Last Updated on September 22, 2024 by Jason Harris

I posted the following a few weeks ago on social media:

This blunt post is going to really upset many of you and perhaps damage my relationship with some of you. And for different reasons. Not my intention, but I know this will probably be the result. For some of you, this may cause the backfire effect to really flare up and you will dig your heels in even further.

A few days ago the LDS Church changed their policy regarding transgender individuals. They can no longer be baptized or work with any youth if they have transitioned socially or in any other way medically. This seems very similar in many ways to when an unchanging loving God announced a few years ago that children of gay parents couldn’t be baptized, but then changed his mind and reversed course 180 degrees a few years later.

I have made no secret of the fact that I do not believe the men in the LDS Church claiming to speak for God speak for God. The Book of Abraham (see Rosetta Stone), textual anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, DNA evidence of Native Americans and changes to revelations in the D&C (sometimes to change the meaning 180 degrees) are literally all the hard evidence one needs to objectively see claims of literally speaking for God are a sham. Unless God is a liar and an ever-changing being.

Does God contradict him(or her) self? Is God a God of deception? Can God lie? My belief on all of these things is a firm no.

Regardless, this policy is hurtful. I have more than one family member who are part of the LGBTQ community and I will always choose them and choose supporting and loving them over clinging to a made up religion of man. So I am saying something today.

Biology is not always black and white. It is crystal clear with intersex conditions and there is also much evidence in other LGBTQ conditions that neural development is not always congruent with the “anatomy of birth” in a way that the majority experience. “Straight.”

I know saying this upsets the binary world many live in where everything is black and white and very simple to understand, but the fact is, life is complex, biology often doesn’t seem to make a great deal of sense on initial glance, and there is in fact good evidence that supports this.

Are there people with gender dysphoria encouraged to transition that probably shouldn’t be encouraged to do so? I’m confident these cases exist. Do transitioned athletes sometimes gain an unfair advantage in athletics? Yes, I think some undeniably do. Are there people whose neural development (and thus their gender identity) are not in sync with their “biological sex” of birth? I believe this answer is also absolutely yes. And there is also evidence to support this. Gender identification resides in the brain (nowhere else). And it is absolutely clear this is not always congruent with the “biological sex of birth.”

Bottom line, I believe we are far better off holding space for individuals who do no live in the common construct we live in than to be excluding, demeaning and judging them, because they experience life differently than us… or because their very existence threatens our neatly packaged existential narratives.

When policies are instituted that marginalize and exclude others, these often are dangerous (and un-loving) policies that are literally the anti-thesis of what Jesus taught.

Some use as an excuse to justify this behavior or these beliefs that these things are just a result of “the fall of Adam” and some day God will “make everything right.” That they are “standing up against sin.” I believe this is also a sham.

There are mountains of incredibly strong evidence to all but the most willfully blind that death has always existed as a condition of life on earth, that Homo sapiens have been around for hundreds of thousands of years and that there was no literal “fall of man” or a literal “Adam and Eve” 6000 years ago as the parents of the human race. There isn’t some grand conspiracy by the scientific community to be teaching “non-biblical” beliefs. They are literally just sharing what the evidence supports.

Again, I would ask, can God lie? Does God run around planting evidence that contradicts (at every turn) a narrative some claim originates from this same God? Is God a trickster deceiving God? My own conclusion to this question as I wrestled with it several years ago was a firm no.

When there is strong objective evidence that the revelations of the men claiming to speak for Jesus are literally not what they claim to be… then to me the choice to continue to support and sustain such harmful policies seems ESPECIALLY hurtful and harmful. Never mind the whispers of one’s own conscience that such approaches are harmful (and wrong).

Do I speak for God? ABSOLUTELY NOT. But nowhere on God’s green earth can I believe Jesus would have condoned any of this if he were living among us in the flesh today. In fact, he would probably be crucified for speaking out against this ridiculousness.

Nothing said in this post represents the DOD in any way, shape or matter.

Why the clownfish in the photo above? Clownfish are born male. Some change to female later in life. Image courtesy of: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edanley/4883325147.

Jason Harris lived as an orthodox Mormon for forty years. He writes about his experiences leaving the Mormon Church and reconstructing a new World-View. He believes all religions and scripture are man-made, potentially helpful and harmful. He believes there is Divinity in all of them and everywhere.