Below is a timeline of major events, media, and people at the intersection of LGBT topics and Brigham Young University (BYU). BYU is the largest university of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also called the Mormon church). Before 1959 there was little explicit mention of homosexuality by BYU administration.
1940s
1948 – Gay BYU students Kent Goodridge Taylor and Richard Snow who were in love went to visit with church president George Albert Smith who told them to "live their lives as best they could" in their companionship. Smith wrote the words "Homo Sexual" in his appointment book. Earl Kofoed who went to BYU from 1946 to 1948 similarly reported a "live and let live" attitude of leaders towards LGBT Mormons, and described a thriving gay community of friends at BYU. He stated that there were no witch hunts, excommunications, or pressure to change ones sexual orientation at BYU like there would be in later decades.
1950s
1959 – BYU began their on-campus electroshock and vomit aversion therapy program for males experiencing same-sex sexual attractions.
1960s
1962 – The apostles Spencer W. Kimball and Mark E. Peterson told BYU president Ernest L. Wilkinson that no student suspected of experiencing homosexual feelings should be allowed to attend BYU. 1962 – BYU president Ernest L. Wilkinson stated in a speech to the student body that people with homosexual feelings would not be allowed to enroll or remain as students since they contaminate the campus. 1963 – Elouise Bell began teaching in the BYU English Department. Bell lived with and was in a long-term relationship with Provo High School teacher Margo E. LeVitre for many of her years at BYU, which she apparently kept secret from the university administration. In 2015, after her retirement, Bell married Nancy R Jefferis. 1964 – Apostle Kimball addressed seminary and institute faculty in a July 10 speech on BYU campus titled "A Counselling Problem in the Church", in which he called homosexuality a "malady", "disease", and an "abominable and detestable crime against nature" that was "curable" by "self mastery." He cited one lay bishop (a businessman by trade) assigned by the church to administer a "program of rehabilitation" through which there had been "numerous cures." He said "the police, the courts, and the judges" had referred "many cases directly" to the church. 1965 – Kimball again addressed homosexuality in his January 5 BYU speech "Love vs. Lust." He called it a "gross", "heinous", "obnoxious", "abominable" "vicious" sin. The text states that those with homosexual "desires and tendencies" could "correct" and "overcome" it "the same as if he had the urge toward petting or fornication or adultery", but that "the cure ... is like the cure for alcoholism, subject to continued vigilance." In the speech he stated BYU "will never knowingly enroll ... nor tolerate ... anyone with these tendencies who fails to repent", and that it is a "damnable heresy" for a homosexual person to say "God made them that way." He also states that sometimes masturbation is an introduction to homosexuality. 1965 – Five suicides of gay male BYU students are reported in one year. 1967 – After a policy change allowing BYU bishops to share confidential information gained from the students during interviews with BYU administration took place, a dramatic rise in students suspected of homosexual activity was reported totaling 72 recorded by BYU administration by the end of August 1968. Security files were kept by BYU on students suspected of being gay and students were encouraged to spy on other students. 1969 – BYU alumnus and Mormon painter Trevor Southey joined BYU's faculty teaching art until he was fired in 1979. He had attended the university as a student from 1965 to 1969 and later divorced his wife and came out as gay in 1982. He died in 2015 at the age of 75.