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I’m in primary so it’s basically same as usual there. I’m kind of sad I don’t get to see this all play out!

I'm with the youth.

I am not sure how to answer the various points or questions you raise. I am not adept at doing that with such a long and intricate post. I do not offer my perspective to make or suggest yours is wrong. I simply, as a colleague on this forum, offer you a different view on certain things. I would ask you to receive them; not necessarily to accept them. There is a significant difference. Those of us who have grown up in a church are pretty much all conditioned by that experience. It becomes part, perhaps a large part of our faith. I believe the more any of us turn away from that conditioning, the closer we can draw to the truth, at least our personal truth. I do not reject thee Church of gathered believers world-wide, inclusive of the LDS. I do think it unwise to equate or engage the doctrine of ecclesiology as being on the same theological level or importance as the doctrine of Christ. No organization died for our sins or by its virtue or efficacy grants redemption to humans. There is no salvation in any organization, only in a person. That person is Christ. If any authority is given to an individual, it is still Christ's authority, not the individual's. Kierkegaard, a contemporary of Joseph Smith once said, "The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.” I really like that, but it might sound very strange to my LDS friend's ears. Your remarks about the Protestants are great. I would offer one difference. You use the word creedal - "In the creedal sense". . . . . I would suggest eliminating the word creedal if you are going to describe us. The majority of Protestant Christians are not creedal in any sense of the word. In fact, we reject creeds. Many of my LDS friends are conditioned to see all or most non-LDS Protestant Christians as creedal. I would simply propose that is an error in perspective. Not that a word makes much difference, but "creed" and "creedal" are often used in a pejorative sense by my LDS friends. It is a way to dismiss a belief once it is deemed creedal - going all the way back to the 1838 take on the First Vision. Physically constructed brick and mortar or stone and mortar temples for us serve no need. They may even be perceived as contrary to Biblical scripture. We take Hebrews very seriously. We take the priesthood of the believer very seriously. Of course we do not believe Christ's authority was granted to only one church. The onlyism of the LDS church is a big stumbling block for me. I cringe when I am told that that onlyism is nothing personal. It sure is. One of the men who assured me in our ward that my wife does not and could not possibly have the Gift of the Holy Spirit is now a higher-up in the CEC of the LDS Church. That (in my opinion) is problematic. Of course, a faithful member probably would not see it that way. Yes, Christ taught in the temple. There is no evidence in the New Testament that he was ever “comfortable” there. In fact, since you are an attorney, I would suggest there is more evidence of his discomfort there.

Those gods were not real deities. Even Zeus was not a deity. The Jews sacrified to Baal, but Baal was not a real god in the sense of deity. He was either a being conceived in their mind or a demonic spirit. There is only one being referred to as the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). The idea is that Satan has influence over the present world system and works to keep people from recognizing the truth of the gospel. There are not gods who are given ruling authority over specific countries.

I’d vote for you as our next apostle.

My point is that this isn’t happening and despite your assertions to the contrary, there is no reason to believe that it will happen. Just as we don’t need laws to keep litter boxes out of elementary school bathrooms, we don’t need laws to keep men out of the women’s restroom. First, "this isn't happening" is an assertion, not an established fact. Second, “It isn’t happening, so we don’t need a rule” is not an answer to what the rule is. A limiting principle is about who the class is, not about how many scandals have made the news this month. If the permission slip is self-declared identity or “presentation,” the class is no longer female. That is true whether two people use it this year or two thousand. You can think the uptake will stay small. That does not make “whoever says so” a sexed category. Third, we already have sex-segregated rooms. The question is whether we keep sex as the criterion or replace it with "identity." “We don’t need a law” usually means one of two things: (1) custom and ordinary crime statutes are enough, or (2) identity access is fine because abuse will stay rare. (1) only works if the custom is still sex. (2) is a prediction. Predictions are not a limiting principle. Fourth, the litter-box line is a different claim. Nobody serious is drafting a statute about litter boxes. People are drafting and litigating rules that treat a male as entitled to the women’s room if he identifies or presents as a woman. That is not a meme. It is the ordinance / school / HR fight. Pointing at a silly story does not make the category question go away. I am not asking you to prove a national wave of predators by Friday. I am asking you to say, in a sentence that could go in a policy, which males are out. This is what you are steadfastly refusing to do. And I think that is because A) you can't articulate a limiting principle without running afoul of the mobocratic elements of the trans movement, B) your proposal is perhaps a motte-and-bailey tactic that would be undermined by admitting that there are no limiting principles, and that there is a need for them. “Be decent and don’t peep” applies under a sex rule too. It does not tell a staff member or a court who belongs in the room. If your view is that no written sex rule is needed because almost no one will push it, say that plainly. That is a bet on manners. It is still not a limiting principle. Ah. So we are in agreement that, contrary to your prior representations, these others are not “separate issues.” You have just said the same test should run in changing rooms, sports, and prisons. So we're talking motte-and-bailey tactics after all. That is the point of the analogy. I was not claiming you personally want Lia Thomas in the NCAA. I was claiming that a lawyer does not need your permission. If the bathroom holding is “identity/expression is the access rule, and a sex statute does more harm than good,” the next brief will say: same rule, different doorway. Stalls vs lockers will be a fact for the balancing, not a new definition of “woman.” “Don’t pass a law unless there is a need, and don’t let it do more harm than good” is not a criterion for who the class is. It is a reason to regulate less. Applied to a women’s prison or a girls’ locker room, it can just as easily mean “don’t pass a sex law” as “don’t pass an identity entitlement.” You still have to say which males are out. You have said sport can stay sexed. Good. That is a sex rule in one venue. The bathroom argument you have been defending is that a sex rule there fails the harm test. Counsel will ask why the harm test flips when the clothes come off or the points are scored. So I do think it is bad to “extend that same reasoning” if the reasoning is identity access plus no administrable gate. Extending minimal-statute / weigh the harms is fine—if sex remains the thing you are weighing harms to. If “woman” on the door is already a social category, the harm tally is no longer a tally of females. That is the fence I have been asking for. “I like fewer laws” is not it. Sigh. . The natural and foreseeable effect of your proposal is the elimination, either de facto or de jure or both, of sex-segregated spaces. You will not acknowledge this, either because you don't know how the law works, or you don't care how the law works, or you are indifferent to the effects of your proposal, or you are aware of the effects and want them to come to pass. It is this last one that I think is the motte-and-bailey thing. In any event, what I am saying is narrower, and I will keep saying it without the heat: The justification you use for the bathroom—identity or expression as the access rule, and a sex statute as more harm than good—is the same justification other people will carry into lockers, sport, and prisons. That can be true even if you personally would not vote for those outcomes. Analogies do not require you to be an ideologue. They require a court to be consistent. Moreover, even if you are not personally attempting to advance motte-and-bailey tactics, I think other activists and groups are. I glean this from the failure/refusal to articulate limiting principles, the failure/refusal to acknowledge the natural and foreseeable camel's-nose-in-the-tent / motte-and-bailey consequences of letting men into women's bathrooms. “Bad for women and girls” is the disagreement. On my definition, the group those rooms were built for is female. A rule that admits males on identity changes that group. You can weigh harms and think a sex statute is the worse package. I can weigh the same facts and think dissolving the criterion is the worse package. That is a policy fight. I am against statutes that do more harm than good too. The question remains which rule does that, and who counts as the women and girls in the tally. That is the argument, and you are evading important elements of it. Thanks, -Smac

It’s not that you can’t order, it’s that when you go to order they indicate everything is sold out.

I know this is not my subject area Is it possible, that the items being purchased need to be seen before purchasing. Just a thought.

Exactly.

I don't understand why there were so many available for in purchase buying but none online.

The End of Oak Street I'd say definitely worth seeing in a theater. It takes place in the 1980s and is about a family/neighborhood that ends up in another time and place. I don't want to say too much more than that. It's about the people and not about the special effects, which is nice. They do a good job of making the story make sense (because the premise is pretty far out there). There is a third act twist that you really don't see coming. PG-13 so good for tweens and up I'd say.

My point is that this isn’t happening and despite your assertions to the contrary, there is no reason to believe that it will happen. Just as we don’t need laws to keep litter boxes out of elementary school bathrooms, we don’t need laws to keep men out of the women’s restroom. As I’ve made it very clear throughout this conversation, I believe we shouldn’t have laws unless there is a need for them, and that such laws should be crafted in a way that ensures they don’t do more harm than good. I don’t know why you think it would be bad to extend that same reasoning to women’s changing rooms, sports, or prisons. Sigh. I’m against the bathroom law you propose because it is bad for women and girls. Your insinuation that I have some sort of ideological master goal of crowding out women from women’s sports, defeating the purpose of women’s shelters, and causing the eradication of women’s-only spaces is both inaccurate and offensive. If being against laws that do more harm than good makes me an ideologue, then so be it.

I think I did. I think I have answered your questions and explained my reasoning, both at some length. I think my comments responsive to your post were quite relevant to the questions you asked. I said: "They give more credit to academics as a collective than I would. I find much of the prone-to-activism segments of academia to be craven, ideologically compromised, and morally bankrupt." That's not quite the same as "contempt of higher education." And that was in a post that was not responsive to your questions. I have two "higher education" degrees, a BA and a JD, and I taught at a local university for five years. I see its virtues, but also its flaws. My contempt for activist elements of academia is substantial and pronounced. I am gratified at the prospect of there being a substantial contraction of colleges and universities. We have too many, charging way too much, granting far to many not-very-worthwhile degrees, and too many faculty and administrators in them who are less interested in education than in sociopolitical activism and indoctrination. We need to divert time and money and effort toward more worthwhile efforts to help kids gain skills for employment. Trade schools and vocational schools, for examples. Okay. Thanks, -Smac

I would have added to the videos to say that there is now officially a 3-comment-per-class limit for those who don't know how to stay quiet. Also, anyone who walks into class late is required to bring cinnamon rolls the following week.

Yes, I have needed to make a checklist for everything I do daily that must be done because memories and anticipation both create the belief I have taken my meds, etc when I haven’t or in tracking I get convinced that I have exercised, tidied a room, etc more than I actually have. I used to be really good with my lists, but now I forget to check them.

You don’t really answer any of my questions. You only keep pasting your lists without explaining how you can reach those conclusions and skip the hard questions Then you fill the rest of your post talking about totally irrelevant things to the questions I asked including your contempt of higher education. Really? So I guess at this point, after multiple attempts to actually get answers I’m done trying. It seems pointless.

Hi Calm It has happened to me a few times. The thought moving from, I plan to do, to I have done. It can be annoying, as I like to get things done, as I need to do them. I tend to make lists, shopping, and need to do.

I’d rather hear a lecture than listen to my ward discuss. It’s the same 5 ladies who need group therapy but come to church instead 😕

Hi Rory, Thanks for the heads-up. Calm's recommendation of Ostler's book is a great place to start; I can think of only one other 'modern' LDS author that comes close when it comes to a systematic approach to LDS theology : Terryl Givens. Givens' Wrestling the Angel - The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity is excellent and should be read by folk interested in a balanced approach to LDS theology. Grace and peace, David

An article I have found well-written and persuasive: Biological sex is binary, even though there is a rainbow of sex roles The "and social scientists" bit is interesting. Ideology is playing a role here. "Thereby opposing fundamental biological facts." Seeing a lot of that in this thread. I fully agree with this. Interesting how "sex is a social construct" only purports to apply to one species. "Gender," as these authors use it, is the extra human layer: identity, roles, “man/woman” as social categories. They trace the sex/gender split to mid-20th-century clinical language (Money et al. on DSD / “sex of rearing”). To their credit, they later acknowledge the "flawed notions" of these terms being used. Indeed. One such "alternative truth" is that a man can "become" a woman by "identifying" as one. There are more. Boy, that sure sounds familiar. This thread is replete with such notions. "Astonishing" starts to, but does not fully capture, what has been doing on the last few years. In my signature line I have a quote from G.K. Chesterton: "We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green." Add to it "hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green {or that a man does not 'become' a woman by 'identifying' as one}." "Astonishingly..." "Astounding..." "They ignore or even reject the well-established biological concept of sex and, thus, they ultimately deny fundamental principles of biology." I think these journals are also motivated by less-than-laudable causes, including massive social and political pressure to adopt, on some fundamental issues, ideological frameworks in place of biological/scientific ones. Well, sort of. They are often conflated for equivocation and motte-and-bailey purposes. I think the "gist of the problem" needs to be extended to acknowledging that "flawed notions" are arising, to some extent, by design of ideological activists. I find this both surprising and depressing. Yep. Ideological pressures. And not all benign ones, either. Look at how many participants of this thread have accused me of "bigotry" for not going along with "blurring" the meaning of biological sex, or that sex is a "spectrum." They give more credit to academics as a collective than I would. I find much of the prone-to-activism segments of academia to be craven, ideologically compromised, and morally bankrupt. I recently saw this video and thought it both humorous and painfully accurate: A transcript: Interviewer: Almost every single time bad ideas come from universities. Gad Saad: Orwell answered it one way, so I'll paraphrase it. He said something to the effect of "It takes intellectuals to come up with the dumbest ideas." I wholeheartedly agree with that. Now why is that? Because in many cases, the academic, who literally lives in the ivory tower, is fully decouples from the autocorrective mechanism of reality. Engineering schools have less parasitic ideas because if you build a bridge using postmodern indigenous physics, as opposed to physics, then the bridge will collapse. So some disciplines have an inoculation against these parasitic because reality will quickly catch up to you. But in other disciplines, in the humanities and some of the social sciences, I could sit on top of my pulpit, pontificate about nonsense, and there isn't an autocorrective mechanism, and that's reality, and that's why I become the promulgator of nonsense. Hmm. They don't sufficiently address what I think are the more potent motivating factors, namely, the desire to conform, the fear of getting crosswise with powerful and influential activist groups, the cowardice of mouthing falsehoods to placate mobocratic activists, and so on. Overall a very good article. Thanks, -Smac

Time will tell. Our youth are very "whatever" about most administrative things. It really depends on the teacher. If they love the teacher, they are excited to be with them every week. If they don't, they are mostly ambivalent thus far. After watching last Sunday, I think we'll have much better discussions with the new format. There was less "lessoning" and more discussing scripture and concepts.

No, I don't. DSDs are a medical condition, not a third sex. And yet all of them are still male or female. I have been speaking of biological sex categories. There are only two. Because a person with this DSD has a medical condition, whereas a person with gender dysphoria does not (except for those who have both the medical condition and the mental health disorder). They can look similar at a glance. They are not the same fact. Again, a DSD is a congenital error in sex development. Chromosomes, gonads, or androgen response did not follow the usual script. The body is still on the male or female pathway. Nobody chose a wardrobe or an "identity" and then grew a uterus or testes to match. In contrast, a trans-identifying person, in the cases this debate is about, does not have that error. Typical male or typical female development. The claim is an inner identity (and sometimes hormones or surgery later). That is a psychological and medical-choice path laid on top of a sex that is not in doubt. Let's review the list: CAIS: XY, testes, no uterus. Looks female because the body cannot hear androgens. That is not “a male who identifies as a woman.” It is a male whose tissues never masculinized. Swyer: XY, failed gonads, female-typical outside. Again a developmental failure, not a gender identity. XX CAH: female, ovaries and uterus, virilized genitals from extra androgens in utero. That is not “a woman transitioning to male.” Transition is exogenous hormones or surgery on a body that already finished female development. CAH happened before birth, inside the female pathway. 5-ARD: XY, testes, genitals that may look female until male puberty. The pubertal masculinization is the male system switching on, not someone “becoming trans.” “Sounds like someone who is trans” you treating phenotype as if it is some sort of costume. Medicine already separates them. DSM-5 even has a specifier: gender dysphoria with a DSD, because most gender dysphoria is without one. If the argument is “some bodies are atypical, therefore identity determines sex,” that is the motte-and-bailey again. Atypical development is not a male with ordinary anatomy saying he is a woman. Looks can overlap. The cause, the gonads, and the class do not. Again, this is all motte-and-bailey argument. Ovotesticular DSD is the hardest medical case, but it is still not a third sex, nor is it the absence of sex, and it is not a template for ordinary trans-identifying people. Medical teams look at karyotype, SRY, which tissue is present, ducts, hormones, fertility chances, and cancer risk in dysgenic gonads. “Sex of rearing” can be a clinical judgment. That is not proof that sex itself is arbitrary, and it is not what happens when a typical male identifies as a woman. No one is finding an ovary in him. "Looks like" is not "is of the same kind." A CAIS or Swyer patient has a congenital pathway problem. A typical trans-identifying person has typical male or female anatomy plus an entirely subjective and self-declared "identity" (and sometimes later, hormones or surgery). Putting them in one bucket because both can “present female” is the same error as saying a burned house and a blueprint change are the same building. CAIS and Swyer people with female-typical external anatomy have almost always been raised as girls and use the women’s room. That is a DSD protocol, not a "gender identity" rule. It does not follow that every male who says he is a woman is the same case. I do not have to march a CAIS woman-raised patient into the men’s room in order to keep sex as the criterion for people whose sex was never in doubt. Hard medical files get hard, individualized handling. They are not a warrant for dissolution of sex-segregated spaces, nor do they negate the sexual binary. The "42 million" number is the inflated “intersex” count (the Fausto-Sterling-style bucket that folds in conditions that do not scramble sex). Conditions that actually make sex diagnosis hard are on the order of 0.018%, not tens of millions of “third sex” people. But even if the large number were right, prevalence does not turn a disorder into a spectrum of sexes. There are many people with congenital heart defects. That does not make “number of heart chambers” a spectrum of species. You are saying I “listed a spectrum.” I have not. I have, instead, listed named disorders of two pathways. A list of ways a system can break is not a continuum of new systems. Male, female, and a rare mix of those two is not “a spectrum of sexes.” It is the binary plus pathology. The restroom problem in this debate is not CAIS. It is gender dysphoric males with ordinary male development who want to use the women's room based on subjective "gender identity." Those are different populations (though some very few will overlap in both). Medicine already knows that. Policy should too. Thanks, -Smac

You have dodged the question several times. Still not clear answers. You say there is no spectrum, yet you list a spectrum of sexual possibilities. This is why I keep asking for clarification. You keep trying to pass this off as some very rare occurrence, yet it is estimated that 42 million people have some form of DSD. Let's look at the spectrum of sexuality you presented. How is this different than how trans people present themselves? How is this different than how trans people present themselves? This is someone who has female reproductive organs but can develop external genitalia more typical male direction. How is this different than a female transitioning to male? Female-appearing or ambiguous genitalia A small penis/clitoris-like structure A partially fused scrotum/labia A urethral opening in an atypical location Sounds again like someone who is trans. The hardest one to totally dismiss because a person has both ovarian and testicular tissue, sometimes in the same gonad (an ovotestis) and sometimes as separate ovaries and testes. they have both male and female characteristics. It is only through surgery that can be used to decide what sex they will present. Sometime it is an arbitrarily decision. It seems to me that people who are trans fit into very similar reproductive and presenting as some born with the various conditions you outlined. Trans people are either male or female but present like the conditions you outlined that occurs naturally. And the same problems concerning restrooms occur. While someone may be CAIS (46,XY): male. Testes, no uterus; body cannot use androgens, so the outside can look female. Do you insist that even they also are male, but present femaie use the male bathroom? Swyer (46,XY): Someone who has Swyer (46,xy) male pathway, streak gonads, female-typical external anatomy but are male but present female-typical anatomy from. birth. Do you force them to use a male bathroom even though they have a female anatomy? I guess you could take the position that trans people are either male or female but they choose to present differently than just their genetics. Just like the approximately 42 million people who fall into these classifications. You can dismiss that number as being unimportant, but would you also say that the number of people who identify as LDS is also unimportant? What is clear to me is there is a spectrum as you have listed.

This is an interesting perspective. I would like to better understand it. Back in July there was a By Common Consent article the critiqued the Church in quite the other direction: Hot Take: We Need to Avoid Christolatry I'm not sure either characterization (BCC suggesting we are focusing too much on Christ, your assessment that we are not giving Him sufficient focus) works. I wonder if Latter-day Saints have something in common with Catholicism that is less apparent, or even mostly absent, from Protestant perspectives, namely, a visible, institutional "Church" that is part of their Christology. For example, consider this CatholicAnswers article: Christ and His Church: It’s a Package Deal The author, Hector Molina, argues you cannot take Jesus and leave the Church. They are one package. Christ is the bridegroom; the Church is the bride (Eph. 5 / CCC 796). To love him while treating the Church as optional is like claiming to love a husband and despise his wife. Paul VI and Francis both reject “believing without belonging.” Cyprian’s line does the work: no Church as mother, no God as Father. The Church, in this telling, is not a human club you can shop around. It is the communion God designed, the mother who gives faith. Rejecting her is rejecting him (“anyone who rejects you rejects me”). The Latter-day Saints have their own similar, but still distinctive and separate, conceptualization of the Christ and "His Church." For us, Christ is the head of the Church. The restored Church is the body He authorized. Not a second savior, and not a club one can skip in relation to the covenants He named. Christ leads the Church (D&C 20; 107). D&C 1:30 calls it the “true and living church” because of keys and ordinances, not because only Latter-day Saints are loved. Baptism for the dead exists because they think people outside this pew can still be His. Unlike the Catholic line (“no Church as mother, no God as Father”), Saints do not say you cannot have the Father unless you are on this roll. They do say baptism, endowment, and sealing—the order he restored—are done here, under living prophets. Faith in Jesus elsewhere is real; the wedding ordinances are not. The Church can err. Handbooks change. The claim is revelation and priesthood, not a sinless institution fused to Christ. Protestant Christianity is fairly eclectic and broad in what its constituent parts believe and why. Protestants (broadly) believe that "the Church" is the company of those who belong to Christ by faith; it is not one earthly institution you must join to have Him. The decisive bond is justification by faith, not a roster or a priesthood line. “The Church” in the creedal sense is often the invisible church: all true believers, known fully only to God. Visible congregations, denominations, and buildings are real and useful; they are not the same thing as Christ’s body in the Catholic or Latter-day Saint sense. There is generally no single restored (Latter-day Saint) or Petrine (Catholic) office that holds the keys for the whole world. Authority sits in Scripture, then in local pastors and members (the priesthood of all believers). Sacraments/ordinances matter, but their number, meaning, and necessity vary (Lutheran and Anglican vs. Baptist vs. nondenominational). Our everyday church buildings are fairly modestly appointed. More functional than ornate. Temples, for us, fulfill a different need. I think He would be comfortable in both places. He spent much time with regular people, but He also taught in the temple (Luke 21:37-38). I think the distinction you draw here is different to reconcile with what we believe to be the Church's role and mandate. I want the missionaries—and the rest of us—to bring people to Christ. If the Church is only collecting names for itself, that is a failure of discipleship, not a triumph of organization. The part I cannot grant is the split you are drawing: Christ over here, the Church over there as a brand. In our own account they are not rivals. The restored Church is supposed to be the means he named—ordinances, covenants, a people—not a second object of worship. Drawing someone “to the Church” in that sense is supposed to be drawing them into his order, not into a logo. “Minister from the truths of their lives” is quite right as pastoral posture. Start where they hurt, what they already know of God, the good they already have. Missiology that leads with “our franchise is unique” is often tin-eared. Agreed. “Minister not based on the truth of the organization” is, however, a different sentence. If the Restoration claims are false, then yes: stop centering the institution. If they are true, then the unique elements of its mandates - priesthood keys, living prophets, open canon, continuing revelation, the covenant path - are not a marketing overlay on Jesus. They are how we think He has told us to come to Him. So yes, better training in listening is a good idea. To the extent this is an issue, less "corporate self-reference" and more emphasis on Christ as "the author and finisher of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2). Actually, I think the Church has already been working on this for quite a while. We think the Bridegroom sent us to a particular house. The job is to make that house about Him, not to pretend the house was our idea. And we maintain and make the house His by serving each other. What sort of "spiritual need{s}" do you think are being unmet, and how would you envision missionaries meeting those needs? I appreciate your input here. Thanks, -Smac

I love you I hope you know. (For those who think this is weird, we have known each other a long time and every now and then he says something that reminds me how great it’s been. And I need to let him know that.)