One Sunday the missionaries bring a lady they have been teaching. You notice right away that she looks very masculine for a woman. The missionaries ask to meet with you during the week and tell you that the lady they brought to church is a transsexual, born a man but now living as a woman. She has not had any operations, but is taking hormones. They say that they cannot baptize her without FP approval, and that their mission president is handling the situation. You breath a sigh a relief that you don’t have to get involved with that.
After a few weeks, you get a few comments from the Sisters in the ward that they feel uncomfortable with this “woman” attending RS, and using the ladies restroom.
You are the Bishop, What do you do?
- Let her continue to attend RS and use the Women’s restroom
- You let her continue to attend RS, but use the Men’s restroom
- Since she is still legally a man, you have “her” attend Priesthood and use the Men’s restroom
How would your answer change if it was a man (who was born a woman) and all the questions above were changes for that situation? (“he” attends priesthood meeting and uses the men’s restroom)
Wheat & Tares 
This is an important topic, and I am glad you are bringing it up. Because of Reasons, I have seriously considered the possibility that a close family member could be trans, so this hits home.
Although the women in the ward may feel uncomfortable, it is actually the trans person that is in the most danger in the restroom. Here is a related TED Talk on this topic.
Surprisingly, in my ward building there is a unisex bathroom available, and it is likely, though not guaranteed, that the trans individual would choose to use that restroom.
Outside of that, I think that having a safe place to use the restroom is a basic human right, and we do not do genital checks on anyone to make sure they conform. I don’t see that this situation changes the equation.
I think it might be wise to meet with the trans person, since they are openly trans. I would assure them that they are free to decline to answer anything that seems too personal. Do they prefer female pronouns, or the gender neutral “they”? Have they experienced discrimination or harassment? How did they deal with it? How would they like it dealt with if it happens in the future? These answers might inform how to handle the ward.
I would ask them if they had any concerns about classes or facilities. I would tell them that they are free to attend the class and restroom where they feel the most comfortable. I would tell them that the same prejudices that exist elsewhere also exist in the church. I wouldn’t suggest that they use a private bathroom, but if they asked about private restroom (which I think is likely) I would mention the solo unisex bathroom if it is available.
To other people in the ward that approach me with concerns, I would ask them if their concern was safety for privacy or both. I would tell them that trans people also can feel uncomfortable. I would tell them that we want church to be safe for everyone, and that trans people are statistically in the most danger in the restroom. I would tell them that while they feel uncomfortable with this person in the restroom, trans people often feel uncomfortable in all public restrooms.
10 years ago, my answer would have been pretty much the opposite of this.
So my lengthy comment got caught in the moderation queue, so the TL/DR version is let everyone attend the class and restroom where they feel the most comfortable. Talk to the trans individual to find out more about their life experience (with respect for their privacy) and encourage members to see things from the other perspective.
Why isn’t there a “do nothing” option? Why do we need busybody bishops to “solve” everyone’s “problems” and t make decisions for everyone?
Alternate Pseudonyms answer is perfect. ji’s answer also resonates with me. I think the toughest reality here is that there may not be a way to fully protect this woman from the behavior of some of the women in the ward who want to exclude her. Transphobia is not only very prevalent but people often feel comfortable, even righteous, aggressively persecuting transgender people in public spaces.
The answer of course is#1.
My spouse worked in a large private corporation with a woman who came out as trans after working there for several years. HR held a short meeting with employees to let them know that Josephine, now Joseph, would be using the men’s restroom. It didn’t bother my husband at all–Joseph simply used a stall.
I can imagine it was uncomfortable for some members when the priesthood ban was lifted and black people began attending the temple.
Change is more difficult for some than others but change we must, as we progress toward becoming more perfect in learning to love others and treating them as we would want to be treated.
Many places now have neutral gender bathrooms. Time for the Church to move in this direction.
I agree with what has been said (#1), with one additional caveat. The Bishop could let it get out there (via ward council) that if any members have a problem with this they should come talk to him privately. Then he could go over AP’s points above. I see this as a way of discouraging any outright harassment of the woman or excessive gossiping.
I have actually been in a women’s restroom with a trans individual.
It was a club in Hollywood. The restroom was crowded with a number of people lined up to use the 2 available cubicles. The individual was unmistakable standing well over 6′ tall in spiked heels and having the shoulder span of an athlete. Nevertheless, no one was especially disturbed. There was no discernible air of tension in the room as each person took their opportunity to enter a cubicle and do their business in private.
It was a very enlightening experience to see that, apart from the highly charged public discussion, the reality needn’t be.
alice – fyi – you should not assume that an individual is trans because they fit some model of what you see as trans. Cis-women have been thrown out of women’s rooms because they did not appear to be female enough.
Congrats W&T commenters, have a cookie for not being terrible people!
Alice, have 100 more for all the times you shared a bathroom with a trans woman and didn’t know you were doing so.
Now give all those cookies back, because your kids are still killing themselves in droves and for some reason that isn’t your number one priority right now.
If only there was some way to solve this problem! It is a mystery why kids raised in the church that’s all about family and kids and babies forever feel like their lives are meaningless once they find out they don’t get to do any of that until after they’re dead.
The church is going to have to come to grips with these things as society continues to degrade. As it was in the days of Noah, even do shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. The question is, how far does the church go when it comes to deviant behavior? Clearly, if a woman thinks she’s more comfortable as a man and pumps herself full of testosterone, she may begin to look like a man, but you can’t give her the priesthood or marry her to a woman (especially in the temple). The problem is, how far does a bishop go? How far does the First Presidency go?
If the church folds on letting them in and letting a woman attend priesthood, it’s only a matter of time before a trannie wants to marry same-sex or receive the priesthood. And of course we also run the risk of someone coming into the church and not disclosing their true gender. (I think the Catholics had a female Pope they had to deal with. If I recall, things were going okay until His Holiness became pregnant. The Catholics dismiss it as an urban legend, however, but it was a good story!)
As a guy, I’d feel uncomfortable in a men’s restroom if a “woman” were to walk in. And if I were a woman, I’d feel uncomfortable if a man who got off on being a woman were to waltz in. Bottom line: I’d support the bishop in whatever he wanted to do.
John Roberts, you may consider that society is degrading. I think it’s becoming more open and enlightened and letting go of unimportant conventions.
It isn’t any fluctuation in sexuality and gender roles that is leading to the coarsening of our public discourse or the volatility of our public spaces. It’s hardliners refusing to acknowledge people who don’t fit their concept of “normal” and government of the Right that has insulated itself from anything resembling democratic representation that raises the level of impotence, frustration and rage.
John Roberts, the First Presidency is currently grappling on how to deal with this. There are a lot of factors involved, including the handling of members who were gender ambiguous at birth, members who were married in the temple where one transitions (creating a same-sex marriage), and prospective members who are also transgender simply wanting to worship with us.
Unless you were privy to knowledge that’s not likely to be handed out (such as genitals), it’s more than likely you’ve shared a bathroom with a transgender man and had no idea whatsoever. (and the Catholic story is false, through and through)
“Pope Joan (Ioannes Anglicus) was, according to popular legend, a woman who reigned as pope for a few years during the Middle Ages. Her story first appeared in chronicles in the 13th century and subsequently spread throughout Europe. The story was widely believed for centuries, but most modern scholars regard it as fictional.”
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan
Does prophecy state that the world is going to be more open and enlightened, or that it’s going to become more wicked and degenerate? If we’re going to become more enlightened, why are we having all these mass shootings and natural disasters? I know of not one prophecy that says the world will get better on its own accord. Everything I read says we’re going to be worse — that the world is going to get worse.
If someone is born a true hermaphrodite, that’s one thing (though I think those cases are few and far between), but what we’re seeing are men who want to be women and women who want to be men. The church has pretty much taken the position that if someone is born a man, he should remain so; the same applies with women. If a person suffers ambiguity after that, I think the church is going to go with how a person is born. I don’t think you’ll ever see two gender-ambiguous people sealed in the temple or a woman pumped up with testosterone given the priesthood.
“I don’t think you’ll ever see two gender-ambiguous people sealed in the temple…”
For the record, I recall an old news story about a husband who, years after being married in the temple, found out his spouse was actually a man: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/449491/HUSBAND-KNEW-I-WAS-MAN-URIOSTE-TELLS-TABLOID-TV.html
I also know of polygamous marriages that have happened in the temple in recent years (essentially, a man getting married in the temple to a second wife before the divorce with his first wife was finalized).
I’m sure there are other examples out there. The only way this stuff stops happening is if the church starts vetting temple weddings more closely, and I really don’t see that happening.
Quite a few people are “gender-ambiguous” at birth. I imagine at least a few have married each other in the temple.
I believe John Robert’s position above is similar to the majority of church members. However, Dallin Oaks seemed less certain of the church’s position when he said, in a press conference in 2015, “I think we need to acknowledge that while we have been acquainted with lesbians and homosexuals for some time, being acquainted with the unique problems of a transgender situation is something we have not had so much experience with, and we have some unfinished business in teaching on that.” I haven’t heard any teaching on the topic since then.
There is such a wide variety of crazy things that happen during gestation I don’t think it is surprising to learn that a person can be born with two x chromosomes and male seeming anatomy, or female anatomy with XY chromosomes, or any number of conditions in between. In such cases, is the eternal gender of the baby determined by anatomy or genes? And more to the point, who is best able to determine gender?
And if we see that people can be born with an abnormal number of chromosomes (Down Syndrome, or XXY for example), why can’t a woman or a man have the wrong chromosomes for their gender? It actually seems that the family proc, which says gender is eternal, is an argument in favor of the existence of transgenderism. After all, why would it be possible for a child to be born with severe life threatening and painful defects, like having organs on the outside of the body, and not possible for a person to have the wrong chromosomes for their gender?
It is my position that regardless of anatomy or genes, each individual is the best person to determine their own gender. This is true whether or not gender is an eternal characteristic as stated by the family proc.
John Roberts – “The church has pretty much taken the position that if someone is born a man, he should remain so; the same applies with women.”
That’s the thing. The Church -hasn’t- taken this position. How this has been addressed by leadership (Bishop through Q12) has been inconsistent, determined case by case and according to the feelings of the leadership involved. The PotF, as Alternate Pseudonym said, leaves the loophole for people to be placed in a body of the wrong gender.
And, for the inevitable argument of “God doesn’t make mistakes” – who is to say it’s a mistake? God works in mysterious ways, and all that.
Our ward had a transgender person attend last year. The Stake Presidency determined that if they needed to use the facilities they could go to whichever washroom they felt comfortable with, as long as no one else was in there. They came for about 3 or 4 times and we haven’t seen them since.
Alternate Pseudonym-
Thanks for the TED talk link!
Powerful.
Whizzbang – How would a transgender person figure out if anyone else was in the bathroom already? Would they stand at the door and ask if the bathroom was in use as if they were the cleaning crew? Or was someone assigned to verify that the bathroom was empty before they walked in? Letting transgender people use the bathroom is good, but that still sounds like an awkward situation for a transgender person to be in when attending church.
We converted a black woman whose skinny little brother visited church a few times dressed like a woman. Probably most of the ward didn’t know. I thought “she” was sort of cute but not my type and I was very married. I would not have known if her husband didn’t tell me. It was no big deal and did not require bishopric intervention.
There is another set of related rare problems that cloud this issue. Some people are born with ambiguous reproductive organs. Many of these conditions are on a spectrum and the more common are mild while the more serious are rare. One condition is so common that it probably afflicts someone in your ward. The male baby is born with the orifice of the urethra displaced down and in slightly more severe cases with a variably long slit. It is easily corrected. But more severe cases can result in genetic boy babies looking more like girl babies.I saw a medical textbook once with dozens of these conditions described and their variety and unexpectedness boggles the imagination. The surgical techniques to change a body from male to female were not developed to correct what surgeons would think of psychological problems but to correct these sometimes severe congenital and anatomic problems.
One of the morally most confusing problems is a condition that used to be called testicular feminization but now has a more politically correct and less memorable name. These people have male genetic material, ie an X and Y chromosome .But most of the genes on the Y chromosome are turned off. So they develop into and look just like normal girls physically . They will not usually be noticed to be different until adolescence when many of them do not manifest the female reproductive cycle. A few manage to get married to men who think they are female and even the most intimate romp on a wedding night under bright lights is not going to indicate anything otherwise.
We had a couple in our ward in the military sealed in the temple who discovered this problem during an infertility evaluation. The wife was a genetic male but anatomic female, attracted to men. The husband was a fertile male strongly attracted to women including his wife. The theological question was would his wife be resurrected with all infirmities corrected so would she be male? And was she male in the pre-existance? For this life she would appear to be female in every way except on esoteric genetic tests but infertile. He was freaked out about being married and sexually active for a few years with a genetic male. He considered divorce but actually loved his wife and couldn’t bring himself to do it since it was not her fault. And he could remarry a woman would would have children. He faced a terrible dilemma. After much prayer and counsel with the bishop he divorced her and married another woman.
I vote for gender neutral bathrooms for many reasons we might not know.
@Andy-She came with a friend in our ward and that lady was to make sure there was no one in the washroom, but really came to nothing as she attended only a few times. Her friend still attends though, whatever happened to the friend I have no idea. I know though the sisters used to visit with them
I think the issue that needs addressing is not the trans woman but the reaction of the ward members who are having a hard time figuring out what Biblical love/charity looks like and how to treat people who are made in the image of God.
I think the general sentiment we need to think about is whether church is to comfort the already comfortable or to challenge us to become better Christians. If it’s the former, the easy road is to continue to marginalize the “outcasts” who don’t meet the norms or ideals. If it’s the latter, we need to expose people to others and educate them, modeling the skills of welcoming and listening and learning.
While the above situation did not happen to me, it happened to the bishop that replaced me. We were in a new building that had a “Family/handicap” restroom, a single use facility. He asked her to use that restroom. She attended a few more weeks and then just disappeared and we never saw her again.
I Agree with Angela C, except that I think the ease with which we can be so inclusive depends, unfortunately, upon the variety of “outcast.” It seems most readers here would encourage accommodating racial or ethnic minorities, vocal progressives, gender nonconforming persons, and persons with qualms about Church history or practice. The reason Angela C’s point is so easy for us to agree with is that it’s not *those* people who make people like us uncomfortable. Substitute, instead, white nationalists, vocal reactionaries, pederasts, and reflexologists, and you get a clearer picture of why the RS sister felt inclined to complain. What’s good for the goose must be good for gander, or else it’s no good at all.
Gadflown, my current ward already has it’s share of white nationalists, vocal reactionaries, pederasts, and reflexologists. I would welcome accomodating more ethnic minorities, vocal progressives, gender nonconforming persons, and persons with qualms about Church history or practice.
“What’s good for the goose must be good for gander, or else it’s no good at all.”
True.
Sometimes I view church involvement like going to the gym. One reason we go to a gym is to work out muscles that don’t get much working out in our day-to-day lives. And so it is with church. In the conservative area in which I live, my muscles are getting a lot of exercise. But I hold back from being the “trainer”–the one to give those conservative members a chance to exercise their underused muscles. Ideally, sharing our differing thoughts and experiences viewpoints could bring us to a greater understanding and lead us to find more commonalities than differences.
Actually, in the gym analogy, Jesus would be the “trainer.”