Building Bridges in the LDS Church: Part 1

Recently, I had an unexpected conversation over several hours with my Relief Society president. We ended up talking about many subjects. In asking about my current unemployment and my previous work experience, we ended up talking about the DEI work I did at the State of Delaware in public education, presenting and developing tours for historic sites. My specialty was in teaching the local history of slavery and abolition.

It was clear she had never had the opportunity to talk to anyone like me before. She had many preconceived notions that many white people have about the history of slavery and the Civil War, which I was able to speak to and recommend some reading for her. (Side note: Let this be the moment where I tell anyone who hasn't read Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe to correct this as soon as possible.)

Through the meandering nature of conversation, we ended up talking about the new policy changes regarding transgender individuals in the LDS church. She hadn't yet sat down to read the policy changes and voiced her own discomfort while I was telling her about them. She found the subject of transgender people in the Church totally overwhelming. I can't detail everything she said because it was a very long conversation. I will summarize what I found to be the core of that discomfort.

She said that she doesn't want to be in a position to have to explain anything about trans people to any of the youth, including her own children (they're all adults) and she doesn't want to be forced into using pronouns because she feels like a lie she's being asked to participate in that she'll have to answer for someday. She shared a genuine belief that God will resurrect transgender people into the bodies they received at birth, that their gender will be restored to them with those bodies and there won't be any incongruence there. Because this is the mindset she operates from, she couldn't conceive of a valid reason to pretend to support something that God will ultimately undo. I disagree with her on this point because I don't think this is something we know. There is a great deal of room for God to show many kindnesses in the Resurrection we haven't even begun to fathom. I don't think it's any of our business to tell God what he can and cannot do.

This is a person who didn't know anything about body dysmorphia or gender dysphoria. She didn't know how suicidal they can make the people who experience them. She didn't know that transitioning is the medical standard of care to prevent suicide in that population. She had never conceived that in the choice between suicide and transitioning, transitioning is the better choice. It had never been framed to her that way, and as soon as it was, it visibly softened her.

She entered that portion of our conversation angry at the queer community and refusing to use pronoun changes (she didn't realize that using a person's chosen pronouns was part of the policy changes), and left it with an understanding that this is a small thing that can create belonging for someone she may not entirely understand, but she has been called to love and keep alive. I made myself available as a resource for information and understanding and I'm hoping, at least in some small way, it made a difference.

It was truly an incredible conversation I didn't expect to be having. She said she would definitely do some more reading and wanted to talk again some time.

It's a representation of something I've suspected but haven't been able to prove: a lot of the fear of queerness in the Church comes from a place of ignorance, not malice and spite. And even where the malice and spite do exist, it can be overcome by knowledge and efforts to rehumanize. The rest will take care of itself because our instincts as a people truly are to care about those who suffer and want to help.

I don't expect her to suddenly come out and be a cheerleader for affirmation in the Church, but in a single conversation I was able to build a bridge that didn't exist before. And I wonder how it would be if even more people tried, what we might be able to accomplish.