“It created this inner turmoil and despair, because they’re both so important to me.” “I felt like I was forced to choose between my spirituality and sexuality,” Orr said. Orr said she had been comfortable at BYU until she felt attracted to another woman. To Orr, her faith and identity aren’t at odds “I wanted to do this to be honored, to be seen,” Orr told CNN. Orr said she didn’t intend her rainbow reveal, her younger sister’s suggestion, to stand as a rebuke to her alma mater. The Honor Code Office may investigate reported students and choose to take action against students for perceived offenses, including expulsion from the university, according to BYU. It was a quiet moment of recognition for the years she spent hiding her LGBTQ identity at a school where, Orr said, she feared school administrators and classmates might have turned her in to the school’s Honor Code Office if they discovered she’d been in a same-sex relationship. She took a breath, smiled and opened up her graduation gown to reveal a rainbow Pride flag, which one of her sisters had sewn into the gown’s lining.
