A few weeks ago at a writing conference I went to a panel about writing the LGBTQ narrative.  While I am not LGBTQ myself, I wanted to know what the panelists felt about writing their stories, often for the first time, and often to audiences they fear do not understand them.  Those 90 minutes were some of the most useful and enlightening minutes of the conference for me.  My empathy and love for the LGBTQ story grew, but also, an empathy and gratitude for my own story felt very real.  In some ways, I felt like the five panelists could have been replaced by any particular group of people who are concerned with the idea of telling stories that are bursting at the seams of the box they have long been kept in. My Mormon self, my female self, my mothering self, connected with what they said.
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