Eternal Gender: Biology at Birth?

[california boy]

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

And I would argue that those who understand and believe in the organization’s mission can most clearly judge if that is the case while those who have only one of those attributes or even lack both of them would have no clue.

 

3 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

It depends, doesn't it? An adherent's belief can be poorly-constructed and opinions thus ill-informed while a non-adherant's opinion can have more integrity. Especially those views based on us versus them are known to be classically vulnerable to cognitive bias.

Your position, that I must necessarily know less about what is good for the church as an unbeliever, is inherently flawed. As an unbeliever, perhaps generally I would have less "say" in a democratic theocracy, but the church isn't a democratic theocracy. 

Excommunication is a cruel "solution" for GLBT church members. There are evils in this world, but they are not from consenting adults loving each other or individuals believing their bodies do not represent their true gender. Calling love a "sin" is evil.

Oddly enough, I agree with both of you.  Given the current climate in the Church for LGBT members, perhaps the best thing for the Church and the individual is excommunication..  It kind of helps them out the door and lets them find a life full of love and joy outside of the Church.

I am not sure I would have had the curate to leave the Church on my own.  I am grateful the Church did have the courage to kick me out.  They had no choice.  When they asked if I wanted to find a life with someone who is gay, I answered honestly, YES..  It was pretty cut and dried for both of us.

[Meadowchik]

3 hours ago, california boy said:

 

Oddly enough, I agree with both of you.  Given the current climate in the Church for LGBT members, perhaps the best thing for the Church and the individual is excommunication..  It kind of helps them out the door and lets them find a life full of love and joy outside of the Church.

I am not sure I would have had the curate to leave the Church on my own.  I am grateful the Church did have the courage to kick me out.  They had no choice.  When they asked if I wanted to find a life with someone who is gay, I answered honestly, YES..  It was pretty cut and dried for both of us.

I agree that being forced out of the church may be a lesser evil than staying in for some LGBT members. However, leaving and/or being excommunicated is not going to happen for all LGBT individuals, and even when it does it can be horribly damaging. 

[lightparticle]

On 10/13/2019 at 6:29 AM, Meadowchik said:

I agree that being forced out of the church may be a lesser evil than staying in for some LGBT members. However, leaving and/or being excommunicated is not going to happen for all LGBT individuals, and even when it does it can be horribly damaging. 

It can be very damaging. Being a member of the church involves allowing it to invade almost every facet of your life. Being suddenly rejected and forcibly removed is mentally and spiritually jarring. While the church recommends that members be loving and kind to everyone, the real story is that most people that are excommunicated are shunned by the general membership. Friendships and even family bonds are destroyed.

Lesser evil? Perhaps. But, if my life was going to follow the path of being removed from membership in the church, I was not going to take the "easy way out" as my stake president put it. His recommendation to me was to voluntarily leave the church. I made the decision that if they wanted me out of the church, they would need to take the steps necessary to do it. While I am not active, I still believe in God. While I don't consider my testimony about the church and such to be very strong anymore, I still have a connection to God and Jesus Christ. They can't take that away no matter how it turns out. Interestingly enough, when I told this exact point of view to my stake president, they didn't excommunicate me. It was actually the behavior and nastiness of my ward toward me and my family that ultimately pushed us out of activity at church.

[Ahab]

11 minutes ago, lightparticle said:

It was actually the behavior and nastiness of my ward toward me and my family that ultimately pushed us out of activity at church.

I wish more members of the Church understood that the people in it are not perfect and need some special spiritual help.  All of us do, even the worst members of the Church that you can imagine.  So don't let them keep you out of it, or not active in it.  It's exactly because there are some members who behave badly that the Church needs more members trying to be helpful while enduring the bad things that imperfect people, including imperfect members, can do.  And that's the kind of good service that members will get a lot of blessings for doing. 

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, lightparticle said:

It can be very damaging. Being a member of the church involves allowing it to invade almost every facet of your life. Being suddenly rejected and forcibly removed is mentally and spiritually jarring. While the church recommends that members be loving and kind to everyone, the real story is that most people that are excommunicated are shunned by the general membership. Friendships and even family bonds are destroyed.

Lesser evil? Perhaps. But, if my life was going to follow the path of being removed from membership in the church, I was not going to take the "easy way out" as my stake president put it. His recommendation to me was to voluntarily leave the church. I made the decision that if they wanted me out of the church, they would need to take the steps necessary to do it. While I am not active, I still believe in God. While I don't consider my testimony about the church and such to be very strong anymore, I still have a connection to God and Jesus Christ. They can't take that away no matter how it turns out. Interestingly enough, when I told this exact point of view to my stake president, they didn't excommunicate me. It was actually the behavior and nastiness of my ward toward me and my family that ultimately pushed us out of activity at church.

I believe some things in religion to be so very toxic. I'm sorry for the pain you've experienced.

I'm currently listening to an audible book about the first woman driver in Saudi Arabia, and in it she speaks how women are treated in the name of religion.

It's horrendous, thus my feeling that the secular seems to be a safer bet and even in the LDS church, we have families that are separated because of how they've been taught to believe.

I don't believe in the mantra that families can be together forever, I believe they will be.

After listening to the book, I saw parallels to our church like the over emphasis on modesty, of course they are the extreme. And how it use to be that women had to go through their husbands to get to God, that's what the women in Saudi Arabia are taught. All stemming from the Quran or how men read it to be! And how in the early LDS church there was polygamy,  well, same for the Saudi's.

How in the world does anyone know if book is true, just like the BoM/Bible or so many other scripture that are racist and treat women so harmfully. I bet some on here will counter that but I know what I experienced in the temple.

Like you, I still believe in Jesus/God, just not a relgion that is just an institution of a brick and mortor organization.

[Meadowchik]

On 10/14/2019 at 7:10 PM, lightparticle said:

It can be very damaging. Being a member of the church involves allowing it to invade almost every facet of your life. Being suddenly rejected and forcibly removed is mentally and spiritually jarring. While the church recommends that members be loving and kind to everyone, the real story is that most people that are excommunicated are shunned by the general membership. Friendships and even family bonds are destroyed.

Lesser evil? Perhaps. But, if my life was going to follow the path of being removed from membership in the church, I was not going to take the "easy way out" as my stake president put it. His recommendation to me was to voluntarily leave the church. I made the decision that if they wanted me out of the church, they would need to take the steps necessary to do it. While I am not active, I still believe in God. While I don't consider my testimony about the church and such to be very strong anymore, I still have a connection to God and Jesus Christ. They can't take that away no matter how it turns out. Interestingly enough, when I told this exact point of view to my stake president, they didn't excommunicate me. It was actually the behavior and nastiness of my ward toward me and my family that ultimately pushed us out of activity at church.

Thanks so much for sharing this.