research to frame a faith crisis as growth instead of failure. Good one to hand a believing parent who keeps asking what they did wrong.

Believing perspective

A four-hour PBS documentary that interviews believers, historians, and people who left. Calm, even-handed, and a decent thing to watch with a family member who's still in.

The best general guide to a marriage where one of you believes and one of you doesn't. Talk about values, not doctrine, and you may find you agree on more than the bishop predicted.

Not about the LDS church

A book for believing family and local leaders on how to love someone who questions without trying to fix them. Survey-based, kind, and a decent thing to leave on a parent's nightstand.

Believing perspective

From the Harvard Negotiation Project. How to have the 'I don't believe anymore' talk without it turning into a three-hour testimony meeting in your parents' kitchen.

Not about the LDS church

The book version of Emotionally Focused Therapy. When a faith crisis turns into a fight about whether you still feel safe with each other, this is the map back.

Not about the LDS church

For parents whose kid stepped away from the family faith: how to keep loving them without confusing control with care. A good one to send a believing parent.

Believing perspective

A short list for believing relatives: honor boundaries, skip the judgment, and plan family events that don't revolve around church. Short enough that they might actually read it.

Believing perspective

Built on a survey of 8,000+ Mormons and former Mormons, this book names the fear a lot of women carried quietly: that heaven might come with sister wives. Naming it helps.

Believing perspective

Three parts with one family: a mixed-faith marriage, a parent sitting outside their own child's temple wedding, and what did and did not work when talking with believing relatives.

Most of the siblings wait outside the temple during their sister's sealing, so the family later holds its own outdoor ceremony that everyone can attend. A gentle, free personal essay about weddings across belief lines.

Form 990s, ratings sites, red flags, and how to stop tithing without drama. Your money, and this time you get the receipts.

The actual order, not the spin. From 1997 to 2019 Ensign Peak skipped the required 13F filings and instead filed through 13 LLCs created, per the SEC, for the sole purpose of keeping the church's stock holdings out of public view. The SEC says the First Presidency approved it. $5M total penalty.

Heads up: A settled order: the church and Ensign Peak neither admitted nor denied the findings.

The church's side, in its own words: the LLCs were about privacy, every security was reported somewhere, they 'regret mistakes made,' and the matter is closed. Read it next to the order and decide for yourself.

Believing perspective

The story that started it. A former Ensign Peak portfolio manager, David Nielsen, alleged in an IRS complaint that the church sat on about $100 billion of tithing-funded investments. The church said it follows all applicable law.

Allegations

Heads up: Whistleblower allegations. The IRS has never announced an outcome, and the church disputes the claims.

Since 2019 Ensign Peak files its U.S. stock holdings under its own name, every quarter, for free. No shell company hide-and-seek required.

Heads up: 13F filings cover U.S. listed stocks only, not bonds, real estate, private funds or cash.

Named after the poor widow who gave everything. The team publishes yearly wealth updates, income and spending charts, quarterly 13F breakdowns, a visual summary of the SEC order, and line-by-line analyses of the church's own 'Caring for Those in Need' reports.

Heads up: The authors are anonymous, and the figures are their estimates from public sources, not audited numbers.

An accounting professor walks through how the Widow's Mite estimate was built: about $7 billion a year in non-investment income, about $6 billion spent, roughly $1 billion a year added to Ensign Peak. Spreadsheets, but make it a podcast.

One-sided

In 2018, volunteers connected 13 LLCs to about $32 billion in U.S. stocks. Five years later the SEC order described a 2018 website report of roughly $32 billion in holdings tied to the church. Funny how that works.

One-sided

The church's own numbers: $1.45 billion in 2024 across welfare, self-reliance, humanitarian aid and emergency relief, 3,836 humanitarian projects, 192 countries and territories. Put it next to the 13F filings and do your own math.

Believing perspective

Heads up: The total combines member welfare with humanitarian aid. It is not audited in public.

James Huntsman sued to get back over $5 million in tithing, alleging tithes funded the City Creek mall. In January 2025 the full Ninth Circuit ruled for the church 11 to 0, finding no reasonable juror could conclude the church misrepresented where the money came from.

Three former members sued, alleging the church misrepresented its history to collect tithing. Dismissed in 2023, dismissal affirmed by the Tenth Circuit in August 2025, and the Supreme Court declined to hear it on March 2, 2026. Courts have mostly said: not our department.

A tax law professor who is also a church member explains, calmly, why investing is not an exempt purpose, why the church stopped publishing finances in 1959, and why churches should probably file a Form 990 like everyone else.

Believing perspective

A historian excommunicated in 1993 (one of the September Six) spent years in the money records. 597 pages, 21 appendices, from a cash-strapped church to a global conglomerate.

Heads up: The link is a 54-minute Utah Public Radio interview about the book, not the book itself.

Rates U.S. charities with its Encompass system: impact, accountability and finance, leadership, culture. Free. Churches mostly not included, because there is no 990 to read.

Ranks a short list of charities by cost per life saved, with the receipts. Current list: Malaria Consortium, Against Malaria Foundation, Helen Keller Intl, New Incentives. Roughly $3,500 to $5,500 per life saved.

Look up nearly any U.S. nonprofit, its 990s, leadership and transparency seal. Does not grade; it shows you the paperwork.

Curated list built on independent evaluators, plus a pledge to give a percentage of income. Yes, it is basically tithing, except you pick where it goes and you can see what it did.

Checks charities against 20 standards on governance, finances, results reporting and honest appeals. Free reports.

Search millions of Form 990s for free: revenue, expenses, executive pay. Try searching a church. Watch what comes back.

The IRS's own lookup: is this group actually tax-exempt, has it lost status, and what has it filed.

The fine print: churches, conventions of churches, and their 'integrated auxiliaries' do not have to file a Form 990. Ensign Peak is registered as a supporting organization and integrated auxiliary. So, no 990.

Any single gift of $250 or more needs a written acknowledgment from the charity to deduct it. It is on you to ask for it. Applies to tithing too.

The three big charity watchdogs, together: overhead 'is a poor measure of a charity's performance.' Judge results, not how cheap the office chairs are.

Since 2022 the year-end meeting is a 'tithing declaration,' a chance to declare faithfulness, not settle an account. Useful to know it is a voluntary interview when you are planning to skip it.

Believing perspective

Map of mutual aid networks: neighbors helping neighbors directly, no headquarters, no investment arm.

The consolidated tithing class action from four states was dismissed in 2025 on time limits, and in August 2026 the Tenth Circuit ruled for the church on appeal. Reported by the church-owned Deseret News.

Believing perspective

The federal government's own write-up: Ensign Peak used shell companies to hide a $32 billion stock portfolio, with the church's knowledge. $5 million in fines. Not a rumor, a press release.

Former Ensign Peak portfolio manager David Nielsen explains the roughly $100 billion fund on national TV, and a church bishop pushes back.

Allegations

The "secret" new name you got in the temple? Since 1965, everyone of your gender endowed anywhere in the world that day got the same one. Plug in your date and see. Built from crowd-sourced submissions, with day-by-day name schedules back to 1965.

Heads up: It shows the names believers covenant never to reveal, so it can hurt someone who still holds them sacred. The site also links a hidden-camera clip of the temple ceremony; MoNomo does not link that footage.

The definitive book on Masons and Mormons: why they were joined at the hip in Nauvoo, how the endowment borrowed from the lodge, and the century-long cold war after. A lawyer-historian with receipts.

Academic

The free, article-length version of Homer's argument, titled after Heber C. Kimball's own 1842 line about the endowment. Start here if a 450-page book sounds like a second mission.

Academic

How the endowment grew from Kirtland foot washings to Nauvoo to the version you sat through, traced through diaries and letters. Turns out "never changes" had a lot of drafts.

The free essay that became Buerger's book. A historian who had been through the temple writes its history without revealing what he covenanted not to. Respectful and still eye-opening.

Academic

The primary sources themselves: apostles' diaries, Quorum minutes, First Presidency letters about the temple, 1846 to 2000. Skip the commentary and read the memos.

A short, sharp history of Mormon ritual: sealings, adoption, women's healing blessings, and how priesthood got redefined around 1900. Best Mormon Studies book of 2018 per the MHA.

AcademicBelieving perspective

The church's own page: Joseph became a Mason in March 1842, the Nauvoo lodge was the biggest in Illinois, and yes, members saw the similarities. Read it next to Homer and compare notes.

Believing perspective

The official essay on women, priesthood and the temple, including the Relief Society's Masonic-era start. Useful to have open when someone says "the church never said that."

Believing perspective

The actual recommend questions, published by the church itself in 2019. Yes, the questions you were told were too sacred to discuss are on a press release.

Believing perspective

The 2024 rewrite added a question about wearing garments "as instructed." The underwear got its own interview question.

Paywall

The 2023 revision: more Jesus, more egalitarian language, and the covenants now explained up front so first-timers can give informed consent. Which raises a question about everyone before 2023.

Paywall

A believing-member historian lists the 2023 changes, carefully skipping the parts participants promise not to reveal. COVID-era no-touch rules apparently stuck.

January 2019: women stopped covenanting to hearken to their husbands, and Eve finally got more lines than Satan. Took until 2019.

Sleeveless garments arrived in 2025, after women asked for at least 15 years. The church cited humid climates. The women cited the 15 years.

Year-by-year research notes on temples, garments, the second anointing and more, from a historian's files. The 1990 page collects the press coverage of the obey-your-husband vow being dropped.

Academic

Historian John Turner walks through the lodge, the oaths, the penalties, and the very same year Joseph founded the Relief Society. History, not hidden cameras.

One-sided

Side by side: Masonic grips, aprons and penalties next to the old endowment, plus the removed oath of vengeance. The author refuses to post the current ceremony out of respect for members.

One-sided

A faith-affirming timeline of endowment changes from 1842 to 2023, penalties and all. Useful because even the believing side lists two dozen revisions.

Believing perspective

The other half of the breakup: Utah's Grand Lodge barred Mormons for decades and only lifted the ban in 1984. Both sides kept the grudge going.

Built on a survey of more than 4,500 members, a study of what garments mean to the people who wear them and how they work as control around sexuality and gender.

Academic

Reports on an 8,500-person survey of current and former members about garments, body image, and sex. If you thought it was just you, it was not.

The big Joseph Smith biography by a believing Columbia historian who still put the seer stone, the treasure digging, and the plural wives on the page. If a TBM relative will read one history book, it's probably this one.

Believing perspective

The 1945 biography that got its author excommunicated. Sharp, readable, and still the classic skeptical take on Joseph Smith.

One-sided

Scans and transcripts of the actual documents: revelations, journals, the First Vision accounts, the Book of Abraham papyri. Free. Go see for yourself.

Believing perspective

What garments do to how people feel about their bodies and their sex lives, and how a couple can talk about it when only one of them still wears them.

Believing perspective

The dinner prayer, the "are you still going?" question, temple weddings you wait outside of, Conference weekend, kids and Santa, and an exit plan. With a car as a boundary with cupholders.

How to pick the holiday season you actually want instead of the one you inherited: what to drop, what to keep, and what to add. A whole framework, and no one asks you to bear testimony at the end.

A panel on the grief, anger and family tension of the first Christmases out, and how to keep the parts you love: stepping back, leaning on values you still share, and treating Christmas as culture.

Three parts with one family: a mixed-faith marriage, a parent sitting outside their own child's temple wedding, and what did and did not work when talking with believing relatives.

Most of the siblings wait outside the temple during their sister's sealing, so the family later holds its own outdoor ceremony that everyone can attend. A gentle, free personal essay about weddings across belief lines.

A novelist on holidays after her faith changed: being the one who always makes the compromises, and building a chosen family of friends for the season.

Tactics for Conference weekend from and for people on the edges: where to watch (or not), who to text, and planning something good for afterward. Ten hours of talks, survivable.

Believing perspective

Heads up: Written for members on the fringe who were still attending, so a few tips assume you still pray.

A licensed counselor on staying connected to yourself and to your family when the traditions and expectations of the season bring on loneliness.

Not about the LDS church

For people who recently left a religion and are working out what the holidays mean now, including how to build rituals of your own.

Not about the LDS church

How to prepare for a visit with devout family, set your boundaries ahead of time, and quietly translate the religious talk at the table, grace included, into something you can sit through.

Not about the LDS church

A religious trauma therapist on why the holidays can hurt for years after you leave, with practical tips: small choices, boundaries decided in advance, and a support network.

Not about the LDS church

A family therapist on the grief, the body reactions and the family tension when the big holiday is a religious one you no longer believe, and a "both/and" way through it.

Not about the LDS church

A short public-radio piece on being the nonbeliever at a religious family's holiday: patience, boundaries, and being yourself without starting a theology seminar over the turkey.

Not about the LDS church

The endorsement rules, what resigning does to your enrollment, what you keep, timing, and where to transfer. The only syllabus at a church school that admits it has a prerequisite.

The binding rule at BYU: resign your membership, or have it withdrawn, and you immediately lose good Honor Code standing, must stop enrolling, and can't graduate. Also the 10-business-day exception petition.

The full list of endorsement interview questions, the rule that the Honor Code Office and your bishop don't share information without your written consent, and the bar on endorsing resigned members.

Believing perspective

Expiration dates, the July 2026 stake presidency interview, graduation-day rules, and the line that counts anyone ever baptized as a member. Read this one before your next interview, not after.

At BYU-Idaho, having your name removed from church records automatically withdraws your endorsement. A granted exception only lets you finish the current semester, and the petition has a 10-day clock.

BYU-Hawaii's rules: a disaffiliated student is automatically withdrawn from school, and a withdrawn endorsement means at least a calendar year away.

Heads up: Parts of this page are older than BYU-Hawaii's newer endorsement page (honorcode.byuh.edu/endorsement), which has the July 2026 renewal rules.

Ensign College's version, nearly word for word BYU's: resigned or removed members can't be endorsed, must stop enrolling, and can't graduate, with a 10-business-day petition.

Your credits are yours. BYU says in writing that you don't need an ecclesiastical endorsement to order a transcript.

CAPS says it does not share client information with parents, professors, ecclesiastical leaders or the Honor Code Office without your written consent. Counseling for BYU students.

A free crisis chat and tip line app for Utah K-12 students, college students, parents and school staff.

Heads up: Utah only, so not for BYU-Idaho or BYU-Hawaii. Tips (not chats) can be passed to your school.

A profile of USGA, the unofficial LGBTQ+ student group at BYU, which marched at Pride in 2024.

Four co-founders of the BYU Survival Guide on losing their faith while enrolled at BYU.

One-sided

Heads up: From 2019, before the 2023 and 2026 endorsement changes. Check the current rules in the guide.

How FreeBYU started: students asking that former members be allowed the chaplain endorsement and non-member tuition instead of expulsion. BYU did not adopt it.

The 2015 changes to BYU's exception process for students who lose their endorsement. Useful history, and a reminder that these rules do move.

The church-owned paper's account, with BYU's spokeswoman saying the rule applies to students who resign, not to students with doubts.

Believing perspective

Reporters on two students facing removal because a bishop pulled, or threatened to pull, their endorsement.

Heavy topic

A Provo paper follows a student through a faith transition and the choice between leaving school and keeping quiet.

Heavy topic

BYU's own student paper on students questioning their faith, including the fear of the Honor Code Office. Written from inside campus culture.

Believing perspective

Transfer admissions at the U in Salt Lake City.

Not about the LDS church

Transfer admissions at UVU in Orem: ten minutes from BYU, several cultural light-years away.

Not about the LDS church

Transfer admissions at Utah State in Logan.

Not about the LDS church

Weber State's transfer page in Ogden, with steps for after you're admitted and a link to apply.

Not about the LDS church

Transfer admissions at SUU in Cedar City.

Not about the LDS church

Open-enrollment community college in the Salt Lake Valley. A solid place to land for a semester while you decide what is next.

Not about the LDS church

Transfer admissions at Idaho State in Pocatello, the nearest big university to Rexburg.

Not about the LDS church

Transfer admissions at UH Manoa in Honolulu, for BYU-Hawaii students who want to stay on Oahu.

Not about the LDS church

Transfer admissions at Hawaii Pacific in Honolulu, a private option on Oahu.

Not about the LDS church

Homes in Provo, Salt Lake City, Ogden and St. George where LGBTQ+ youth, young adults and families get community, weekly programs, friendship circles and affirming therapy.

Not about the LDS church