As a Mormon, I’ve always looked to my pioneer ancestors as guiding stars, their lives a template for courage, conviction, and sacrifice. As a child, I admired their bravery in journeying to Utah, often leaving everything familiar behind. In my 20s, I grappled with learning how young some of the women were when they married and learned what patriarchy is capable of. Now, in my 30s, my admiration has evolved; I see clearly the immense sacrifices they made to protect and honor their families in the face of the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, which harshly targeted Mormon polygamists. These Mormons were faced with pressure from the federal government to either abandon all but one wife or face jailtime.
The actions of two ancestors in particular have deeply resonated with me, because both responded differently to persecution yet both were driven by love and dedication to their families.
William Rufus Rogers Stowell
William Rufus Rogers Stowell became disillusioned with the United States, because he did not like the two choices presented to him. Instead of accepting the lesser of two evils, he chose freedom over persecution.
In the beginning of 1889 Stowell made a trip down to Colonia Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, leaving his wives back in Utah. He found that it would be a lovely place for his family to live and they would be safe there. After a time, he went back to Utah and told his family and community that he thought it was a good idea to move there. They agreed and he spent quite a bit of 1889 in Mexico building a house and a flour mill so he could sustain himself and his family financially. At the end of 1889 he returned to Utah for the last time to settle dealings in Utah and help his families relocate.
After Stowell, his wives, and many of their children fled to Mexico they were able to live in peace, free from the oppression that existed in the United States.
(William is 2nd from the left inn front of the carriage)
John Henry Bott
In contrast, my other ancestor, John Henry Bott, chose not to leave Utah when the federal crackdown came. He refused to abandon his families and children, and so he went to jail for 6 months in 1888.
Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of a long crusade. After his release from prison, Bott became a fugitive in his own homeland. For the next 8 years he slept in cemeteries, haylofts, and mountain crevices while U.S. marshals raided his homes at midnight, hoping to catch him under his own roof. By daylight he hauled stone and managed his tombstone business, determined to keep food on the tables of his three wives and their children, even as debts mounted and federal deputies watched every doorway.
The relentless pressure eventually forced those families to drift across the Rocky Mountains in search of calmer ground, and it would be many years before they all gathered together again.
Evan Crystal Sharley
Today, as a transgender woman, I find myself at a similar crossroads, facing a nation that has grown increasingly hostile toward people like me. The president has labeled transgender people “anti-American”, “subversive”, “harmful”, and “distrustful”. In Idaho, new laws have illegalized displaying pride flags on government property or even me using the women’s restroom on government property, for which I would likely serve jail time. This has been part of a worrying trend, which doesn’t show many signs of slowing down in the next few years. Across the country there have been talks of registries of transgender people and criminalizing simply calling myself a woman. The transgender community is in very real danger of a genocide.
In light of the lives of my ancestors, I see clearly that they have presented two paths: Endurance amid persecution and seeking peace and freedom elsewhere.
If I stay in Idaho, as John Henry Bott did in Utah, I must live in a state of constant vigilance, wary of vigilantes intent on harming me, laws that criminalize my very identity, and a political climate growing ever darker. I have tried to endure the events that have transpired and ignore the steps that have been threatened. I have been in therapy, surrounded myself with friends, spent time doing activism, and participating in community. However, all of these seem to only provide me temporary relief. No matter what I do, the fear remains like tinnitus; sometimes it’s a faint hum I can push to the background, and other times it’s an overwhelming screech that drowns out everything else. Over the years, this screech has gotten louder and harder to ignore.
Yet, like William Rufus Rogers Stowell, I can choose freedom. Oregon represents for me what Mexico represented for him – a place to build a life where I am free from harassment and persecution, a place where I can find happiness, community, and peace. What HAS provided relief, is the thought of relocating to a state that actively protects people like me and where I have civil rights. Several weeks ago my wife and I visited Portland, Oregon where I felt things I have not felt in years: ease, safety, and the simple freedom to exist as a transgender person in public. It was a glimpse of the life I could have, a life that did not require constant vigilance or fear.
Having been given this wisdom by my ancestors, my path forward is clear, and just as they made courageous choices for their families, so will I. As many of you may have heard, I am moving to Oregon this summer to avoid governmental oppression. Like William Stowell, I am going to go first and set up a home and support network, and Coralee is going to stay here in Idaho where she will prepare to rent out or sell our house and will join me in a year.
To my cisgender friends who have the privilege of being able to remain in Idaho: I implore you to keep fighting – for me, and for all of us. I don’t want to be like Stowell and stay in my new home forever. I love Idaho; it shaped me into who I am and leaving it breaks my heart, but for my own safety and wellbeing, I must seek refuge elsewhere. If there is ever to come a day when I can safely return, it will be because YOU fought to make it possible.
I pray every day to Heavenly Mother that the hearts of my fellow Idahoans will be softened, so I may live here in peace.