What is gender? No, really, what is it? Can you describe it for me? Because I seem to be a little confused about it. Wait, it’s not normal to be confused about gender? So, you’ve never questioned your gender and it’s always just made sense to you? Then what’s wrong with me?
I wish,
more than anything, that someone would have answered that last question with, “there’s
nothing wrong with you, you’re just different, and different can
be beautiful.” What would my life have looked like had someone been able to reassure
me in that way, I wonder.
So back
when I first started questioning my gender in an outright, conscious way, I
read a book called, My Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein. It is, by all accounts,
the book that had the biggest impact on my life, except perhaps the Book of
Mormon. As I went through that book, filling out the quizzes and answering the
many thought-provoking questions that Kate asked their readers, I found that
everything that I’d been taught about gender was little more than a house of
cards. If you start asking the right questions, the whole thing falls apart.
Most people, however, aren’t comfortable with coloring outside the lines in
this regard, especially in the church.
People
tend to cling to the binary like a life preserver while stranded out at sea,
never realizing that they are actually in the shallow end of the pool and can find
their footing if they just stand up. But why? No, really, why is the binary so
important? Have you ever thought about it for more than a few seconds? My guess
is that unless you struggle with some degree of gender confusion or dysphoria,
the answer is you’ve never even questioned the binary at all.
You see,
it took me many years to finally come to an answer to the question of why the
binary is so important to people, and the answer might surprise you. Contrary
to what you might guess I didn’t find the answer in Kate Bornstein’s book, nor
did I find it in their memoir. I found it through a deep dive into Buddhist philosophy
and stories of the Buddha’s efforts to transcend attachment and suffering. The gender
binary is a product of the dualistic nature of the mind which is in a constant
state of either being in the past or the future; never in the present moment. When
was the last time you were completely present without any thoughts separating
you from the present moment? How long did it last?
The
dualistic mind is the root of all suffering, but more than that, the dualistic
mind only ever sees the world in binary terms. Black and white, good and bad, heaven
or hell, past and future, male and female. Grey, neutral, limbo, presence, and
non-binary genders make the dualistic mind uncomfortable. Is there something
between good and bad? Is there truly a neutral? If so, what makes it that way? Who
gets to decide what’s good, bad, or neutral? Is it Heavenly Father? How do we
really know what he thinks? The prophet tells us what he thinks, right? But if
that’s the case why have the teachings of modern prophets contradicted teachings
of earlier prophets? Isn’t God the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow? If so,
then does that mean the prophets don’t actually know what he thinks, or is our
assumption about him never changing incorrect?
Are you feeling uncomfortable yet?
Chances are, something inside of you didn’t like part of that previous
paragraph, but can you identify what that part is or even where it comes from? My
goal isn’t to have you doubt the prophet or teachings of the church, but more
to step outside of the simplistic dualistic thinking that ignores the actual
complexity of God’s church and creation.
The point is, when we begin to blur
the lines of gender beyond male and female the vast majority of people start to
get a little antsy. If we step outside of those two boxes then there is no
telling what’s out there, and that’s scary to most people. It was scary for me
too, in the beginning. If I wasn’t male, but the world protested that I have to
be because of their definition of what male is (which is actually a set of
arbitrary and constantly shifting qualifiers that falter under deeper scrutiny),
then what was I? Was I a woman? I felt like a girl inside, far more so than I
ever felt like a boy. I wish I could adequately convey just how much my brain
SCREAMS at me that I’m a girl, but words never do it justice.
So my brain tells me I’m a girl/woman,
but where does the definition of woman begin and man end? Is it solely about the
formation or non-formation of certain gonads during gestation in the womb (i.e.
penis or vagina)? If it is, what about those people out there who have both of
those things? Or have neither of them? Where do they fit in, and who gets to
decide that? Do they get to decide it or is it up to a doctor that’s known them
for all of a few minutes? And if it is themselves that gets to decide that, then
at what age do they get to decide that? And if they can decide for themselves, then
why can’t you or I also make that decision? Feeling uncomfortable yet?
What I’m
attempting to do is to gently and progressively guide you, my darling reader, outside
of your comfort zone where growth actually happens. We never grow inside our
comfort zones, and boy do we ever love those comfort zones. Some may read this
and still come away with a rigid and dogmatic belief that there are only two genders
and nothing I say will ever change their minds. I’m not talking to them. They
have their reward. They get to “be right” while I’m wrong, and they get to feel
better about themselves and how they are more righteous or pious than I am. They
get to safely stay within the confines of the dualistic mind that cannot
tolerate the ambiguous or unclear.
Who I’m actually
trying to get through to are those of you out there who are still reading my
words, not out of spite or some ego-driven desire to prove to yourself how
misguided and wrong I am. If you’re still reading with no malintent, then you
are at least somewhat willing to leave your comfort zone. You see the value in
examining where and why our beliefs about gender come from.
Consider
for a moment, if you will, that Heavenly father decided at the creation that
there would only be two types of birds in the world. Let’s even say they are
either red birds or blue birds, and no matter how many times they mate or how
many generations pass by, there have only ever been red and blue birds. Let’s
just ignore for a moment how utterly drab and boring that would be.
Now, let’s say that was the case and then
suddenly people started noticing that a new type of bird was showing up, namely
a purple bird. Do you think people would embrace the purple bird as a beautiful
diversification worthy of reverence and celebration, or would they see it as a
troubling aberration? Do you think they would believe that the purple bird was being
permitted to exist by heavenly father for a divine reason? Or would they become
afraid that something must be going terribly wrong with the bird population for
this new kind of bird to exist? Would they even go so far as to label purple
birds invasive and problematic and advocate for their eradication, so much so
that they teach their children to avoid purple birds at all costs; not to
mention formulate legislation at a national level to try to stifle the spread
of this purple bird. All the while disregarding the bird experts reassuring them
that the purple bird isn’t harming anything or anyone, they are just simply a
diversification of something that’s long been one way but is becoming something
else.
I’m sure it doesn’t take any
stretch of the imagination to realize that most people would be afraid of the
purple bird. They might even suggest that the purple bird’s existence is the
sign that the end times are here. That, my darling readers, is what many people
have been doing with transgender and non-binary people. We are a disturbing aberration
to them, one that heralds only bad things, perhaps even the end times. They
teach their children to hate and avoid us at all costs, because God forbid
their own child also be transgender. This is especially true in much of the Latter-day
Saint population.
So why am
I here doing this? Why am I writing these words when most people in the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints would, at best, feel uncomfortable with my
presence and at worst, think that I am a sinful degenerate? in some ways the
latter isn’t wrong about that because I have been exactly that at times in my
life. I’m recovering from addiction and an eating disorder, so I’ve been to
rock bottom and back again; more than once. I’ve nearly destroyed my life with
drugs and alcohol, and I’ve hurt many people along the way. I’ve committed just
about every sin there is except murder. I am, by all accounts, the wretch from the
song Amazing Grace.
Every day I have to pray that
Heavenly Father helps me be of service to others in order to escape the bondage
of self, because if I don’t, then on my worst day I can be the most selfish, dishonest,
and cruel person you’ve ever met. That’s who I am when the “natural man” takes
over my life. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need to be at church and read
scriptures every day to put off the worst parts of the natural man, but I can’t
do it without God’s help. Believe me, I tried.
But you know what my fettered past
with sin, addiction, and self-destruction have nothing to do with, at least not
directly? My gender. Me being transgender has never been the cause of my wallowing
in my fallen state. The caveat, however, is that me being in a world that
insists that I am a gender that I’m not, HAS in fact contributed to
those failures of character. I didn’t use drugs, alcohol, and try to kill or torment
my body with starvation and purging because I am transgender. I did those
things because the world taught me that what I am and who I am, is shameful and
wrong. The world told me that to be an aberration in this way, was a sin. I was
told that I had to just accept my body and assigned gender as they were, and that
to question or deviate from those expectations meant I was sick. And so sick is
what I became. I hated my body. I hated myself. I hated being what I am, and it
made me want to die. It made me believe that I not only deserved to starve, but
that it was the only way I could truly punish my body for being something it
wasn’t supposed to be.
And you know what cured those
things? I did it by working through all of that shame, and all the guilt for
the things I did along the way that hurt people. I did it by surrendering my
will to Adonai or Heavenly Father, and changing my ways. I stopped drinking. I
stopped using. And I stopped trying to punish myself and my body for being different
than I wanted it to be. I accepted that nothing in Heavenly Father’s world
happens by accident, and me being transgender, was the way he intended it to
be.
In short, I became meek, mild, and
repented of my wicked ways. I turned my life over to Heavenly Father and only
asked that he use it to make the world and lives of others better. And when I
did that, you know where he led me? Back to the church… the one that barely accepts
me and certainly doesn’t feel excited to have me, despite what official
policies might say.
So, returning to my question about
why I am doing this, the answer is simple. I’m not the one setting me on this
path. Six months ago I would have laughed at the suggestion that I’d be back at
church, and yet, here I am. Sure, I’m choosing to abide by what the spirit
tells me and what my heart knows to be true, but ultimately I am doing this
because Heavenly Father has steered me in this direction.
I wish I could say that I fully
understand why he has done this or why I’m being asked to stand up and be
visible in a space that shudders at even just the thought of what I am, but the
honest answer is that I don’t understand it. I also don’t understand where all
of this is leading, but like Lehi and Nephi, I’m putting my trust in the Lord’s
directions, even as he instructs me to venture out into the sometimes
inhospitable wilderness of a church that doesn’t seem to want someone like me.
All I know is that he wants me
here, and wants me to be doing this. The opportunities I’ve had to reach tens
of thousands of people in just the matter of a couple months with very little
effort on my part only seems to confirm this. Believe me, that level of
exposure, and that size of an audience is NOT easy to come by. I’ve been trying
to achieve that for many years through other avenues (novels, blogging, YouTube,
ect.) and one after the other, I had those doors shut in my face no matter how
much time or effort I put into it. But the moment I come back to church,
suddenly I’m being interviewed for podcasts, I’m having my testimony shared on
social media, I’m having my questions sent to the leaders of the church, and I’m
the subject of a piece being written by our stake historian for generations of
latter-day saints to be able read about… all with virtually no effort on my
part. Doors like that don’t just open by chance. As I said, nothing in Heavenly
Father’s world happens by accident.
For whatever reason, the time for
the church to change is at hand, and I seem to have some role in that
happening. What it is or how big of a role it is, I have no idea, but I will
see this through. One of my favorite songs recently has a lyric that goes “you
can’t get any satisfaction when your trying to resist divine attraction.” If I
walked away from this work or I decided to just sit quietly in my little corner
of the church, I believe that I’d be miserable, because that’s not what he
wants me to do. I’d be like Jonah not wanting to go to Nineveh because I was
afraid the church would never change…
Very few others seem to have the
desire to take on this task, at least not in this way, and so it must be me. People
like me deserve love and compassion the way the savior taught. We deserve to
have a seat at the table with everyone else, because we aren’t troubling
aberrations, we are amazing diversifications. And just because we are different,
doesn’t mean we aren’t also beautiful.
My heart sings with praises to Adonai,
my God, king of kings, and ruler of the universe. I strive to always live up to
the teachings of his beloved son, Jesus Christ. There is none other than him,
by which any of us can be saved, and if you’re able to overcome the dualistic
mind of the natural man, we will be glorified together in his kingdom some day.
And on that day, you will see my true form… you will see my eternal, celestial,
female body.
