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Thank you for your input. Could you clarify? What distinction do you see between "a woman" and "a trans woman"? If you'd prefer to not clarify, that's fine. Thanks, -Smac

Hey Tony. You make a good point. It may be a phenomenon of the American Mountain West. But so far, it hasn't been established that "such" is a singular linguistic phenomenon.

I think it maybe like This and That. It maybe down to geography, also the grammar used by different groups of people. I am aware that I am a number of people on board from England, and a large number of people from America, so try and keep my grammar neutral. Although at times, the more I try and sound neutral, the more I sound like someone from England.

A child is an heir.

I have been curious for years about a linguistic phenomenon that seems limited to English speaking LDS in your common usage of the word "such". Is "such" a valid observation? Or is "that" a valid observation? I cannot recall a non-LDS use "such" the way you guys do. I always know what is meant, but I am wondering if anyone else has noticed "such"? Slow day on the board...

To be clear, in my opinion, a trans woman is not a woman a trans woman is a trans woman. Additionally, I don’t know that the case has anything to do with the establishment or anyone referring to trans women as “women” . The case is as far as I know is purely an issue around whether or not penises are allowed in this private bathhouse offered to women.

From the article: So "self-identity" plus surgical transition = "woman." Is this a valid "limiting principle"? If not, why not? If yes, then what do we make of, for example, Lia Thomas? I'd be interested in hearing others' thoughts on this. @Analytics, this is one of any number of examples as to why "limiting principles" can be important and necessary. Thanks, -Smac

I dislike some things about church so I don’t judge folks who leave. I do judge folks who leave who are nasty and judgy of members. It’s a judgement fest really. 😅

They do now, which is a wonderful thing. I believe they have learned from the mistakes of the past on that issue.

Your interpretation of things makes your conclusions reasonable.

Many of those who have issues with history were from growing up preinternet. I am 65, grew up in California and Illinois and while my parents and grandparents had quite a few church books on their shelves and I read most of them (Journal of Discourse’s print was too annoying for me), there was a mass of church history I never had access to. My local libraries had few books on our faith, never histories, often antimormon texts. At BYU I got into FARMS and as soon as the Gospel Library came out on CD (we got our first computer, a Macintosh, in 1984 iirc, could have been 85), we got that, but given by then we had a kid and I babysat to earn money for mine and my husband’s schooling, I didn’t have much time to spare for reading old church texts and FARMS articles. In 1995 we went to Russia, had a laptop and that became my nighttime reading while I waited to sleep (which gave me several hours a night usually). Even then, most history controversies I never knew about until I joined a message board much like this one in 2001. I was well aware of Joseph’s polygamy, that is one issue I find it difficult to understand how preinternet people missed given the heading in the D&C and mentions in LDS Institute texts from years before I went to BYU in ‘76. My husband grew up in Utah and was well aware of some details of the MMM and other atrocities as he was into the history of Utah, but earlier stuff not so familiar with even though he attended seminary (as did I). Access to information was a very different world preinternet and home computers. That is going to have a massive effect on anyone’s perception. It still shocks me what a different life it is with cellphones. Never being able to get ahold of anyone…and not expecting to once they left the house or work, not being able to know where one loved ones are if its outside of the daily school, work locations, it’s a very different mentality.

I’ll make the conversation complicated- there’s a case in WA where a Japanese bathhouse was sued for not allowing a trans woman in. The rule had become you have to have a vagina to participate in the naked activities. (Surgically or biologically no matter). The bathhouse lost the suit and now it has gone to federal court. it is important to me to be considerate of trans people and to treat them like human beings and to be Christlike and all the things. But I do not want a penis exposed to me ever under any circumstance unless I married it or it’s under the age of 3 and there’s dressing involved. https://komonews.com/news/local/women-only-spa-takes-fight-over-transgender-access-to-supreme-court-olympus-spa-lynnwood-tacoma-pierce-county-transgender-woman-identity-korean-body-scrubs

I believe for many to include myself the reason for some of church history being a problem isn’t so much what the history is as we now know it, but it is the lying, gas lighting, obfuscation and concealment of many aspects of church history as it was presented to us prior to the essays being published. Much different story than we know now. Some would say well that was a long time ago and they are all open about it now. That is certainly possible, but with the news and details from the SEC scandal I and many others cannot trust the senior leadership of the church ( 1st presidency) to be always telling us the truth. I mean how can I trust them when they gave the green light to supplying falsified documents to the government and also engaged in a plan of deception to ensure members continued to tithe ? If they are willing to lie and be so smug about it and leave a paper trail, what else are they lying about? - probably whatever else they feel will be a stumbling block. The leadership of the church has recently demonstrated ( at least to me) that if there is something they feel is negative about the church, it will be covered up and lied about at all costs if it can be. If it can’t be covered up or lied about all in the spirit of preserving the good name of the church, they will find a way to blame the membership’s lack of faith as the problem. Additionally still have not really taken full responsibility as a corporation to address the false teachings of the past in terms of exposing who was behind what and why. Apologies need to be made and that will never happen. Oaks said so himself. as for me, the church history isn’t all that big of a deal I always knew much of it was wack. It was when it was proven the first presidency engaged in lying to the members and the government about ensign peak was what gave me my personal permission to disengage.

I agree with you. Context matters. And once it does, we have already conceded that self-identification is not an absolute that must be accepted without further inquiry. In ordinary social settings we often extend courtesy and decline to interrogate someone’s stated identity. That is a social practice, not a metaphysical rule. When the claim is used to demand entry into a sex-separated space, a competitive category, or a legal protection that was created on the basis of sex, context does matter—and the relevant context includes biological sex, physical reality, and the interests of the other people in that space or category. The analogy to “I love you” is quite useful. We do not treat every utterance of those words as binding or sincere regardless of circumstances. We evaluate them in light of behavior, setting, and consequence. The same is true here. If self-identification is decisive in every context, then the Kanter/White-style claims cannot be dismissed as illegitimate; they meet the stated criterion. If those claims can be dismissed because of context, motive, or physical reality, then self-identification was never the actual rule, sex and material distinction still are. You cannot have it both ways: either self-identification is the controlling standard, or context (including sex) is allowed to limit it. The moment context is admitted as relevant, the claim that self-identification must be accepted without question no longer holds. I would like to hear more of what you have to say about this. if "context matters," which contexts allow us to question/dispute a person's subjective "self-identity" and which do not? And who is it that decides which contexts matter? Thanks, -Smac ETA: Just saw this: A few responses: Seems like there are no "limiting principles" and context doesn't matter, until there are and it does. Thanks, -Smac

With the conflict in Ukraine going poorly and the current gas shortages across the nation unrest is rising. Increased use of crackdowns are a normal authoritarian response to keep people nervous and less likely to cause problems. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it backfires. There is a lot of effort to keep things as normal as possible in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They hold up the regime and the outlying regions are being strangled to keep up the veneer of normalcy in key areas. Poor guy got caught in the middle of it.

Professional sports organizations can figure out their own standards of eligibility. They don’t need transphobes concern trolling about how hard it will be on their behalf.

I think a lot of it comes down to expectations and assumptions verses realities of morality. We claim truth, prophets, revelation, etc. It sets the standard high naturally but if members also have assumptions and expectations about what the standard means that differ from what they find in church history, that’s no small thing.

I'll be 37 in a month, grew up in the Florida panhandle, and have lived in southern Alabama since 2011. My mom is from the Florida panhandle and my step-dad is from the same small south Alabama town I currently live in. The only connection to Utah I have is that my biological father was from Spanish Fork, but he was stationed in Florida when he was in the Navy (where he met my mom) and was institutionalized from the time I was 4 or so until the time he died in 2003 due to Huntington's disease. I barely knew him or most of that side of the family, as out of the 5 children on that side (him, his two brothers and two sisters), 4/5 died from HD. My paternal grandfather committed suicide when my biological father was 14, so I never knew him either. I only ever had a little contact with my one living paternal uncle (plus his wife and two daughters) and my paternal grandmother due to them living in Texas. So yeah, trying to insinuate me growing up and/or living in a LDS-majority area for many years as coloring my perception on the church isn't going to work. The internet is a wonderful thing though, and as I said, the church publishes a great deal of material that is accessible through it without being gatekept behind making an account, requesting access, etc.

How old are you? And have you ever lived outside the Mormon corridor?

Yet that doesn't do much to the point. Take the Roman Catholic church for example. Their history is still a long one of corruption and violence against not only former members, but those who were never part of their church to begin with. They claimed it was God's will despite denying the existence of direct revelation. The issue of leadership is still one for the more theologically liberal churches, which tend to be some flavor of Reformed Protestant church. Reformed churches appeal to an inerrant, complete scripture as the ultimate authority, but that creates a whole host of problems. If extant scripture is inerrant, how does one explain different interpretations? Some would answer this question by claiming that said scripture is self-interpreting, which ends up not answering the question at all. This goes into something that doesn't seem to want to be touched on, and it's similar to what I encounter in my career (currently a medical technologist, but aspiring medical doctor). People love to blame the institution, but never want to consider that the problem may lie with those the institution serves. Patients can set unreasonable expectations of their doctors and have said expectations spawn primarily or even entirely out of their own conceptions of how they think things should be. Sometimes those conceptions are born out of general human problems (pride, ego, etc.). Sometimes the patient has genuine psych problems that prevent them from fully understanding. Sometimes the patient is just dumb and easily swayed by fiery rhetoric or fancy ceremony. I'd argue that the LDS church is very open about its history, certainly moreso than many others, and that those who use history as their reason were already out in all but name. The material is both publicly available and easily accessible from the church itself on many controversial topics, but those who go looking with preconceived notions often end up perpetually unsatisfied when what they find doesn't match said notions and they never think to ask themselves "Am I the one that's wrong here?".

Not all of these Churches former members decide to join claim their leaders are currently receiving direct revelation from God. The title of Prophet, Seer, and Revelator sets up high expectations, especially if one has been taught a belief that is close to inerrancy for the Prophets. Many from what I read go to more liberal theologically speaking denominations that don’t create such difficulties for their leaders. It would be interesting to find out how many seek out churches that have some form of inerrancy of scripture or leadership in them.

My man, do you not know how to read? "then yes, you are most definitely projecting your own problems onto other people" There's your answer.

Church history being an issue always seemed to be an interesting line, especially if those that leave over it go to larger churches who have much bigger problems in their pasts or want to act as if things were "kept from them".

So.. are you calling me a pedophile? Or stating that I have those tendencies? Buck up and commit to it or not. If not, delete your post.

He was in my ward in college for a bit. Stand up guy. I only wish he made the right decision to just wear a seatbelt and pay attention. May he rest with the Lord.