It was 'hard being gay' at BYU. But at graduation a student showed her 'true colors' by flashing a LGBTQ flag.

• A graduate of Brigham Young University flashed a gay pride flag at her graduation ceremony.
• Jillian Orr said it's "hard being gay at BYU," where there can be "severe consequences" for same-sex dating.

A graduate of Brigham Young University, where most students are Morman, flashed her "true colors" when she showed off a gay pride flag during her graduation ceremony.

"At BYU it's against the honor code to be in a homosexual relationship," Jillian Orr said in a Tik Tok that as of Saturday has over 6 million views. "If you are discovered to be dating or just holding hands there are severe consequences."

Orr, 28, told Good Morning America that she studied social work at BYU, a private school that was founded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The school abides by a strict Honor Code that requires living a "chaste and virtuous life, including abstaining from any sexual relations outside a marriage between a man and a woman."

"Any same-sex romantic behavior is a violation of the principles of the Honor Code," an statement from the Honor Code office reads.

In her viral Tik Tok, Orr said: "Students are afraid to be who they are. So they hide out of fear until they get out. I will not hide. I will be seen. In front of the entire school."

The video shows Orr on the stage at graduation, flashing a gay pride flag that was sewn into her graduation gown.

"Today I showed BYU my true colors," Orr said in a Facebook post. "It's hard being gay at BYU. I didn't know I identified as bisexual until half way through and it's scary to live with the fear that any moment they could take away your degree. You can't be in a relationship unless you're hetero and most of my classes spoke of the 'evil' that I was born into."

BYU did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Saturday.

"It was a pleasant environment. It's a prestigious school," Orr told GMA. "Halfway through my experience, I started to discover more and more about my sexuality of being bisexual and having and falling into this relationship with this girl that I really loved."

She continued: "I was confident, and I was proud of what I had discovered and learned about myself, but it was painful that I was in an environment that taught something that was against what I knew is true and what our basic rights were."

In February, the US Department of Education dismissed a civil rights investigation into how LGBTQ students are treated at BYU, The Associated Press reported.

In 2020, BYU removed a written ban on "homosexual behavior," prompting some students to come out. The Commissioner of the Church Educational System, Elder Paul Johnson, later clarified in a letter that "same-sex romantic behavior cannot lead to eternal marriage and is therefore not compatible" with the Honor Code.

Orr told Insider that the university has not contacted her since graduation.

"I didn't know what was gonna happen, if I was gonna be escorted off. I didn't know if I was gonna be tackled, and I mean, I am putting a lot of things at risk right now. I'm putting a lot of things on the line, and I understand that," Orr told GMA.

She added: "It's just sad to see that other people in the church have a limit to their love when the church says their love is endless."