penis politics: official lds policy and the (mis)treatment of transsexuals

7/30/2019 Penis Politics: Official LDS Policy and the (Mis)treatment of Transsexuals

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Title:

Penis Politics: Official LDS Policy and the (Mis)treatment of Transsexuals

Author:

Brad Carmack

Contact information:

[email protected], 408.634.3723

Synopsis:

Official LDS policy, as evidenced by the Church Handbook of Instructions, takes a punitive approach

towards people who undergo an elective transsexual operation. In this paper I critique this policy,

showing how it is (1) a manifestation of a deeply flawed reliance on the determination of whether a

person has a penis, as well as (2) itself morally reprehensible.

Paper:

LDS high-level decision makers unerringly have penises. In fact, expressing a penis at birth is a

prerequisite for even reading one of the high-level governance documents:Handbook 1: Stake

Presidents and Bishops. These penis possessors emphasize the doctrine of spiritual sex (determined in

practice by the presence or absence of a penis) in their policy and practice as well, making governance,

marriage, and priesthood decisions based on penises:

1. General governance: must have one penis to participate2. Marriage: the couple must have one, and only one, penis to qualify3. Priesthood: must have one penis to receive
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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The penis-prerequisite Handbook 1 devotes a surprising amount of attention to dealing those who alter

the Mormon litmus test for determining the gender of ones spirit: transsexuals. Below, I detail this

philosophy of anatomy, showing how it is (A) a manifestation of a deeply flawed reliance on the

determination of whether a person has a penis, as well as (B) itself morally reprehensible.

Penis Politics

Though a garden-variety straight cisgendered male myself, transsexuality and transgender issues are

nonetheless personal for me. I stayed with an old friend of mine in Phoenix in November 2012. She was

a friend of mine from our Idaho high school. When I knew her, however, she was a teenage boy. She

always sincerely and fervently felt like a girl inside, and shortly after high school exercised her God-given

agency to make her outside finally match her inside.

More recently, I have participated in discussion on the Facebook group, Trangender Mormons and Allies.

Some of the members of that group are transsexuals, and some have received associated church

discipline or are currently involved in some stage of church discipline, related to their transsexuality. I

have provided encouragement and support to the latter group.

Transsexual transgressions

Transsexuals present an interesting case for LDS leaders. As the Family Proclamation and other

teachings demonstrate, ones spiritual sex makes a very big difference in ones religious and family


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opportunities. If you judged a male, you are a candidate for LDS governance and a performer of extra-

temple priesthood ordinances. You are also limited in your marital choice to those who are adjudged

spiritual females.

If the LDS institution determines that your spirit is female, your marriage choices are limited to spiritual

males, you are barred from high level institutional decision-making (e.g. apostleship), and you are

prohibited from performing extra-temple priesthood ordinances.

Glaringly, there is no test provided by LDS leaders for determining a persons spiritual sex. It is not

declared by revelation (unlike ones patriarchal blessing-declared lineage, for instance). In the absence

of a spiritual mechanism for determining this spiritual attribute, we must turn to what LDS leaders

actuallyuse to determine whether to send a person to young mens or young womens:whether that

persons body had a penis at birth. In actual practice, that is the litmus test of spiritual sex.

The assumption that a particular spatial arrangement of genital tissue indicates a spiritual attribute is

problematic for a number of reasons that I have highlighted in other places. In this paper, I focus on a

particular problem with this test: the fact that ones genitals can in fact be changed, which produces an

inconsistency, since spiritual sex is presumed a constant characteristic.

Because of their emphasis on the doctrine of spiritual sex and their absolute reliance on making that

judgment based on whether a subjects body is endowed with a penis, LDS decision makers are

understandably quite concerned about sex change cases.

Latter-day Saints have always allocated priesthood ordination based on outward anatomy. Until

recently, the anatomical prerequisite for priesthood was two-fold: you had to both (1) possess a penis,

and (2) lack Afrocentric features. As many in this audience know, the latter anatomical prerequisite has

fallen out of favor. The former, however, is as entrenched as ever.


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(in 1977, only the top left of these four Secretaries of State could be ordained

in the LDS church. In 1979 and now, only the top left and top right could.)

Trouble is, theres an obvious loophole for cheating the Outward Appearance Test for governance

access!A person could just undergo a transsexual operation to change sex. Can you imagine, the same

person being one sex at one point in life, and a different sex later on! This would frustrate a gender

essentialist Spiritual Sex Scheme, because gender would shift, rather than being essential. Not only do

LDS leaders need a rock-solid Outward Appearance Test to maintain a gendered theology, they must

have a single point in time that it is applied.

LDS leaders created a special procedure to deal with transsexuals, and housed the procedure in the

Bishops and Stake Presidents manual. From the auspiciously-titled Unusual Circumstances section

(16.7.4):

Members who have undergone an elective transsexual operation may not receive the priesthood.

Not to be content with priesthood deprivation, the policy punishes even further. From Issuing

Recommends in Special Circumstances (3.3.4):

A member who has undergone an elective transsexual operation may not receive a temple

recommend.

Yep, its that big of a deal. Birth anatomy is a commandment from God we mustnt transgress. If God is

responsible for birth anatomy and biological laws, though, that opens up a pretty big can of worms.

Elohim must have decreed immoral things at some point, like a man can force a woman to conceive

and gestate a child by raping her repeatedly. Did He also ordain the myriad painful, senseless

congenital conditions newborns experience? In any case, biology is messy, and wholly incapable of

supporting the bright lines needed for a binary spiritual sex theology.


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I know little babies come from heaven I know god made those tiny hands and hearts Doug Walker,The Things I Know

Perhaps birth anatomy is not the most rock solid of foundations on which to base spiritual determinations

Since infant boys and girls look pretty much the same, the initial genital packaging is the indicator of

spiritual sex. Whatever criteria the lab coat wearer uses at birth to work hes gender revelation,counts.


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If we are willing to surgically alter infants, dont we already admit that our spirits dontalways come properly packaged?

Now, we dont balk when members change their appearance or behavior with approved hormone

medication, a haircut, losing weight, changing clothes, working out, etc. -- whyshould certain parts of

our anatomy (that most people choose to be especially dispositive of sex) merit special treatment? Does

altering ones genital shape truly merit the savage stigma of this specific exercise of free agency? From

Taylor Petrey1:

One must be aware that the binary division between male and female, taken to be on the order

of not only nature, but also Gods will, has as its goal the sanctification of heterosexual sex.

There must be strict gendered correspondence between a spirit and a body, it is believed,

because of Gods providence over creation. This view of the premortal gendered spirit is often

put to use against transsexuality and intersexuality. The problem with this view arises in

explaining not only the real experiences of transsexual persons, but also the existence of

intersexed persons whose bodies resist categorization in the gender binary The idea of a

1https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Dialogue_V44N04_110.pdf


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natural or inherent binary sexual difference in LDS discourse makes a legible sex the

prerequisite to personhood, rendering the differently sexed accidents of nature illegible as

children of God and divine potentials.

No wonder its so easy to dehumanize transsexuals- theyre arguably not even people, as God has only

sons OR daughters! At least the intersexuals might have an excuse, they didnt mean to. Elective

transsexual operation is listed alongside murder among a short list of transgressions requiring First

Presidency approval before reinstatement or readmission by baptism (6.12.10):

1. Murder 2. Incest 3. Sexual offense against a child 4. Apostasy 5. Serious transgression

while in a prominent Church position 6. Elective transsexual operation 7. Embezzlement of

Church funds

Of course, the court that initially condemns you (transsexual operation is, unsurprisingly, a basis forformal church discipline [6.7.2], and will result in an annotated record [6.13.4]) will be different,

depending on your beginning anatomy. Women are excommunicated by warddisciplinary councils2;

men by stake disciplinary councils3

(6.2.1). Some claim that women arent worthy of being cast into

outer darkness (there are only sons of perdition), at the least, they are not necessarily given the honor

of being dealt with by the higher level stake disciplinary council, as are Melchizedek priesthood holding

men.

But what if youre not a member yet? Lets say youre an investigator and changed your sex before you

met the missionaries? Youre on an even shorter list (four items, as opposed to seven) requiring Mission

Presidents interview AND First Presidency approval before baptism (16.3.3):

1. Has committed murder2. Has been involved in the practice of plural marriage3. Has undergone an elective transsexual operation4. Is currently on legal probation or parole

2It is noteworthy that, in this context, women are again thoroughly dominated by men. No woman ever

participates in the judgment of a woman, in heaven or on earth.3

Though a woman or transsexual on trial for willfully receiving Melchizedek Priesthood presents an interesting

case, as the language provides that stake councils are responsible for disciplining Melchizedek Priesthood holders.

Thus, the case would require a pre-disposition adjudication of the priesthood office of the subject.


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Every shaming, invasive, punitive arrow in the arsenal has now been loosed that is the official policy

for dealing with transsexuals. This policy reveals how (1) desperate and (2) tenuous is the grip of LDS

practice on genital anatomy. This fact should strike us as odd, as genital shape is both objectively one of

the most superficial aspects of an individual when compared to their behavior or character, and not

particular predictive of anything that person will or should do later in life. Given how much effort we

invest in avoiding assigning roles to people based on other anatomical attributes such as bodily

disfigurement or race, it is singularly odd that we read such an incredible amount of theological meaning

into infants tissue expression.

A plug for gender freedom

I for one am deeply disturbed by our practice of shaming and punishing transsexuals. I 100% oppose this

unnecessary, ugly allegiance to the gender binary. It is repulsive to me. I grieve when I reflect on thestigma, shame, and rejection many transsexuals experience. Must we play the playground bully, beating

up on those who are different? Why cant we just admit that we dont knowand stop making whipping

boys out of those we deem as misfits?

Gender freedom should be a slam dunk for free agency enthusiasts. Individuals should befree to choose

their gender identity AND what that identity does and does not mean to that person, similar to how we

choose to identify as Mormon, and what that identity means to us! My effacing high school friend

should be free to elect a sex change and identify as a woman, despite being born biologically male. My

lesbian friend should be free to marry a woman, while identifying at the same time as wholly female. My

uterus-endowed natural leader friend, Sarah, should be a valid candidate for high office in her religious

community, should she wish to and qualify herself for that office. LDS governance inequality does not

only disadvantage those who identify as female; it marginalizes all those who fail to present as

unambiguous heterosexual males (e.g. intersexuals, transsexuals, asexuals, queers, and homosexuals).

What I oppose is imposing a set of gender normative roles on an individual against that person's will,

based on an anatomical presumption. What I advocate instead is imposing some universal roles (such as

"you are your sibling's keeper"), while leaving gender roles to the INDIVIDUAL's free agency. I recall a

hymn4:

4I read it as gender neutral, though I recognize it is a sadly male-centric hymn, like most. Perhaps it should be

called the church himnal instead, Emma would be proud


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Know This, That Every Soul Is Free

1. Know then that ev'ry soul is free,

To choose his life and what he'll be;

For this eternal truth is given,

That God will force no man to heaven.

2. He'll call, persuade direct him right;,

Bless him with wisdom, love, and light;

In nameless ways be good and kind;

But never force the human mind.

3. Freedom and reason make us men:

Take these away, what are we then?

Mere animals, and just as well,

The beasts may think of heaven or hell.

4. May we no more our powers abuse,

But ways of truth and goodness choose;

Our God is pleased when we improve

His grace, and seek his perfect love.


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I love that. May we no more our powers abuse, But ways of truth and goodness choose; Our God is

pleased when we improve His grace, and seek his perfect love. In that verse I hear a call to cease

punishing gender misfits, and a solicitation to improve His grace by doing our utmost to reform our

institutional and personal practices. He has been graceful in blessing us thus far, but will yet reveal

many great and important things as we do many things of our own free will to bring to pass the

righteousness of human equality. I like my Mormon transsexual friends religious view on Facebook:

Religion is for people afraid of going to hell; spirituality is for those of us who've been there. I

choose to live my life intentionally instead of reactionary, fluid instead of carefully arranged,

loving instead of fearing, and spiritually instead of religiously.

I argue for embracing and proliferating gender (see e.g. myMormonism Beyond the Gender Binarypost

at fMh). In the postgender future, we will witness a multiplication similar to what we observe as a childs

understanding of literary genre matures:

Maturity Genre Gender

Pre-critical binary Fiction/nonfiction Male/female

Post-critical poly- Polygenre: satire, fantasy,

memoir, romance, diary...

Polygender:

MTW,WTM,genderqueer, ?

We should carefully consider each set of gender stereotypes we adopt, reject the ones that do more

harm than good (such as governance inequality), and embrace the actual, rich diversity expressed by

human individuals. Said fellow Zionist, Taylor Petrey:
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=7905http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=7905http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=7905http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=7905


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Morpheus/Big T

To admit the social basis of gender does not entail the elimination of gender, nor does it require

a leveling of difference toward some androgynous ideal. Quite the opposite. Instead, we may see

more of a proliferation of genders, released from the constraints of fantasies about a neat

gender binary. Just as we do not imagine that only one (or two) races, body types, and hair

colors are represented in the resurrection, we may also see a variety of genders, understood as

either different kinds of bodies, different kinds of identities, and even different roles. We need

not abandon the idea of eternal gender, but rather we can embrace the possibilities that it

opens for us once freed from its artificial constraints.

In short, what I advocate along with Dr. Petrey is the expansion of the scope of human liberty (by

offering a broader net choice set), and embracing a presumption ofequality, rather than an anatomy-

based presumption ofinequality.

penis politics: official lds policy and the (mis)treatment of transsexuals

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