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.

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”.

Ron Raynes deeply loves his mixed faith, mixed orientation family. He and wife Sue managed to come out of the closet together during the last ten years. They are proud parents of three beautiful grown-up daughters.

Six years ago, Ron and Sue joined Affirmation, and two years later founded Affirmation’s affinity group MOFIA (Mixed Orientation Families In Affirmation) which caters to a spectrum of people impacted by mixed orientation marriage in their family life. Ron serves on Affirmation’s Board of Directors and was recently asked to be an area president for the U.S. and Canada, where he is working to establish local chapters across the country.

Ron joined the LDS Church at age 18 and served an LDS mission in California. He did all the things a good Mormon boy should do, like getting married… but way back in 1981 he wasn’t willing to identify as anything close to being gay. It took a few decades to figure that stuff out, and he’s still working to fit all the pieces into his gay life puzzle. Both Ron and Sue experienced a faith transition to less orthodox spaces since the LDS Church instituted its exclusion policy towards LGBTQ families in 2015. They no longer regularly attend the LDS Church, opting to participate as “Mormon Refugees” in a more inclusive congregation at the Community of Christ.

Ron lives and works as a food scientist in Eugene, Oregon, and does what many people can only dream of…he invents new flavors for Alden’s Organic ice cream! In his spare time, Ron enjoys gardening, hiking, writing, doing art and singing Tenor in the Eugene Concert Choir.

Llewynn Roberts grew up on a farm in Preston, Idaho as the third of six children. They first came out as gay as a junior in high school, and again as transgender and nonbinary during their second year of college. They were an active member of the LDS Church until the age of 12, and officially resigned at the age of 18.

Llewynn currently studies sociology at Utah State University and hopes to use the knowledge and skills they gain to work with queer youth in the future. They have contributed to Affirmation in a variety of ways, including as a speaker, a youth leader, and organizing a clothing/accessory drive for trans attendees of the annual international conference.

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.