PoX 2.0: The August 2024 General Handbook Update
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| St. Philip Baptizing the Eunuch of Queen Candace, Nicolas Bertin and Madeleine Horthemels |
In light of the changes to the Church's General Handbook, I think it's important to post these sections of the Churches website for everyone to view and understand when talking about the Church's posture towards our transgender membership:
Especially because much of what is going to come in the coming discourse is going to contradict what is written here. And part of that is because there is a disconnect between the Christ-like love and compassion called for here in these sections and the policies the Church has announced in the newest General Handbook revision.
And let me start by saying there are aspects of these adjustments that are good! Clearly, we're capable of making progress because some of these revisions are going to help our transgender church members and their families. The possibility for bishops and other church leadership to dictate name and pronoun usage for members has been completely removed. Transgender Church members who transition cannot be offered gendered callings. They also now have an established way forward to use bathroom facilities that match their gender identity instead of their biological sex. Trans youth also now have an established guidance for participating in overnight youth activities. On these fronts, leadership roulette has been removed because there are now established procedures that leadership must follow.
However, I wholeheartedly reject the following policy:
Church leaders counsel against pursuing surgical, medical, or social transition away from one’s biological sex at birth. (Social transitioning means intentionally identifying and presenting oneself as other than one’s biological sex at birth, and may include changing dress, grooming, names, or pronouns.) Leaders advise that taking these actions will result in some Church membership restrictions. These restrictions include receiving or exercising the priesthood, receiving or using a temple recommend, and serving in some Church callings...
Members who have taken steps to transition and then transition back to their biological sex at birth and are worthy and committed to keeping God’s commandments may enjoy all the privileges of Church membership.
—General Handbook 38.6.23, ed. 2/24
To acknowledge on the one hand that "feelings of gender incongruence are not a measure of your faithfulness," but in the same breath to turn transitioning into a sin, is wholly unacceptable. It's the same faulty logic used against those who experience same-gender attraction, against the plain teachings of Scripture.
Specifically, it is impossible for a desire to be separated from its attending sin. Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that to even be angry and to lust is wrong, not just the acts of murder and adultery. The unholiness of an action, according to the higher law, is determined in the desire that leads to it. If a desire is not wrong, then sin does not logically follow. If same sex attraction and gender transition are not wrong in the desire, then they cannot be sins. That is what Jesus taught. To say nothing of The Book of Mormon, when Alma taught his son Corianton that all desires will be restored to us with our souls in the Resurrection. The desires a transgender person experiences will be restored with their soul in the day of Resurrection, not magically eliminated from a person's identity.
We cannot continue to wish and hope that death will resolve what our community was too cowardly to embrace in life. We cannot punt these issues into an imagined future where God resolves these problems after death, then be surprised when suicidality among our queer people is higher than anywhere else in the country.
We have no scriptural evidence whatsoever to support the rejection of transgender individuals. What we do have, however, is a scriptural account in Genesis 1 that says God created biological sex, and another in Genesis 2 that says Adam created gender. Gender is a man-made creation with no necessary relationship to biological sex. And as with all things man-made, our understanding of gender is subject to flaws.
The eunuch in Acts 8 wasn't prevented from being baptized because his genitalia were permanently altered. There is nothing so important and sacred about genitalia that they and their composition should outweigh everything else about us, including the devotion we feel towards God. To prioritize gender presentation over everything else about a person in performing ordinances is contradicted by the example set by the apostle Philip. We have been shown in Scripture what the way forward is here. And as the Brethren are so fond of saying, it is against the economy of Heaven for God to reveal twice what he has already said once to a prophet of God: "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common."
The rejection of gender transitioning is not a valid or logical way forward for our leadership, our members, or our families. Transitioning is life or death for many who need it. It is recognized as valid and effective medical treatment for gender dysphoria and suicidal ideation. It shouldn't be considered a sin. It shouldn't bring about church discipline, and require a second disciplinary council to undo. It shouldn't cost someone their full fellowship in the Church for the rest of their lives, only to be restored through de-transitioning. That is manipulative and coercive, holding a person's mental health and well-being hostage in exchange for the blessings of the restored gospel. It would be no different than telling someone who has received life-saving treatment to discontinue that treatment to receive full fellowship in the Church.
We wouldn't do this with bone marrow transplants for cancer treatment, which (depending on the donor) can introduce opposite gender DNA into the body. We don't make the reversal of cosmetic surgeries required to receive temple recommends, even though they permanently alter someone's God-given body. We don't condemn hormone replacement and supplementation therapies in cisgender members, even though it involves taking the same medications that transgender members take. We don't prioritize the hallmarks of gender presentation for anyone else in the Church. These gender tests are inappropriate for cisgender members because they are inappropriate for everyone.
My hormones are naturally androgynous. Without gender affirming care, I would have many male traits consistent with transgender men who receive increased androgens. No one is putting me on church discipline because of it. Why? Because I was born this way, and there's something inherently holier about gender non-conformity when God is responsible for it? Because it doesn't matter nearly as much as some in our church are pretending it does?
My hormones shouldn't play any role in how I am treated at church. That's not a reality I want for myself or anyone around me. It's a deeply weird thing to prioritize about someone, let alone to shape someone's entire religious experience around, and I'm tired of pretending like it's not.
My personal feeling on this is that we're creating a problem where one doesn't need to exist. We can stop at any time. The best time to have stopped this was the 23rd of September, 1995.
The next best time is now.
