From Mormon Pioneer Trail Diaries to Feminist Blog Posts: Finding My Voice
In January 2020, I submitted my first guest post to the Exponent II blog. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding. I hovered over the “send” button for far too long.
I’d been reading the blog since 2008 but had never dared to write for it myself.
The night before that post went live, I barely slept. I worried about fallout in my ward, with my family, or from strangers online. My fear was big. It was visceral. It was. . . sweaty. But I had reached a point where the pain of silence hurt more than the fear of speaking up.
At the time, I was a stay-at-home mom of four, slowly working on a dream to return to grad school and become a historian. Years earlier, I had worked as a research assistant on a project about the Mormon Trail, and the questions I encountered while reading pioneer trail diaries that summer stayed with me. They kept tugging at me, quietly but persistently asking to be followed. I had been reading Mormon history ever since and had begun research projects that might allow me to enter the conversation.
But sharing my own story and thoughts publicly? That still felt dangerous.
Why was I so afraid of my own voice?Part of it was personal trauma—childhood experiences that taught me early on that writing honestly could have major consequences. Part of it was cultural: I had absorbed the stories of Mormon feminists who were disciplined or excommunicated for speaking out. And part of it was the pressure I felt to be the “faithful” one in my family, the one whose example might bring others back to church.
All of it lived not just in my mind, but in my body.
And yet I hit “send.” And the world didn’t end.
What happened? I received kind comments. I felt seen. I realized I could speak and survive. Even better? I could speak and find community.
That fear—the one so many of us carry—can silence important conversations before they even begin. But if we want our lives, our churches, and our world to be more equitable, those conversations have to happen.
Over the next year, I published more blog posts. Each one brought another wave of anxiety. But with each post, I chipped away at a silence that had shaped me for too long.
Then, at the end of 2020, two emails landed in my inbox the same week: one inviting me to become a permablogger for Exponent II, and another telling me my Mormon History Association proposal had been accepted.
That small act of clicking “send” changed the course of my life.
Since then, I’ve published in the Journal of Mormon History and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, co-authored Fifty Years of Exponent II with Heather Sundahl, and collaborated with writers and scholars I once only admired from afar. But the Exponent II blog is where it all started.
It gave me my first real platform. It helped me rebuild trust in my voice. It let me speak publicly without apology, just as it has done for so many others. Now the Exponent II blog needs your help.
Good storytelling deserves good infrastructure.It’s easy to overlook tech work, because when it’s done right, you don’t notice it. But behind every readable blog post is a lot of invisible labor—site maintenance, updates, formatting, backups. When that infrastructure breaks, it’s not just inconvenient. It can stop a story from being told.
Our blog is powered by volunteers who give generously of their time and energy. But we’re at the point where the wheels are starting to wobble a little. We need professional help to manage the overlapping demands of our digital ecosystem—retreat registration, magazine subscriptions, blog publishing—and to take pressure off writers like me who are doing their best but aren’t trained in tech project management.
We will always be volunteer-led. But we don’t want to be a blog that breaks down like a handcart in the middle of Wyoming. We need funding to pay professionals who can help us do this work with sustainability and care.
If the blog has mattered to you, or if you believe in amplifying women’s and gender-expansive voices in faith spaces that haven’t always welcomed them, please consider donating.
We are a legacy project, more than fifty years strong. And like the pioneers we honor this time of year, we’re still moving forward, still carving paths, still making space.
Your support helps us build a digital home worthy of the voices it holds. Thank you for being part of this community. Thank you for reading, caring, and helping ensure our stories continue to be told.
Feature image credit: Photo by Stephen Hui on Unsplash
