Coming out as transgender

What does this mean?
     It means that I’ve come to the conclusion that while my gender on Earth is apparently male, my eternal gender, the gender I was before this life and will be again after this life[1], is female.

When/How did this happen?
     In my life, I’d understood that our spirits were the same as our bodies, female or male, unchangeable. Though there were many times when I didn’t feel connected to being male and many times I felt more connected with the girls and women around me, that understanding was what left wanting to be female just something for the occasional dream that simply wasn’t possible. In about the fall of 2014, I learned there was a name for this feeling, “gender dysphoria”, and added it to the list of things in this life I just had to learn to live with, like my fibromyalgia and being some variant of ADHD.
     In school and in later years I’d learned about the variations that can happen in sexual characteristics in these mortal bodies, but hadn’t really given them much thought as I didn’t think it was something I’d come across in my life. I figured whatever got picked for their gender always coincided with their spirit, coincidental like.
     In researching gender dysphoria and how others learned to cope with it, I learned of the few instances where the Church has accepted that someone’s assigned gender and their spiritual gender did not match[2]. I didn’t understand how this could be with what I understood of eternal gender, so I spent time praying and communing with God to understand it better. My understanding changed. I now believe that it is possible for people to be placed in bodies that are not consistent to their eternal gender. I make no assumptions as to why this should be, any more than I would assume a reason for someone to be born blind or to be left handed.
     In the summer of 2015, I began to wonder if being transgender could apply to me. I discussed it with my wife (as I had when learning of gender dysphoria), and she encouraged me to pray about it. I received confirmation from my prayers that I was indeed transgender, a daughter of Heavenly Parents who love me.

Where do we go from here?
     My first thoughts have always been and always will be to my wife. That will never change. I don’t know if I will ever transition to living as a woman, as the most important thing to me is my wife, and she is straight and cis-gender. Up until two weeks ago, I’d never even tried on women’s clothing[3].
     No matter what steps there may or may not be in the future, it will only be done with my wife and a great deal of prayer.
     As for the next life, whatever my gender is found to be (as I could always be wrong in the impressions I get through prayer), I only know that I want to be with my wife forever. Whatever God requires for that I will gladly do.

Why come out now?
     My wife has known as long as I have. We’ve told a few others over the years when it felt like it was something they should know. I’ve spoken out against various times people have said something about transgender people, but never really felt the need to take the plunge and come out to the world in general. It doesn’t really have an effect on what I do in my life. I found recently, however, that not being out meant I couldn’t really share when I came to anything touching being transgender that made me happy, sad, or thoughtful. So I discussed it with my wife and prayed about it and here we are.

So who are you?
     I’m still me. I don’t have a different name (though I retain hope my mother will give me one someday), and it doesn’t really matter to me what pronouns you use when talking about me. I’m the same kid who had a hard time figuring out how to relate to people and who looked up to women as role models (my mom, Holly, Barbara, and Linda). The same kid who spent teenage years being angry for no obvious reason and understanding machines better than people. The same adult who loves making music, has a talent for making machines work, and has a passionate love for their spouse. The same parent who struggles with patience in trying to get my children to grow up at least a little faster than I did. The same child of God trying to work my way back home with my wife and become the best person I can be, anchored to Christ, my rock and my salvation.

     All in all, this is just a scratch in who I am and how my life has gone to this point. Though I realize this is a difficult subject and I may come across as unapproachable, I really am glad to talk with anyone about this or anything else. At least now, with this post, we have a starting point.

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[1] Pre- and post- Earth life is a tenet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons). See The Family: A Proclamation to the World – “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”
[2] I wish I could find the article of the person who was intersex, raised as one gender in the Church and was accepted by the First Presidency as the other gender. I do have a source for the transgender woman who was allowed by the First Presidency to be sealed in the Temple.
[3] Two weeks ago I bought my first skirt. It was unplanned and took an anxiety filled trip to the thrift store, but I found a long, loose, flowy skirt of the kind I’d always wished I could have.

LGBTQ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons) has room for all who are seeking to be more like Christ and follow His ways. While there are currently limitations, local and church wide, to participation in some parts of the Church, I believe that in the eternal scheme of things there is more than enough room. I believe in how LGBTQ individuals can and do fit as members of the Church despite the limitations currently given them.

To start, I should lay out what is currently outlined by the Church in the way of marriage. The Church has a long and storied history with nontraditional marriage, more specifically polygyny (marriage of one man to multiple women). While marriages are no longer sealed polygamously while the participants are still alive, we allow marriage between any number of men and women who have passed away. Men are allowed to be sealed/married to only one living woman at a time, but may be sealed to any number of women for eternity. Women may also be sealed to any number of men if they are all deceased. My (distant) cousin who survived five husbands can be sealed to all of them just as can my cousin who has survived four wives.

I believe that those who marry in this life, no matter their gender, will be allowed to maintain that relationship in the next life, just as every other relationship sealed in the Temple and honored by those involved will be.

With all that being said, the Church will not seal same gender members in the Temple, believing that such relationships cannot be eternal. Locally, members may be shunned for expressing homosexual feelings. We should strive to be better than this. Even if we don’t believe that such a marriage could be eternal, we should welcome them just as we would anyone else who is married for only this life. They are children of God who are striving to be better. Whatever mote you perceive in their eye, you should concentrate more on the beam in your own eye. The ultimate status of their marriage and relationship will be determined by themselves and God, just as any other marriage relationship will be.

But. as for those who are of atypical gender, while we believe that “gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose“, there is no method to perfectly determine what spiritual gender someone may be. We can guess with a fairly high degree of accuracy, based on bodily sexual characteristics, but we have enough exceptions to know that this determination may not be clear cut. The mortal body develops based on an array of physical, genetic, and hormonal functions, any of which may work differently than expected, making the determination of gender fraught with possible exceptions. We may not know yet all the exceptions possible, so how can we say with surety that someone else’s gender is what we believe it to be?

For the Church, there has been a case of a person who was determined to be one gender at birth and was allowed to change their gender later in life. There was also an instance where a transgender woman was allowed to be sealed to her husband in the Temple. These cases were reviewed and approved by the First Presidency of the Church, the highest level of leaders in the Church. Since these instances, the Church is still trying to work out what their stance should be. Local reaction has varied greatly from congregation to congregation. The handbook for Church leaders does mention that “elective transsexual operations . . . may be the cause for formal Church discipline”, which leaves the decision up to local leaders. As such, Bishops who preside over said congregations have also been varied in their reactions, from acceptance through recommending excommunication.

Despite the cultural limitations, I don’t believe there are any doctrinal or theological reasons we should treat our LGBTQ siblings any differently than any other, as they are also children of God, striving to become more like Christ and progress through this life.

My “Good Ship Zion” analogy

To me, the biggest difficulty with analogies like this is the conflation of the Church (aka “The Ship Zion”) and the “Iron Rod” (aka “The Word of God”, aka Jesus Christ).

The Church is like a ferry connected to the Iron Rod, at some unknown distance (or not at all if you so believe). At times, the ferry is close, other times further, but it is still connected and going toward the Tree of Life.

One problem comes in that not everyone can see how far or how well the connection is all the time. We can trust Prophets, the laying of the ferry keel, our own “eyeballing”, and/or whatever answer we get through prayer, but throughout we’ll make judgments as to our comfort with how well and how far from the Iron Rod is appears to us the ferry is at any given time.

Another problem is that the ferry is full of people, some steering, some pushing, some merely riding, some trying to call or use sticks to reach out and help others in, some unintentionally driving people away with those sticks, some even intentionally driving people out and away. Each of us has their own perspective on the water worthiness, condition, direction, and population of the ferry.

But no matter how connected the ferry, it is -not- the Rod. Other ferries have their own connection to the Rod. Individuals can cling to the Rod on their own or even press forward as near as they can to it. They can even have their own ships moving in the right direction, with no knowledge of the Rod.

Our job is to help improve the connection of the ferry to the Rod, improve it’s condition, change or remove those who are diving others out and away (and sometimes the enemy is us), and to invite others to come aboard. The ferry may make it easier for us, but it’s just a conveyance, and it will not suit everyone. If we want more to join us, we should be looking for what can be improved, as it has been improved upon in the past.

Above all that, however, we need to be directing others to the Iron Rod, no matter what the conveyance or lack thereof.

Politics shaped by religion – Immigration

I’m breaking my rule by posting about something that’s come up in the recent news. I’ve written about immigration before, but with recent events, I feel that I need to write more. A couple of times I’ve tried writing about our foreign policy, but they never seemed to come together enough to post. Anyway, the need feels just too strong.

The US immigration policy is a terrible morass, and for some reason the people seem to think it isn’t strong enough. Xenophobia, being afraid of people who we don’t see as “us”, is settled in deeply, and the policies we’ve had toward immigrants reflect that. I wish the most recent moves were surprising. Unfortunately, it’s just another step in the direction we’ve been heading for some time. It’s not just the fear that “those people are taking our jobs” but also the fear that we may have terrorist attacks against us.

This ties in to our horrible foreign policy, making ourselves into the “policeman of the world”, destabilizing, threatening, and invading countries we believe have either slighted us or interfere with “our business interests”. This is a whole other post unto itself, but the point is that we feel we can do whatever we’d like in the world but are afraid that we’ll get hurt. When we do get hurt, our retaliation is far, far more disproportionate. If we get hurt by the thousand (which is incredibly rare), we retaliate by bombing and displacing by the million. This isn’t being a peacemaker, but a schoolyard bully.

Despite being a nation of immigrants, we’ve never really liked having immigrants. The longer we (or our ancestors) have been in this country, the more we feel like the first laborers in the vineyard who started work at the beginning of the day (from the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, Matt 20:1-15). We get jealous of the people who seem to have just come in and are getting the same pay.

The US currently admits a million immigrants, legally, each year. It seems like a lot, but compared to the number of citizens (319 million), it barely a drip of a faucet, not a fire hose on full blast. While the numbers are higher than any other nation, as a percentage of the population, we’re only 11th in admitting immigrants.

For illegal immigrants, we have about 11 million. About half of these are border crossings from Mexico, at a rate of about half a million a year. For all of the Presidents’ talk of a wall, we’ve been working on walls and mass deportations for the entirety of the 21st century. The increases in border security and in deportations haven’t made of much a dent in this. Border security has high costs compared to other methods, and is rather easily circumvented.

A better option would be to begin more prosecution of employers who hire illegal immigrants, but there we hit a bit of a snag – we use them for a lot of jobs that we don’t want to pay a good wage. Just like the sweatshops we deride overseas, paying people pennies for repetitive, difficult, or even dangerous work, we’d rather keep these people faceless and nameless, only caring that we get our food, clothes, etc easily and cheaply.

These two forces, xenophobia and use of the faceless, are what drives our attitude toward immigrants. These attitudes transcend political leanings and parties, ages and income levels.

As a people, we need to do better. We should be doing more in helping the refugees we helped create. We should create protections for the people we use. We should be using our riches, our strength, our determination to succeed to help those around us, not squeeze tighter, afraid we’ll lose what we have. We should be sharing what has made this Nation great (and it has always been great, even when we don’t agree, have missteps, or are wandering in the wrong direction). Most of all, we should share our gratitude for the many blessings we have received, even those things we (mistakenly) think God had no hand in, that we achieved by our own “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality, and work to make life better for everyone, not just “us”.

These are our brothers and sisters. We can do better than this. We can -be- better than this.

On dreams and the interpretations thereof

Many years ago, in the time between the end of my first marriage and meeting my second wife, I had a dream. I was feeling particularly down and had asked in my prayers for a dream of the future. I wanted to know there was hope when I’d not been able to see it. The dream I had I have rarely shared, but what bothered me most is in being unable to interpret what the dream might mean.

You see, in the LDS Church, we believe in many “gifts of the Spirit”. These are mentioned in the New Testament(1 Corinthians 12) and Book of Mormon (Moroni 10:8-18), and are more specifically listed in the Doctrine and Covenants (Section 46). They include many different types of miracles, including healing, the gift of tongues, interpretation of tongues, wisdom, discerning of spirits, knowledge, and prophecy. These had been much more evident in the early Church than appear now, likely because we tend not to talk about such sacred things. How does one gain such things? The scriptures say it is by the Spirit of God. We’re also told in scripture that we should seek after these good gifts and to use them for the benefit of the children of God in the name of Christ.

We don’t seem to pursue them much anymore, perhaps from unbelief. We have a hard time believing that such miracles could be for us, even when we see or hear of them in the lives of others. But still, we are told to pursue them to help build the kingdom of God. I’ve always wanted “interpretation of tongues” myself, though I have a hard time learning languages. Others would be amazing to have, but how do you prepare or practice such things?

In any case, back to my dream. In my dream, I was returning home after attempting to catch someone at the bus station who was returning to us. I opened the door and to my left were my parents, easily recognizable but obviously much older. On a couch to the left was a young looking woman (perhaps a teen) excitedly jumping and two young boys. The excitement of everyone was electric. Then the woman who I’d gone to pick up entered.

At the time, I’d believed this would take place in the millennial era, when Christ would reign and the dead would be resurrected. The people there could be fit to those I knew of at the time; my parents, my younger sister and her then two sons, my older sister who had died before I was even born. As time has gone on (being 16 years ago now), I realized the roles could be different; my parents, my younger daughter and two sons, my wife.

It could also be that it was all “just a dream”, and I’ve been projecting my hopes on it. My father, who is in his mid eighties and has now been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, may soon die. I know of no one who has the gift of interpreting dreams like those of the Old Testament, Joseph and Daniel. If it was the future, could I not even know the people in the dream in present time?

Prophecy is a tricky thing. We could be shown things we have no words adequate to describe, like John in the book of Revelations, we can have no idea of the time frames involved, yet still for some reason they are given. There must be something about them that is needed at the time they are given, possibly even for times afterward. For me, my dream has given me hope, even when I’ve not been able to see a way for it to happen. It confirms my knowledge that our family will be together forever someday, no matter what separates us.

And that day will be gloriously happy for us all.

On the giving of Tithes

Every year, toward the end of the year, the Bishop of each ward meets with each family in that ward to make an accounting of the donations given to the Church. No in depth questions, just asking if you’re a full tithe payer. (I tend to use it as an opportunity to make sure my records match what the Church has recorded.) As a challenge, our Bishop asked us to write something on social media about Tithing.

I recall that rather early on my parents let me see some of what they did each month when my dad got paid, and they used that opportunity to talk about how they paid Tithing and what it was for. Tithing was always the first thing paid, no matter how tight the month was going to be. There were also many times my family was in need, when dad was out of work or some other emergency happened. I got to see (and make use of) the use of the Bishop’s Storehouse, where the Bishop had available food to help families in need. Tithing was just something you did.

As I started making money for myself, tithing suddenly became a burden. I felt like I hardly had enough as it was, so how could I just give some of it away. I’ll freely admit that I’d not yet had an appreciation of what I’d earned, only seeing that I had some money and a lot of things I wanted to spend it on. It took ’til I did some growing up and having to be responsible for my own living expenses that it came back into being “just something you did”.

To me, Tithing is a lesser form of Consecration. Basically, Consecration is the idea that all we have belongs to God, no matter how much or in what manner we currently have it. Everything we have ultimately belongs to God, so giving a Tithe now is not a burden. I think something that helped change how I see Tithing is when I stopped worrying about how much I was earning for a specific amount of time working. I remember a time when I was so miserable at my job that I spent time working out how much time had passed and how much money that meant I earned. I’d hoped that it would cheer me up or give me some sense of accomplishment to work out the math, but instead I was just more miserable. I prefer now to just ask the simple question, “is what I earn enough for our needs”, and make adjustments if it’s not.

Some people spend a lot of time arguing which is the “proper” way to Tithe. The most popular options are “net”, “gross”, and “surplus”. “Net” is Tithing on your pay after taxes and other deductions, “gross” is Tithing on your pay before taxes, and “surplus” is Tithing on whatever you have left after all your expenses. Much of the arguments revolve around “you’re doing it wrong” (if the argument is not just against Tithing at all). I personally pay on gross, as it’s what I’ve felt is the best option for me and my family and have gotten confirmation through prayer that it is the best option for us. I will not ever say what is the best option for someone else, as the decision on what they Tithe is between them and God.

I may not be able to point to specific blessings that have come from Tithing, but I do know that it is a true principle.

Trust, God, and following the Prophets

From time to time there arise some issue or another where some people dislike or disapprove of something said by someone in Church leadership. It doesn’t seem to matter what the issue is, who said it, or what side they are arguing, the arguments tend to be the same:

– Bringing out scripture and/or previous statements
– Declaring the other side as apostate/not Christlike/tares
– Bringing out personal (or worse, someone else’s) anecdotes
– Declaring the other side is “trusting in man, not God”
– Declaring your “personal revelation” concerning the matter
– Being incredulous at what the other side “really means”
– Scoffing at how anyone could believe such a thing in the first place

There are many, many variations, and I’m sure I’ve missed some. They get very tiring, very quickly, but are easy enough to throw out when you don’t have the time, energy, or desire to have an actual discussion about something. It’s much like the use of platitudes; you use them and show how wise you are, dismissing or affirming something with just a few words.

Now I have to seriously caveat this. I am not saying that a couple of the above items should never be done, just that they should not be used as arguments. For example, sharing scriptures, personal revelation or anecdotes that have helped form what you believe can be done, just not in the manner of “this is why you’re wrong”.

The best any of us can do is “this is why I believe what I believe”. This can be used to help convince someone to think about something differently, to reexamine or adjust what they believe, but ultimately what we believe is only as strong as the foundation we build it on. The only absolutely sure foundation is God. Anything else, anyone else you build upon has the potential to fail, even people, scriptures, or prophets. But what sort of building can you have if you wait to use only perfect materials? This is where trust comes in.

In Primary (the Church instruction for children under 12), we sing a Folk song from the South-Eastern US that gives a simplistic understanding of this (skipping repeated lines):

The wise man built his house upon the rock,
And the rains came tumbling down.
The rains came down, and the floods came up,
And the house on the rock stood still.

The foolish man built his house upon the sand,
And the rains came tumbling down.
The rains came down, and the floods came up,
And the house on the sand washed away.

The “rock”, put simply, is God, our only sure foundation. Anything else is “sand” that will wash away when disaster comes. This beautiful, simplistic teaching can prompt us to deeper examination. While the wise man survived the floods with his house still solidly on the rock, no mention is made of the condition of the house. We’d hope that the house, with all the materials that were put into it, emerged completely unscathed, but it is very plausible that there is at least some damage. Some part of the house failed. Will it be replaced with something similar? Will it be remade into something completely different? What if that fails too? What if something bigger, that effects larger portions of the building, fails?

This is where we can have trust. This is where we have faith, knowing that our Rock, God, will not fail, even if every other part of our building falls. From here, we decide what we can build with, where we will place our trust. This is why Christ is also called the “Chief Cornerstone”. He is the first, most important, most solid stone which is firmly upon the foundation of God. We may choose other cornerstones, scriptures, prophets, our own revelations, the words of others, in building. None of these things are perfect, any more than every brick in a wall is perfect. Some flaws may be unseen. Some flaws will make no difference to your use of them. Will those flaws come to cause the whole building to collapse? Though not impossible, it may be very improbable. That determination is yours to make. God will help you find and use what materials you need.

For others you may recommend or warn in their building, but you cannot assume, get angry, or gloat if you are not heeded. You are not the architect and may have little idea what successes or failures they have had in the past. The best option is to show how you have developed your own structure, how you have repaired damage, how you have demolished some parts and replaced them with others. Help others recover when the rains and floods have caused more damage to them than to you. Encourage their honest efforts.

For me, I know where I have placed my trust. I have faith in the Scriptures and in Prophets, fully knowing that they are flawed and can be used in damaging ways. Ultimately, I am firmly anchored to the Rock. I know Jesus is a solid corner stone I can build on. I believe the Church is true. I know it has the Authority given from God. It has been a dependable material for me in the past (even when I have neglected using it), through many storms that continue to shape, mold, and grow it toward whatever end God has for it. I have faith in it being an imperfect but solid and dependable material for me to work with. I have had many of my own experiences and personal revelations that I use to continue building, as well as supports and materials given by others. Could it all be washed away with the next storm? Possible, but not likely. Even if it does, I know I can stay anchored to the Rock and build again.

Political ideals – Immigration

We have been told to make Zion wherever we are, but Zion cannot be found where people, where families, do not feel safe.

My ancestors, almost as far as 400 years ago, came to this continent as illegal immigrants. No, there weren’t codified laws as such, but the land wasn’t just theirs for the taking. Why should I deny this land to anyone else?

I want to address some of the objections I’ve seen.
– “They’re leaving families behind”
In doing family history work, I’ve seen many, many families that were separated for a time, some for their entire life) because of the need to go where the work is, to find a way to help the family survive. Some took jobs on the railroad, being gone for weeks or months at a time. Some widowers placed their children in orphanages to establish themselves in a job so they could afford being able to take care of them. Some went ahead in new territory to establish themselves and make a place their families could live with less hardship. These were the choices these people made for the circumstances in their own lives.
I sometimes wonder how others are judging my own choices in how I try to build my family and home, and try to remember that they’re not in a position to judge, just as I cannot adequately judge how they are managing their homes. Despite times when I have seen people actively working to try and abuse the generosity of institutions and people around them, I still have to believe that people in general are doing their best with what they have. I hope others can show me the same charity of judgment.
In addition to this, our Government (the United States) isn’t doing a good job of keeping families together when they to immigrate together. The system separates by age and gender, effectively making everyone, even those with families, into single, childless, orphans. If we need a system to work people through the process of sending them out of the Country, then it needs to treat families as whole groups no matter what their size or makeup. Treat them as people, not widgets.

– “They should stay where they are and find work there”
We keep forgetting that we’re not just one Country; we’re a collection of States. When I graduated college, I wanted to move from Utah to Washington, where the jobs in my field would be. Should I have stayed where I was? Possibly, but the work that I was trained to do, the work that I wanted to do, wasn’t really there. How would it feel if you moved to another place and the reaction was “we don’t want your kind here”? Would you want them to welcome you to their community, to enjoy the unique contributions you bring, or would you prefer they keep you in isolation so you don’t “contaminate” their culture? If your response is “we’re all Americans, American culture is the same everywhere”, then you need to do more travelling and really look at the differences region to region.
If you think that illegal immigrants are taking your jobs, then you need to look harder at what jobs you’re willing to do. I’m a fan of Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs) on this; there is lots of work out there if you change your ideas of what you “deserve”. Yes, this is coming from someone who isn’t physically able to go out and dig ditches all day, but that’s why it was important for me to get an education; so I wouldn’t have to. If you are willing to use what you have (and to build up what you want) there are plenty of opportunities around.

– “Those people are just lazy and wanting to milk the system”
This is a cross between plain racism and classism. If you ever classify “those people” or any specific group as being all the same, you need to take a good look at the groups you are a part of but may never have seem it being unfairly labeled. “Mormons are polygamists” – “Women are too emotional” – “I’m glad for the charter school, cause it doesn’t have so many Mexicans” – “Gun owners are dangerous hicks” Some of these generalizations sting more than others. Some hurt deeply, even if they weren’t meant to do so. They are not all the same in effect, but they should all be removed from use, in deed, word, and thought. This is not censorship, this is warning you of the poison that it is to your own soul. If you make these kinds of judgments, expect pushback. I may not even be nice about it, because this kind of thinking is dangerous and hurtful not only to others, but to you. If I push back, it’s because I want you to be better.
As I mentioned, I do know those who “milk the system”. For one reason or another they believe they deserve what they can get. For them, no one “deserves” anything. It doesn’t matter what it is, a relationship, living expenses, whatever, it needs work or it isn’t going to happen. I’ve been glad for the help I’ve been given, and I know that at any time that help cold not be available to me, so I will keep working to find ways to make life work without help. Hopefully, I’ll then be more able to help others in need. Now, while there are some who take advantage, it is a very, very small percentage of those who actually need the help. We should not punish everyone for the crimes of the few; we should punish the few for their own transgressions.

– “We just don’t have the room/resources”
We’re a rich country. We lead rich lives full of luxuries of which many in other countries could not even dream. But no matter how much we have, we never think we’re rich. Do you have a home, food, clothing? You’re doing a lot better than a lot of the world, especially those who tend to be immigrants. We are so wasteful with our resources, food, water, “luxuries”, that it would only take a little improvement to make room for someone else.
Ok, let’s say you’re -not- rich. Does that mean you’re exempt from giving help? To put it Biblically, “God Forbid.” Christ didn’t give caveats to the boon of helping the poor. No matter how little you have, there are those with less. And, if your only “more” is being a citizen, why refuse that gift to someone else?

I could go on, but that’s enough for now. There are people in need, and our response should not be putting up a wall so we don’t have to see them, nor should it be shoving them into a machine as if they were not human beings.

Those of us who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) should be better than that. Far better.

Official Church Statement

The reason we should not have “White Pride”

Occasionally I do see posts from friends (and I do consider them friends) with something glib about not having a “White Pride” parade or meme, just as there seems to be for every other group. This is usually a point made by those in the United States, by those who emphatically do not believe in ranking one race above another. Those who use it in the same vein as white supremacists, if they are my friends at all, should completely reexamine their ideas on what race is and how their “purity” does not make them better than anyone else.

I wanted to talk briefly about how we got to where we are in defining who is “white” and who is not. This differentiation has only ever been used to describe those who are “better than” some other group, the delineation rarely being that of skin color. For example, in the early United States, Irish and Italians were considered “non-white”. Groups without a shared country of origin, like Mormons and frontiersmen, were considered “non-white”. It made it easier to discount these groups as “God ordained inferior”, so the same rights would not apply. Over the generations it became harder to discern who was “white” and who was not. Losing the accents of previous generations native countries meant the only things left to use as an indicator was the lightness of their skin. Even then it wasn’t reliable, as someone with light or pale skin could have at least one dark-skinned parent. These people could “pass” for white, but had dire (sometimes lethal) consequences if they were found out.

Today, “white pride” is almost completely used by white supremacists. They don’t just want to have pride in their heritage, but in the “purity” of it. All others are “unclean” and should be eliminated or used as the “pure” see fit.

If you’re feeling the need to have “pride”, start by getting to know your own history. Where did your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents come from? Learn about those cultures and embrace them as part of who you are. Turns out you’re 11/16 British, 1/4 Scottish, and 1/16 Moroccan? Great! You can rock a kilt, bow tie, and fez all at once. Enjoy the different cultures that came together to make you.

If you’re only going to go as far as “American” because your tenth-great-grandfather came here from some other country, then allow that your tenth-great-grandfather was just as American as the immigrants who are currently here, striving to be part of the culture you most hold dear, to also have “pride” in being American. And don’t limit anyone on what rates as “American” aside from wanting to be a part of this country. American customs and attitudes very widely within each State, not to mention between States and geographic areas.

You want a parade and fireworks for American Pride? Turns out we have one, a big one, every year on the fourth day of the seventh month.

My beliefs on marriage and gender essentialism

This has got to be one of the most difficult topics to talk about, as I have a number of people I know and love who would not only disagree with me but see it as an attack on the fundamental beliefs they have on who they are. I’ve skirted around it in the past (“Who will we be when we wake?“,”Feminism and Same Sex Marriage are not compatible“,”Defining the uniqueness of men and women“), but I’ve thus far avoided trying to put down my rationales in full.

One of the poorest arguments I’ve seen against same sex marriage (SSM) is that SSM could not be legitimate because it does not have the possibility of producing children. This makes procreation the measure for legitimacy, leaving out many instances where procreation doesn’t happen or is impossible.

The better course of argument for two-gender marriage, even when no progeny is produced, is in that it provides an example of the advantages of joining together two disparate genders, male and female. Marriage is the bringing together of the greatest difference one person can have with another, creating something more than the sum of its parts. That this doesn’t always happen is immaterial. The intent in marriage is always to be a part of something greater than you can be with your own view of the world limited as it is by your gender.

Two gender marriage is better for children to grow up in as it affords them the opportunity to learn how to interact with those of each gender. Are there many ways this can be messed up, even by well meaning people? Absolutely! There are abusive marriages, families without an adult of one gender or the other, families where one or the other parent is gone for long periods of time, etc., etc., etc.. All of these, however, would be better off in a -good- marriage than in the state they are currently in. There are many kinds of families, from families of one person to families of many. All of these families, whatever their experiences and circumstances, should be celebrated and aided the best we can, even (and especially) our own family. All of these families are on a path of improvement, even those who seem to “have it all” and be perfectly happy.

Some would argue that gender should be immaterial. The problem is that there is something inherent in our gender, something nearly impossible to quantify. Our gender is the second strongest marker of our identity, the first being humanity. So much of our life is of experiences that only happen and relate to the gender we are. Changing completely from one to the other is simply not possible, as we cannot create the cache of gender based experiences we’ve not been part of, no matter how much we desire them. Those who are forced to or themselves attempt to become the other are at an extreme disadvantage, as their lived experiences will not be enough to know what it means to be that gender.

I’ll close this with a simple request. Respect the beliefs and decisions of others. You do not have to agree with their decisions, but you should respect the work, tears, prayers, and pains that they went through to arrive at their current situation. Your own experiences, progression, and faults can not make you better than them, only different in your journey.