Some of our Prophets have been binary in their teachings
“He was either a prophet of God, divinely called, properly appointed and commissioned, or he was one of the biggest frauds this world has ever seen. There is no middle ground.”
—Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, Pages 188-189“Our whole strength rests on the validity of that [first] vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens.”
—President Gordon B. Hinckley“Each of us has to face the matter — either the Church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground. It is the church and kingdom of God, or it is nothing.”
—President Gordon B. Hinckley
Elder Oaks has extended this binary thinking to the LGBTQ+ world in his recent pre-conference address to leaders.
“First, … that God created ‘male and female,’” and that this “binary creation is essential to the plan of salvation.”
“Second, modern revelation teaches that eternal life, the greatest gift of God to His children, is only possible through the creative powers inherent in the combination of male and female joined in an eternal marriage (see Doctrine and Covenants 132:19). That is why the law of chastity is so important.”
“Finally, the long-standing doctrinal statements reaffirmed 23 years ago will not change. They may be clarified as directed by inspiration.” For example, “the intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation and as used in Church statements and publications since that time is biological sex at birth.”
Elder Oaks seems to have overlooked a whole class of people known as intersex.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics (including genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns) that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies.
Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural bodily variations. In some cases, intersex traits are visible at birth while in others, they are not apparent until puberty. Some chromosomal intersex variations may not be physically apparent at all.
Maybe Elder Oaks should have asked his boss, a physician, about intersex individuals. He also overlooked people that while not intersex, are just non-binary.
The reason I write this today is that I have a grandchild that came out as non-binary a few weeks ago. They do not see themselves as either male or female. Some days they feel feminine, and other days masculine. They and their family have left the church, so they are growing up free from any baggage the church would lay on them.
Much like Hawkgrrl’s question from her recent post, is there any place in the church for a non-binary person? Would my grandchild have been accepted in their ward if their family had stayed in the church? Would they attend YM or YW as a teenager? What is the eternal plan for a non-binary person?
Wheat & Tares 
I was shopping at a department store a couple months ago and kept encountering a strikingly beautiful person in the aisles I was visiting. We ended up near each other at checkout, too. I felt so much appreciation for this gorgeous human. We never did speak, but I gave a kind nod and smile when we met eyes. I could not pinpoint right away why I was so deeply touched by this stranger. But then I realized the absolute freedom I felt in their presence. It was like a cage being opened in my soul.
This person, although I do not know how they identify internally, was not clearly male or female in appearance. And I loved them for it. It gave me hope for a world in which gender roles and norms are fluid for all of us. Where we each get to be exactly who we are without any expectations based on a binary.
I absolutely believe there is a place in the church for non-binary people – that place is the gaping, huge wound that many of us feel in our lives from trying to live norms that don’t fit. The healing we could get, as people, from having fully accepted non-binary members would be infinitely precious. But the doctrine, as it stands, and the institution, as it is structured, have no place for non-binary folx. How very, very sad.
When it comes to this topic, I believe in two basic premises:
1. The one-third rule. Approximately a third of individuals that fall into the categories described a there genetically. Another third are reacting to familial background. Another third fall into the if it feels good do it realm.
2. Think of how any denomination would operate if it did not have membership rolls. Yes, people would still be baptized per biblical example. But where in the early church do we find “membership” as a practice? Nowhere. This idea is a whole other topic, but at minimum I have come to the conclusion that Heavenly Father’s Kingdom would be a place that attracts rather than repels His creations.
By early church, I mean apostolic…also please forgive a couple of grammatical errors in my first post.
“First, … that God created ‘male and female,’” and that this “binary creation is essential to the plan of salvation.”
Well, maybe God created spirits, but left the physical part up to nature. Another random condition on earth that we mortals are faced with. I don’t know why we don’t err on the side of inclusion and leave the judging up to God.
I believe the sexual orientation, gender issue is Oak’s pet issue, and feeds into his obsession with religious freedom. We know the Proclamation came about because of the gay marriage issue in Hawaii. (Hawaii established reciprocal beneficiary relationships, a limited form of civil unions, for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples in 1997).
One of my friend’s in my old ward has a daughter who came out as non-binary a few years ago.
Needless to say, they no longer attend the church. In fact, my friend told me that 5 families left the church due to the church’s actions and policies on these issues.
“is there any place in the church for a non-binary person? Would my grandchild have been accepted in their ward if their family had stayed in the church? Would they attend YM or YW as a teenager? What is the eternal plan for a non-binary person?”
All good questions. It seemed like Tom Christopherson had a supportive ward, but my guess is that is extremely rare. Even in more liberal areas of the U.S., church leadership can be authoritarian, which isn’t compatible with making space for those don’t fit the Mormon “mold.” (BYU, mission, temple marriage etc etc etc).
I wonder if Elder Oaks’ boss, a physician, would know anything about intersex individuals. Given the date and focus of his training and experience, why should one think he ever focused on that aspect of genetics and biological development?
Wondering, in the era President Nelson trained as a physician, only intersex individuals who are born with ambiguous genitalia would have generally been identified as such (about 1-2 per 1,000 births). By the time he retired chromosomal analysis was possible and evaluating gonads (ovaries, testicles, or other) also easier but not at all routine as it is now. Still, every physician encounters intersex individuals because there are a lot of them. It is really strange to me the President Oaks feels the need to deny the existence of people who are not binary. He doesn’t know how they fit into the Plan of Salvation so…they don’t exist?
Something that really struck me about Pres. Oaks’s comments this last conference was the “contradiction” between the certainty of his statements in the leadership session about gender and the uncertainty, and patience he spoke of in the Saturday morning general session. He felt like there was enough certainty in Church teachings about gender to make the declaration he made regarding gender, but there was not enough certainty in the Church’s teachings around eternal polygamy and the state of marriages after death to make a similar declaration.
It seems to me that his teachings about patience and uncertainty and carefully read the scriptures to see what we really know and, ultimately, trust God to work it out in the eternities (and we don’t know exactly what work it out in the eternities means for our LGBT+ brothers and sisters). In this way, erring on the side of including people in our worship on their terms would seem appropriate.
There are several factors that are part of the intersex world. Chromosomes, gene expression, embryonic hormone production and reception, and so on. These are things that are discerned visually, microscopically, chemically, and so on. They are not a matter of conjecture. Some scientists have 32 classifications for intersex expression. Others consider some to be subsets and list 29 classifications. Either way, we are looking at 30+ biological expressions of sex – hardly a binary. Oaks conflates gender with biological sex – so let’s start there.
Biological sex is not a binary. If gender = biological sex, then gender is not binary. How can a person with a JD deny that simple logic?
We often tend to discuss things like thoughts, feelings, desires, spirituality, attractions, and identity as functions of the mind or will. That is certainly what is most often taught in LDS settings. The locus of all of those things is the brain which, last time I saw an MRI, is every bit as biological as my left kidney. It is absurd to talk about sexual attraction and gender identity as being non-biological.
Acceptance of your grandchild? Roulette. I attended Sunday meetings in a daughter’s ward. The Proclamation was the Gospel Doctrine topic. The teacher called on the previous bishop for his thoughts. This 4o-s0mething former bishop had gone back to university and was taking a biology class. He spoke of all the fake science surrounding intersex because “we know there are only two sexes – the prophets tell us so”. If your granddaughter had him as her bishop, he wouldn’t even acknowledge her biology as being real.
I recently had a visit from my stake president. Our bishop had told my wife and me that we couldn’t have temple recommends because we support same-sex marriage. The stake president heard about this and wanted to talk about it. He is a physician during the day and had previously held LGBT training for stake leaders. Without throwing the bishop completely under the bus, he said that our belief would not prevent us from getting a temple recommend, if that was our desire.
I told him that I had attended sacrament meeting a couple of weeks previous ( a very rare occurrence). I said I counted six people with red hair from five families. I pointed out that being intersex had the same statistical probability as having red hair or green eyes. There could be half a dozen intersex individuals sitting in the pews and several times as many others on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. He absorbed that and said, “We need to do better.” Your granddaughter would have a fighting chance in his stake – after he straightened out a bishop or two,
As long as top leadership denies physical reality in the name of God, they give tacit permission to diminish and marginalize a statistically significant part of the human race. People who are every bit as much of God’s creation as they are themselves.
These messages do sink in and fester. I’m passionate about it – I’ve cut the rope on our gay son’s attempt. I’ve sat with a dozen families of LGBTQ+ youth that weren’t so fortunate.
Please, don’t let these attitudes and teachings stand. Sometimes just knowing that someone is willing to publically advocate in a church setting is enough to interrupt suicidal ideation and foster a bit of safety in what feels like a burningly toxic environment to the LGBTQ+ kiddo.
Please.
I can’t answer for your grandchild’s potential ward, but I will say I have been pleasantly surprised by my ward. But we don’t live in the Mormon heartland, so its possible to have a much more live and let live approach to everything. But even within our own stake there are tremendous differences.
In terms of whether they would attend YM or YW. We haven’t tried to cross that boundary yet because I feel like that would force the bishop to consult with the stake president and he would dutifully ask the Area Authority and then all hell would break loose. But our youth program is small enough that other than the mandatory segregation every other Sunday, a lot is combined anyway.
In terms of the eternal plan? Fortunately that’s not up to Elder Oaks to decide. I don’t think any of us have really much of a clue on most parts of the plan. Going through the CFM reading in Revelation this week, I don’t see anywhere that a person’s gender or lack there of matters. I don’t know why we as a church seemed to have staked LGBTQ issues as the hill that we are going to die on. I don’t see God’s hand in it and I have watched so many formerly faithful families walk away over them. I am sure that makes some people very happy, but it makes me sad. I think there are lots of opportunities in our theology that are being ignored. Maybe someday we will do the needed work to expand our approach to all of God’s children, but we seem willing to lose whole generations first.
I don’t don’t think Elder Oaks was denying the existence of intersex people. I’m sure he is well aware of them. The fact that they exist doesn’t contradict what he said.
The church trumpets a lot of celestial ideals, but we live in a fallen world that often doesn’t line up with those ideals, and that can be difficult to deal with. We don’t quit teaching the ideal family in primary because a little boy’s mother has no interesting in being sealed to the man who sired him through rape. He might not be sealed to a father in this life, but that doesn’t mean provisions won’t be made for him in the eternities, even if the church can’t say exactly what those will be. Likewise, if Elder Oaks teaches that male and female is necessary to the plan of salvation, it shouldn’t be any more offensive or difficult to deal with than if a biology teacher teaches that male and female were necessary for the propitiation of the human species. It’s one thing to be sensitive to the complexities and difficulties of other people’s (and our own) lives, but it’s another thing to have the exceptions define the rule rather than the rule the exceptions. None of us are completely “natural” fits, and we all have things we cannot change about ourselves that don’t align perfectly with the ideals the church espouses, but it is incumbent upon us to do the best we can to align ourselves to those ideals and leave the rest to Christ. I believe this includes LGBTQ, non-binary, and intersex people as well.
When Angela posted about non-binary people at church, it struck me that the church is one of the few places where a gender-dysmorphic person could make a case that they were actually born the wrong sex. From a biological perspective, in which there is no such thing as a spirit, gender dysmorphia can only be a mental illness — a mental illness which we don’t know how to treat, so we instead do violence to a perfectly healthy body to relieve mental distress. From a more traditional Christian perspective, there is no pre-mortal spirit, let alone pre-mortal sex, so how could a person have the wrong body? It’s only the LDS belief in a pre-mortal, gendered spirit being sent to inhabit a mortal, and possible grossly defective body, that a “female in a male’s body” (or “male in a female’s body”) makes any kind of sense.
Thank you, Jessica, for these words: “We never did speak, but I gave a kind nod and smile when we met eyes. I could not pinpoint right away why I was so deeply touched by this stranger. But then I realized the absolute freedom I felt in their presence. It was like a cage being opened in my soul.”
Having recently had a similar experience with someone who appeared to be non-binary, your words moved me to tears because they articulated so well the feelings I had at the time but could not adequately express. Another thought I had that flowed more freely was, “may God forgive us for what we’ve done.”
I have to agree with President Oaks here. Humans are made male and female, the furthering of our scientific knowledge and the discovery of chromosomes only further confirms this fact. The presence of intersex individuals is exceptionally rare. Only around 1% of individuals are technically intersex, but even the overwhelming majority of these already rare individuals demonstrate clear male or female characteristics. (For example individuals with Turner syndrome, the most common condition where someone has only one X chromosome, have all female sex characteristics.) The existence of these individuals only confirms the binary, because something has to go wrong in the reproductive process for these conditions to exist. They simply don’t happen when everything is functioning properly. Just as the existence of Down Syndrome doesn’t disprove that humans have 46 chromosomes and the existence of polydactyly doesn’t disprove that humans have 10 fingers and toes, intersex conditions don’t disprove the gender binary. The fact that a malignant process has to occur for them to exist, and the fact these conditions almost always generate comorbidities, only confirms that we were designed to be either male or female.
I always found this talking point to be odd anyway. Virtually all people I’ve seen who identify as non-binary don’t have any of these conditions anyway, making coming out more of a lifestlye/fashion choice in most people I’ve known. The fact remains that they are male or female, to say otherwise is a flat denial of our scientific knowledge.
Do non-binary folks have a place in the kingdom of God? Absolutely.
Do they have a (safe) place in the institution of the LDS church? No, not at the moment, not with the way church leadership treats and discusses them. I’ve been in some non-binary friendlier wards but it’s tough when the rhetoric from the top is what it is.
Hope it changes. (And also hope we move to accept more non-binary thinking in general—all or nothing, black-and-white, Joseph Smith was either a devil or a saint thinking is pushing many people out.)
“Here’s what we do know: If you ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births. But a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won’t show up until later in life.”
“Not XX and not XY one in 1,666 births
Klinefelter (XXY) one in 1,000 births
Androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 13,000 births
Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 130,000 births
Classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia one in 13,000 births
Late onset adrenal hyperplasia one in 66 individuals
Vaginal agenesis one in 6,000 births
Ovotestes one in 83,000 births
Idiopathic (no discernable medical cause) one in 110,000 births
Iatrogenic (caused by medical treatment, for instance progestin administered to pregnant mother) no estimate
5 alpha reductase deficiency no estimate
Mixed gonadal dysgenesis no estimate
Complete gonadal dysgenesis one in 150,000 births
Hypospadias (urethral opening in perineum or along penile shaft) one in 2,000 births
Hypospadias (urethral opening between corona and tip of glans penis) one in 770 births
Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female one in 100 births
Total number of people receiving surgery to “normalize” genital appearance one or two in 1,000 births”
https://isna.org/faq/frequency/
Mormons have a bad habit of making pathologies of normal human variabilities that fall outside constricted LDS norms. You’d think the current crop of theologically correct commenters would have learned from the “less valiant in the preexistence” fiasco. Tolstoy C your post is odious and reprehensible.
Web MD statistics:
https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20190503/study-about-1-in-1000-babies-born-intersex
Prior quotes are from The Intersex Society of North America
For more resources https://interactadvocates.org/.
Tolstoy C. says intersex people are very rare at 1%. For those of you who live in the mormon belt it is good to remember that members of the church are much rarer. 1% of the world population would make about 78 million or 8 times as many as active members.
As I live in a country where members are less than 1%, I am more aware.
My attitude to this subject is “all are alike unto God, including minorities” I would like to see the church get inline with the gospel.
P – I agree with your assessment of Tolstoy C’s callous assessment.
Maybe I’ve just been blessed to be awash in non-standard malignant processes. Two sons with Down syndrome. My awesome gay son – oh, that is just a lifestyle choice. I guess my Korean son and Black daughter will just have to wait to be white and delightsome.
I guess “all the variety” of God’s creations are limited to flowers.
P/Been There – At no point in my comment did I ever suggest that individuals with intersex conditions were anything less because of their condition. As a physician who has dedicated their life to helping all of my patients heal in the face of disease and suffering I would never say or think anything like that. Having an intersex condition makes you no less worthy of love and respect than having diabetes or high blood pressure. Everyone at some point in their life will suffer some sort of physical ailment.
Acknowledging that something is wrong with their physical body is not in any way a statement regarding their worth as a human being.
I don’t think p’s comment is in good form. If you’re going to going to call somebody’s comment odious, you should at least not be so lazy about it. At least explain why it’s odious. Besides, most pathologies are part of the normal human variation. That doesn’t mean they’re not pathologies. You don’t take a perfectly healthy body and cut it up and fill it full of foreign hormones without some sort of pathology. Such action can only be precipitated by significant distress.
Been There’s comment is nearly as bad, as Tolstoy Christian didn’t say being gay was a lifestyle choice.
I think Elder Oaks’ comments come from a legalistic lens, where he may have been concerned with protecting the institution from litigation and liability from civil suits and the cost of frivolous complaints aimed at discriminatory policies. Every ward could have lawsuits rising from secular discrimination. The institution by definition is discriminatory. The act of consecrating sacred space is discriminatory.
I don’t think Elder Oaks calculated the effect of this comments against the sentiments of members because he was more focused on his role as a legal steward. I don’t think he harbors anything but love towards others.
Tolstoy, as a physician your defense of the binary is even more mysterious. Humanity in its glorious variety is not bounded by theological correctness (basically what you’re espousing) which is inhumane, dangerous and responsible over the centuries for multitudes of human tragedies. Sexual orientation likewise is distributed naturally across a spectrum. “Fear will not stifle thought, as is the case in some areas which have not yet emerged from the Dark Ages.” (Hugh B Brown)
God has a place for these people but the church as currently administered does not. Boyd K Packer referee to intersex as a prank of nature. I think current church leaders know that intersex people exist but that it’s a non permanent trial they have to deal with in this life, and which will be fixed in the resurrection.
No question there are pockets of welcoming loving wards and stakes but as a whole, intersex are not welcome. Christofferson is an outlier and probably attributable to the fact that bro is Q12.
“ You don’t take a perfectly healthy body and cut it up and fill it full of foreign hormones without some sort of pathology. Such action can only be precipitated by significant distress.”
In my corner of the Mormon corridor I would guess that around 60-70% of active Mormons have either cut up their body (cosmetic surgery) or filled it full of foreign hormones (birth control, Viagra, etc). Do they all have pathologies? Are they all under significant distress?
It is absolutely common place in our society to mess with healthy bodies. We’ve just decided that looking pretty and having a lot of sex are good reasons for this, while other reasons are “pathological.”
I’m not a scientist or a doctor so I’m hesitant to comment on these matters. But President Oaks feels no such hesitation. And that’s what bothers me the most.
In contrast, I remember reading about David O McKay and his views on Evolution. He basically believed in it but he was also aware that most of the Brethren did not believe in it. He did not want to make an issue of it and he was upset that Joseph Fielding Smith felt no such restraints. Not only did JFS speak publicly again Evolution, he wrote a book that more or less slammed that theory as well (Man, his Origin and Destiny). Nevertheless, President McKay was hesitant to speak out. His philosophy, according to his personal secretary, was that if the Lord had not revealed information about a subject, he as Prophet should not speak about it.
I wish President Oaks would follow this simple guideline too instead of “instructing” us on his opinions which come across as the philosophies of man mingled with scripture.
P- Instead of engaging with the substance of my argument both of your responses appear to be willful misrepresentations of my position and ad hominem attacks. At no point in my comment did I invoke “theological correctness” or any theological defense of the binary nature of humanity, only basic and well understood scientific facts. Chromosomes do not exist on a spectrum. Human beings are either XX females or XY males. The few individuals who do not fall into one category or the other have, by definition, a pathological condition; many of which are listed in Stephen’s comment.
“Some days they feel feminine, and other days masculine”
What do those words MEAN?
Y’all talk about friendly wards, safe spaces and things like that. There might be a bit more of that when you start exhibiting similar traits. Tolstoy Christian gets slammed for citing ordinary biological facts. The church is designed around reproduction. I cannot imagine attending a ward filled by hostile W&T regulars and you wouldn’t want it either.
Martin: I remember reading somewhere (I believe Fair Mormon) that the Church is NOT anti-science and we should not assume President Oaks doesn’t understand the concept of intersex. He just defines things differently. And to your point, he’s aware of the concept. The explanation they gave is that God doesn’t create humans, we do via reproduction. And in this fallen world we create compromised / fallen beings. In other words, God didn’t create LGBQ humans, we did.
“Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural bodily variations. In some cases, intersex traits are visible at birth while in others, they are not apparent until puberty. Some chromosomal intersex variations may not be physically apparent at all.” “Free & Equal Campaign Fact Sheet: Intersex” (PDF). United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2015. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
Tolstoy, I termed your post “odious & reprehensible” not you, so not sure where you’re coming from w/ ad hominem complaint.
Josh H, your post is also odious & reprehensible.
EBK, if your argument is that if it’s normal for people to get breast implants and take birth control, then it’s normal for people to get sex-change operations, you’re supporting the idea that a sex change operation is simply a life-style choice, nothing but preference. If it’s simple preference, I would agree — no pathology. But then you wouldn’t think people could be so outraged at a church warning against such a lifestyle choice. My understanding is that there are people from a very young age who simply self-identify as the opposite sex their body has.
Sorry, I wasn’t finished — The term I’ve heard used for that is “gender dysphoria”, and for many it causes enough mental distress that they’re willing to consider irreversible medical procedures and a difficult period of transitioning which are known to have long term health consequences. I would consider that a pathology, if only a mental pathology.
Oh wow, josh h….that is truly cruel.
Hey P and skdadyl: I hope you understand that I am not in agreement with Fair Mormon on their explanation of intersex. I’m simply repeating what I read. It’s important that we understand the mentality of Fair Mormon and perhaps President Oaks. So calling my post reprehensible or cruel is off base. I’m just reporting the news, not making it.
Clearer attribution may have prevented this misunderstanding, Josh. The downvote button on your post is worn out.