The Mormon Church Makes Stance on Being Trans Clear
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), more commonly known as the Mormon Church, has added new policies to their handbook that further disallow trans people from expressing themselves or participating within the church.
The Church released an updated version of their General Handbook, which dictates the daily ongoings and church practice of it’s members. The newest version says that the gender one is assigned at birth is in line with their ‘Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness’ for the members of the Church, and that they do not take a position on gender dysphoria and how it potentially affects members of the Church. Furthermore, it’s clarified that the Church’s ‘ordinances’ (similar to sacraments within the Catholic church, involving acts such as baptism and confirmation) are only available to those who identify with and exist as the gender they were assigned at birth, who have not transitioned in any way whatsoever (sexually, socially, medically, etc.).
A former church leader, Laurie Lee Hall, who was excommunicated in 2017 for coming out as a trans woman, calls these new revisions “egregious and onerous”. The church leader role, akin to priesthood within the Mormon Church, is reserved exclusively for cisgender men — also a policy outlined clearly in the updated handbook. Even if a trans person is granted an exception by speaking with the First Presidency (another high-up position within the Church structure) to obtain ordinances, they are still disallowed from receiving or performing these ordinances as a church leader, and from obtaining a ‘temple recommend’ that says they are a worthy member of the Church. However, those who detransition back to their assigned gender at birth can once again become able to receive ordinances and continue on within the structure of the Church.
Other new policies that are discriminatory towards trans members of the church in this edition of the Handbook are abounds. One disallow trans members of the Church from being teachers, working with children, or performing in gender-specific roles available within the Church. Another restricts bathroom access for trans members, saying that they should use single-stall restrooms if available and if not, they must use the bathroom that corresponds with their assigned sex at birth, not the gender they identify as.
Unfortunately, this is really nothing new for the notoriously strict and non-inclusive Mormon Church. They claim that the Lord’s Law of Chastity only permits true marriage between a man and a woman, which, until 2022, disallowed same-sex marriage within the Church (or relations at all). Speaking of sexual orientation in any slightly religious setting is forbidden. Despite seemingly progressive rollouts within the Church’s LGBTQ+ policies in recent years, this revision of the handbook is a massive step backwards — despite a semi-recent study by Religion News Service (RNS) that found that twenty-three percent of Gen Z surveyed within the Mormon Church identifies as something other than heterosexual.
