Bill Evans was an employee in the LDS Church Public Affairs Department for more than 30 years. He was assigned in 2008 to work on the Church’s Prop 8 campaign in California. In 2009, he and colleagues in Public Affairs were authorized to accept an invitation from local LGBT community leaders to begin meeting. As a result of these meetings, genuine friendships developed. Later that year, the Church endorsed passage of Salt Lake City’s anti-discrimination housing and employment ordinances. In 2012, Affirmation leaders reached out to Church Public Affairs, and Bill played a role in setting up a dialogue that has continued to the present day. Since his retirement in 2013, Bill has devoted time to the problem of homelessness, including an emerging outreach to off-the-grid homeless youth in Utah.

Chelsea Gibbs is a writer, film historian, and archivist who recently relocated from Los Angeles to her home state of New York. She loves the ways storytelling can help people find their own voices and also help them become more empathetic to others – whether those stories come from movies, books, or conversations shared in spaces like Affirmation. Since coming out as queer in 2014 she has been an active part of Los Angeles’ Affirmation chapter, serving as a cultural translator between LDS and LGBTQIA communities. Her priority is to help foster a sense of belonging in LGBTQIA folks so they feel empowered to share their stories on their own terms.

Shauna Jones (she/her) lives in Idaho with her husband and three children. She has served as the Affirmation board secretary since the beginning of 2018. She has also been involved with planning/running the youth conference portion of the Affirmation International Conference for several years. Shauna runs a local LGBTQ youth group in the Boise area and loves all things rainbow. She looks forward to serving on the board.

Mike Klein was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona in a very devout Latter-day Saint family. He is a Gay father of 7 and has served on the Fathers In Affirmation leadership team since it was created. He is a financial advisor, with his own practice and currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona. He was married to a woman for 21 years, and served in many LDS church leadership callings before divorcing his wife in 2015. In his spare time, Mike loves to work on puzzles, hike, and hopes to start traveling again soon with his partner, David. The many life experiences, both positive and negative, have shaped Mike into who he is today and “Affirmation has been a life saver through that journey.”

She is a Brumado girl in Bahia, Brazil, and is 40 years old. She is the oldest of five siblings, she is married to her wife Viviane Moraes, lives in San Bernardo del Campo – São Paulo. She is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, served as counselor of the Relief Society and Youth leader. She served on a full-time mission from 1998 to 1999, serving honestly in the Porto Alegre Sur and Santa Maria – Rio Grande do Sul – Brazil missions.

She has said: “To serve in the work with LGBT Mormon Affirmation, it is much more than executing a job, it is to rescue the children of God from the state of despair that many fall. It is to show these children of God that the atonement of Jesus Christ is also for them”.

Randall Thacker grew up in Taylorsville, Utah, the youngest of three children. He recognized his attraction to the same sex when he was about 8 years old. He grew up focusing prayers, fasts, and birthday candle wishes on removing this attraction. Not long after returning from a Spanish-Speaking mission to North Carolina, he reached out for help to his BYU bishop who referred him to counseling. The counseling focused on changing Randall’s orientation because he longed to create an ideal Mormon family with many children.

After graduating from BYU with a B.A. in History, Randall moved to Salt Lake City, where after falling in love with a straight friend, he returned to reparative therapy and began attending group therapy as well. Luckily, one of the group therapists introduced Randall to the possibility of self-acceptance. Randall’s journey of self-acceptance was a long one though, which included a moment of great despair shortly after moving to Washington, DC in 2002. Thanks to compassionate friends and family and a new understanding that he could separate God from emotionally harmful doctrine, Randall moved on.

After almost ten years of studying and visiting other faiths and at times none at all, Randall returned to regular attendance at his local LDS ward in 2011, embraced by ward leaders who are welcoming and affirming. “I know that God and spirituality are broader than just the LDS church, yet I also have a testimony of the Restoration and feel the Spirit guiding me to walk my journey of spiritual growth as a Latter-Day Saint.”

Besides his work with Affirmation, Randall is passionate about improving education in Mexico and loves his work as a management consultant and leadership coach, helping individuals and organizations reach their potential. He enjoys rowing, bicycling, running, skiing, reading, and spending time with family and friends.

Pronouns: He/Him/His

Justis serves as a Budget Officer at the U.S. Department of Education (ED). In this role, he oversees the financing and evaluation of programs in the Special Education, Rehab Services, Special Institutions, and Higher Education spaces. Prior to this role, Justis oversaw a portion of the Department’s work in the areas of school choice and family engagement.

Under the Obama Administration, he served as a special advisor in the Office of the Director at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), where his portfolio consisted of diversity and inclusion initiatives across the Federal workforce, and as a detailed Project Manager at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian.

Justis joined the Federal workforce in January 2010 as a Presidential Management Fellow after spending several years working in the fields of higher education and human resources. His first position with the Federal government was with the Department of Defense at the Pentagon, where he split his efforts between the Office of Culture, Religion, & Military Equal Opportunity and the newly established Office of Sexual Assault Prevention & Response.

He currently serves on the boards of LGBTQ and Allied Employees at ED, Asian American Pacific Islander Connections, and Cupid’s Sting: An Interpersonal Violence Reduction Program. He is a former International Scholar Laureate and Diversity Fellow of The Washington Center. He earned an MA in Intercultural and International Communication from American University’s School of International Service and a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, in Political Science from Truman State University.