Today, we’d like to introduce you to Troy Williams.
Hi Troy, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I moved to Utah in my early 20s. I thought that the best way I could overcome being gay was to come to Utah! I joined the super-conservative Eagle Forum and was mentored by Gayle Ruzika, who had long been an opponent of LGBTQ equality. After a few years, my nascent gay self kicked into gear, and I became a community organizer for LGBTQ rights. I worked at KRCL 90.9 FM for ten years, producing and co-hosting their talk show, RadioACTive.
In 2010, the Salt Lake Tribune dubbed me the “Gay Mayor of SLC”. Nine years ago, I took the helm of Equality Utah, our state’s premiere LGBTQ advocacy organization. Over the past few years, I’ve been honored to work on passing historic LGBTQ and religious liberty nondiscrimination legislation in 2015. In 2017, we repealed our state’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ curriculum law (passed by my old mentor, Gayle Ruzika, back in 1997). We passed an LGBTQ-inclusive hate crimes law in 2019 and unanimously banned the dangerous practice of LGBTQ conversion therapy for minors in 2022.
I also have a side hustle working in television and film. In 2013, I produced the TLC original series Breaking the Faith. Following FLDS Children on the Run and last year, I consulted on the FX original series Under the Banner of Heaven with Andrew Garfield and Dustin Lance Black. I’ve appeared in several documentaries, including 2010s true crime sex-and-chains story, Tabloid by the legendary filmmaker Errol Morris, 2018’s HBO original film Believer featuring Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds, and last year’s HBO film Mama’s Boy, adapted from the memoir by my dear friend Dustin Lance Black.
This spring, I have a new short story being published in the forthcoming anthology from Signature Books called The Book of Queer Mormon Joy. Every fall, I produce our annual Equality Utah Allies Gala at the Eccles Theater. It has grown into the “Met Gala” of Utah, where fashion, music, and gay power politics come together.
Past galas have featured The Indigo Girls, comedian Eddie Izzard, Billy Porter, Gloria Steinem, Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons, Tyler Glenn from Neon Trees, Chelsie Handler, and Robert Redford. Our forthcoming gala is on October 5th at the Eccles in downtown Salt Lake City. Please mark your calendar and join us! Everyone is welcome.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Growing up gay in a conservative culture and faith has its challenges. There is quite a lot of incentive to go along to get along. It’s been a rocky path. But our challenges build character and stretch us to accomplish things we never thought we might.
It’s also been challenging to walk into the Utah Legislature, where 85% are Republican, and the vast majority belong to the LDS faith, and then ask them to consider legislation to recognize the rights and dignity of LGBTQ Utahns. It isn’t always a smooth ride. The easy thing when we feel rejected is to simply defend ourselves by calling people we don’t agree with bigots and homophobes. But that’s not what opens people’s hearts. It actually does the opposite. It’s also not an effective strategy to persuade people to consider another view.
The truth is that in most conflicts, everyone believes that they are acting out of love. So, the challenge is to help people expand their ability to love, bigger than we new we could. That requires mutual respect. It requires that we see the humanity of the people with whom we have disagreements. We don’t have to engage to always win an argument. We can engage to better understand where people are coming from. And if we listen carefully, we may discover a bit of common ground we can build upon.
This is not an easy task. Egos flare up. Personalities and personal agendas often collide. We make a bit of progress one day, and get knocked back the next. But I’ve learned to be resilient. To dust myself off, and get back to work. I try to show people grace, and meet people where they are. Sometimes I’m good at that, other times I’m not.
The challenge is always to discover a new way to move toward each other. To heal a wound, or mend a rift. To bring the people of Utah closer. It’s a lot of idealism, I know — but all great artists and activists are driven by irrational optimism. We have to dream the impossible, and then make it real.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
The biggest challenge we are facing right now is political polarization. We are being driven by base impulses, amplified by social media algorithms that are intentionally designed to reward outrage. Add to that our 24 hour partisan cable news channels, which are designed to make us literally see “the other side” as enemies.
We are dehumanizing each other. And this makes finding common ground with our opponents increasingly difficult. How can you work alongside someone you are being taught to believe is literally evil? Polarization has the danger of disrupting all aspects of society, including the business world. It’s bad for the economy to have Americans hating each other. Our challenge is to find productive ways of engaging those with whom we have differences. The health of our country depends on it.
To counter this, Equality Utah has developed our Business Equality Leader program. We are working with Utah companies to create a sense of belonging in the workplace. We believe we can foster diverse workplaces in a way that isn’t divisive. We can build on shared values and welcomes all points of view and perspectives. We might be gay, straight, religious, atheist, conservative liberal, or any combination of the above.
What’s truly important is to recognize that we are all Utahns. We are all Americans, and we strongly believe that the things that unite us are far greater than the things that divide us. That’s American pluralism at its finest. We are interested in bringing this kind of inclusive worldview to your workplace culture.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.equalityutah.org
- Instagram: @equalityutah
- Facebook: equalityutah
- Linkedin: @EqualityUtah
- Twitter: @equalityutah
Image Credits
Equality Utah, Laura Kinser, Utah Compromise, LGBTQ and Religious Liberty, Governor Herbert, David Newkirk, Allies Gala, Eddie Izzard, Brandon Cruz (2023), The Indigo Girls, and The Equality Utah
