In these episodes of Mormon Stories, we interview former LDS Stake President and LDS Chief Architect Laurie Lee Hall. Laurie Lee’s story is fascinating on many levels:

Laurie Lee worked for 20 years as Chief Architect for the LDS Church and as Director of Design and/or Construction for around 40 LDS temples.

She served as Stake President of the Tooele Utah Valley View Stake in Tooele, Utah for 8 years.

While she remembers identifying internally as a woman from a very young age, she began to experience intense pressure to transition to female while serving as an LDS Stake President. This ultimately led to her being released as stake president after 8 years of service.

About two months ago Laurie Lee was excommunicated stemming from her decision to transition gender presentation while living in her home ward/stake.

Laurie Lee and her spouse have been married 32 years this month and are the parents of five children and 11 grandchildren.

Laurie Lee remains a believer in many of the core tenets of Mormonism (e.g., Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, the atonement), and reads the Book of Mormon daily.

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Laurie Lee Hall was born and raised in New England, and trained as an architect and construction manager at Rensselaer Polytechnic in Upstate New York. During this time she was taught the Restored Gospel and joined the LDS Church, later serving a mission to Argentina.

She and her family moved to Utah in 1996, as she began employment at LDS Church Headquarters.

Ms. Hall worked at the Headquarters for 20 years until her retirement last summer. During the last 15 years, Laurie served as a Chief Architect for the Church and as Director of Design and/or Construction for Temples and Special Projects.

Concurrently, she was called and served as an LDS Bishop and later as a Stake President.

Her lifetime long and deeply personal journey to live authentically to her internal gender identity, was finally fully realized just this past summer.

Laurie Lee Hall is the Director of LLH Pathways, LLC, a Professional Coaching and Business Development Consulting practice; and the Founder of the Families and Gender Variance Project which seeks to strengthen the love, empathy and communication between gender variant persons and their families.

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