The occasional updates to the online General Handbook of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are often routine, addressing relatively mundane policies, practices and procedures within the global faith of 17.2 million members.
Not so this week.
The new guidelines spelled out for local lay leaders and their approach to transgender individuals have created a firestorm among LGBTQ members and their allies not seen, perhaps, since the hotly disputed — and now-discarded — exclusion policy of November 2015 for same-sex couples.
The new rules state, for instance, that members who have transitioned in any way — whether surgically, medically or socially — cannot receive a temple recommend, work with children, serve as teachers in their congregations or fill any gender-specific assignments, such as president of the women’s Relief Society.
They cannot stay at most youth camps overnight. And they are urged to use single-occupancy restrooms at church meetinghouses or station a “trusted person” outside to keep others from entering when they use a restroom that aligns with their personal gender identity.
Discussing these new policies and their potential impact on members are religion scholar Taylor Petrey, editor-in-chief of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and author of “Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism,” and Michael Soto, a transgender and queer man who grew up in the church and now serves as president of Equality Arizona.
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