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Hmm yea I have no idea where he was dug up at. Looks like he lived in Nevada at the time. I wonder how someone crossed paths with him? I know my dad had no idea who he was until just a week or two before the conference and he was the one who organized the conference. He told me because he thought I’d be excited to hear him speak which I was. I was and still am a military aficionado. Had to be someone in Utah though. My dad and bk packer knew each other pretty well and he stopped by the house from time to time when in the valley. Probably someone packer recommended.

My Brother In Christ Jesus D. Charles Pyle and I met Carl Mosser many years ago, from memory he was Christlike and Charitable while visiting with us.

Interesting. I hadn't heard of the adventure ones, but that sounds like it was inbetween the time I would have gone and when my kids would have.

The CD I am talking about didn't come out till after I could have gone as well. They were ones I had for my kids. John Bytheway, Hank Smith. Those kind of CDs. Your speaker likely didn't come from Salt Lake. The speakers for my kid's activities and the RS activities I went to were always found by our stake leaders. But yes, Bo Gritz is a interesting choice for a youth conference.

I'm from a small town in Arizona (Mohave County) and I always wanted to go to EFY growing up and that is the 80s/90s. I did get to attend the younger "World of Adventure" which was only for pre-teen boys. There was also a "World of Adventure" for pre-teen girls. Similar to EFY/FSY but for younger ages. I think they merged those in with EFY in 1999 - https://universe.byu.edu/1999/04/12/lds-church-educational-system-makes-changes-to-youth-program

We had a youth conference here. It was a regional thing and one day long with a dance at the end. I dont remember anything about it except we had a really cool speaker. Vietnam vet. All kinds of inspiring war stories even better than Paul Dunn ( lol). Whole uniform except Garments got burned off in a bomb attack, using a vial of consecrated oil to lube weapons during an all night battle on a fire base somewhere in nam..the event was a success I suppose. No worship bands or live music. Several years later he ran for president. Learned he wasn’t even Mormon till 1984. boy what a let down it was to learn it was all lies. Can’t believe Salt lake sent us this dude. Interestingly it was 85/86 within a year give or take of the salamander letter bombings. Turns out none of our leaders had their discernment meters turned on back then. speakers name was Bo Gritz…

Yea my time I could have gone I suppose was before CDs existed…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especially_for_Youth I was pretty sure it was going on at BYU when I first attended, which was the summer of 76. I was annoyed by the non students wandering around campus. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/4577/ John Bytheway’s master’s thesis on EFY. Has lists of teachers, classes, activities, etc.

I'm in Mesa as well. It was definitely a thing for people to go to EFY at BYU and later in Tempe and Flagstaff and maybe other places. I'm trying to remember if my daughter went to one of the local ones, that came later, here or if it was in Salt Lake. I really didn't hear about it at church till the church changed from it being a special, separate thing to an everyone does it. I don't know if that is still going or not as it has been years since my kids were that age. I heard about it more from friends, talk CDs for teens and Education Week so I could see why you might not heard about it much.

We had youth conferences when I was a kid (70s, Northern California). Had different classes with popular speakers to attend. Went to some resort in the mountains in California. Church rented a bus to get there iirc, but maybe we carpooled. Took a couple of hours. It was three or four days. Lived in dorms. There was a dance. Only speaker I remember was Keith Merrill, film guy. Had just won an Academy Award.

Everyone please remember we do t allow personal attacks. Please be above that and attack the criticism not the critic.

You did. You cited it's ordinance. I have not said that. The efforts to distract from the topic and personalize this thread are continuing. I hope you can get past this. Trans issues are ubiquitous these days. What was previously a rare and private (or else not overtly publicize) set of behaviors and preferences are now trumpeted to the skies 24/7. And social media did not exist back then, so all of us have fairly limited and provincial outlooks. Nah. Trans folks get a lot of attention these days because no small number of them go out of their way to attract and invite it. I would have much preferred to let drag queens do their thing in adult venues. We live in a pluralistic society, after all. But then came the use of these shows to sexualize and groom children. Well, that's quite problematic. I think it is very much your side of the debate that is moving heaven and earth to make trans issues a source for daily discussion and debate and news. And then there's Lili Tino. And Lia Thomas. And Imane Khelif, Laurel Hubbard, Fallon Fox, etc. The whole "men in women's sports" thing. And Dylan Mulvaney and his grotesque caricature of womanhood. And Jessica Yaniv (Jonathan Yaniv) and his various efforts to use the power of the State to coerce estheticians to wax his genitals. And the lawsuits. United States v. Skrmetti (2025) — Upheld Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for minors with gender dysphoria. 6–3 decision; Court applied rational-basis review and rejected heightened scrutiny arguments. West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox (June 2026) — Upheld state laws (West Virginia and Idaho) barring transgender-identifying males from girls’/women’s school sports teams. Court held the bans do not violate the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX. Trans folks are going out of their way to attract attention in one way or another, and the media and social media accentuate and amplify it, and now people are paying attention and finding some things about the trans movement to be problematic: Tavistock GIDS (UK): The Gender Identity Development Service was shut down after the Cass Review found weak evidence for puberty blockers/hormones, poor data collection, and a rushed affirmative model. Multiple clinicians and whistleblowers raised concerns about inadequate assessment and social contagion factors. WPATH Files / internal documents: Leaked files and the “WPATH Files” (and later SOC8-related materials) showed members acknowledging weak evidence, high rates of comorbidities (autism, trauma, mental illness), inability of many minors to consent, and pressure to affirm rather than explore underlying issues. Critics describe this as institutional capture and suppression of dissent. Medicalization of minors: Rapid rise in youth referrals (especially adolescent females), use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries with limited long-term evidence of net benefit and known risks (infertility, sexual dysfunction, bone density loss, cardiovascular effects). European countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway, England) sharply restricted these interventions after systematic reviews. Desistance and detransition: Historical data showed most childhood gender dysphoria resolved by adulthood without transition; modern “affirmative” approaches and social transition may lock in identity. Growing numbers of detransitioners report inadequate exploration of trauma, autism, or same-sex attraction, plus medical regret. Social contagion / rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD): Hypothesis (Lisa Littman and others) that peer groups, social media, and online communities drive sudden-onset cases in adolescents, particularly girls. Heavily contested but supported by referral pattern shifts and parent reports. Sports, prisons, and single-sex spaces: Biological males identifying as women competing in female categories, accessing women’s shelters/prisons, and using female facilities — raising fairness, safety, and privacy concerns. Multiple high-profile cases and policy reversals. Suppression of debate and research: Clinicians, researchers, and journalists (e.g., SEGM, Genspect, Cass-associated figures) facing professional retaliation, deplatforming, or loss of funding for questioning the affirmative model. Some journals and medical bodies accused of prioritizing activism over evidence. And on and on. The claim that “nothing is new, wrong, or dangerous” and that this is merely about “letting people choose their own toilets” misstates both the history and the stakes. What is new is the formal demand that sex is irrelevant and that self-declared identity must override it. For decades, restrooms were sex-segregated by near-universal social norm and expectation. People who presented ambiguously or who quietly used the facility that matched their appearance were rarely the subject of a political campaign to redefine the categories themselves. The shift came when activists and institutions began insisting that biological males who identify as women must be treated as women for access purposes, and that any sex-based boundary is illegitimate. That change is not neutral. Single-sex spaces exist because of material differences between the sexes—privacy, safety, and the documented pattern of male-pattern criminality and voyeurism. Removing the sex criterion and replacing it with an unverifiable internal state eliminates the limiting principle. Once access is based on self-identification, any male can claim entry. Evidence from prisons, shelters, sports, and multiple documented incidents shows this is not a theoretical concern. Calling enforcement of longstanding sex-based rules “the heavy hand of government” inverts the situation. The government (and institutions) is being asked to compel people to share intimate spaces on the basis of identity rather than sex. Defending the original organizing principle—sex—is not novel interference; abandoning it is the novelty. Edge cases and polite individual exceptions never required rewriting the rule for everyone. Thanks, -Smac

Oh so are you telling me this isn’t a thing? as for you thinking I’m just being judgmental… ok . Does this make anything I said not true?

Yea my pops was the stake pres in the 80s. Never heard of trips to byzoo. Must not have been a thing here and this is mesa az area

I said nothing about “the management of the City of Minneapolis.” I said they’ve explicitly given transgender people the freedom to use the restrooms of their choice over 50 years ago. This proves 3 things: 1- Your belief that transgender people using the bathroom will cause the downfall of civilization is false. 2- This is an issue that existed decades before you got upset about it. 3- You tipped your hand—you are taking cues from the Right Wing Grievance Industrial Complex—the management of Minneapolis is a made-up non-issue that has nothing to do with this conversation, other than being another made-up target of the Right Wing Grievance Industrial Complex. None of these things means there is anything new or wrong or dangerous about letting people choose their own toilets without interference from the heavy hand of government.

The criteria our culture typically uses. Just like it can decide what is and isn’t porn, what is indecent exposure and what isn’t, sets an arbitrary standard for adulthood and access to alcohol, tobacco, voting, joining the army, etc (if we go by something more objective like brain development, adulthood might be later), driving at 16 instead of adulthood, etc.

So we are all equal opportunity criticizers! That sounds to me like something @The Nehor would enjoy!

Asolutely no- i do not accept this as being non judgemental at all. Your observations are most certainly judgy. Your tone is very clear. I would invite you to be a little more self reflective.

Lily Tino is not right wing. Tavistock clinic. Children undergoing radical and permanent and ill advised medical procedures. WPATH's shenanigans. And on and on.

They’ve had a form of FSY for decades. At least since the 80s I think. But it was called EFY and you had to travel to BYU (or maybe a couple other locations around the US, I’m not sure) to attend. Worship band type music has been a staple of those events for just as long. You could even by the tape or CD at Deseret Book each year.

We have had identity-based access as the norm, either implicitly (Kansas 1861-2025) or explicitly (Minneapolis 1975 - now). The reason you only started noticing recently is because the right-wing grievance industria complex has only recently started to tell you this is what you should worry about. It isn’t driven by a real-world issue. It is driven by psychological manipulation.

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 30 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 😈