Editor’s note • This column mentions suicide. If you or people you know are at risk of self-harm, call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or chat at 988Lifeline.org.
Express an opinion on just about any subject or lay down an official policy that singles out and hurts a specific group of people and what does that do? It divides the room.
Consider that room — a very large room — divided, compliments of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and now compliments of this column, which aims to criticize the faith’s recent restrictions on its transgender members, restrictions that shout to the church as a whole that trans folks are some combination of sinners, threats to others, individuals who are unsuitable for God’s greatest blessings and incapable of properly filling trusted roles of responsibility and leadership within the institution.
This side of the room says those policies are flawed.
They think no Christian church, no faith that centers on Jesus Christ, would or should intentionally stigmatize and shove into a corner already vulnerable and marginalized individuals. A UCLA study revealed, after all, that 81% of transgender adults in the United States have thought about suicide and 42% have attempted it.
Followers on the other side who believe the church is beyond reproach, that its leaders cannot and do not make erroneous decisions — ever — will reject any criticism.
Many either don’t or won’t care about the deep-seated feelings of others who are experiencing something different, something to which orthodox followers cannot or will not relate. They simply concur with such rules as coming down off the mountaintop as the word of God.
It may be a complicated issue, but in that complication, you, depending on which side of the room you’re on, might hope compassion and understanding would reign supreme, according not just to the word of God but also to the love of Same. That love typically is profound, not paranoid.
The church’s positions seem couched in fear.
Who is really at risk?
While top Latter-day Saint leaders make no mention of what they believe causes people to transition from one gender to another, they do discourage it in a major way, without apparent thought or empathy for what these members are experiencing.
Transgender individuals, studies show, are not a danger or a safety risk to others when they use restrooms aligned with their gender identification. The implication of the church’s new policies is that they are or might be when, in fact, research shows that trans individuals are the ones more at risk.
The church is willing to embrace what it shades as wayward wrongdoers, but not without simultaneously punching them in the face with these policies.
What would Jesus do? Would he shove away or gather in?
You’ve seen or heard about the rules. They include encouragement for members to attend gender-specific church meetings and activities that align with their assigned sex at birth. “Rare” exceptions must be given consideration and granted permission from area church authorities. Individuals who have transitioned socially, medically or surgically cannot teach in any capacity in their congregations, cannot work with children, cannot fill any role that is gender-specific. They cannot enter Latter-day Saint temples and participate in their faith’s highest religious rites.
It limits those who are “intentionally identifying and presenting [themselves] as other than [their] biological sex at birth.” That can include anyone who changes their “dress, grooming, names or pronouns.”
As for overnight activities such as youth camps, individuals can attend only according to their assigned sex at birth. At youth conferences, those who have transitioned are to be released at the end of the day to a guardian, who then arranges accommodations.
And this next one is both a stiff jab to the nose and a hook to the jaw: Trans individuals should use a single-occupancy restroom at church when available. If such a restroom is not available, then individuals should counsel with leaders on finding an alternative solution. Otherwise, they should use the restroom that corresponds with their biological sex assigned at birth. If they use one that corresponds only to the gender of their inner self, then a trusted person should be on hand to ensure that others are not using the restroom at the same time.
These work-arounds just don’t work
Not only do some of those policies point an unwarranted finger of suspicion at transgender people, but they also are completely impractical.
Imagine a trans individual needing to use a restroom right away, dressed in, say, a blouse and a skirt, wearing earrings and so-called traditional female accoutrements, being forced to use the men’s room, or having to search out a single-occupancy facility, or having to find an alternative solution — going outside in the shrubs to relieve oneself? — or having to urgently locate a chaperone.
It would be laughable if it weren’t so seriously misguided.
Moreover, it’s the harmful message these policies send to trans individuals, loaded on top of other policies, such as restrictions regarding ordinances, not being able to be baptized under their gender identity, rather only according to the sex assigned at birth.
The level of faith necessary for trans individuals to stay in the church when they are sorted in this manner is amazing. For them to be further stigmatized this way is something other than Christlike. In some cases, it’s tragic, seemingly based on a lack of awareness and the aforementioned abundance of fear.
With any luck and good sense, these policies will be altered or reversed. Preferably sooner rather than later.
Latter-day Saints on this side of the divided room will have to wait and hope and maybe speak out in favor of an alternative, something better. People on the other side might be troubled by the policies, but even if they are, they’ve been taught to bob their heads up and down and simply let them be.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Tribune columnist Gordon Monson.
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