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I disagree as well, in fact the best sermon I have ever heard was from a military chaplain. I'll post it below. Its about 15 min, but it is a good one In the normal definition like seminary trained, parochial school, masters degrees in counseling like a lot of churches require? No. Perhaps a few seminary and institute teachers could qualify and definitely the LDS military chaplains, but in general those folks are not bishops or stake presidents except for happenstance. If we believe that God qualifies those he calls and these people have the Melchizedek priesthood with the power to heal and keys and such then sure they should be considered professional clergy on the Mormon side of things. In terms of bible bashing with most regular Christian preachers...virtually every LDS leader would get destroyed to include the members of the Q15. The quotes I posted all stated " no paid clergy." nothing mentioned about professional or professionally trained.

I hadn’t seen that specific February 2025 Williams Institute brief circulated in this thread yet. It appears it is essentially an update and reframing of their earlier 2018 Massachusetts study (and related work). The core claim is familiar: they find no statistically significant increase in reported safety or privacy crimes in restrooms/locker rooms after gender-identity inclusive public-accommodations policies, and they emphasize that transgender people report higher rates of harassment or denial when required to use facilities matching their sex. The article is real and has been public since early 2025. It does not resolve the underlying disagreement about whether sex remains a legitimate basis for single-sex spaces. It measures a narrow set of outcomes under a particular set of assumptions. Thanks, -Smac

You mentioned virtue signaling…which implies some believe that it’s more virtuous to serve unpaid than paid. I disagree with those who believe that. You think we have a professional clergy? Serious question. I would thought even if one sees the beginning as ambiguous, the ending was clear.

So now we r talking about other church’s leaders? LDS have been using the word “ministry” so much lately could have sworn you were talking about Mormons since those leaders paychecks are what is being discussed. my bad In that case I agree that Mormons have long poo poo’d other church leaders who get paid .. to include mega churches. Funny thing is the lds conference center sure looks like a mega church and now we are starting to adopt their practices little by little. We have crucifixes, worship bands at FSY and now sleeveless garments.? What other things is the lds church gonna adopt that we have historically criticized other church’s for? Paying Sunday school teachers? that said I kind wish I would have had some kind of FSY as a youth with worship bands. Looks like it is probably fun for the kids. Back in my day would have been of the devil 😈

Well, the restriction is intended to simply ensure that, first and foremost the sacred marks sewn in remain intact and positioned correctly and to stop people from shortening hems or lowering necklines to fit modern fashion trends, but the rule itself is written as a blanket instruction. Officially, the instruction is to let the Church handle fit and medical needs through specific official channels. If standard off-the-rack garments do not fit, the Beehive Clothing department provides custom orders for sizes or fabrics, or you can request a special size or custom tailoring directly through Church Distribution Services rather than altering the items at home.

Someone else refusing to accept appearance as a meaningful limiting principle does not mean a meaningful limiting principle has not been articulated, imo. By "meaningful" I mean workable and enforceable in the real world. The State gets to arbitrarily decide who does and does not "look" enough like a woman to enter bathrooms? Using what criteria? Also, @Analytics preferred policy is not based on "appearance," but by the individual's choice. There is no limiting principle there, "meaningful" or otherwise. Physical appearance as a limiting principle A) is statutorily - and perhaps constitutionally - unworkable, B) will never be accepted as sufficient because such a policy "discriminates" against, and is even bigoted and hateful towards, "trans women" who have not socially/medically transitioned, or not transitioned enough, and causes them "harm," "denies their existence," and so on, and C) will still result in the de jure or de facto eradication of sex-segregated spaces, or nearly so. Thanks, -Smac

Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. I’m sure you don’t care along with many other folks. After CEO of ensign peak admitted one of the purposes of hiding money in shell companies was to conceal the church’s wealth so members would continue to pay tithing,I’m fresh out of any kind of support for these guys when it comes to obfuscation of the uses of church funds. the church should be transparent and provide a full accounting of the funds down to the cent. Instead every year at gen conf the church cfo ( or whatever he is called) gets up and says yep we checked our books and everything is up to snuff according to GAAP. It might be now, but for many years that was a straight up lie. Falsifying government financial disclosures are not found anywhere in the list of GAAP. also anyone drawing a paycheck from the church for being ga shouldn’t be up at the pulpit saying “we” don’t get compensated financially. “ you don’t get compensated”would be more accurate and truthful.

It is not just Tongans but Samoans, Maoris and other islanders that generally appreciate living in Utah.

There is no evidence that the laissez fair stopped working I'm not sure about that. Under your policy, sex-segregated bathrooms would be eliminating, since anyone could go into them. Safety is not the only concern. And the management of the City of Minneapolis is not really a bragging point. The claim that nothing changed except “conservative grievance” is not accurate. What changed is the formal assertion—and the institutional adoption—of a new rule: that sex is irrelevant and that self-identified gender must determine access to spaces segregated by sex. For decades, the background expectation in Kansas (and everywhere else) was that restrooms were segregated by sex. People who presented in a way that made their sex ambiguous or who quietly used the facility that matched their appearance were not the subject of a legal or cultural campaign to redefine the categories themselves. What is new is the demand that biological males who identify as women must be treated as women for purposes of restroom access, and that any refusal to do so is illegitimate. That demand was accompanied by policy changes, institutional guidance, and activism that treated sex-based boundaries as discriminatory. The resulting conflicts—males in female spaces, the erosion of sex-based rules in schools, prisons, shelters, and sports—are what produced the legislative response. Pointing to earlier decades of low-profile cases does not prove that sex-based rules were always optional. It shows that shared norms about sex made formal enforcement largely unnecessary. Once those norms were openly rejected and replaced with identity-based access, the prior informal arrangement no longer held. The laws have been responding to that change, not the other way around. Thanks, -Smac

Not judgmental, just an observation. I’m don’t wear em at all. The workout clothes deal has been a TBM workaround for several years.

Has this been posted yet and analyzed yet? The search function says no and I haven’t read each post or all of the posts (I tend to skip over what appears to be repetition). https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/safety-in-restrooms-and-facilites/

Someone else refusing to accept appearance as a meaningful limiting principle does not mean a meaningful limiting principle has not been articulated, imo. I have a very strong concern about women who are forced to share spaces with those who appear to be biological males, whether they are one or not.

There is no evidence that the laissez fair stopped working and that sex-segregated bathrooms would be in peril without new draconian laws. Conservatives being afraid of diversity isn't new. You remind me of Archie Bunker singing, "....and you knew who you were then! Girls were girls and men were men! Mr. we could could use a man Like Herbert Hoover again Didn't need no welfare state Everybody pulled his weight! Gee, our old LaSalle ran great! Those were the days!" The city of Minneapolis has explicitly let transgender people use the restroom of their choice since 1975. And guess what. After 51 years, sex-distinct restrooms there are still the norm and are still as safe as anywhere. Transgender people existing and using their own judgement on which restroom to use isn't a new phenomenon--they've lived in Kansas for decades and decades, and have been minding their own business and using the restrooms they thought were most appropriate. What's changed isn't that they started using the restrooms that matched their identity. What changed is the fact that the conservative grievance-industrial complex decided this was a winning issue.

My comments started because Analytics said we would still be able to prosecute such cases. And I just don't see how. It seems like these crimes could be prosecuted like any other crime, with law enforcement and prosecutors gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, and so on. Yes. "Nefarious" can be a legitimate concern. There are others. From a prior post: In a women’s prison, is the purpose defeated only after a certain number of male-bodied people are housed there, or after a single assault, or after female inmates report that they no longer feel safe, or after they express a desire for privacy from biological males? In elite women’s sports, are there any other legitimate "purposes" in addition to competitive advantages (of biological males)? Safety? Privacy? In a domestic-violence shelter, is the purpose defeated when women stop using the shelter, or only when a formal incident is documented? What is the purpose of a women’s bathroom or locker room? Is it solely about toilets and sinks, or does it also include privacy, dignity, and the expectation of not undressing or performing intimate functions in the presence of biological males? Under the “doesn’t defeat the purpose” test, how would we know when that purpose has been defeated? Does it require a documented incident of voyeurism, assault, or exposure? Or is the loss of perceived safety and privacy by female users enough? Should the women who feel uncomfortable, or unsafe, or who want privacy from biological males, be required to provide evidence of harm before the boundary can be enforced? If so, what form of evidence is sufficient? Once access to a facility is opened on the basis of self-identification, how is the line drawn for the next person who identifies as a woman? Is there a limiting point, or does each case simply get evaluated after the fact for whether harm occurred? AFAICS, nobody has tried to answer any of these questions. I'm not sure there is a requirement for "more proof." However, I think the issue is whether the State can/ought enact measures to preserve sex-segregated spaces, and what those measures are, and whether those measures are workable and constitutionally sufficient. I think the part that gives me the most pause is the overarching lack of concern about - or event the wholesale elimination of - sex-segregated spaces, and the substantial number of women who want, for a variety of reasons (not just safety), to have such spaces in our society, the ongoing refusal to articulate any meaningful limiting principles, and so on. They were never fully safe, but they will become markedly less so if we as a society implement policies which have the de jure and/or de facto effect of eliminating such spaces. Thanks, -Smac

Barely out of high school to attend the funeral of a 23 year old cousin who had been shot earlier in the month. That family must be staggering under the shock of the losses. https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/salt-lake-county/one-person-shot-dead-in-riverton-store-police-are-investigating Rage is so destructive (I assume it’s rage that makes one believe a gun is the right response to an argument).

Hope it’s as beneficial for you as it has been for me. So much easier to understand why I am reacting in certain ways and have effective ways to deal with it. Friction with family members is almost absent now and not just by suppression, lol

Latest news points to the people were there for the funeral https://www.ksl.com/article/51611958/twin-brothers-identified-in-kearns-funeral-shooting The person who was killed was visiting from Seattle specifically for the funeral. The police also no longer believe it was gang-related. And all the participants are distantly related to each other.

Look at the context. It should be clear given the preceding, the ending of what you quoted, and the following sentences, I was talking about other faiths with professional clergy, not Elder Shumway or any LDS for that matter.

My comments started because Analytics said we would still be able to prosecute such cases. And I just don't see how. Before society changed to allowing trans women into locker rooms, a woman in a locker room who was stalked by someone didn't need that much proof if the person was a man. Because it was assumed that he shouldn't be in there and so must be nefarious. I agree this was bad for trans women. But with the change in society, now if a woman is stalked by an actual man (not transwoman) who is in the locker room, she has to have even more proof or just accept being the victim. I don't know how to make it work but it is what bugs me the most about this. I don't see how these cases can be prosecuted anymore. Locker rooms and other sex-segregated places are no longer safe places for woman.

From a prior post: "Treating dissent as 'harm.' Framing disagreement about sex-based rules as inherently bigoted or dangerous, which short-circuits substantive debate about trade-offs and consequences." This seems to be what you are doing. I would like to see where I said a trans person "passing" is "on par with {a trans person} committing rape." Thanks, -Smac

Maybe Elder Shumway isn't getting a modest stipend or anything because he is currently employed.

I do not know what you are referencing here. Could you provide a link to where I did this? I don't think this. Thanks, -Smac

I'm not sure I understand your point. What do "transgenders actually look like"? We've been told that "transgender" status is purely a matter of identity, not looks: Now you are tying being an "actual" transgender to outward looks/presentation. Could you explain/clarify your position here? If a man who "identifies" as transgender, but who has not taken any steps toward either medical or social transitioning, is he - in your view - a "trans woman"? Or does that not happen until and unless he "look{s} like" one? Appearance is how people form quick, practical judgments in public. That has always been true. It does not make sex itself a matter of appearance, and it does not make the underlying rule “use the facility that matches your sex” collapse. People rely on appearance precisely because, for the overwhelming majority of human beings, appearance correlates strongly with sex. That correlation is what allows the informal system to function most of the time. When someone deliberately alters their appearance to resemble the opposite sex, the correlation is disrupted. The resulting confusion or discomfort is not evidence that sex is irrelevant; it is evidence that the visual cue people normally rely on has been made unreliable. A rule based on sex does not require every person to produce a birth certificate at the bathroom door. It sets the standard. Enforcement in ordinary cases will continue to rest on the same appearance-based judgments people already make. The difference is that the standard remains sex, not self-identification or the success of someone’s presentation. When a conflict arises, the question is still “what sex is this person?” rather than “how convincingly do they present?” or “what do they claim to be?” Thanks, -Smac Treating “people go by appearance” as a reason to abandon sex as the organizing principle confuses a practical heuristic with the category itself. The heuristic works because of the underlying reality of sex. It does not replace that reality.

In Britain, over the last few centuries, there has been issues regarding denomination. Over time, culture and history gets dragged into the debate. In time it becomes, in my opinion, a never ending argument of, you say this, and I say that, with both sides constantly finger pointing at each other, fault finding and points scoring on each other. The last few years, things have begun to settle down. People learning to co exist with each other. It is easier, I find, to accept all people are individuals, with both independent, and also shared beliefs.

I think it is more that 90%+ of their arguments against Mormonism work equally well as criticisms of their own faith.