As a young man, Troy Williams wore a missionary name tag for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Great Britain, all the while fighting against the growing realization that he was gay.

Afterward, he interned with the Utah Eagle Forum and learned the ways of backroom politicking at the feet of one of the most effective conservative lobbyists on Capitol Hill, Gayle Ruzicka.

Thus, an advocate was born.

After embracing his sexual orientation, Williams rose to executive director of Equality Utah, the state’s preeminent LGBTQ rights group, and he suddenly found himself on the opposite side from his onetime mentor.

Though he no longer labored for his former faith, Williams soon was working with it, helping to bring to pass the landmark Utah Compromise, which safeguarded religious liberty while barring housing and workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. More breakthroughs followed, including the church’s endorsement of the Respect for Marriage Act, codifying civil same-sex marriage.

Now, after more than a decade at Equality Utah’s helm, Williams is stepping down.

In a recent episode of The Salt Lake Tribune’s “Mormon Land” podcast, he described his incredible personal and political journey. Here are lightly edited excerpts for length, style and clarity from that interview:

What are your ties to the Latter-day Saint community and history?

I grew up a member of the church in Eugene, Oregon, and my maternal ancestors go back all the way to Nauvoo [Illinois]. They were driven out and crossed the Plains with Brigham [Young], camped at Winter Quarters and then ultimately settled in the Ogden area. My roots run deep here.

What was your two-year church mission to England like?

To be quite honest, it was very exciting to be in a different country. But there was this nascent, sort of lurking thing within me that was frightening me. I was so scared that I was gay or, as I thought of at the time, same-sex attracted, and it caused immense physical stress in my body. I would have shooting pain throughout my shoulders. I thought it was Satan trying to tempt me, because I was a righteous kid and, as one of the Lord’s “elect,” Satan would try to do everything in his power to unravel that and pull me from the path. But we all have this inborn impulse to connect, to have our heart open to another human being. It was always sort of calling to me, because your hormones are just surging at that age. Still, I served an honorable mission, returned and did nothing “untoward.”

What led you to the Utah Eagle Forum?

After I returned from my mission, I thought the best way to be straight or to overcome this same-sex attraction was to be with my people. So I did my own pioneer trek from Oregon to Utah. My sister was very conservative, and she was involved with Gayle Ruzicka. I remember going to a “last days expo.” At the time, Ezra Taft Benson was the prophet of the church. He had strong John Birch Society leanings. … I met Gayle … and thought that if I threw myself into right-wing politics, that might actually overwhelm and overcome these nascent same-sex desires. So I started volunteering for Gayle.

What did you learn from her?

Gayle is quite intrepid, and very passionate and dedicated to her cause. I learned from her that if you have a passion for a cause, you dedicate your life to it. For her, this is her raison d’etre. It is why she is here on the planet. She believes she was inspired by Heavenly Father to push this sort of political work. I did carry that into my own ethos of advocacy — an immense passion for what you believe.

What was it like to ‘come out’?

I had to leave the church first. I had my name removed from the records of the church in the late ’90s, before it was a thing that people did a lot. I had to author my own life, and I didn’t want to be bound by the covenants that I had made in the temple. It was important for me to sever those formally, and then, at that point, I could come out and be gay and figure out what that means. It was very important that I did this with God. We talked a lot, God and I, about this process. I remember one night, waking up at 3 in the morning, and I’d had this dream. God had come and talked to me, and said, “Troy, I am much bigger than any one religion. You cannot take all that I am, put me in a box, package me and market me. I am bigger than anything you can conceive.” I woke up with my heart pounding like an overwhelming spiritual experience. I am tremendously grateful for my pioneer ancestors. They made me. I would not exist without [church founder] Joseph Smith and the golden plates and the pioneers who crossed the Plains and even without plural marriage (I’m a product of plural marriage). It’s not an issue of me having resentment or bitterness toward my ancestors or my faith tradition or my parents. I just want to expand in my own sort of frontier and be a pioneer of my own life.

How did your family respond?

It was hard for my parents, and it did fracture the relationship. They never disowned me, but they didn’t want to know things about my life. They didn’t want to know about who I was dating. They didn’t want to know about anything. They had no curiosity about it. I was a little bit bitter with the church for that. I think that was one of the driving motivators for me to actually get into advocacy. These culture war issues that we were involved with — with [California’s] Proposition 8 and the battle over marriage equality — were causing cracks and fractures in communities and in families like my own.

How did you get involved with Equality Utah?

I worked at KRCL for 10 years as a producer and host of “RadioACTive.” I had moved from the right to the left and started practicing advocacy and activism, going to various protests and marches. I would do “kiss-ins” on Temple Square. I got arrested famously at the Capitol in 2014. I was a more in-your-face kind of activist. There were a lot of people who thought, “he’s too militant to lead Equality Utah.” But when the job opened up, I just knew in my bones, it was what I was supposed to do. But it did require me to really think about my approach. Some 85% of the legislators are Republican and about 90% are [Latter-day Saints]. How are you going to move a piece of pro-LGBT legislation through that body? That’s the question you have to ask yourself. It’s not yelling at people, it’s not rabble-rousing. It’s sitting down and having really hard conversations, heart to heart, where you have to see the humanity of the people you think are your opponents. ... What do you do when the rights of one group are in collision with the rights of another? You come to the table, you sit down, you negotiate, you find a third path.

That approach led to the Utah Compromise, a seminal moment in LGBTQ+ history in Utah and a seminal moment for the church. How did that come about?

Leaders in the community and church leaders sat down with Equality Utah and started having private conversations. They said, “Look, we recognize we don’t agree on marriage, we don’t agree on sexuality, we don’t agree on a lot of issues. But is there some area where we can work together and create peace?” We were working on passing a nondiscrimination law so that gay or a transgender people wouldn’t be fired from their jobs or evicted from their homes just because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The church said, “We agree with that, and also we don’t want … members of our faith to be fired from their job or evicted from their home because of their belief around marriage” And we said, “We agree with that, too.” In that moment, we recognized a sliver of common ground that we could build on. There was a pivotal moment when President Dallin Oaks said, “We call on local, state and federal government to serve all of their people by passing legislation that protects vital religious freedoms for individuals, families, churches and other faith groups, while also protecting the rights of our LGBT citizens in such areas as housing, employment and public accommodations, which are protections which are not available in many parts of the country.” I don’t think the church gets enough credit for that. The church has a supermajority in the Legislature and could, at any moment, have steamrolled over us. Former state Sen. Stuart Reid had actually drafted legislation to protect religious liberty and just steamroll over LGBT rights. President Oaks intervened, and said, “Don’t do that. That will cause more contention.” President Oaks has been consistent in his defense of pluralism.

Did you get pushback on the compromise?

I got grief from some on the left, who asked, “How dare you sit down with the enemy, with the oppressors?” And the church got grief from the evangelical right. “How dare you sit down with those homosexual sodomites?” Sometimes you have to sort of tune that out, and keep your focus on the goal. We thought if we can model to the country that people with such opposing political views can actually come together and find some kind of agreement, it can be historic and huge. It was the first time in the country’s history when a pro-LGBT piece of legislation passed through a Republican-controlled legislature.

Are there LGBTQ+ plus advocacy groups who believe this was more of a sellout?

Some do. But the major organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, were very supportive of this effort. There’s a lot of fear amongst people in my community that anytime you might talk about religious exemptions, it might give permission for a religious person to discriminate against LGBT people. So we were very cognizant of that as we were drafting the legislation, and the church never asked for that. It was not looking for a way to discriminate against our community, but you had to sort of build that trust. One of my ethos that I’ve come to embrace is that partisan victories are not enduring while bipartisan wins protect the future. I wish I could get progressive advocates to really internalize this message, whether they’re working on environmental justice or whatever: You’ve got to bring on conservatives, and you’ve got to engage with them, especially in a state like Utah.

Do you think the church will soften its stance on transgender policies?

It will only happen if we keep sitting down together, and keep engaging with each other, and keep finding those ways to find common ground. These are difficult issues. They’re complicated, so it’s essential that we have humility and open hearts with each other.

If the church someday supports same-sex marriage, not just civilly but also theologically, would you or consider returning to the fold?

For me to return to the church, the authority of God could not be completely invested in a male-only clergy. Truly, there would have to be, like, a Black lesbian apostle.

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