Latter-Day Saints leaders expel sex therapist for critiques

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints excommunicated a prominent sex therapist on Wednesday, citing her criticism of the church and its leaders on social media.

Natasha Helfer was excommunicated in a letter from a regional church official, Stake President Stephen Daley, who wrote that her “clear and deliberate opposition to the Church, its doctrine, its policies, and its leaders” prevented her from being a member in good standing, according to The Washington Post.

The expulsion occurred after she was summoned to a disciplinary hearing in Derby, Kan., despite living in Utah, which she refused to enter after from being barred from entering the hearing with her cellphone upon which she had written notes for her defense.

Helfer has contended, according to the newspaper, that her expulsion was due to her work as a therapist, which Daley denied in his letter.

“After carefully and prayerfully considering this matter,” read the letter, according to The Associated Press. “it was the decision of the council to withdraw your church membership in response to conduct contrary to the law and order of the church.”

“Your professional activities played no part in the decision of the council,” Daley wrote, according to the Post. “Rather, as stated in my prior letter to you, the sole purpose of this council was to consider your repeated, clear and public opposition to and condemnation of the church, its doctrines, its policies and its leaders.”

In one social media post with which church officials took issue, Helfer referred to high-ranking Latter-Day Saints members as “patriarchal pricks,” a term she defended in an interview with the Post as a response to homophobia being spread by church elders.

“When will they stop calling homosexual people degenerate and perverse and unholy?” Helfer told the Post. “They’re upset that I called them patriarchal pricks. If they want me to stop saying bad words, they need to stop calling other people bad words.”

The church, widely known as the Mormon church, has traditionally taken a combative stance towards the LGBT community, including opposing gay marriage and more recently opposing Utah’s bill to ban “conversion therapy,” a widely discredited field that seeks to alter a person’s sexual orientation, for minors. That opposition failed, despite the political power of the church in Utah, and the practice was banned for minors in 2020.