SALT LAKE CITY — When Alyson Paul Deussen, a devout Mormon, learned three years ago that her son Stockton was gay, she thought he might be going through a phase.

“So I probably, in hindsight, didn’t do the right thing,” she said. “I kind of just tried to let it play out. And ultimately it led to him trying to overdose on pills and ended up in the hospital.”

Deussen said that was a wake-up call. She searched for guidance in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered 11 miles away, in Salt Lake City. But she felt it treated the topic of same-sex relations as taboo.

“I didn’t have any place to turn,” she said. “I felt very lost. I felt very lonely. It was a real struggle for me. It was a struggle for our family.”

So she started to search online, where she found a Facebook group of other Mormon mothers with gay children. They call themselves Mama Dragons, after a verse in the Mosiah section of the Book of Mormon referring to a people who fought “like dragons” for their children. Since the group formed last year, it has grown into hundreds of members around the world.

“They all expressed the same concern,” Deussen said, “that I thought I was the only mom … with an LGBT child and doing it alone.”

The Mama Dragons offer one another support, friendship, and advice on how to help their gay loved ones navigate their path to adulthood. Some of them have met in person too. They have also opened their homes to gay Mormons who are shunned by their families and are sometimes suicidal.

“There’s a lot of kids in crisis because of the struggle that they are feeling with being gay and reconciling with either their families or their religion,” Deussen explained.

The Mama Dragons hope to change the narrative for LGBT youth in the church. But in their efforts, they are at times finding themselves in deep conflict with its teachings. The church has a history of excommunicating openly gay members and even encouraging them to go through controversial conversion therapy aimed at making them straight. Recently, it set up a website on the issue.

The website states, “[Same-sex] attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is.” It adds, “With love and understanding, the Church reaches out to all God’s children, including our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.”

Leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints declined to comment further on its views of same-sex relations.