Introduction and Overview of the 2020 Handbook

Part 1 of 4 · Ep. 1260

John Dehlin [00:00:26] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host, John Dehlin. It is February 20, 2020, and I'm very delighted to begin what I think is a pretty important few episode series on Mormon Stories podcast.

John Dehlin [00:00:45] For those of you who don't know who have been under a rock or who don't have Internet access, it's February 20, 2020. But yesterday, February 19, 2020, the Mormon Church, the LDS Church, released a new online version of their Church General Handbook of Instructions.

John Dehlin [00:01:10] So basically, in the past, the church, you know, in the long past, the church had this secret handbook that it used for its priesthood leaders to kind of govern the church and how it works and all its policies. And it was printed out and updated regularly, and wards and stakes had copies.

John Dehlin [00:01:31] If you've been following the Mormon Internet for the past 10 or 15 years, it started to become common for excerpts of the handbook to be referred to, you know, leaked and shared on the Internet in ways that became embarrassing to the church. So several years back, the Church released part of the Handbook of Instructions on the Internet, but then kept another part secret for leaders. And yesterday represented, at least to begin with in today's episode, kind of emerging where it decided to share most, to kind of merge the handbooks and share much of it on the Internet. I'm pretty sure there's still some parts, you know, guidelines, rules, policies, procedures that are not being shared.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] But most of now, both the handbooks have been consolidated and are now being shared on the Internet. And it's kind of, it's kind of a big deal. But in addition, what we saw yesterday, February 19, 2020, is a whole lot of new changes to the Handbook of Instructions.

John Dehlin [00:02:50] And some of the high level areas where we saw major changes are around the church disciplinary council process, apostasy, excommunications, et cetera, a lot of change regarding LGBTQ policies in the church, some very significant announcements regarding transgender issues in the church, several super minor changes regarding women in patriarchy, and a few other kind of general policy changes.

John Dehlin [00:03:23] And so what I want to do, the way that this series is going to work, I'm going to just do the first hour or so of this interview solo. And what I'm going to do is just kind of lay out the changes that have been made in sort of summary form. So for those who just want to hear the summary, who don't have time to read through the manual, but who want kind of a comprehensive understanding of the changes that have been made, I'll provide that overview. I'm not going to provide a ton. I'll provide some personal commentary, but I'm not going to go into depth on commentary.

John Dehlin [00:03:59] What I'm going to do is later today I'm going to actually invite a panel, an all star panel. Natasha Alpha Parker, marriage therapist, sex therapist. Gina Colvin, an amazing writer and activist from New Zealand. I'm going to have Anthony Miller, a super thoughtful, you know, Mormon that follows what we're doing. And it's a friend, he's a friend of the podcast. Kyle Ashworth, a gay Mormon who has come on Mormon Stories in the past and he runs an amazing podcast called Latter Gay Stories. Kyle's great. We're having him back. We're having Janet Johnson Spangler, who represents kind of progressive Mormonism, liberal Mormonism active, Mormonism active. And then we're having Samantha Taylor join us for the first time.

John Dehlin [00:04:49] And Samantha identifies as a transgender woman, and she will kind of join us and also represent and share her feelings and perspectives on the changes regarding transgender Mormons. So that also I'm also very delighted to have a bunch of people joining us live on Facebook right now. And as I'm reading through these general changes to the handbook, I would be thrilled to have those listening live share any comments or perspectives they have. And if anybody is really interested in joining us today, I'm happy to incorporate some of our live listeners into this conversation if they're interested. So just let me know if you are.

John Dehlin [00:05:47] So Jolene just asked if we're having someone who's transgender on the panel. And the answer is yes, Jolene, we are. Okay, so let's start reviewing the changes so. This general Handbook of Instructions can be found on the Internet.

Where to Find the New General Handbook Online

John Dehlin [00:06:09] I want to include a link so that people know where. If you go to churchofjesuschrist.org study manual, generalhandbook, general handbook. That's where you're able to find the Handbook of Instructions there. And let's go ahead and dig in and just talk about some of the changes.

John Dehlin [00:06:32] So I think the biggest changes that some of the biggest changes that were made to the Handbook of Instructions have to do with the church's guidelines, new guidelines around the disciplinary council process and apostasy. This is something that's obviously near and dear to my heart because I went through church discipline and I also was charged with apostasy and I was excommunicated. So I've been through that process. I know what it's like. And I think more importantly, it's been a personal, you know, this is something personal to me because you know, my dad experienced a disciplinary council when I was young.

John Dehlin [00:07:23] He's still an active believing member. But also when I was at BYU in the early 90s was the time where the September Six were all excommunicated. And then of course, in addition to my. And I should just say that experience was impactful to me. I was still an active believing member at the time, but it always stuck with me as kind of a really serious and kind of intense thing that later I decided was a real horrible thing.

John Dehlin [00:07:56] And I've interviewed many of the September six, or at least a few of the September six on Mormon Stories podcast. Paul Toscano, Margaret Toscano, who wasn't officially a member of the September 6th, but for all intents and purposes was.

John Dehlin [00:08:09] And I'm friends with Maxine Hanks, and I've interviewed Brett Metcalf, who was not September 6th, but came right after it. And, you know, I'm friends with others as well. So church discipline is near and dear to my heart. I think it's abominable. We've been calling it barbaric and medieval for years. And then, of course, in 2014, Kate Kelly and I were summoned to disciplinary council. Denver Snuffer was excommunicated in 2013, I believe. And then since then, so many near and dear friends, Jeremy Runnels, Lee and Cody Young, Bill Riehl and several others have been either excommunicated or some of the disciplinary councils.

John Dehlin [00:08:57] And so what's been really important to me is to try and change these policies. So something that I started years ago, that started with Kate Kelly and with my disciplinary council and really started with September 6th, is we started holding these vigils where I would fly out to wherever there was a disciplinary council and we would fill the parking lot with protesters, we would live stream the disciplinary councils, and we would make them a matter of kind of news stories. And we kind of, I think we turned church disciplinary councils from something shameful for something hidden from something dark and secret to something that was almost a badge of honor and let's just say a badge of shame for the church.

John Dehlin [00:09:47] And so I can just say very explicitly that I. And we had a very, you know, a very meaningful, concrete goal to eliminate excommunication and disciplinary councils. Now, I can't say that. I can't say that, number one, these policies went that far because disciplinary councils are not eliminate it but the words. One of the main changes to the disciplinary council process is, number one, the church has now renamed the disciplinary council process to membership council. So it's gone from disciplinary councils to membership councils. And the Church has eliminated the terms excommunication and disfellowship or disfellowshipped from its lexicon.

John Dehlin [00:10:40] So literally, for 150 plus years, the church has been excommunicating people, disfellowshipping people. Magically in 2020, those terms are now being expunged from the Handbook of Instructions and from the Church's official vocabulary. And I'm proud of that, and I'm happy for it now.

John Dehlin [00:10:59] It's not like everything's better. Basically, as I said, disparate councils will remain, and the Church has just changed the verbiage. So now instead of using the term excommunication, the Church is using the term withdrawal of church membership. And instead of using the term disfellowshipped, the Church is now using the term formal membership restrictions.

John Dehlin [00:11:29] So. But still. And so many are kind of sarcastic or critical of these changes as being just window dressing or sort of Orwellian, you know, changing a verbiage when no real substantive changes have happened. I think there's something to that. But I'm just going to say, as someone who's been excommunicated, as someone who's been through a disciplinary process, it is different. You know, the term excommunication is so medieval, it's so shaming, it's so toxic that, you know, I would say for the average person, I think it'd be much better for them to have it been said that their church membership has been withdrawed than to say they've been excommunicated because excommunication is such a dark and medieval and toxic term.

John Dehlin [00:12:20] It makes someone seem scary and dangerous. Now, many of us who have been excommunicated in the past five years are proud of the label because it sort of represents this moment. It's kind of a badge of courage. It's a badge of honor. It basically, anyone who's been excommunicated the past five years generally stood for something important. They stood for LGBTQ rights, they stood for women and feminism. They stood for honesty and openness and transparency in the Church. So. So people like Jeremy Runnels and Bill Rio and I, I would say Lori Lee hall, who stood for transgender rights, many other people that I can't even mention who stood for LGBT rights, and of course, Kate Kelly and others who stood for feminism.

John Dehlin [00:13:06] I think we're all proud to have been excommunicated. And again, I think it's kind of a badge of honor. But having said that generally the term is very shaming, very dark, very toxic and harmful. And so I think it's a positive thing that the church removed it. Oh yes. And our listener Carly reminds us we can't forget Dusty B. And his wonderful partner who were excommunicated simply for being in a same sex marriage and attending church.

John Dehlin [00:13:33] They're a really important example of sort of heroes of the past five years. Thanks Carly, for reminding us. Isabelle, our listener shares that. She understands what I'm saying. But the stigma is still going to be there. That's true. There is still going to be a stigma to having your church membership withdrawn. And I'm just going to argue it's less of a stigma. And I think overall that might be positive for some people.

John Dehlin [00:14:01] So anyway, that's a major change. Another major change with disciplinary councils is that they're being transferred. So historically, when women were experiencing church discipline or when an endowed member was being church disciplined, it would traditionally always be something that the stake president, the stake presidency and the entire 12 member stake high Council would be a part of.

Membership Councils and Disciplinary Process Changes

John Dehlin [00:14:34] And you know, that's a very. My wife Margi will tell you that's a very dark process to, you know, let's just say you're a woman who's an endowed Mormon woman who's been accused of adultery. You would have to stand in front of 15 men, this intimidating, you know, long, huge panel and they'll be asking you and grilling you about your sexual behaviors. And it's really humiliating. And you know, even if you're a man, a priesthood holder like me, you know, sitting in a room with 15 men was extremely intimidating and unpleasant.

John Dehlin [00:15:16] So one of the big changes that's happening is now, number one, the entire Stake High Council have been removed from the, this disciplinary council process. In other words, according to the new policy, stake presidents are Stake presidencies are going to be officiating over stake level disciplinary councils. And the Stake High Councils will just be optional. They'll be brought in if needed.

John Dehlin [00:15:45] So I'd say that's a positive change. But even more significant is now bishops have the option of presiding over disciplinary councils of endowed men. And so bishops will be handling more disciplinary councils in the future, which is interesting. It's probably good and bad. It's probably going to take the burden off of stake presidents.

John Dehlin [00:16:10] It's going to add a burden to bishops. And one of the problems with that, of course, is that it possibly leaves members open to kind of this leadership roulette where, you know, there's more variation in terms of what results are probably gonna be handed down.

John Dehlin [00:16:29] But two other things that I think are significant. It's still. The new Handbook of instruction says that if the bishop believes that the equivalent of excommunication is likely to be the outcome, this withdrawal of membership thing, that it will be the stake president that officiates and. And bishops have to get stake president approval to do any membership council or disciplinary council. So the other thing that just is interesting to me is I always thought, if you think about Leah and Cody Young and Brinley Young or Sam Young or Bill Real or me, these disciplinary councils with the stake presidencies involved were always this opportunity for.

John Dehlin [00:17:17] For those of us to enlighten and educate all the priesthood leadership in a stake about the problems with the church. So it'd be common for those of us who are excommunicated for apostasy to read and share all the reasons that we stopped believing in the church or had problems with the church. And I always thought, man, this is exposing all the top levels of Mormon Church leadership to all sorts of problems that I imagine the Church doesn't want spread around and brought awareness of. And so it makes perfect sense to me that the Church would cut out state high councilmen from these terrible proceedings. I can also imagine that it was just a really laborious, tedious thing to schedule 15 men to be at a meeting.

John Dehlin [00:18:02] I'm sure that was a headache for bishops. And I should also add that, you know, according to the Doctrine and Covenants, the Stake High Council was supposed to be involved where six represented, you know, took the position of being for the accused, and six were represented as being, you know, against the accused. But in effect, it was always the stake president who decided. And that was just kind of window dressing. So it kind of eliminates a lot of overhead, unneedious, you know, exposure, and in some ways simplifies the process. But again, in some ways it complicates it because, again, members will now be subject to bishop roulette, which is always a problem.

John Dehlin [00:18:47] Depending on who your bishop is, you'll get so many different options, but it's major changes nonetheless. So that's something that's significant. Other things that are significant in terms of church discipline and apostasy, I think this is significant. The Church traditionally has had this list of.

John Dehlin [00:19:07] This list of behaviors that required. Where apostasy. No, I'm sorry. Behaviors that required a disciplinary council versus, you know, other sorts of behaviors that were optional. And this is something I was really critical of the Church about. And I know that we embarrassed the church about this.

John Dehlin [00:19:31] You know, historically, if you look at the old disciplinary council manual, it said a disciplinary council was manual. What was mandatory when there's apostasy. And then apostasy was defined as speaking in open opposition of the church, you know, teaching doctrine that isn't church doctrine following teachings of apostate sex. And then the church added in the November 2015 policy, if you're in a same gender marriage, a disciplinary council was mandatory.

John Dehlin [00:20:04] And then formally joining another church and advocating his teachings. And what was really disturbing is that other things like attempted murder, forcible rape, sexual abuse, spouse abuse, intentional serious physical injury of others, adultery, fornication and abandonment of family responsibilities were all listed as optional triggers for disciplinary council. And so I kind of did my best to kind of expose this and highlight to the news media and everyone who is willing to listen that that sort of put having doubts and questions about the church, no longer believing in the church and being in a same sex marriage as worse in the church's eyes than murder and rape and sexual abuse and pedophilia and spousal abuse.

John Dehlin [00:21:00] And I think the church probably heard this loud and clear. And so what the church has done is it has totally changed its criteria for apostasy and it has changed its list. It's altered and augmented and extended its list of what behaviors require disciplinary council or membership council versus behaviors where a disciplinary or membership council are optional.

John Dehlin [00:21:29] So now there's a new criteria of apostasy and same sex marriage has been dropped from it. So no longer is same sex marriage listed as something that immediately triggers apostasy. And that's a really significant thing. And then also it's significant that apostasy is dropped from the list. So no longer is apostasy anywhere on the list of something that mandatorily triggers a disciplinary council. So in some ways apostasy has been downgraded as not as bad as other things. And I think that's a victory. I think that's interesting.

John Dehlin [00:22:08] And then also, just as a side note, they added a few new additions to the criteria for apostasy. One of the criteria was showing a pattern of intentionally working to weaken the faith and activity of church members. So that's new. So if you're going out on Facebook and you're posting criticisms of the church, or you're exposing doubt, or going to ward members or stake members and sharing the CES letter or sharing things that church views as threatening, now there's an extra criteria to make sure that you are guilty because honestly, people like Sam Young weren't meeting any of the criteria. Neither were the Youngs, Lee and Cody Young and others.

John Dehlin [00:22:55] They literally didn't meet the criteria that the church had for apostasy. And we embarrassed the church about that and noted that. So the church had to change its criteria of apostasy to include things that then now will cover people like Bill Real or Leah and Cody Young and others, if the church chooses to go after them.

John Dehlin [00:23:14] And then of course, in the situation of people like Gina Colvin, Gina formally joined Community of Christ, was advocating his teachings, the Episcopalian church, whatever the church extended or enhanced its criteria for apostasy to include formally joining another church and promoting its teachings. And then it made a disclaimer. Total inactivity in the church or attending another church does not by itself constitute apostasy. However, if you formally join another church and advocate its teachings, then withdraw your membership may be necessary. So again, that's now optional where before joining another church and advocating its teachings were required for apostasy. So it's just so fun for me personally, I just have to say, to see the church changing on things we explicitly called the church into account for, it just shows how much the church is sensitive to criticism, is sensitive to critics, and is willing to change in the modern Internet era when it's called to account.

John Dehlin [00:24:22] And this is a point I've been making for some time now. It's as if Internet critics and liberal and progressive Mormons and activist Mormons are becoming the prophets of the church because we are literally now chasing, changing and amending and creating policy for the church. I'm also just gonna say, obviously everyone who objected to the November 2015 policy and expressed concerns about that and expressed outrage about that, that's obviously reflected now in these changes to disciplinary councils and specifically to same sex couples now no longer having to be mandatory that they be excommunicated, which is a really big deal. Now here is the list of behaviors that require a disciplinary council.

John Dehlin [00:25:14] And I'm actually really happy about things that are now included on this list that were not included previously. So we have an upgrade of several things. So these are the behaviors requiring a disciplinary council or a membership council. Murder, rape, sexual assault conviction, child or youth abuse, violent predatory behavior, incest, child pornography, plural marriage, sexual predatory behavior, financial predatory behavior, such as fraud and similar activities, and then serious sin while holding a prominent church position, and then any felony conviction.

John Dehlin [00:25:58] So, you know, obviously we're super thrilled that the church has finally decided that rapists, you know, pedophiles, Child abusers, you know, people who commit financial fraud, you know, people involved in child pornography, you know, violent abusers. These people are now all religious required to have a disciplinary or membership council. This is huge. And it's egregious that these things have not mandatorily triggered a disciplinary council in the past. But we're grateful that the church has listened to our concerns and complaints and they've made those changes. So I'm super happy about that.

John Dehlin [00:26:40] Now here's an interesting thing. And by the way, people have noted that what's interesting about that big long list is that they're all things that, that pretty much are illegal. So basically the church is saying if you do anything illegal, you have a mandatory disciplinary council. In some ways that's brave. In some ways that's not, but it's certainly an improvement.

Mandatory vs. Optional Grounds for Membership Councils

John Dehlin [00:27:05] And then now here are the things which, wherein disciplinary or membership councils are optional or may be necessary. And this is a bit of a problematic list because you tell me whether you think any of these items should trigger a mandatory disciplinary counsel. So here we go. Attempted murder is still optional. Sexual abuse is still optional. So the difference there is if you're convicted in a court of law of sexual abuse, then it's mandatory.

John Dehlin [00:27:37] But if it's sexual abuse among adults and you're not convicted in a court, then I guess it's mandatory. Assault and harassment. Again, sexual assault and harassment are optional. Abuse of another spouse, Abuse of a spouse or another adult is optional. I don't get that. Why is spousal abuse or abuse of another adult optional? Adultery is optional. I'm okay with that. I'd be fine with that being done away with altogether. Fornication is optional.

John Dehlin [00:28:10] I'd be okay with that being done away with. Same sex relations are now optional. And that's significant because it's an improvement over mandatory same sex marriage. Cohabitation and civil unions and partnerships are now optional. So this is interesting because it's now putting basically homosexual behavior or homosexual sexual activity on the same par as heterosexual unmarried sexual activity, cohabitation, civil unions, et cetera. So in some ways that's good. In some ways that bad. You know, the biggest problem there is the whole ecclesiastical leader roulette. It's going to just depend on who your leader is as to whether or not you get punished for cohabitating, for having sex outside marriage, for just being a single person who's sexually active, or for being same sex married.

John Dehlin [00:28:59] But at least it's kind of a level playing field. And one of the ways the church is going to be vulnerable is as in the future we expose the variability of who gets busted and who doesn't. But you know, we'll, we'll cover that in the months and years ahead and we'll see more changes as a result.

John Dehlin [00:29:16] Other things that are optional for disciplinary councils include, let's see, intensive or compulsive use of pornography that has caused significant harm to a member's marriage or family. So now all of a sudden pornography use becomes a matter that makes disciplinary council possible. In the past, I don't know how much disciplinary councils have actually been triggered by the use of pornography, but now pornography, if it's significantly harmed the marriage of the family, becomes a candidate for a disciplinary council. I'm guessing it's just going to be membership councils where, where your full membership is somewhat in question, where you can't have a calling or you can't have a temple recommend or that sort of thing.

John Dehlin [00:30:08] The sort of equivalent of disfellowshipment in the past. Now I think pornography rises to the level of officially being a candidate for disfellowshipment. So that's interesting. And then of course, other things that are optional or non mandatory for disciplinary councils include robbery, burglary, theft or embezzlement, perjury, serious sin while holding a position of authority or trust in church or the community.

John Dehlin [00:30:37] Any instance where serious sin is widely known, which is weird. Why does the visibility of someone's sin affect whether it's a mandatory or a non mandatory disciplinary council? That's weird. And then it still has abortion patterns of serious sin, deliberate abandonment of family responsibilities, including non payment of child support and alimony. That's good. We're happy that disciplinary church discipline is included for that. Then sale of illegal drugs and then other serious criminal acts.

John Dehlin [00:31:10] So those are all things that are optional. I think you'd agree with me that it's kind of weird that there are a lot of those things are optional. Some of those things shouldn't have disciplinary councils at all. They're just sort of sins like other people's sins. Others should absolutely require a disciplinary council like sexual abuse, what the heck, you know, attempted murder, spousal assault and abuse, robbery, burglary. Like, why is that not disciplinary counsel worthy, you know, mandatorily and someone who's a deadbeat dad or mom and not paying their child support or other criminal acts. So anyway, and then I should just say it's happy, I'm very happy to see the Church elevating financial fraud as a problem.

John Dehlin [00:32:00] You know, because obviously the church is rife with financial fraud and it's been a problem for many, many years, and it's nice to see the church kind of elevating that. So that's my review of apostasy and disciplinary council issues changes. We'll have a panel on later today tonight to discuss more of those things. So stay tuned. Love, Natasha Alpha Parker, Gina Colvin and others. That'll be good. Now let me move on to changes regarding LGBTQ members.

Handbook Changes Regarding LGBTQ Language and Policy

John Dehlin [00:32:32] So first and foremost, it's interesting that in the new General Handbook of Instructions, the church is walking, is sort of moving away from the label same gender attraction, which was always confusing. Nobody even knows what that means. And it's more comfortable using same sex attraction instead of same gender attraction.

John Dehlin [00:32:52] Now, same sexual attraction is still problematic for members of the LGBTQ community, primarily because it sort of. It almost is like using the term like it's a sickness or an illness, like, oh, he has. He has lupus. Oh, he has same sex attraction. And that's deeply problematic. But also, the LGBT community would probably argue that having a gay or lesbian or bisexual identity is important. It's claiming an identity in a positive way versus in a sort of pathological way. And we'll have Kyle and others on this afternoon, this evening to talk more about that.

John Dehlin [00:33:28] But, you know, in some ways that's a step forward. In some ways that's a step back. Same sex sexual activity, as we mentioned previously, is now kind of placed on the same level as extramarital, which homosexual, heterosexual sexual activity, both are frowned upon now. Both are options for disciplinary council or membership councils. But no longer is homosexual or same sex or LGBTQ sexual behavior sort of demonized as pathological or dirted or dirty or perverted. And starting with Spencer W. Kimball and the Miracle Forgiveness, and for so, so many years, in the Church Handbook of Instructions, LGBTQ sexual behavior was sort of demeaned and viewed as perverted and bad and unnatural.

John Dehlin [00:34:17] And it seems like all that language has been stripped out, which I think is overall positive. So that's good, I think. I still don't think sexual behavior should be grounds for church discipline, at least if it's between consenting adults and it's responsible and healthy. But the church will make changes in the future like they have for so long.

John Dehlin [00:34:40] Again, same sex marriage is no longer listed as an act of apostasy, nor anything that requires a disciplinary council. Thank you, Church, for listening to us. We appreciate that. Still, same sex marriage is not approved of, so it does explicitly still denounce Same sex marriage is not a good thing. Something that goes against the proclamation on the family.

John Dehlin [00:35:06] No longer does the church prevent children of same sex married couples from getting baptized or participating in the offices of the priesthood or in callings. So that's a wonderful removal. That's obviously in direct response to all the outrage and the backlash in response to the November 2015 policy that caused so many people to leave and and get frustrated with the church. Also, the children of LGBT same sex married couples are no longer required to denounce their parents marriage once they turned 18 and were able to get baptized. And again, thank you church for listening to our complaints about that. We appreciate it.

John Dehlin [00:35:50] Call this grassroots or bottom up revelation, and in some ways the critics and the activists are running the church and that's great, honestly. Kudos to the church leaders for listening to its members and responding accordingly. Something that's interesting is the church basically says that as long as an LGBTQ member is striving to live the law of chastity, you know, they are allowed to hold callings and participate in the church.

John Dehlin [00:36:24] And as long as they can say that they feel like they're worthy to do so, and that's positive. Now there is still, you know, we're going to talk about this this evening. What this is starting to introduce is a pathway for LGBTQ couples to participate in the church in some meaningful way. The they're welcome to attend now, they won't necessarily be excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:36:55] Shout out to Dusty B. And his partner and a sad sort of acknowledgment of all the same sex married couples who have been excommunicated. Will they be pardoned? Will an apology be offered? We don't exactly know how the church is going to deal with the fact that in the past these couples have been excommunicated. But it seems like, you know, one of the problems has been that same sex couples, same sex married couples, in some words, have been allowed to participate and even have colleagues. And then in other words, they've been excommunicated. And that's not consistent. So this seems like a pathway now for same sex unions or same sex married couples to be welcome in the Mormon Church and to participate and for LGBTQ gay members to participate in some ways, who knows what striving to live the law of chastity means?

John Dehlin [00:37:45] Who knows how much Bishop Roulette will allow variability there? Maybe there'll be LGBTQ members who date and even engage in some sort of sexual behavior, but as long as they ride that line and they define sex in certain ways, they'll be able to be worthy and hold a calling and go to the temple. You know, that's clearly how it's been working and will continue working going forward, even at a greater accelerated pace.

John Dehlin [00:38:10] But this seems to be the church opening up a pathway for gay, lesbian, bisexual members to participate meaningfully in the church, which is a positive thing. It does introduce a notion of a caste system, which basically, now that the church is sort of starting to have this status of.

John Dehlin [00:38:35] Of sort of membership restrictions, formal membership restrictions, it basically now is going to be setting up the system where you're still welcome at church, but you're in this category now of, you know, can't have a temple recommend, can't, you know, hold certain callings or maybe can't exercise the priesthood. And that's going to be this sort of middle ground that LGBTQ members and possibly non believers and others live in. And we're going to talk more about that with Anthony Miller and others this evening, so stay tuned. But it's overall positive, I think. One final thing I'm going to note, and Jonathan Hunter has asked me to talk about this.

John Dehlin [00:39:18] On the same day that the church released its general Handbook of Instructions, it changed its policy for BYU students in the honor code. So, basically, in the past, recently, the BYU honor code had explicit verbiage around homosexual behavior and how it's prohibited for BYU students and display of homosexual behavior are prohibited for BYU students.

John Dehlin [00:39:48] Now, any language about homosexual behavior has been removed from the BYU honor code. And. And it just talks about living the law of chastity, et cetera. So LGBTQ BYU students are celebrating this as a victory, basically, where they're feeling like possibly they'll be allowed to date as long as they sort of ride that same line that heterosexual dating couples at BYU ride, which is obviously very fraught because there are all sorts of behavior, sexual behaviors we know, that happen at byu, that really count as sexual behaviors, but because it maybe doesn't officially count as intercourse or intercourse in a certain way, you know, then BYU students are able to sort of say they're living the honor code and remain students at byu.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] We all know that game that's been played for a long time. And if you don't understand what I'm talking about, just Google the word docking and BYU sex or sexuality, and you'll learn some very interesting things about ways that BYU students kind of work around the honor code in the law of chastity. Now it looks like LGBTQ students at BYU will be able to engage in that same type of behavior, but also maybe they'll be able to hold hands on BYU campus, just like straight couples do on BYU campus. So now I will say that the honor code office, according to Twitter and Instagram, the honor Code office at BYU is basically kind of a little bit backtracking or expressing some ambivalence.

John Dehlin [00:41:30] They're basically, they came out with a statement or two that's basically said, yes, we've changed the honor code, but there's been no changes in terms of what's expected. It's leaving things a little bit ambiguous or questionable regarding LGBTQ students.

John Dehlin [00:41:44] So we don't know exactly whether there's going to be some steps back after this step forward, but it seems like a positive step for LGBTQ students at byu, and it's definitely being heralded as a positive step, so that's good.

John Dehlin [00:42:01] Zeath, one of our listeners writes, the loopholes are gross. No pun intended. Again, if you want to Google something fun, disgusting or troubling, look up poop hole loophole. And BYU or Christians, it's basically a name euphemism for engaging in Christians or Mormons engaging in anal sex so that they can say that they're living the law of chastity or living chaste lives because it's not penile vaginal penetration.

John Dehlin [00:42:35] I don't mean to be so explicit, but this is a real thing. It affects BYU students, and so we're talking about it. Lila Tuller just joined us. An amazing interview I did recently. Hey, Lila, you're awesome. Thanks for joining us. We love you. Hope you're doing well. Okay, so that kind of summarizes the changes regarding LGBT Mormons. I shouldn't have said LGBT Mormons. I should have said LGB Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:43:06] Actually, some of those changes do affect trans members, so I guess it isn't totally unapplicable. But we need to be always careful lumping in transgender Mormons with or just LGB individuals with transgender Mormons when we don't speak in ways that encompass all of them. So. So I have to be careful about that. Now it's time to move to a discussion of a major set of changes that were made in the Mormon Church General Handbook of Instructions yesterday regarding transgender Mormons. So the first major significant change is that the word transgender was used for the first time, as I understand it, in the Handbook of Instructions.

New Policies on Transgender and Intersex Members

John Dehlin [00:43:52] So welcome to, you know, the modern era Mormon Church in using LGBTQ language that the LGBTQ community has been using for a long time. Slowly, the church is willing to adopt that language. So I'm sure that's validating for transgender members to have the church willing to use the actual proper terms and how they identify.

John Dehlin [00:44:19] So what the church clarifies in the Handbook of Instructions is that what's most important to the Church is that regarding gender and transgender individuals, that they always remain faithful. This is just my summary. That they always remain faithful to the gender, the biological sex, that their expression of gender corresponds with the. The biological sex that was identified for them at birth. So if they were born with the penis and were given the gender of male, that they sort of stay consistent with that as much as possible, or if they're born with, let's just say, XY chromosome male, XX chromosome female, or more specifically, if they have a vagina and not a penis, then that they maintain identifying as a female or at least expressing themselves as a female or don't cross certain lines, which we'll talk about in just a second.

John Dehlin [00:45:27] Because actually, another change which makes this a little bit super confusing is that the church now says it's okay with the member identifying as transgender. So you can identify as transgender now and not get in trouble. And transgender individuals can be baptized, can be confirmed, can take the sacrament, and they can even hold callings and attend the temple and exercise priesthood, but all of that will be according to the gender that they were assigned based on their biological sex at birth. Now, we're taking out intersex individuals for a second. They have their own sort of clarifications in this handbook of instructions.

John Dehlin [00:46:12] So let's take that out of the equation for a second. And so what this means is if you. I guess what this means is if you are, you know, genetically male, XY chromosome, were born with the penis, you can still.

John Dehlin [00:46:32] But at some point, you identify as transgender or trans female, you can still get the priesthood. You can still receive the priesthood, you can still attend the temple, you can still serve in callings, unless. And this is where the church starts to enforce laws.

John Dehlin [00:46:53] What the church is basically discouraging people from doing, transgender individuals from doing, are the undergoing any medical or surgical operations. So no surgeries or, you know, hormone therapy, and then no social transitions, which is changing your gender identity.

John Dehlin [00:47:12] So calling yourself female, you know, or a woman, when you're a genetic male with male anatomy, changing your name to, you know, across genders, changing your pronouns and changing your dress and grooming styles as a part of their transition. If they do, then membership restrictions will be applied for the duration of their transition, which means that as long as you're undergoing a gender transition from male to female or from female to male, sort of certain things can be suspended. Membership restrictions like you won't get colleagues, you can't use the priesthood, you can't go to the temple.

John Dehlin [00:47:53] What's not clear is once you're done with the transition, whether some of those things can be restored. I'm guessing that some things will be able to be restored, but some things won't. So I'm guessing that a trans male, so someone who was biologically female at birth, who has a vagina but has transitioned to male, I don't think they're going to be able to be eligible for receiving the priesthood once they've transitioned to male. That's my guess. But of course everything's up for grabs in the future. But you know, whether in sort of the Laurie Lee hall case, whether someone who is biologically identified as male at birth is able to transition to female and then afterwards attend Relief Society, I think that will be possible in the future.

John Dehlin [00:48:37] Whereas Lori Lee hall was given grief for doing that, you know. Anyway, these are some of the changes. We're going to talk a lot more about this tonight, but that's sort of. Some of the high level transgender members who have undergone transgender related surgery are forbidden from temple service or the exercising of priesthood. So if you do surgeries in any way, or apparently hormone therapy, no more temple service and no more priesthood for you exercising it. That's a clear line in the sand.

John Dehlin [00:49:09] Membership restrictions for gender transitioning individuals, again, like I said, include receiving or exercising priesthood, receiving or using temple recommend and church callings. So don't socially transition. And that's something that's very interesting. On the one hand, the church is saying that transgender individuals are welcome at church, but you can't socially transition. That means you change your name, change your pronouns, change how you look. What does that mean?

John Dehlin [00:49:37] It's basically stigmatizing being transgender in the church. So they're kind of second class citizens, kind of viewed as bad, kind of viewed as inferior. It's the same sort of thing for LGB members. It's sort of bad to be gay, it's bad to be lesbian, it's bad to be bisexual, but we'll let you hang around, but you're going to be a second class citizen. Transgender individuals are squarely in that category. They kind of always have been, but now it's even more official, so that's problematic for many.

John Dehlin [00:50:09] So we'll be talking a bit more about that. A couple other policies. Transgender individuals, if they're considering surgery are not allowed to be baptized. And transgender individuals who have undergone surgery can only be baptized with First Presidency approval and will be banned from priesthood participation or temple attendance as members. So this is something that's changed at least a little bit or made official because I'm made aware of at least one trans male who is allowed to be baptized and who's allowed and told they could be temple worthy. So this is the church kind of undoing what was perceived by some as progress.

John Dehlin [00:50:51] And then regarding intersex individuals or people born with ambiguous genitalia, the Church has now an explicit policy saying for those born with ambiguous genitalia or intersex, parents or others, with the cooperation of medical professionals, will have to determine the child's sex. Questions about membership records, priesthood ordination, and temple ordinances for those members should be directed to the First Presidency. And this is significant because we have people born with chromosomal anomalies. They're not clearly X, Y, or xx. They have certain chromological, different chromosomal differences that don't fit into the clear male, female sort of category.

John Dehlin [00:51:39] And we won't go into that. But that's a real thing. Read the book Intersex if you want to, to learn more. You know, it obviously begs the question, if God, if gender is eternal, like the proclamation on the family says, then why is God creating people with ambiguous gender? And then if there's God creating people with ambiguous gender, even biologically, chromosomally, then why isn't there the possibility of ambiguous gender or other variations of gender that aren't binary in the hereafter?

John Dehlin [00:52:12] So this is all stuff we'll talk about tonight. We're going to have a representative of the transgender community join us, and they can talk about this short. She could talk about this a lot more intelligently than I can, but I'm doing my best here, and I just want to acknowledge my lack of education, lack of expertise in this area. I'm trying to learn. I'm doing the best that I can, but I will keep learning.

John Dehlin [00:52:42] And one thing that's interesting, at the end of the transgender section, the Church adds note. At the end, the church adds quote. Some content in this section may undergo further revision. I would say a lot of the content in this section will undergo significant further revision in the future because the church is always changing. We'll talk about that more tonight.

John Dehlin [00:53:03] I'll just read Lila Tuller's comment. The Church is painting themselves into a corner. They need to stop with all the rules, just accept everyone and let people decide who they are. No restrictions. You know, that's, you know that's true. Amy adds. That's exactly what they're doing, stigmatizing. And that's so true.

John Dehlin [00:53:22] And what we just see, the Handbook of Instructions is just one perfect example of the Church evolving over time on so many issues. Whether it's birth control or adoption or suicide or a million different things, the Church is just changing. And the manual, the hammock of instructions, just proves that and sort of calls into questions the extent to which God leaves the church and what it means for the Church to have divine authority and prophetic guidance when they're just so behind the times and so wrong on so many issues. We'll be talking about all of that tonight.

Child Protection, Women, and Priesthood Policy Updates

John Dehlin [00:53:56] I have not done regarding Sam Young and the Protect LDS Children movement or Protect Every Child movement. I have not done a thorough audit of the Church's changes in regard to interviews. So certainly in recent years, thanks to Sam Young, the Church has allowed parents to be in interviews with minors, whereas in the past that wasn't explicitly noted in the handbook. That was added to the handbook previously. So that's not new. But that continues in the Church Handbook of Instructions.

John Dehlin [00:54:30] And something that's really frustrating for me, which isn't a change, which is a change many of us were calling for, is that the Church still does not require bishops and stake presidents to immediately notify the police or childhood protective services when the bishops or stake presidents are notified of sexual abuse of children.

John Dehlin [00:54:50] The Church is still hiding behind these ecclesiastical or clerical exceptions. And instead bishops and stake presidents are encouraged to call, call the Curtin McConkey hotline or the Abuse Hotline, where they're counseled to basically protect the Church's legal interests first and foremost. And there's sort of a nod to also providing services for the victims. But we all know in the past that's really just been a hotline to protect the Church's legal rear ends. And we just know so many instances where the Curt McConkie and church leaders have have told members not to go to authorities and in that way have protected abusers, protected abusers at the expense of abuse victims, and prevented and allowed abusers to continue abusing in other situations, much like the Catholic Church did for so long, so deeply problematic, that the Church is not willing to just do what all healthy and natural people are doing these days, which is call the police, call child protective services when you know that a child or even a spouse is undergoing sexual abuse.

John Dehlin [00:56:03] So we're disappointed that the Church hasn't done that. All right. Going to Women and the Patriarchy Basically, there are some super minor changes that affect women in the patriarchy. One that I thought was interesting is young men. Young young Mormon men are encouraged to serve missions explicitly in the handbook Young Mormon Women, it basically has disclaimers for that saying when they desire, they may be recommended to serve missions. So why the differential verbiage? Why isn't it just all young men and women are encouraged to serve missions? Again, for some reason there's different verbiage for young Mormon women. It's only when they desire and then they may be recommended.

John Dehlin [00:56:50] So that's interesting. I'm sure the feminists will prefer that that be changed over time. I do, and I'm sure others do as well. One thing noted by Jana Rees, which I think is worth noting, is the Church has softened its stance on surrogacy on surrogate births.

John Dehlin [00:57:07] The Church still discourages surrogate births, but now sealing the surrogate child to parents no longer requires First Presidency approval. So in the past, if you had a child through surrogacy and you wanted that child sealed to you, you had to get First Presidency approval. That's been removed.

John Dehlin [00:57:27] And the sternly worded prohibition of surrogacy has been moderated over time and will likely continue be moderated over time, like contraception and suicide and other sorts of things. So that's an interesting thing that affects women reproductive situations and rights.

John Dehlin [00:57:50] The Mormon Church still totally and officially believes in eternal polygamy. You know, this was troublesome, the language where a man can be sealed to multiple women if his first wife if his first wife that he's sealed to either dies or they get divorced, the man can continue being sealed to multiple women even if that cancellation isn't that sealing isn't canceled. And even if he's already sealed. So a man can continue to be sealed to multiple women, much like Russell M. Nelson, much like Dallin H. Oaks. So in that sense, the church absolutely still believes in polygamy and practices polygamy. And if you don't believe me, just read section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

John Dehlin [00:58:30] But for women, women can only be sealed to a second man if their first sealing is canceled. So women cannot be sealed to multiple men. You know, if a woman is sealed to a husband and the husband dies and then the woman takes on a new husband, she's not allowed to be sealed to the new husband. Just like, you know, in the same way that men are allowed to be sealed to new wives and If a woman gets married to a second husband and wants to be sealed to that second husband, the first marriage must be canceled before the woman can be sealed to the new husband.

John Dehlin [00:59:10] So total polygamy. Polygamy still endures in Mormonism. We're still a polygamist church. Anyone who denies it is lying. And of course that's weird because the church opposes polygamy and it's practiced today, but still practices it. So super weird they don't renounce. DNC132. That's a problem.

John Dehlin [00:59:29] All right. One other change is that the church is trying to make a nod to feminists by making assertions about priesthood power and participation in priesthood power and authority. Even when people don't, women don't specifically hold the priesthood. So I'll read the actual quote. All Latter Day Saints, regardless of gender or church assignment, exercise delegated priesthood authority when they are given formal service opportunities in their congregations.

John Dehlin [01:00:02] All church members who keep their covenants, women, men and children, are blessed with God's priesthood power in their homes to strengthen themselves and their families. And of course, only men and male youths, however, can be ordained to priesthood offices. So this is sort of a step more towards giving women the priesthood. It's basically saying women, women, men, women and children all hold some priesthood power, have some priesthood authority, and exercise the priesthood in some way. So it's kind of throwing a bone to women a little bit, saying, hey, you've already got some priesthood. You know, you can't be ordained to priesthood offices right now, but you're, you know, exercise the priesthood in whatever way you want to.

John Dehlin [01:00:43] Personally, you know, I don't know how many Mormon active Mormon feminists feel good about this change, but it's definitely a step forward throwing a bone to women and feminists. So thank you, ordained women and all the progressive Mormon feminists who helped make this possible.

John Dehlin [01:01:04] And then finally, one change regarding women is the church makes a bold step and openly, explicitly condemns female genital mutilation, a practice not uncommon in certain parts of the world, specifically Africa, where the Church operates. I'm happy that the Church makes this assertion. I don't know if it's going to have political implications for the church in certain African countries, but yay to condemning female genital mutilation. That's awesome.

John Dehlin [01:01:36] I'm reading a comment from a listener. Heidi writes, agree it took years to get my first ceiling canceled. It's a huge burden. This is just regarding the women and sealing thing. It's a huge burden on women have to get their ceiling canceled that men don't have to go through, and it's awful. And Heidi reflects that.

John Dehlin [01:01:56] Amy writes, I still can't get mine. So there's women who are being denied a ceiling cancellation, which is a problem. So that's an issue. Brian's asking, why do same sex couples want to be part of such an organization? Brian the answer is there are many LGBTQ Mormons that still believe in the church and want to have a faith home. And there are many people who say, why should someone have to choose between love and their sexuality and their exercise of faith? Just because you are LGBTQ does not mean you've lost your faith in Mormonism. And in fact, some LGBTQ people I know are some of the most devout Mormons I know.

John Dehlin [01:02:36] So that's why I hope that answers your question. Isabelle writes, my husband has sealed the two women. So is Dallin H. Oaks, member of the First Presidency. So is Russell M. Nelson, Mormon Prophet. All right, so that is the changes regarding women. And then there are questions regarding general policies.

General Policy Changes Including Word of Wisdom

John Dehlin [01:02:58] There are a few more changes to the General Handbook of Instructions that are kind of general policies. And Holly asks, any word of Wisdom changes? One thing that's interesting is the Word of Wisdom section of the Doctrine of the General Handbook of Instructions says it basically provides a link to D&C89. Basically saying if you want to know what the Word of Wisdom, you know how to follow the Word of Wisdom. Go read D&C89 and interpret it for yourselves. It offers no clarification other than, excuse me, other than it says that no coffee and tea are allowed and no illegal drugs and no harmful or habit forming substances except under the care of a competent physician.

John Dehlin [01:03:42] So what it doesn't explicitly prevent is beer and wine. Now why do I say that? Why is that interesting? If you read doctrine and covenants 89 and if you understand how active members and even apostles observed the Word of Wisdom for decades, if not over a century. Beer was still legal under the Word of Wisdom and wine was still legal under the Word of Wisdom. So you've got apostles and pioneers drinking beer, drinking wine well over 100 years.

John Dehlin [01:04:13] And in many cases I've heard of a general authority in the area authority in the past 10 or 20 years who drink wine because it's allowed in the Word of Wisdom. Mild drinks of barley and wine are allowed in the Word of Wisdom. The only thing that's prohibited alcohol wise in the Word of Wisdom are these strong drinks, which means kind of hard liquor.

John Dehlin [01:04:37] So some believe that this clarification, the fact that it doesn't prohibit all alcohol is opening the door to allowing the average Mormon to interpret for themselves what it means to observe the word of wisdom. And if they feel like drinking beer and drinking wine is consistent with them with their observance of the word of wisdom, then that's okay. And I think that's reasonable. And I know Mormons that live that way. I know Mormons, active Mormons, even believing Mormons today that drink wine, that drink beer, and they still attend the temple and they tell their stake presidents and bishops that they consider themselves to be living the word of wisdom.

John Dehlin [01:05:14] So that's the thing. It's also interesting, it says no illegal drugs. So this is what brings in marijuana, recreational marijuana or medical marijuana. This policy is now basically saying, and maybe it's been saying this for a while, as long as the drugs aren't illegal, you can use them if they're not harmful or habit forming. And this is where ecclesiastical roulette and bishop sort of bishop roulette and discretion is going to come into play because there's going to be some bishops that allow recreational marijuana in states where it's legal.

John Dehlin [01:05:50] And then everywhere, medical marijuana is going to be allowed if it's legal. And of course there are going to be plenty of people that have approval to use medical marijuana who are going to use it recreationally. And this is a big, huge door now that's been opened for people who use cannabis either medically or recreationally. And more states, including Utah, are going to be coming into this situation in the years ahead.

John Dehlin [01:06:17] And so basically legal, recreational and medical marijuana open season, not open season, like celebration, open day, you can use marijuana under those circumstances. Now there may be some bishops that basically say, well, marijuana isn't legal in this state and it's a, you know, harmful or habit forming substance. That's where we're gonna see an interesting crackdown potentially. And of course our Mormon stories, LDS church be warned, be aware, if anybody receives church discipline or a membership council over their use of marijuana, we're going to be covering it and you're going to be changing your policies in the future like you have in the past.

John Dehlin [01:06:57] So yeah, that's all kind of interesting. Of course it doesn't say anything about hallucinogenics, you know, psilocybin, lsd, keto, whatever, the depressant medication. There are all sorts of psychedelics that are now being experimented with by Mormons and post Mormons. And as long as it's under the supervision of a competent physician or it's not Harmful or habit forming, it's now fair game.

John Dehlin [01:07:30] So you're going to see the use of psychedelics in the Mormon Church spike unless the church openly condemns them. I think that's a fact. Okay, so yeah, Daniel writes his 93 year old father, ordained 70 high priest bishopric in excess of 30 years, has secretly pressed his own wine for years.

John Dehlin [01:07:56] Oh, Matt's saying, is cold tea and coffee allowed? And that's interesting because no coffee and tea are still bad because the church says no coffee or tea in its general policies on the word of wisdom. So no coffee and tea are prohibited here.

John Dehlin [01:08:18] But it's weird because like Diet Coke is habit forming. We know that and it's harmful, but it's okay. So there's still things to be worked out. Samuel asks, what about getting more tobacco on bruised cattles? I think that's okay.

John Dehlin [01:08:34] Let's use tobacco all we can on cattles. Thank you for everyone. And of course hot chocolate is a hot drink, but it's bad. Or hot tea according to this interpretation is bad. And this is where it's again the wild west and people just end up doing what they want.

John Dehlin [01:08:52] A couple other final, you know, general changes made in the handbook of instructions. Ties in white shirts are no longer mentioned as being recommended for young male deacons or you know, priesthood holders passing the sacrament. And this I think is the church basically trying to say enough with the cultural imperialism. Let's stop enforcing IBM, American corporate sort of dress code on the world. Let's just have beautiful cultures allow their youth, their BAAL youth to express their respect for the Sabbath in whatever way is appropriate locally. And they can, you know, bless and pass the sacrament accordingly. Colored shirts are now fair game. Why not? Let's not be so rigid and strict.

John Dehlin [01:09:37] This is something I think everybody likes and it's interesting that now it's codified. You know, it's always been this cultural thing that you, when you pass the sacrament, you receive the sacrament with your right hand, you take the sacrament with your right hand and you pass it with your right hand. And now the manual actually says that where possible, you're supposed to partake of the bread and water with the right hand.

John Dehlin [01:09:58] So thank you church for that explicit guideline. Left handed people or left hand users. Still, you need to know your place and know what's recommended. Okay, a couple other quick things going back to the Samantha, you know, issue where that beautiful young girl got up, bore testimony and talked about her sexuality and identified as lesbian over the pulpit and then she was shut down and her Mic was turned off and all that.

John Dehlin [01:10:31] The Church has now explicitly added to its handbook of instructions that any display of romantic behavior and or discussing one's sexual orientation are discouraged. So don't say you're gay in your testimony. Don't say you're lesbian, don't say you're bisexual, don't say you're heterosexual.

John Dehlin [01:10:48] Sunday school, same thing. Just don't talk about your sexual orientation in church. That's the new explicit guideline. And don't show any romantic behavior. So no kissing, I guess, at church. And of course they mean no gay couples kissing, but certainly no. But also no heterosexual couples now can display any romantic behavior.

John Dehlin [01:11:14] So one big question mark about this is will, you know, gay couples be able to put their arms around each other or hold hands in church? Will that be considered romantic behavior or not? And then if so, what's good for the goose? Is it good for the gander? Can stray couples put their arms around each other or hold hands? Or is that also considered romantic behavior? You know, this is going to be another thing that we'll see future changes about, so that'll be interesting.

John Dehlin [01:11:45] Also, the church codified, you know, its recent efforts to reinforce or persuade members and media to not use the term Mormon, to not call it the Mormon Church, and to refer to the church by its full name instead of using shortened terms like LDS or Mormon. So that's all now codified. Obviously, they're jettisoning all their investment in the I'm a Mormon campaign when they do that. So many people think this is obnoxious.

John Dehlin [01:12:14] And of course, we expect when Russell Nelson dies that potentially this Mormon thing is going to change and we're going to go back to it being okay to use the term Mormon because it's so ridiculous to not be able to say the word Mormon. And for people to be able to refer to the church as the Mormon Church, and for people to have to use this excruciatingly long name whenever referring to the church. We'll see how long all that Mormon stuff lasts. But now it's been codified in the Handbook of Instructions.

John Dehlin [01:12:42] And then finally, something that's interesting is the church. We all know growing up that the church had its sort of threefold mission, which was proclaim the Gospel, redeem the dead, and perfect the Saints. That has been changed. And I'm sure this change has been evolving over time, but now it's codified that the church's. The four aspects of God's work as it's described now, are living the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we're getting Jesus in the mission of the church, caring for those in need.

John Dehlin [01:13:16] So that's caring for the poor. We hope the church will invest its $120 billion now in increased efforts to care for the poor, inviting all to receive the gospel. So they're not calling it missionary work anymore, probably because people hate missionary work generally and get turned off whenever it's described, and uniting families for eternity. So it's upgrading or adding in.

John Dehlin [01:13:39] Instead of calling it work for the dead, which is creepy and weird, or genealogy, which people hate, it's now saying united families for eternity. So these are all kind of euphemistic changes that the church is adding. So there's so much more to talk about.

John Dehlin [01:13:59] And most importantly, it's really important to bring LGBTQ members into this discussion. Gay members, trans members, women, people internationally, et cetera, feminists. And so this sort of concludes my overview of the changes made. And what I'm just super excited to tell you all is that this is not over.

John Dehlin [01:14:21] We are going to be bringing Samantha Taylor, a woman who identifies as trans Kyle Ashworth, a gay Mormon, Gina Colvin, who's a woman of color and also an international from New Zealand, Natasha Over Parker, licensed sex therapist, family therapist and public feminist. Anthony Miller, one of our most thoughtful post Mormons. Angie Johnson Spangler, an active, semi believing progressive Mormon. They're going to be joining us at 7:30 tonight, Utah time where we're going to be talking about more of these changes and getting a variety of perspectives. So I hope you've enjoyed this overview. We've had a really great audience of over 200, you know, people joining us.

John Dehlin [01:15:08] Sustained. We were able to incorporate some of your comments. None of you really express your interest in coming on the video. I hope in the future listeners will be willing to join us in video. But we've enjoyed those who are willing to give comments and we hope you'll join us tonight for more discussion on these changes. But we love you guys. We appreciate your support of Mormon Stories Podcast. While you're still on, let me just ask for a final couple things. If you value this program, please share it. Please share it right now on your walls.

Closing Remarks and Support the Podcast

John Dehlin [01:15:42] It really helps when you give us a positive review on Facebook. It helps when you follow us on Facebook and like us and follow us that way you'll get notified if you want to see these videos when they pop up.

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John Dehlin [01:16:18] And then finally I just always have to request if you support what we do on the Open Stories foundation on Mormon Stories, please consider becoming a monthly donor. We've had our number of donors decrease and our number of donations to Mormon Stories Podcast decrease over the past year.

John Dehlin [01:16:35] And you know, we need your donations to keep us Alive. Less than 1% of our listeners donate. So if you value this program, if you want to see it continue, if you want to see us continue to affect positive change in the church and to support healing and growth for post Mormons and progressive Mormons, we need your continued support. So please go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button, become a monthly donor and that'll make a huge difference. Also know that we're going to continue doing faith Crisis workshops and retreats and events. We're going to continue our partnership with the Thrive Organization. We've got a retreat coming to Chicago in April.

John Dehlin [01:17:14] We've got a retreat this weekend in Salt Lake City. We've got a Thrive women's retreat coming in March and we've got our two big Thrive events coming later in the year, late May. There's going to be a huge Thrive event in Salt Lake City and of course Thrive a big Thrive event in November. Plus other workshops and retreats coming in the months and years ahead. Plus Natasha Alpha Parker is doing weekly faith Crisis free workshops at our Thrive center in Salt Lake City Holiday on each Wednesday night. And of course you can join a local Thrive Join or create a local Thrive community. If you're looking for a support group to to meet with to help you through your faith transition, you can go to thrivebeyondmormonism.com to create or join a Thrive support group to find out about Thrive events and you can go to mormonstories.org events to find out about upcoming events in your area.

John Dehlin [01:18:13] Isabelle asks can you donate through Smile Amazon? Absolutely. Look for Mormon Stories Podcast or the Open Stories Foundation. All your purchases through Smile Amazon go to the Open Stories foundation or a percentage of them do. So please donate to us through using Smile Amazon. That's a great thing. Sherry's asking what Thrive means. Thrive is an initiative that's not officially affiliated with the Open Stories foundation, but it's separate. But it's an organization dedicated to healing and growth and community for post Mormons So there's no organization that's basically saying, hey, if you leave the church, how do we help you heal and grow and thrive and find friends and find community and get inspired and learn.

John Dehlin [01:18:59] That's what Thrive is. So if you go to thrivebeyondmormonism.com you can join local support groups to meet with other Post Mormons to make friends. You can attend our annual Thrive groups. We have regional Thrive groups popping up. We had a great Thrive Arizona, there's Thrive Sacramento. That's in the works.

John Dehlin [01:19:17] There are other regions that want Thrive regional activities. A lot of those will be popping up in the future. And we're going to be creating content for Post Mormons basically to help them figure out what comes after Mormonism. How do you become excellent? How do you become happy? How do you have a better marriage, become a better parent, have more healing and growth after Mormonism?

John Dehlin [01:19:39] How do you find beliefs? How do you learn all that stuff? Thrive is a whole initiative to support Post Mormonism, Sherry, so thank you for asking. A couple other comments on Facebook Amy's writing that she's been called in twice to her bishop's office over Facebook posts related to Mormon stories. We're sorry about that. We hope that doesn't happen a lot.

John Dehlin [01:20:04] And yeah, so that's all for today's episode, this afternoon's Episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Please check back in the weeks and months ahead for more episodes. And again, join us tonight, 7:30pm Utah time and online later for a panel discussion of these recent changes to the LDS Church General Handbook of Instructions. Take care everybody. You're awesome. And we hope to see you again very soon on future episodes of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care of.

Part Two Panel Introductions and Welcome

Part 2 of 4 · Ep. 1261

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Sam, you. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's February 20, 2020. It's 7:30. No, it's 7:47pm Utah time. And we are super excited to be assembling an all star panel to be discussing something that's really interesting and kind of really important.

John Dehlin [00:00:57] For those of you who joined us earlier today, we are here to discuss a recent big change within the LDS Church. Yesterday, February 19, 2020, the LDS Church came out with a bunch of changes to what's called the LDS General Handbook of Instructions.

John Dehlin [00:01:21] And I just did a big old episode introducing it and talking about all the changes. So we're not going to go into in depth, but if you want to go back, if you haven't listened to the first part, go listen to it. You'll get the full context. But basically it's this huge manual that the church uses to govern the church. It used to be on paper, now it's on the Internet. And now a bunch of stuff that hasn't been made available has been and it's been consolidated.

John Dehlin [00:01:48] And it's really interesting. In addition, the church has made a bunch of interesting policy changes around disciplinary councils and excommunication and disfellowship, around what apostasy does and doesn't mean, around what behaviors get you kicked out of the church or penalized or disciplined, some major changes to how the church treats the LGBTQ community, several clarifications about transgender Mormons, some minor changes around women and feminism, and some other general changes. And again, go listen to the first hour and a half to get kind of the comprehensive list. But what we've done today is we're pulling together a wonderful panel of thoughtful individuals who are going to give their perspectives on these changes.

John Dehlin [00:02:46] And so without any further ado, I will introduce you to our wonderful panel and we'll ask each panelist to tell us briefly who you are, what you do. And we'll start with Natasha.

Natasha Helfer [00:03:00] Hi everybody. I'm Natasha Helfer Parker. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist. I am also certified sex therapist through the organization of asec. I have been running the Mormon Mental Health Podcast for many years, started with Mormon Stories with John Dehlin and also do the Mormon Sex Info podcast, run a practice called Symmetry Solutions where we really provide services mostly to kind of LDS folks and other maybe religious folks who are going through either faith transitions, mixed faith relationships, sexuality issues, et cetera. So I'm busy and happy and glad to be here all Right.

John Dehlin [00:03:41] Thanks for joining us, Natasha. Next on our panel is returning to Mormon Stories, Anthony Miller. Anthony, welcome.

Anthony D. Miller [00:03:50] Thank you, John. So I'm Anthony Miller. I'm a dragon dad. Our now 26 year old son came out to us almost four years ago and that led to a series of events that turned into a faith crisis and led me to join you today, actually. And my interview with you was last August and I was appreciative of that opportunity. I've co presented at Sunstone multiple times with Jana, who's part of our group here, and I'm just really grateful for the opportunity to be with you this evening.

John Dehlin [00:04:26] Hey, what's the feedback been on that interview on that episode, Anthony?

Anthony D. Miller [00:04:31] It's just been overwhelmingly tender and still, even this many months later, I'll occasionally get a message or email or a text or something like that of someone who's listened to it or gone through it. Donna Schoalwalter just really softened my heart quite a bit. She told me she had watched it like five times and like transcribed a bunch of of it, and I just think she's a rock star and a hero and I'm just so honored by that. But I was really grateful for the opportunity to do that.

John Dehlin [00:05:08] I love it. Well, we're so glad you're here, Anthony. Kyle, also returning to Mormon Stories podcast. Kyle, introduce yourself again.

Kyle Ashworth [00:05:16] Thanks, John. Yeah, thank you. Happy to be here. Kyle Ashworth. I'm the host of the Latter Day Stories podcast.

John Dehlin [00:05:22] Say that slowly and enunciate.

Kyle Ashworth [00:05:24] Latter Gay.

John Dehlin [00:05:26] Okay.

Kyle Ashworth [00:05:26] It's with the G podcast.

John Dehlin [00:05:28] All right.

Kyle Ashworth [00:05:30] I did reserve Latter Day Stories just in case someone from the church wanted to pirate the idea.

John Dehlin [00:05:35] Wanted to poach on that.

Kyle Ashworth [00:05:38] You're going to be taken to the right place.

John Dehlin [00:05:41] Yeah.

Kyle Ashworth [00:05:41] Host of the Latter Gay Stories podcast. Gay former Mormon, father of four, and really using this platform, which formerly was the Gay Mormon Stories podcast, which we have to credit you, John, for creating that. It is the world's, I would suppose, longest running LGBTQ themed gay Mormon or Mormon themed podcast on this subject. And we're now in our ninth season, so pretty exciting to see that platform take off. And overwhelming response. Incredible viewership, listenership and participation in the podcast, which tells me that either people are so bored that they find excitement only in LGBTQ podcasts, or there are plenty of people out there who are interested in this message. And I think it's probably the latter.

John Dehlin [00:06:33] Yeah, I think this touches a lot of people and it's important. So good job, Kyle. Gina Colvin is back with us. Gina, introduce yourself oh, kia ora, everybody.

Gina Colvin [00:06:44] Kia ora to the co panellist, John. I am the host of a thoughtful faith podcast and I am an independent scholar continuing to publish in the field of Mormon scholarship and cultural studies. And I'm currently a religious studies and spiritual formation teacher at a Catholic girls school. I'm a bit in a pickle religiously. I worship Anglican. My heart's with the community of Christ. I'm culturally Mormon, I'm Roman Catholic by spiritual formation and yeah, ecumenical and interfaith by nature.

John Dehlin [00:07:20] Beautiful. I love it.

Natasha Helfer [00:07:22] I love that.

John Dehlin [00:07:24] So good. Welcome, Gina. It's great to have you back. Now, Jana, I'm trying to remember you've been on Mormon Stories. Of course you have. Reintroduce yourself to my audience.

Kyle Ashworth [00:07:35] Thank you.

Jana Spangler [00:07:36] Yeah, I was on a panel a few years ago. So I'm Janice Bangler and I am a certified life coach and I work with Natasha at Symmetry Solutions, and I specialize in working with people who are affected by faith transition, either the people themselves or family members or fixed faith marriages. And I'm also a recent graduate of the Living School, which is a contemplative Christian wisdom school that is run by Father Richard Rohrer. And I just am fascinated with all things spiritual, all things Mormon. I'm an active member of the church and I. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Natasha Helfer [00:08:22] That's great.

Jana Spangler [00:08:23] Yeah, I'm a speaker. I speak at conferences and workshops and on podcasts.

John Dehlin [00:08:30] All right, it's great to have you. Thanks for joining us, Jana. And last but not least, someone that'll be new to many of you. We're super excited to have Samantha Taylor joining us today. Samantha, tell us about yourself.

Samantha Taylor [00:08:45] Well, I am a litigation support technician, so a little bit different field than the rest of you. That's basically a combination paralegal, private investigator, and IT person. I came out as trans publicly a little over. Let's see, it was 2019, so a little over a year ago, and a lot of which was caused by family members and members of the local church. Now I actually serve on the board of the Utah LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, and I co chair the LGBTQ Safe Zone project.

John Dehlin [00:09:28] Beautiful. Well, we're super glad you've been able to join us today, Samantha, thanks for joining us.

Samantha Taylor [00:09:33] You're welcome.

Panel Discussion on Discipline Council Reforms

John Dehlin [00:09:35] Okay, so we've got a bunch of things to cover today. We're welcoming our live audience. We hope our live audience will feel comfortable sharing their questions or comments. We hope to incorporate some of that today, but let's dive right in, I think, where it might make sense to begin is with disciplinary council stuff, whether it's how the church is now changing, how it's defining apostasy to what's mandatory versus optional offenses that can warrant church discipline, to the renaming of disciplinary councils to membership councils, to the elimination of the terms excommunication and disfellowship to replace them with the terms withdrawal of church membership for excommunication and formal membership restrictions for disfellowshipment.

John Dehlin [00:10:36] Lots of changes to the church disciplinary council sort of structure. We went into detail on that in the last episode. I think only two of us have been through a disciplinary council. But since I've already kind of started to comment on this, Gina, do you want to give kind of your initial thoughts to or descriptions of some of these changes, since this might be near and dear to your heart?

Gina Colvin [00:11:00] You want me to give my thoughts on that? I was originally. I was initially really excited. I thought they were retiring the whole idea of church discipline. And then it was pointed out to me, actually they're not. They're just renaming it, which is a really Mormon thing to do. Like, don't interrogate the, you know, the theology or the pastoral theology or the intention or the policy. Just kind of juggle it around and rename it. I mean, does it make any difference for females? I don't think it does. Because we still have the bishops who are in charge of that membership committee, don't we? Is that correct? Do I have that right? I mean, just retiring the state council.

John Dehlin [00:11:40] Yeah, I mean. I mean, I guess the stake president has the right to. The bishop has to now. So they're pushing many down to the bishops instead of elevating as many to the stake president and the stake presidency and the stake High council. I guess the bishop has to ask permission from the stake president to hold. And we shouldn't call the disciplinary council now. We're calling it a membership council. So now the bishop can do men or women. Unless there's a strong likelihood that. Sorry, not excommunication, that withdrawal of membership is likely, then the stake president's gonna take it. And I'm guessing that might be true for men or women, but in theory, the stake president could let the bishop continue to handle the women as they've been handled or mishandled before. Is that helpful, Gina?

Gina Colvin [00:12:30] That's so helpful. Well, I mean. I mean, it's a barbaric. It's an absolutely barbaric process. And I think withdrawing the mandatory component of the mandatory. What do you call that? Discipline or whatever it is. I mean, what do you call it now? What's the verb now?

John Dehlin [00:12:53] The verb. Withdrawing membership. Removing membership.

Gina Colvin [00:12:57] I'm being disciplined. I can't use that.

John Dehlin [00:13:00] It's not disciplined because they're trying to move away from that.

Natasha Helfer [00:13:03] You're being removed.

Gina Colvin [00:13:07] It's all lipstick on a pig really, isn't it? I mean, until they get rid of the whole concept of church discipline in any form, whether you call it a membership withdrawal system or whatever it is, I think it's really a barbaric and medieval process for anybody to go to. I don't thank anybody for my church discipline. I'm sure you don't either, John. It was horrific. It's a terrible, terrible process for anybody to go through. I'm glad they seem to be lightening it up. I'm glad they are detaching the mandatory church discipline for apostasy. But apostasy remains, I think, in the handbook.

John Dehlin [00:13:46] It's really interesting because they removed it from the list. It used to be mandatory for a disciplinary council if there were grounds for apostasy. Now it's removed from the mandatory list or the optional list, but then it's still listed as something that can lead to a membership council. So it's kind of weird they took it off both lists, but it's still grounds for church discipline. I think that's kind of weird.

Anthony D. Miller [00:14:19] So my question would be is what's your read on this? Is your read on this that they've made some changes such that it's less likely that they would withdraw membership or excommunicate the Youngs and the Maeloffs and Bruce Holt and the Calderwoods under this scenario, is your take that they're less likely to have their membership removed.

Gina Colvin [00:14:48] I think they're retiring those ideas of excommunication and disfellowship. And because they're barbaric and it doesn't make very good press when somebody's been excommunicated and appears all over the Salt Lake tribunal, wherever it is. It sounds terrible on the part of the church to kind of provide a softer term for it. I think it's really about public relations,

Kyle Ashworth [00:15:13] I think, interestingly enough, John, I believe you brought this up earlier. The original layout of the disciplinary council was that, for example, in a stake situation, you had six of the 12 high councilors, six were for the accused and six were representing the good name of the church. And I think, interestingly enough, and maybe John has some credit here, when more of these high profile excommunications were taking place and the public had the opportunity to hear the Bill Rills, the people speak.

John Dehlin [00:15:49] It was interesting, Sam Young, Jeremy Runnels,

Kyle Ashworth [00:15:52] how quickly opinion changed. And when I heard about the membership council or the disciplinary councils being changed back in August of last year, there were a number of reasons that I heard that were cited for these upcoming changes. One of them, we've discussed this, John, the idea that you have a room of 15 men in a stake who some are hearing for the first time the church's history or inaccuracies or difficulties in history. And that's a really difficult situation for a stake president to overcome when 12 of his highest church leaders are now going back to him after the excommunication saying was brother or sister, so and so actually correct in some of these teachings.

Kyle Ashworth [00:16:38] And that was causing some discord. Also. I think the other, I think the message the church would have us understand and believe is that those disciplinary councils were just taking so much time from that group of 15 that if we excuse them out of that meeting, they have more time to spend with their families. And I think that that's very soft and comforting, but I don't know that that really is the answer to why these councils were dissolved.

Anthony D. Miller [00:17:05] Yeah. So it was last mid year when they decided to make a change and they disfellowshipped the lusks, is that right, instead of excommunicated them?

John Dehlin [00:17:16] Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Anthony D. Miller [00:17:17] Yeah. And so maybe what we're seeing in the manual now is just kind of a continuation of a change of policy that they maybe tested out or they were thinking when they decided to disfellowship the lusts instead of excommunicate them,

Gina Colvin [00:17:35] that would suggest that there's a level of coordination. I don't think there is. I really don't think that there's any fact finding or any feedback offered to the people who are making these decisions. That's my thought. I think these are isolated things that aren't necessarily governed by Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [00:17:53] My hope was that, well, are you saying that's the party line or you really think that's true, Gina? Because my hope was, and my intuition is that when we show up at Sam Young's Stake chapel and do a vigil in his parking lot with the news media there, when Kate Kelly does that, when that's Senate mine, when we do that at the Youngs, when we're like Facebook Live streaming the disciplinary council, like pointing the camera into the Stake High Council and sort of taking back and taking the shame out of excommunication, but actually making it Something we're proud of. And then broadcasting all over the world. It brings this big spotlight that becomes a disinfectant. And the brother just realized that the costs of excommunication are much higher than the benefits. That's maybe I'm projecting, but that's kind of how I interpret these changes. Do you think?

Gina Colvin [00:18:49] I agree. I agree.

Samantha Taylor [00:18:51] I see a lot of these changes as being rather Orwellian in nature. Like Gina was saying, to use the term from 1984, it sounds a lot like Newspeak. You know, let's soften the terms. Let's prepare people to. For when we throw everything down the memory hole a couple years from now there. It's quite problematic for a lot of reasons. I think Curtin McConkie, when they wrote the manual, made some big oversights.

Samantha Taylor [00:19:19] But what mostly bugs me about it is, like you were saying, John, we're taking excommunications and discipline out of the public eye, and we're taking away any sort of oversight. You know, we don't have those 12 other high council members whose opinion was more or less irrelevant because the stake president always made the final decision in the past.

Samantha Taylor [00:19:42] But they could attempt to influence or go back and report that they didn't like how things went down. Now there's no oversight. It's just the bishop or just the stake president, unless he chooses to bring.

John Dehlin [00:19:57] And they're counselors, right?

Samantha Taylor [00:19:59] Not necessarily. I might have to go back and reread that, But I was focused on different sections.

Kyle Ashworth [00:20:06] It was interesting. I was able to find that the bishop is. The structure of the council within the ward remains the same. But I don't know that I saw exactly whether or not the stake counselors and the stake clerk is included in that process.

John Dehlin [00:20:25] My understanding is it's the stake presidency and the stake high Council is optional or it's the bishopric with the approval of the stake president. That's my understanding.

Samantha Taylor [00:20:34] Either way, we've dropped a considerable amount of oversight. So if you have a local leader who wants to go rogue, it's very, very easy, very, very difficult to overrule them. On the other hand, if you get just one very loyal member in leadership, then you can control the disciplinary system very, very easily.

John Dehlin [00:20:55] That's a good point.

Kyle Ashworth [00:20:57] And in my experience with any excommunication that I saw or participated in or had friends that participated in, I didn't ever see the High Council as a. A group that would help sway a stake president's decision. It was always the stake president.

John Dehlin [00:21:15] Absolutely.

Natasha Helfer [00:21:17] So I guess if I can just offer a little bit of a mental health perspective. At least that's the lens I'm trying to bring tonight, rather than personal, I guess, is I've always been a big proponent that language does matter. And I do think that softening language can be a positive sign. At the same time, honesty also matters. And so if the intent behind this is just to kind of go ahead with the same behaviors as before and to the many points that have been made now lowers the ability of accountability, I think that's very problematic. I do think that there is a positive in having one to three people know your business versus 15 from a confidentiality perspective.

John Dehlin [00:21:56] Good point.

Natasha Helfer [00:21:57] And we don't make a lot of good confidentiality choices or trainings. And I would say Mormon leadership land. At the same time, the roulette issue is big because now to again, the point that Samantha and several of you have made, there's less accountability. I think that the other point is that it puts people who resign on the same level. So there's no difference really now between, you know, noting whether or not I removed myself or the church removed me, which I think is also problematic as far as taking away maybe ownership of that decision.

John Dehlin [00:22:33] Oh, that's interesting. So you're saying that. That if you say my membership has been removed, it's unclear, it's ambiguous. That's what you're saying. Because there's no. But you could say the church removed my membership versus I resigned, right?

Natasha Helfer [00:22:50] Yeah. At the same time, I think the status that the church in particular will say will kind of level the playing field. And that's not my idea, by the way. That was actually a commenter. I forget who kind of pointed that out in an earlier thread.

Natasha Helfer [00:23:05] I do think that there are issues, to Gina's point, with discipline altogether. And until we really get to the bottom of that whole kind of tradition that we have a tradition of our fathers, which I think is interesting, that we always miss our best doctrine by keeping stupid traditions. But I think that is a non boundaried process where there are power differentials that are very potentially harmful to members of the Church. I also think that it exacerbates secrecy and bad habits in those regards. Most members who do not want the public humiliation of certain types of church discipline results which become very public when you can't do things like attend the temple, pass the sacrament, things of that nature.

Natasha Helfer [00:23:51] I also think it puts bishops in a very kind of vulnerable, liable position that I'm always concerned about bishops and how much they're caring mental health Wise themselves. And I would say that from parenting research, we know that punishment doesn't really do a lot in regards to helping good results in families. So why would that be any different in organizations? So, going to more. I really enjoyed the ministering language that we moved to a few years ago now. And I wish that that was more how we dealt with issues of quote, unquote sin or even issues of criminality or things like that. I don't think that even in issues of criminality that there should be necessarily church discipline.

Natasha Helfer [00:24:36] It can be. How are we going to minister to people who are being accountable by the criminal system and should be held accountable by the criminal system? So lots. And not to mention also that whether you call it excommunication or removal of membership, there are still many, many psychological factors for families when it comes to all of our theology around the afterlife. What does this mean for our family? Are we still sealed? Are we not? And none of those things change whether you call something different. So those were my mental health perspectives.

John Dehlin [00:25:05] I love it. What do you guys think about the argument that it's actually less barbaric to say the church? There's less stigma, there's less negative stigma for the disciplined to be able to say, oh, the church removed my membership versus the church excommunicated me? I feel like, even though I'm proud now to have said I was excommunicated, I think for the average member, if you just say, oh, the church removed my membership, isn't that a little less stigmatizing and negative than to say, the church excommunicated me?

Samantha Taylor [00:25:38] Tomatoes. Tomatoes.

John Dehlin [00:25:39] That's what you think, Samantha. All right. Others. Anyone else?

Gina Colvin [00:25:43] I think it's cooler to say that you're excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:25:45] It is cooler.

Jana Spangler [00:25:46] Yeah.

Gina Colvin [00:25:47] Well, let's remember too, that it's.

Natasha Helfer [00:25:50] Well, it's only cooler if you're doing it for cool reasons. You know, it's not necessarily cool if you're dealing with some really family disasters that a lot of people are getting disciplined for in regards to abuse or, you know, infidelity or pornography viewing. So it's cool for certain topics, cool for apostasy? Yes.

Anthony D. Miller [00:26:15] But that's not an automatic removal of membership anymore according to the new standards. So I was going to say that when I was about 14 years old, my father was excommunicated for something other than apostasy. And they called it a church court back then. And they publicly would announce it from the pulpit that he was excommunicated. And the reason for the excommunication so there was this element of public humiliation, calling it a church court. And supposedly when they went from a church court to a disciplinary council, it was to soften the idea. And I kind of see this as trying to do kind of an incremental move to soften it. But in the end, even if you change the words, if they're going to kick somebody out, the result's the same. I agree with Samantha on that.

Kyle Ashworth [00:27:14] That's probably the point where they excluded or took out the word Mormon and added the word love. So it was now the court of love.

Anthony D. Miller [00:27:22] Right, right.

John Dehlin [00:27:24] I've just been reading the actual policy. The counselors are in the room with the bishop or the stake president. Kevin Klosterman adds that. Kevin says that a person can request that the Stake High Council be in attendance. I haven't confirmed that, but that's what Kevin Kloosterman is reporting.

Kyle Ashworth [00:27:44] Yeah, and there were a few caveats to that. It was that if the facts were potentially contested, you could ask for the Stake High Council to be in the room, or if the disciplinary councilor, the membership, whatever, involved a stake president or his family, then.

John Dehlin [00:28:03] Oh, right, that's interesting. Conflict of interest stuff.

Kyle Ashworth [00:28:06] Correct.

Gina Colvin [00:28:06] Is that for men or men and women?

John Dehlin [00:28:09] Men and women.

Gina Colvin [00:28:11] So women now can request a Stake High Council.

Kyle Ashworth [00:28:15] Correct. I think they left the door open that anyone really could. But under those, I think there were three or four caveats were essentially door openers to having the State High Council there. But I think maybe the more broader general point was that the high councilors would no longer be required to attend those councils.

John Dehlin [00:28:37] Also, it makes it clear that the bishop, the presiding officer, the bishop or the stake president makes the final decision. He can counsel with his counselors, they can give their input, they can resolve concerns, but ultimately it's just one person making the decision. There's no voting or anything like that. And I think, just to reiterate a point made that just multiplies by 8 the number of potential, the variability of this process, because you've got so many different bishops who have so many different opinions. You know, it's sort of the bishop, the ecclesiastical roulette times eight, which is kind of the average number of wards, I think, or branches in a stake or district. Any other final comments about membership councils before we move on to the criterias for mandatory versus optional membership? I can't remember the name. What is it again? Membership Council councils. What is it?

Samantha Taylor [00:29:32] So, one comment. I think it was Natasha that mentioned this, that it doesn't seem to be any different from if you withdrew your own records now.

John Dehlin [00:29:43] Right.

Samantha Taylor [00:29:45] It used to be notated differently, as far as I understand, but procedurally it was handled quite the same. While they didn't typically say this officially, it was assumed if you were removing your own name, it was to avoid a disciplinary council because you've committed a grievous sin or apostate or you want to just go on sinning. And so in order to be rebaptized, all the same requirements existed in the old version as it did to be rebaptized after having been excommunicated. So it did kind of simplify things by combining that under one name now.

John Dehlin [00:30:26] Interesting. Thanks for that, Samantha. Okay, let me read. I talked about this kind of at length before, but let me read. What actions are mandatory for disciplinary council? They are murder. Well, before. Let's just say this, before this policy, the things that were mandatory were pretty much things around apostasy. So it was like the only things that were mandatory for a disciplinary council were getting same sex, married sort of other apostate acts, joining another church and preaching its gospel, false doctrine kind of stuff. Being a polygamist, those things were all mandatory. And then things like rape and murder and child abuse and pedophilia were all optional.

Mandatory and Optional Membership Council Triggers

John Dehlin [00:31:22] And we did our best to make a huge stink about that and to embarrass the church into reconsidering. And so they reconsidered and this is now. So these are the things that are required, and I want everyone's thoughts on the required murder, rape, sexual assault conviction, child or youth abuse, violent predatory behavior, incest, child pornography, plural marriage, sexual predatory behavior, financial predatory behavior, fraud and similar activities, serious sin while holding a prominent church position, and any felony conviction. All right, what do people think about that list of mandatory membership councils?

Gina Colvin [00:32:06] I'm really pleased that affinity fraud is there.

John Dehlin [00:32:09] Yeah. That's awesome, right?

Gina Colvin [00:32:10] Yeah, that's really important for Utah, ripping people off.

Kyle Ashworth [00:32:14] And I think after Utah's current legislative session, we will see probably a change in the plural marriage issue, because I think decriminalizing that, which is currently at the legislature and I think probably will likely pass, may have some bearing on that as well. Just like. And we'll probably talk about recreational use of marijuana or cannabis.

John Dehlin [00:32:36] Yep.

Jana Spangler [00:32:39] So I like that the. The list feels. Feels much better than the old list. It's more consistent with what really is important and what isn't. But I also find myself having some hives over how specific we get. I kind of don't like it either way. We get too specific and it starts feeling like it's overwhelming and pharisaical.

Jana Spangler [00:33:02] When we get not specific enough, then I'm scared to death of bishop roulette and priesthood roulette. And so I don't know that we can win with this kind of stuff. But you do need to have some really good guidelines if you're going to have lay clergy. It's just you need it because they haven't been to school, they haven't had enough education to necessarily make good decisions about themselves other than just their own life experience.

Jana Spangler [00:33:25] But I did. I have had a couple of attorneys point out how problematic actually the all felony charges, any felony convictions can be because of the wildly different rules about what is a felony conviction in different areas are and how sticky that can get. And if I just out of curiosity, started perusing what a third degree felony is, which is the least of the seriousness of those felonies, there's probably a whole lot of things on that list that I don't know that anyone is going to want to have to convene a membership council over. It seems like overkill. And so I think you're again, kind of probably putting a bunch of bishops in a position where they're having to choose what they're going to turn a blind eye to, which is easy for some.

Jana Spangler [00:34:14] Some people are good with that. Some personalities that are maybe just a little more legalistic, you're putting them in a huge pickle about whether you're going to really enforce some of these really crazy felonies that, you know, in one state would be nothing, and in another you're going to be a convicted felon. So I see that as being a bit problematic.

Natasha Helfer [00:34:34] I also think that this puts bishops and ecclesiastical leaders into some type of detective roles. A lot of these, again, are in the criminal factor of our society. And so there are adept authorities who are able to deal with these issues. And even with these issues, even in our legal systems, we oftentimes fail victims. As far as victims of sexual assault, for example, I just see it as very complicated and why I wish we would just do away with this whole system altogether. It's not a bishop's job to start writing detective work. As to whether or not a he said, she said type of situation and what that means, I think we do much better focusing on ministering and appropriate boundaries in church settings.

John Dehlin [00:35:25] Let me ask Gina or anyone who knows about other churches. Does the Episcopalian Church, the Anglican Church, do they kick you out if you engage in incest or predatory behavior? Does the Catholic Church Kick you out if you're sexually assaulting people? Does you know the community of Christ boot you out if you're defrauding people of money? Do you know how that works, Gina?

Gina Colvin [00:35:47] No, they don't have the same disciplinary systems, the same intricate and yeah. Disciplinary systems as the LDS Church does. The LDS Church, I think Jehovah's Witnesses are similar. They have a whole disfellowshipment and public shaming and system. No, I think the worst that you may get, I think the Catholic Church is excommunicating women who are and those associated with the ordination of women. There will be excommunication there. That's done at a diocesan level. But it's very difficult to get excommunicated by the Anglicans.

John Dehlin [00:36:24] So most churches, most mainstream churches, they don't have this idea, if you make mistakes, we remove your membership. They just like you're all members. And that's not in question. Members make mistakes in general.

Gina Colvin [00:36:38] I think that the suggestion would be that if you are failing in some way that through the grace of God and Jesus Christ's love, you might be changed. You know, we leave the option open for people to come and you know, to use that space as sacred space in which they can have transformation. But the difference is that the LDS Church uses membership as a qualification of worthiness. Now other churches don't do that. That's not there. It's just a table of belonging and opportunity for people to come into sacred space. And everybody needs that, from the lowest sinners to, you know, the most righteous and holy. And so that's the different kind of rubric, that's a different lens through which other churches see it. That's because of the elders church's level of exclusivity.

John Dehlin [00:37:27] Right now. Kyle, we're happy that same sex marriage drops from the mandatory, you know, disciplinary council sort of list. Right?

Kyle Ashworth [00:37:36] Yeah. And this is something that we looked forward to after the April 2019 announcement that this no longer put members of our community, the LGBT community or LGB community, I should say, and with some exception, I suppose t in this category of murderers and worse.

John Dehlin [00:37:57] No, it was worse than murders and rapists.

Kyle Ashworth [00:37:59] That's right, yeah. Which was unbelievable. Whether that was an intended consequence, I don't know. But it was really unbelievable that that was a category that they were put in as instant apostate.

John Dehlin [00:38:10] And it was true. Same with who lost their faith. They were put in that same position. Right. And who talked openly about it labeled apostates worse than murderers and rapists. Right.

Kyle Ashworth [00:38:21] And in Addition to that then punished the children for Adam's transgression. Right, Interesting.

John Dehlin [00:38:28] Okay, so any other comments about this mandatory list before we go to the optional list?

Anthony D. Miller [00:38:33] Yeah. So I'm not a lawyer, but I hire them and I'm thinking as I look through some of these things that it's quite possible that there was a lawyer in the room.

John Dehlin [00:38:45] It's basically all legal things, right?

Anthony D. Miller [00:38:48] Yeah. I mean there are things that if the church is protecting or perpetuating, then maybe the church has some liability in terms of lawsuits and things like that. And so it's not all that plural marriage isn't going to result in the church being sued, but financial predatory behavior of like a stake president or you know, some of these other things. If the church isn't doing something about it or showing that they're taking action, you know they're going to be a co defendant in a lawsuit. So on some of them.

John Dehlin [00:39:27] Right.

Gina Colvin [00:39:28] Can I ask, is the language felony used in that statement? Is that the word that they use? Felony? Because we don't have felonies in New Zealand. So how on earth are people supposed to make sense of what a felony is? Or second, third degree or first degree felony, unless we're actually in the US Judicial system. So once again, they make it really hard to interpret what the hell they mean.

Anthony D. Miller [00:39:52] Yeah, it says any felony conviction is the word.

Kyle Ashworth [00:39:56] And I think Natasha brings up a good point about the reciprocity of laws. You can go to a state for and we'll just throw out the use of marijuana. You can go to a state like Colorado where recreational marijuana use is prohibited or allowed, but come to the state of Utah where you'd be arrested and charged with a felony for possession. So can you go to Colorado recreationally smoke weed and we can get into this under the new rules of the law of chastity as well, or the word of wisdom as well. But then you're fine and safe and a bishop isn't going to prosecute that because it's not a felony.

Kyle Ashworth [00:40:39] Or convene a council but then cross the state border into Utah and immediately you become now subject to a new membership council. I think that is very problematic. Even though there might have been attorneys in the room. I don't know how they deal with the different rules in different states regarding different laws or countries, as Gina points out.

Jana Spangler [00:41:06] Go ahead.

Samantha Taylor [00:41:07] I will say I have seen quite a bit of writing from the Lord's law firm and this is not their best work.

Natasha Helfer [00:41:17] By the way, that was Jana who mentioned that point. I'm going to give her credit.

Kyle Ashworth [00:41:21] Sorry, Jana.

Gina Colvin [00:41:22] No worries.

Jana Spangler [00:41:24] I have heard that rumors and I don't know if this has been substantiated, but that this is kind of a first pass at all of this. Right. We've got just nine sections that have been rewritten or that have been added and one's been rewritten. And the plan is to continue to revise this entire manual, the whole handbook, and that there is space for more localization into different countries and other things as this goes on. So I wouldn't be surprised if they actually start doing that and having different manuals available where felony means something different in your country.

John Dehlin [00:42:02] Nice.

Anthony D. Miller [00:42:03] Yeah, that was in the. There's another icon that you can click on that has frequently asked questions and they do talk about just these limited sections and that they, I think it's 20, 21 or 22 by that point, they're planning on releasing the rest of it.

Anthony D. Miller [00:42:23] I would mention kind of as we're going through this, that to a certain extent, I think maybe there was a level of mutiny on local levels churchwide with regard to executing excommunication for apostasy for same sex marriage or considering it for cohabitation. Because I know with regard to our situation, we were highly confident that neither our bishop or stake president would call a disciplinary council for our son and his partner. So even though they live in Utah, we kept their records in Montana because maybe they could have ended up in a ward like Dusty Johns where the stake president decides that he wants to, you know, be a hardliner.

Anthony D. Miller [00:43:10] And so, you know, when we look at these things, you know, they're the letter of the law. But at least with regard to some things, there is leadership roulette. And there might even be a degree of mutiny, you know, on local levels where bishops or stake presidents are just going to decide that that's crazy. We're not, you know, if someone gets a felony for possession of an ounce of marijuana in Utah, maybe a bishop would be thoughtful and go, well, that's crazy. I'm not going to excommunicate someone over that. So.

John Dehlin [00:43:45] Or remove their membership. And just to go back to that point, Anthony and Kyle, you can confirm this. We've got, you know, Dusty Johns and his beautiful partner. They're getting, you know, excommunicated. And then you hear about other wards where, where gay or lesbian couples attend regularly and in some cases even have colleagues. Is that right, Kyle?

Kyle Ashworth [00:44:08] It is. And it's interesting. I mean, in Dusty's situation, he was excommunicated just a couple weeks prior to the April reversal. And there are others like him who also went back and they appealed or contested their excommunication, and the first presidency denied those, even though the rules had changed and they had appealed under those rules. So that doesn't make sense. The other interesting part is I traveled around working with state presidents and bishops, helping them to better understand these LGBT topics within their wards and branches. And I learned that in some wards, even here in Utah, there were elders quorum presidents that were gay and dating, not married, which is how the bishops were justifying.

Kyle Ashworth [00:45:02] But when you take an elders quorum president who is called by a stake, the stake president, which it means you have a progressive bishop and a progressive stake president who is willing to let a gay elders corn president who was dating men but living a chaste life participate in that calling. I also learned of a sister who was a Relief Society president, a counselor in Relief Society presidency, who were openly lesbian and also dating. So there is that level of progressivism out there. And I think that was another battle that the Church had to address in this handbook because they knew that the fiddler on the roof tradition wasn't the standard anymore, that there were other bishops and stake presidents out there that were living or instituting a different law, which I'm happy for.

Kyle Ashworth [00:45:58] And they exist. They're all over. And the LGBT community is well aware of those bishops. Which goes back into this whole discussion of roulette and how it is difficult to maintain a level playing field for all LGBTQ members in the church.

John Dehlin [00:46:15] I'm a little confused about that, because on the one hand, sometimes the church gets characterized by critics as being controlling and corporate and top down. And so you would think they would want it all to be standard. They would want to have a consistency across and just make it really clear. On the other hand, I could see lawyers saying the more the top is involved, the more there's liability, the more there's a risk of being sued. And the sort of Brigham Young Mountain Meadows thing where if you can push accountability down to the local leaders as much as possible, then they get the blame if something goes wrong. And there's never blame flowing upwards. But anybody have a theory as to why the Church would want these decisions made at the local level when we would assume sometimes they'd want to be more controlling and uniform?

Samantha Taylor [00:47:12] Top down, I think that they really are more controlling. Top down. As you read through the handbook, especially in the areas, the newer sections that deal with transgender members, over and over again, it mentions counseling with area authorities under the Disciplinary guidelines. Right, sorry, Membership council guidelines.

Samantha Taylor [00:47:35] There are several places where it says a council may be required and to consult with area leaders. So what they're doing is we're sweeping more and more of these policies under the rug, where instead of being out in the open in this new public yay, we made it available for everybody handbook.

Samantha Taylor [00:47:53] More things are being restricted to now instead of bishops and stake presidents, to area authorities. And we're taking even more power out of the hands of local bishops and stake presidents. Now that can be a good thing because bishops can become mavericks and kind of run off in a bad direction or a good direction, depending on your point of view, but.

Samantha Taylor [00:48:21] And they do have more freedom, but they're also instructed to consult a lot more often. And so that's true, it is more flexible, but at the same time it isn't really. And we've moved things around, we've moved the goalposts a little bit. But anyone who really sees this new manual as an increase in transparency isn't looking into it very deeply.

Kyle Ashworth [00:48:48] I met with a stake president in California about a year ago who is really progressive and holds LGBTQ firesides, fifth Sundays, Sunday schools in his stake and has really promoted this message. And he taught me an interesting concept about the manual because I said at some point you have to be concerned about an area authority cracking down on what's happening here within your stake. And I was actually happy to see the new manual. The new handbook contain the same language, but it's right in the very beginning.

Kyle Ashworth [00:49:21] It's now in the first or second or third page of the new handbook. But I was just about to bring this up. Leaders seek inspiration about which guidelines and optional resources to use to meet the members needs. And that's how this stake president justified what he was doing within a stake. He said the manual is the manual. But the manual also tells me that I can seek my own inspiration to enforce the rules in the manual or choose not to enforce those rules in the manual.

Kyle Ashworth [00:49:54] And that was his justification for doing it. And interestingly enough, the new handbook, that language survives. Leaders are to seek inspiration about which guidelines and optional resources are to be used. Not this is the law of Moses, But I think leaving that door open may answer your question, John, in terms of culpability or liability, they can now go back and say, if it was the judge of Israel's decision, then that's what it is.

Samantha Taylor [00:50:25] Remember, anytime there's a problem, whoever caused the problem with speaking is a man. That's a common thread that we see and So I definitely agree that this is a way to push liability down the food chain a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:50:42] Let me go to the list of optional. Well, these are the behaviors where disciplinary or membership councils are optional. I want to hear if anybody wonders why some of these are optional. So attempted murder, sexual abuse, and I'm assuming it's sexual abuse where there isn't legal culpability, including assault and harassment. So sexual assault and sexual harassment are optional. Attempted murders, optional. Abuse of a spouse or another adult, optional.

John Dehlin [00:51:16] Adultery, optional. Okay, I'm okay with that. Fornication, optional. I'm okay with that. Same sex relationship. Well, I guess I wish these weren't on the list at all, but I'm glad they're Optional versus mandatory cohabitation, civil unions and partnerships, same sex marriage. So that is on the list.

John Dehlin [00:51:37] Intensive or compulsive use of pornography that causes harm to the family. Robbery, burglary and theft, embezzlement, perjury. Serious sins where while holding a position of authority or trust in the church or community, and the sin is widely known. Abortion patterns of serious sins.

John Dehlin [00:51:57] Deliberate abandonment of family responsibilities, including non payment of child support and alimony, sale of illegal drugs and other serious criminal acts. Anybody have reflections on those optional behaviors for a membership council?

Samantha Taylor [00:52:13] Something I find interesting is transgender members don't show up in either list.

John Dehlin [00:52:18] That's true.

Samantha Taylor [00:52:19] We're between the two.

John Dehlin [00:52:21] Okay.

Kyle Ashworth [00:52:23] You live in the Upside Down.

Samantha Taylor [00:52:26] Yes, in a lot of ways

Anthony D. Miller [00:52:29] I

John Dehlin [00:52:29] guess that's good, right? To not be on the list?

Samantha Taylor [00:52:33] Yes and no. I mean, I don't want to jump in. Kind of an interesting place where certain actions default to membership restrictions and there is no counsel. They just happen. And then in other cases, we're no longer required to specifically undergo a council. And so it's this really strange, ambiguous place, to be sure.

John Dehlin [00:53:06] Anyone wondering why things like murder or attempted murder, sexual abuse, spouse abuse, are optional?

Natasha Helfer [00:53:17] Well, again, I think that this is where the legal team has a lot more say than mental health teams, for example. And I think it's because there's been no quote, unquote, proof or evidence. And so then they get into these kind of, you know, they said, he said, she said scenarios.

Natasha Helfer [00:53:38] But I think where this is problematic, very much so, is that when it's not considered mandatory, and since the church hasn't really made very clear what should be mandatory as far as reporting to authorities, then so many of these kind of domestic abuses that happen between spouses and also parents and children are left to this realm of repentance. And instead of to the realm of criminal accountability as well as correct mental health resources that these families should have access to. So I see this as very problematic and why I wish we just would have very clear guidelines as far as reportable concerns. Because again, remember, to be a mandated reporter, you don't need conviction.

Natasha Helfer [00:54:31] All you need is a suspicion or a concern, right? So if you have somebody in your office saying anything around my dad or my mom or my spouse, you know, I'm scared, or this is. It's not your job to decide whether or not it's happening. It's not your job to decide whether or not that person or somebody should repent or how responsible they were and whether or not they were the victim or the perpetrator. That's not the person's job. The person is to know that there's a red flag.

Natasha Helfer [00:55:02] This is something that is reportable. This is something that is beyond my scope of practice as an untrained ecclesiastical leader in my community. And I need to pass the buck. And this really in a lot of ways minimizes a lot of the concerns I have. Plus the list of things that you mentioned, John, that you wish weren't even on there.

Natasha Helfer [00:55:24] Those things usually have to do with sexuality. And what that does is bring people into this again tradition that we have as a Mormon. People to really participate in behavior that goes against the World Association's sexual rights document. And these sexual rights have to do with privacy, with self determination, with the ability to not be punished for certain sexual behaviors or have consequences or face discrimination or bias or, or differences in your community because of your sexuality. So hugely problematic from that perspective as well.

John Dehlin [00:56:05] I think it's really weird that yeah, the maybe, maybe necessary we're going to have like some same sex couples being disciplined and some not some people who cohabitate disciplined and some not some civil unions, some adulterers getting disciplined and some not. Like why in the world do we want this loosey goosey thing where it totally is random as to who's getting punished or not. It seems really unstable because you're going

Kyle Ashworth [00:56:34] to have dozens and dozens of bishops who are calling the hotline or calling their area authority and it just bogs the system. So it's interesting that maybe they're creating a system of here are the musts and then here are the gray areas you tried to decide on your own. Which again, I think this throws it right back into the whole member leadership roulette issue. And it's problematic.

Jana Spangler [00:56:57] It isn't it? This is a system we've had for A long time. This is not new. There are people who have committed adultery that are and are not disciplined already. So that's not new. And it is a problematic part of this leadership roulette. But it does seem to me that I agree with Natasha. It has a lot to do with legalities, I think, because, I mean, obviously, if you are convicted of attempted murder, that throws you under the must. Right? So it's not just the fact that attempted murder is an issue. It seems to be that it's. Were you convicted of it? Which I just think throwing this ecclesiastical thing onto the judicial system is highly problematic for a number of reasons.

Jana Spangler [00:57:42] You know, not the least of which would be just bias in the system. You know, there's racial bias in legal systems. There's all kinds of bias, and it's. That's not perfect either. But it is a way to just make it easy for people to say, well, if the courts have decided, then there you go.

Samantha Taylor [00:58:00] And it is. You know, speaking from my own personal situation, it does get quite problematic. When I came out as transgender, my ex wife hired a rather dirty attorney. And as dirty attorneys are prone to do, they took hand, they threw as much mud as they could to see what would stick. And so my ex wife immediately went to the bishop, the stake president, and the court made allegations of sexual and verbal and emotional abuse and just some really nasty things, and none of which were true.

Samantha Taylor [00:58:37] And I spent about $10,000 shooting down all those allegations. And it was even to the point where a couple members of stake leadership and their wives who I had never met, the only way I knew who they were is because I put names into LDS tools to figure out who the heck are these people were testifying on her behalf in court.

Samantha Taylor [00:59:04] Exactly. I mean, they never actually testified in court. They just filed affidavits with the court because we didn't get that far. But some really interesting handling of it. And thank God we had a really good judge, because there's another judge down here in Utah county who I won't mention names, but it would have gone very, very differently with how much he hates transgender people and the fact that my attorney was a gay man. And I've watched this particular. Not judge, but commissioner in a different case completely rake my attorney over the coals over stupid things.

John Dehlin [00:59:41] And tell us, how are you tying this back to these policies?

Apostasy Definitions and Church Discipline Standards

Samantha Taylor [00:59:46] So there was a lot of discussion about. I think it was Jana that said throwing the burden on the legal system is problematic in a lot of ways.

John Dehlin [00:59:53] Oh, because the legal systems problematic.

Samantha Taylor [00:59:55] Yeah. But Again, though, on the other hand, is it any less problematic than the Church? Yeah, it's just, you know, both systems are very reliant on human beings making good judgments.

John Dehlin [01:00:07] I think Gina's right. Gina, just get out of this business. Right?

Samantha Taylor [01:00:10] Yeah. And past I had an employee whose brother went through something similar. And while the charges were pending, he was essentially disfellowshipped until there was a verdict. His temple recommend was taken away, he was told not to partake of the sacrament, etc. You know, the verdict came through that he was innocent. Then he was returned to full fellowship. So with the church, at least in several situations I'm aware of, it became a guilty until proven innocent situation.

John Dehlin [01:00:45] Right.

Samantha Taylor [01:00:46] That's probably in mine. Thankfully, the church said, well, well, we're already disciplining you for being trans, so there's nothing else for us to do. So I never got to see how that worked out.

John Dehlin [01:00:55] Sorry about that. Thanks.

Anthony D. Miller [01:00:58] Yeah, so I'd comment, I think, of the different bishops and stake presidents who I've had and served with over the years, and they were chiropractors and plumbers and accountants and dentists and medical doctors. There just weren't that many who were in law enforcement, you know, and so they.

Samantha Taylor [01:01:22] Evidence are incredibly complex, even for those of us who study them.

Anthony D. Miller [01:01:25] Yeah. And so it's not in their skill set or purview to investigate some of these things that are really disputed. And if they see something that should be reported to law enforcement, then they should report it, you know. But I agree with Gina that a lot it would be beneficial to get out of this kind of business and to put a dentist or a chiropractor or a home constructor, contractor in the role of trying to adjudicate something and investigate something like this. My sense is that it's not helpful. And people. The legal system that has people that are already trained and has standards messes up a lot. Like Samantha's mentioning some of those cases. You know, how often do things get messed up when we have people that this isn't really their skill set, they're not trained for it, and they're trying to adjudicate, you know, milk strippings. Referring to Thomas Marsh.

John Dehlin [01:02:28] Right.

Part 3 of 4 · Ep. 1262

Samantha Taylor [00:00:00] Sa.

John Dehlin [00:00:31] But as we're closing out this topic, let me just ask generally a question. One thing we didn't note is that they added a couple lines to the criteria for apostasy. They added a new one because most of the people that have been excommunicated for apostasy in the past five years didn't meet the criteria. They weren't teaching doctrine as true. That wasn't doctrine. They weren't joining groups that they shouldn't be joining. All they were doing was coming on a podcast or starting a support group. And none of that really met any of the criteria.

John Dehlin [00:01:02] So now they've added a criteria that says showing a pattern of intentionally working to weaken the faith and activity of church members. And then the other thing, they tweaked that. Gina, this will be close to your heart. It says formally joining another church and promoting its teachings. And then it's got the caveat, total inactivity or attending another church by itself doesn't constitute apostasy. It's when you join another church and advocate his teachings, then you might need to withdraw the membership. I guess my question is, do we think that church discipline councils or membership councils are going to increase, stay the same, or decrease in frequency overall because of all of these changes? Any predictions? I know that's hard for anyone to guess.

Kyle Ashworth [00:01:50] I believe they'll decrease.

John Dehlin [00:01:52] Their what?

Kyle Ashworth [00:01:53] I believe they will decrease.

John Dehlin [00:01:54] So the church is gonna move away from the frequency of disciplinary councils, you think, Kyle?

Kyle Ashworth [00:01:59] I do. And a couple reasons. Knowing bishops and stake presidents who have went through this, I believe they're taxing, they're embarrassing, they're often a waste of time. And I know many bishops who sitting in ward councils and in leadership positions in the church contemplated whether or not a disciplinary council would have been warranted. Opening that up into that discussion within a bishopric, knowing that they didn't want to drag the member through, that they didn't want the embarrassment as a bishopric. And I really honestly believe that this is now opening the door and excusing the Stake High Council are both good reasons to say fewer of these councils.

John Dehlin [00:02:44] I agree.

Natasha Helfer [00:02:45] I agree with Kyle. And at the same time, it's interesting that if you take them at their word, they should increase exponentially because the issues around childhood abuse and family abuse are affect like probably at least a third, if not like almost half of our population.

John Dehlin [00:03:03] Yeah, because they made the bigger. Both the optional and the required is like bigger now, right?

Jana Spangler [00:03:08] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [00:03:08] Things that would never go to disciplinary council now should. So it'll just be interesting to see yeah, that's it.

Anthony D. Miller [00:03:15] Yeah. So I would agree. I would think that what they're saying here with regard to the apostasy is that there'll be, if there are membership councils, there'll be more withdrawal of membership or what used to be called disfellowshipment, not withdrawal of membership, formal membership restrictions. I think that's more likely. So we're more likely to see an event like the Lusks than like the Youngs.

Samantha Taylor [00:03:45] Maybe.

Anthony D. Miller [00:03:46] I would say a few things also with regard to these kinds of councils. Having been a ward clerk and on a high council and so forth, high priest group leadership, when a bishop holds what would be called a membership council, the bishop, the bishop doesn't generally do that independently of conferring with the stake president.

Anthony D. Miller [00:04:11] And when a stake president holds a membership or disciplinary council where it could be messy, like John Dehlin shows up with a video camera, that stake president is not going to proceed with that without at least conferring with an area authority.

Anthony D. Miller [00:04:29] And so while in some cases there might be a top down, strengthening church membership committee kind of action that precipitates some of these, I think more often than not, if there is some sort of direction from the top down, it's because the bottom up contact worked that way up the chain.

Anthony D. Miller [00:04:54] So maybe you're going to show. You interview the Lusks. I don't know if this is what happened, but you interview the Lus, they're going to have a disciplinary council. Maybe that stake president speaks with the area authority. The area authority. That's the first time he's run into this. John Dehlin's going to show up. What do I do? So he goes up the chain and then that information or recommendation maybe makes it down the chain as opposed to one of the members of the 12 who's on the square SCMC deciding we're going to take down the Lusks, but this time we're going to try disfellowshipment. That's my take.

Jana Spangler [00:05:34] So I have. One thing I'm noticing is I think in this conversation we're all, and I find myself doing this assuming that church discipline, or whatever we're going to call it, is all about punishment and making sure someone feels punishment. And I know that this is probably wildly unpopular, but there are many, I think, really good leaders in the church who do look at these as courts of love. They really do in their hearts. And I actually was called into a disciplinary action as a young adult, as a young single adult. So I have been through this process, and I would say with where I was at the time and how I viewed my own worthiness or how I viewed my own stuff, I can tell you that that bishop did it 100% because he felt like for my personality, I needed to know that I paid enough for what I'd done to actually be forgiven.

Jana Spangler [00:06:31] So when you're in that kind of a viewpoint, I actually, for probably 20 years, held that as one of the most sacred, loving, wonderful experiences that I'd ever had. Even though it was really harsh and terrible and awful in a lot of ways, I did get a lot of peace from it. And so as to whether these will decrease or increase, I think it really depends on what kind of a leader you have. Do you have a leader who is really coming at it from that viewpoint? I don't think this will change much. If you're coming at it from someone who's very legalistic and we need to punish, it probably will have an effect, but I don't know.

Jana Spangler [00:07:07] I just wanted to speak for that. The way I'm looking back on that experience, absolutely, I think I could have gotten what I needed and more from just a very ministerial approach. I don't think I needed a disciplinary action. But where I was and the way I was seeing things at the time, I wouldn't say it was all a terrible thing for me in that time.

John Dehlin [00:07:27] Tina, you felt loved in your disciplinary council, right?

Gina Colvin [00:07:30] Loved and hated both at the same time. You know, that's what it's like being a Mormon. Like, you pulled both ways and stretched really, really thin until you think, whoa, what the hell, and think better of it. Yeah, so it was. It was.

Gina Colvin [00:07:44] Way I looked at it, it was the best possible outcome. It was the best possible feeling. But it should not have happened in the first place. No good thing has come of it, because it just should not have happened. And I want to say, on the idea of apostasy, I think it's such a blunt instrument, and it doesn't take into consideration the many permutations of the way in which we think about a communion with the church. So for them, it's like you're either all in, you're all out, but, you know, what is the place of heresy? Because people are being excommunicated for heresy. And heresy is absolutely vital for the health of any religious organization because it pushes people to think about in a more nuanced and doctrinally and theologically complex way.

Gina Colvin [00:08:30] So, you know, I mean, I think you are a heretic, John. I don't Think you're an apostate. An apostate is somebody who actually formally leaves the church. That's what an apostate is. You know, and then there's the other question. The more nuanced question is like, I fully intended to be a Morglican, a Mormon, Anglican, because both of those traditions fed me. I mean, we're talking about post modernity. Very few young people these days are going to find their full belonging in one place. That's just not the way that we're headed as, you know, in terms of a kind of social evolution.

Gina Colvin [00:09:09] And so what are they going to do about that? What are they going to do about the fact that, you know, I might be being spiritually formed in the Ignatian tradition and I might find communion here or there, and, you know, I want to be able to take the Eucharist or the communion of other traditions. I want to be in the body of Christ, not just a member of a church.

Gina Colvin [00:09:28] So I think that, you know, the language they're using is very, very theologically unstable and immature. And, you know, I think that's. That. That's the issue. They're not. They're using lawyers to put, like, an eye over this. They're not using theologians.

Gina Colvin [00:09:44] At least, you know, in the, you know, in the Roman Catholic tradition and the Anglican tradition, there'll be an eye cast over things, a theological and a biblical eye cast and a pastoral eye cast over things, before it's just chucked out. I mean, it's just so enormously immature to put the status of the church's organization in the hands of lawyers. I mean, lawyers can do their things, but they shouldn't be running churches.

John Dehlin [00:10:09] Yeah. Okay. Well, I think it's time to move on to the next topic, but I think we've got a lot of great insight from our panelists. So I'm loving this panel. Thanks to everyone on our panel. Thanks to all our listeners who are listening live. Let's move to. Before we go to the transgender kind of updates and changes, let's cover the LGBQ stuff. I'll call it for now. Kyle, why don't we let you share some of your highlights, lowlights and reflections, and then we can all jump in if we want.

Reversal of the November 2015 Policy on LGBTQ Members

Kyle Ashworth [00:10:40] I think the first and greatest place to start is the fact that the November 2015 policy is gone officially. It is completely off the record. And it's interesting that.

John Dehlin [00:10:51] That's good, right?

Kyle Ashworth [00:10:52] Yeah, it's absolutely good. It now prevents exactly what we were discussing earlier, the ability for bishops to interpret the law because it still was contained in the handbook. Even though the church claimed to have sent out a supplement that said to disregard everything we taught before, that tradition still existed. The feeling still was there. And 50 North Temple had not announced it in writing to give them more clarification. And therefore some stake presidents and bishops still push that through. So that I think does a lot for our community in terms of overall mental health.

Kyle Ashworth [00:11:32] I think the quality and stability of relationships are increased. But as that unfolded in April and we discussed this on that Mormon Stories podcast, John, this opened up, and we want to talk about legalese. This opened up a can of worms for the church because the single line that said homosexual relationships will now be treated the same as heterosexual relationships sent the quorum of the 12 Area 70s, the honor code office, everybody into a tailspin. Because now that impacts BYU student housing, that impacts the honor code, that impacts the strength of youth, it impacts steak dances. How do we now clarify what the rules are regarding this ability to determine a homosexual relationship being on the same level playing field as a heterosexual relationship?

Kyle Ashworth [00:12:28] So I was really excited to watch and see how this unfolded. Less excited that it took almost a full year for this now to come down. And now we're discussing some really interesting things through byu. The honor code, all these things as they start to unfold are exciting in my world because it now is opening this discussion and it's causing people to face the hard truths.

John Dehlin [00:12:51] So tell us about what happened with BYU yesterday.

Kyle Ashworth [00:12:54] So BYU did officially, and I think now this is a little ambiguous, but either on the 12th of this month or yesterday, within coinciding with the handbook, the honor Code office did update themselves to reflect the handbook change.

Kyle Ashworth [00:13:17] They rolled this out first on Twitter after the letter was sent out that the homosexual behavior from the honor code was removed. Now, that meant that if you were gay and you were caught anywhere on campus or in campus housing, holding a hand, flirting with, touching, or even in a relationship with someone of your same sex, then that was grounds for dismissal. And not even just potential grounds. People were actually kicked out of school. It was a very real and lived experience for many BYU students. So they removed that language from the honor code, saying that the homosexual behavior was deleted.

Kyle Ashworth [00:14:02] And then it was really interesting because as you saw at BYU lgb, members of that school were then kissing and hugging and embracing on the campus immediately. First they put it out on Twitter. With the recent release of the General Handbook of the Church, the ces, which governs the honor code, the church educational system updated the honor code to be in alignment with the doctrines and policies of the church. That was the press release that the public got through BYU's Twitter. Then minutes later, after there was this flood, they then sent another tweet that said, in speaking with the Honor Code director, who is Kevin, this afternoon, they had said that there was miscommunications in what that Honor Code change might have meant, essentially.

Kyle Ashworth [00:14:53] Wait for further clarification. And another tweet came out saying, the Honor Code office will handle all the questions on a case by case basis. You have to come in, visit with an honor Code counselor. So it was really interesting.

Kyle Ashworth [00:15:06] When the dust settled, though, it looks like everything will still stand. That indeed, homosexual relationships will be treated the same as heterosexual relationships. Now, we haven't talked much about brightness.

John Dehlin [00:15:21] Gay and lesbian BYU students can kiss each other, hold hands, date. They just have to not have sexual relations, Right?

Kyle Ashworth [00:15:29] That's right. So Bryce Cook reached out to the Honor Code office specifically asking this very question.

John Dehlin [00:15:37] Why are you laughing, Natasha? What are you laughing about?

Natasha Helfer [00:15:40] Oh, I shouldn't interrupt, but, you know, just. I love the BYU loopholes around what sex means.

John Dehlin [00:15:46] Oh, right.

Kyle Ashworth [00:15:47] That's all we talked about.

John Dehlin [00:15:49] That. A little bit soaking and. Yeah, okay, Kyle, sorry, interrupted. Keep going.

Kyle Ashworth [00:15:53] No, I've got another. I mean, when you think about it, remarkably, you can now hold hands at byu. You can date, you can kiss your same sex partner, but if you do it with a beard, you're out of here.

Samantha Taylor [00:16:06] I'm so glad that's not a problem anymore.

Natasha Helfer [00:16:09] Well, if this is. If this is. If this is. If this is real, this is tremendous. I mean, this is a tremendous change for our whole Mormon family. It's tremendous.

Kyle Ashworth [00:16:25] And I went through this. I reached out to an Honor Code official that I know, Bryce Cook also did. And I just wanted to quote something that Bryce had posted publicly. He specifically got a hold of an Honor Code official as well.

John Dehlin [00:16:39] Is he Cosmo? Is he the Cosmo guy?

Kyle Ashworth [00:16:41] No, no. Bryce Cook is the author of the essay Homosexuality and Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:16:47] Okay.

Kyle Ashworth [00:16:47] He has two gay sons. All right, what this means. And this is quote, what this means is that gay BYU students will be held to the same standard as straight students with respect to chastity. In other words, gay students can date and be physically affectionate with someone of the same sex without it being considered a violation of the law of chastity. The Honor Code administrative. Honor Code Office administrator, direct quote.

John Dehlin [00:17:14] So Spencer W. Kimball is like turning in his grave, Right?

Kyle Ashworth [00:17:18] And so is Ernest Wilkinson, who said, if there are any among us in this campus, Let us know you're gay, homosexual, and we'll refund your tuition. We don't want you contaminated. We don't want the campus contaminated by your presence.

Anthony D. Miller [00:17:31] And Dallin Oaks isn't yet in his grave. And he did some things there at BYU too.

John Dehlin [00:17:36] Yeah, he was BYU president.

Anthony D. Miller [00:17:38] Yeah.

Natasha Helfer [00:17:39] But this is something that we've been talking about for over a decade and kind of the Mormon mental health world and sex therapists who are Mormon and everything. I mean, because to hold a person at the celibate status of sexual behavior, you know, like sexual intercourse, if we're going to talk about penis and vagina or penis and anus types of activities, is one thing. But to hold a person responsible for romantic feelings, for not being, you know, the isolation that comes from not being able to express a loving relationship outside of certain sexual behaviors, which again, is problematic. It's still not where we need to be. But I mean, this is a huge, huge leap to happen overnight. So I really hope this holds. And if so, I'm just thrilled and

John Dehlin [00:18:24] I believe it will.

Kyle Ashworth [00:18:25] Just knowing the behind the scenes workings of some general authorities and correlation department employees that I'm familiar with, they really struggled with this topic because opening the November, the April policy, opening this dialogue, saying that they all be treated the same meant that they really had to now create a path to treat this the same. And I'm excited for it. I think overall the LGB community is extremely excited with that. Way forward now, I must also say there is now an online group at BYU who is in a tailspin. They are now promoting. I don't even want to give them credit for their website, but they are trying to save BYU in an effort to bring down administrators, staff members of the LGBTQ community who support these new handbook, change rules, rule changes that affirm or allow affection, kindness, romantic experiences between same sex couples. And it's very interesting to watch that implode or explode.

Natasha Helfer [00:19:46] Well, and in the past, a big factor that makes a difference in BYU policy, which again shows some of the developmental struggles we have in Mormonism to know our place. It's the parents. It's the parents who call and have a royal fit about where their children are attending church that oftentimes in the past has made a difference. So hopefully BYU will be able to stand their ground.

Same-Sex Relationships and New Handbook Language

Kyle Ashworth [00:20:09] Let me bring up one point that I noticed that I think has been kind of missed in the handbook. And there's a line in there that I've never seen before from the church and it's just interesting and maybe I'm parsing words or looking too far into it, but the line says God's commandments forbid all unchaste behavior, either same sex or heterosexual. And I find this interesting because it almost indicates to me that somewhere in Mormonism or with the leadership of the Church, they believe that God has spoken on the topic of same sex sex.

Kyle Ashworth [00:20:48] If the Church is invoking God, then they must somehow believe that there are these acceptable paths of chaste behavior within homosexual relationships. So given what we know about Mormonism, relationship is another word for sex. So where they say God's commandments forbid all unchaste behavior, either same sex or heterosexual, it's interesting that they are now creating this path that allows same sex sex or same sex relationships.

Kyle Ashworth [00:21:18] And I really look forward to see, to seeing how the Church allows that to unfold because either God has spoken on this subject or he hasn't. But the Church is now acknowledging that at some point God has made it clear that same sex relationships are there is some acceptable path.

John Dehlin [00:21:41] Yeah, yeah. And that's true. And it's also true that for so many years, whether it's the Miracle Forgiveness Book or the former General Handbook of Instructions, it would use words like unnatural and dirty or perverted. You know, it use really awful language to describe homosexual sexual behavior. And it just seems like that's all gone. Like all of a sudden the Church is basically saying there's no difference between heterosexual sexual activity and homosexual sexual activity as long as I don't know. It's just basically taking away a lot of the charged negative language around homosexual sexuality. True or not true, Kyle?

Kyle Ashworth [00:22:28] Very true. And on my website@latterygay stories.org under the resource tab, I have kind of documented this historical. There's a document, it's called on the Record. And I started with the first known discussion about homosexuality, which is George q. Cannon in 1897 in General Conference, then detailed that all the way forward and I'm now updating it to include the information recently, the new Handbook of Instructions. But that you can see this clear path from, as you mentioned, miracle of forgiveness, Spencer W. Kimball and there are a lot of things that the church, the general church membership is unaware of in terms of how this topic was treated during Spencer W.

Kyle Ashworth [00:23:08] Kimball's tenure. They created secret societies of investigators who would research and find homosexuals within the congregations. They were using private investigators in wards and branches who were called as that that was their calling was to root out gay members in stakes. They were, they had secret bishops who would use personal priesthood interviews or worthiness interviews to find gay family members and then incorporate them into these programs. There was, and you brought it up. There was language like contagion and the pervert that was used to describe homosexuals. Originally, just being homosexual was enough for excommunication and withdrawal from the church. That shifted to acts of homosexuality.

Kyle Ashworth [00:23:55] That no longer was it just being a queer member or homosexual member. It was now you had to act upon it. Which then led into this difference between same sex or same gender attraction and being gay. Or one was a label, the other one was an action.

Kyle Ashworth [00:24:14] So there has been this softening and I wonder, and I mean, just going back to this point of trying to determine what an acceptable homosexual relationship within the church could look like. I wonder if this is part of this softening that will prepare the membership for more of an inclusive church in regards to same sex marriages and relationships.

John Dehlin [00:24:35] I love it. I'm going to just get a comment in from Kimberly Anderson, a friend to our program. We love Kimberly. You know, some of us are like, who are former BYU students. We're like, mind blown at the prospect of like gay BYU students holding hands in the Cougareet, you know, or lesbian, you know, return missionaries, like hugging on the, you know, the commons or whatever.

John Dehlin [00:25:03] We're kind of excited, but mind blown. But Kimberly writes, I think it's important to hold this conversation with some sobriety. We will never get back the hundreds of individuals who are gone due to incorrect teachings being accepted as doctrine. And not just the teachings, but these draconian policies that you mentioned. Kyle, this really is very serious in terms of like the carnage, the decades of carnage that, you know, on the one hand, yay, things are better. On the other hand, where's the accountability, right? Where's the accountability for the decades of like, shame and punishment and, you know, you know, all these bad things that have happened to our LGB brothers and sisters at byu. So thank you, Kimberly, for sharing that.

Kyle Ashworth [00:25:52] And there will be no, there will be no accountability. Accountability. There will be no apology, even if that apology is necessary. Yeah, not my quote.

Anthony D. Miller [00:26:04] Hey, Kyle, I was interested in your take. It's been a while since I've read Bryce Cook's essay. I read it a couple times, but I remember he goes through and he talks about different models to be able to accept the LGBTQ community.

Anthony D. Miller [00:26:24] And one model that he talks about, I don't know if he uses the word caste system, but it seems to be what kind of what this new Church handbook of instructions has in that you can have an active same sex, married Couple and maybe they can participate but not have a temple recommend. Or maybe they can participate but they have a restriction of privileges or something like that.

Anthony D. Miller [00:26:51] Similar to, and I remember Bryce compares it to when blacks could get baptized and maybe they could hold particular callings as long as it didn't require priesthood or temple recommend. But there was a caste system in the church where the blacks weren't able to really fully participate and that was unsustainable. And I recall in the essay that he talked about we could have a caste type system. Again, I don't recall if you used that word, but that eventually that would be seen as unsustainable and, and we just need to be able to accept everyone. Is your view that this is like opening up more Dusty Johns and his husband being able to participate, maybe having callings, maybe not depending on the local bishop, but being a little bit more accepting, but over time maybe as Bryce mentions, it's unsustainable. What's your take on that?

Kyle Ashworth [00:27:48] Yeah, so I interviewed Bryce on the Latter Day Stories podcast after the April 2019 announcement and we discussed this topic at length knowing that when the church comes out with language that specifically says homosexual relationships will be treated the same way as heterosexual relationships, what does that actually mean? And we discussed multiple versions of what we thought and I think this was Pandora's box for the church for a number of reasons. Among those is that when you now allow a same sex couple on BYU's campus to hold hands, that does a number of things. First, it validates that relationship. It validates that personal revelation that those two people experienced that they aren't broken, they're not alone and there's nothing about them that needs to be fixed.

Kyle Ashworth [00:28:43] That that relationship can be pure and genuine and just as authentic and non counterfeit as a heterosexual relationship. So what that does is then helps not only the mental health but the physical health of that same sex BYU student or person in that situation. It also creates visibility for people on the campus who now will be able to see a same sex couple. And the more frequently we see those couples, the more positive of an impact that has. And, and we see that historically through society and eventually now we'll see that in the church. But I think there's a greater point that we are missing in this topic and it's that of the promises the church promised that those people who experienced or found themselves engaged in same sex relationships would experience a loss of blessing, a withdrawal of the spirit, an unhappiness.

Kyle Ashworth [00:29:41] Now given the opportunity to have these relationships that all blows away in the wind. Because people who experience these relationships often for the first time, are generally happier. They become more spiritual. They aren't less constrained by the doctrines. They actually become greater people, and they become much more beneficial to our society, both in and outside of the church.

Kyle Ashworth [00:30:11] So I think this is a huge issue for the church in terms of keeping the message controlled, that homosexual sexuality is bad, that the Spirit withdraws itself. Amen to the priesthood. That you'll be guilty, that this guilt and shame will befall you when the opposite actually becomes the reality. And I don't know how the church handles that either, because those decades of rhetoric now have a seal of living reality put on them.

Gina Colvin [00:30:39] And.

Kyle Ashworth [00:30:39] And the family members and the individuals who are on the spectrum, the LGBT spectrum, are now telling a different story than the one preached to them over the pulpit.

Jana Spangler [00:30:50] Yeah, something about this feels another thing that feels very unsustainable about this. And I do agree with everything we said. I rejoice that this is going to happen. The visibility, I think, is going to be a really powerful thing. Like Kyle was mentioning, I also pictured members of the church who maybe have children who are LGB and are going to byu. I can just see down the road them having really strange situations where they look at their heterosexual child and maybe that child has been dating someone for an extended period of time, several years, and then getting really worried and really wanting them to get married and having stress over that. And it's going to be the exact, exactly the opposite with their LGB children, where they're saying, oh, I just hope they date forever and never get married. That that's going to bring up a weird dissonance that I don't think is sustainable.

Kyle Ashworth [00:31:45] Well, and this is actually trickling down right now in faith affirming lds, faith affirming LGBT groups, and among some of their most staunch supporters in those groups, they're saying, we have been taught about celibacy and I have saved myself. I am no longer. I've been told I had to reserve all of this, and I have now wasted decades of my life. And now the church is saying it's okay what has happened. And I acknowledge that pain. I was there. I was celibate. I was trying to do everything to stay within those boundaries. But the reality was I was a fish living on land, trying to be a bird, and I was suffocating.

Kyle Ashworth [00:32:28] I needed to get back into the water. I needed to be with my. I needed to survive, flourish, thrive with the gills that I was created with. And now some of these North Star and other faith affirming groups who are recognizing that the Church has either made this monumental shift, open the door to this, they don't know how to reconcile it because it now may mean the Church is invalidated by all of the previous statements regarding this topic. I think that's why this is a beautiful thing and a great step forward in terms of progress.

John Dehlin [00:33:06] But it's also kind of a Pandora's box for the church. And let me ask this. And Anthony, this touches on your, your reference to a caste system and let's tie it back now. So I don't know if this is the time to do it, but let's go a little bit broader. Let's talk about apostasy, let's talk about all the different types of disciplinary councils. Anthony, you had some thoughts around kind of this because we all had this question about certainly the church can't say, if you're a gay couple, don't come to our wards. Right? And we thought that the November 2015 policy was, was basically saying we can't have gay couples showing how happy and healthy they are, or the members will explode and they'll realize that why are we punishing these people when they're just good, lovely people in good families?

John Dehlin [00:33:57] So we've got to keep them out of the wards. But we also knew that that wasn't sustainable because these are good family people. Many of them want to go to church and it's just not fundamentally Christlike to keep them out. So we knew at some point they would have to figure out a way to let same sex married couples have a ward experience if they wanted to have one. But we also know that the possibility of same sex marriage in the temple was decades away, if it's ever going to come. And so we were always wondering early on about what about this middle ground where they can come to the ward where they can participate, but maybe they have a calling, maybe they don't.

John Dehlin [00:34:36] Maybe they go to the temple, maybe they don't, and they find some tiered system where they're kind of in the middle ground or maybe parts of their membership privileges are withdrawn. Now we've got this with transgender people, which we'll get to. We've got this possibility with apostates, and we've got this possibility with LGB members that may be same sex, married or not. But isn't this sort of an introduction to a caste system more broadly within the lived ward Mormon experience? Anthony, do you have thoughts on that?

Anthony D. Miller [00:35:11] Yeah, I mean, that's my take. My take Is that the desire is let's have everybody come together. Let's not have empty seats at the table now. But what's going to happen is you're going to have that lesbian couple that give the most powerful testimonies and fast and testimony meeting, or the most spiritual relief society or Sunday school lesson, or maybe they have the very powerful testimony and fast and testimony meeting, but because of restriction of privileges, you end up with a teacher in Sunday school that doesn't give something as powerful. And so the rest of the members see this. They see this lesbian couple. They have light in their eyes, they're in love, they're good people, they're spiritual people.

Anthony D. Miller [00:36:08] They have strong testimonies. And so my view is, because we have this worthiness, focus of ideas, and then we're going to restrict or make available privileges based on this. You can have a temple recommend, you can't. You can have the priesthood, you can't.

Anthony D. Miller [00:36:31] You can bear a testimony, you can't. And so forth. That's all based on this hierarchy of what the brethren are thinking, you know, makes someone worthy or unworthy. That in the end, this caste system is trying to get everyone to join and participate and not leave is going to be totally unsustainable. Because the most spiritual, loving, compassionate, moving, service oriented people in the ward, if they're gay or bi or transgender, that's gonna stretch the ward members when they see that those people never have an opportunity to serve or participate in certain ways because of the caste system.

Anthony D. Miller [00:37:23] You know, I suppose we're calling it a caste system of the ways that you're allowed to participate based on this, you know, do you fit into the heteronormative model versus not.

John Dehlin [00:37:39] Gina, let's get you in. I know, Gina, you got to run to date night. And we're so happy you joined us and so sad you have to go. Let me just ask it to you this way, Gina. I know that for a long time you were trying to do kind of the Jana thing or the Bill Riehl thing or the John Dehlin thing, which was to kind of hold down this middle space of being a believing member, but being thoughtful and trying to navigate kind of this middle way. I know that you wanted that for a long time, and you tried that. What do you think about this idea of this caste system where maybe you could have stayed and been a progressive or liberal Mormon who's a feminist, but you were just sort of.

John Dehlin [00:38:20] You couldn't do certain things, couldn't go to the temple, maybe you couldn't you know, whatever other restrictions they might hold and just any other general comments before we have to lose you.

Gina Colvin [00:38:33] I'm sorry to go, actually, but not sorry to go on a date. But thanks for your question, John. And I think I want to just draw on the comments that Kyle and Anthony have made about LGBT inclusion. I just want to say really quickly that this isn't just a Mormon problem.

Gina Colvin [00:38:51] This is one of the great issues that Christianity is facing in the Roman Catholic tradition and in their Protestant tradition, the evangelical tradition. I do think that actually the Mormon conversation is a lot more sophisticated than everybody else's conversations.

Gina Colvin [00:39:06] And it's difficult and it's horrible and it's complex and it's marginalizing, for sure. But there's an elegance, I think, to the conversation that we're having in the broader Mormon and the broader Mormon population and Mormon allied population. We've got, you know, research coming out and really vocal, really vocal proponents and advocates for inclusivity. So I don't think it's something that we should, like, chastise ourselves for being an outlier about, because we're just simply not. This is Christianity's biggest litmus test for their true Christianity. So just, I just wanted to say that as a. As you know, in response to that. But back to your question about whether or not I could have stayed.

Gina Colvin [00:39:54] I had. On the day that after I wrote my. What do you call it, Resignation letter, I met with my bishop and I said to him, look, here's the deal. I could hang around the church, but I have no interest in a temple recommend.

Gina Colvin [00:40:14] I don't want to give any more money to a really wealthy church. It seems like a waste of my money. I don't. I'm theologically out of step and differently formed than the LDS Church. And, you know, I won't ever outsource my inner spiritual authority to any church leaders.

Gina Colvin [00:40:37] So you tell me whether or not I belong. And I think that my bishop, who I feel is a very sincere human being, he said, look, the reality is that I would tomorrow give you a leadership position or I would put you on the stand. But the reality is that I run the risk of losing my congregation, losing the eldest congregation. They have a particular expectations of the church that I'm constantly transgressing. So I might. He said, I might lose them because they just not on the same wavelength as you. Or you could start talking like them and meet their needs and you would lose yourself.

Gina Colvin [00:41:24] And it wasn't a very hard decision to make to say, do you know what I Have so many other places I could be to offer my ministry, to offer my Christianity. I feel like a very, very faithful, unbelieving Christian belief. I think belief is something that Mormonism has kicked the crap out of.

Gina Colvin [00:41:47] So I'm not a great believer, but I feel a very, very faithful Christian person who follows the Jesus way. I'm absolutely committed to that. So. And other people want that and they're cool about that. So there you go. I don't feel I've lost anything.

Anthony D. Miller [00:42:04] Right.

Kyle Ashworth [00:42:04] Interesting how the church has such a problem with the marginalized.

Gina Colvin [00:42:08] Yes, indeed.

John Dehlin [00:42:09] And that was Christ's core mission. Right? That's the rub is.

Gina Colvin [00:42:15] Indeed.

Anthony D. Miller [00:42:16] So that's, I think, an opportunity for evolution in that in the current culture, you know, and this might be different depending on the locality. The experience in church is about belief affirmation and loyalty, and that's the experience. And so if you go to the leaders and say, hey, like, could we just like, have a second Sunday school class where we can talk about some of these difficult things? If the concern is this is that it's going to result in doubts, or if it's not going to be belief affirmation or ongoing loyalty to the brethren, then that's too stretching for some.

Anthony D. Miller [00:42:54] And, you know, the opportunity for evolution is to have the church experience be more than just belief affirmation and be about spiritual development, about doing the gospel of Jesus. You know, that is in the Gospels. That's what the opportunity is. And I think, like Kyle mentioned in California, a stake that was maybe going that kind of direction.

Anthony D. Miller [00:43:23] My sense is that's the opportunity for evolution and it'll probably happen more on local levels than a top down kind of thing. And all these things, I think are gonna contribute to it. A decade of BYU students seeing same sex couples or transgender people participate, you know, spiritually and in love and with light in their eyes, like, that's gonna change things and they're gonna eventually end up in wards and they're gonna eventually end up, you know, affecting the whole thing. And it's not just gonna be LGBTQ things, because once you open the door to that degree of nuance, you're gonna open up the door to other things like biblical scholarship and things like that. So anyway, I think that's the opportunity, but that's the challenge too.

John Dehlin [00:44:17] Who else was going to just jump in?

Natasha Helfer [00:44:19] I was just going to say, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Kyle Ashworth [00:44:22] I was just going to say in all forms of advocacy. John, you've seen this with your podcast. I've seen it with my podcast. I've seen this with Natasha and everyone in this space. So much change within the church happens from the ground up, not the top down. And I agree. Yesterday I was with two bishop discussing with two bishops who want to hold fifth Sunday LGBTQ firesides or conferences in their wards to help their congregations better understand the LGBT experience, heeding the message of Elder Ballard. So that exists, and I think it does start at a grassroots level, and maybe not even as grassroots as the bishop, but it most likely and most often happens.

Kyle Ashworth [00:45:07] When a parent is faced with the discussion, the coming out experience of a son or daughter, they immediately now are immersed in a world that they didn't expect. And then they turn into Father, Dad Dragons, or Mama dragons, fierce advocates of the LGBT community because now they have a seal of living reality. They can now put a loving face to a topic that they were taught. Their whole church experience was evil and disgusting and gross and. And they can't correlate that with their son or daughter. That's where our change happens. And that's the important part of advocacy and moving this message forward.

John Dehlin [00:45:42] So you're saying the church has put itself on a path towards more acceptance?

Kyle Ashworth [00:45:46] Ultimately, interestingly enough, over exclusion has led to more inclusion or the opportunities for inclusion.

John Dehlin [00:45:55] It's like the Harvey Milk kind of message from the movie Milk. And it's not that they've done it willingly. They've kind of been forced and dragged and pulled and shamed into doing it.

Kyle Ashworth [00:46:05] Natasha, when your message is flawed from the very beginning, it doesn't take. I mean, Helen Keller can see that the LGBT community deserves to be loved.

John Dehlin [00:46:16] Natasha, what were you going to say?

Natasha Helfer [00:46:18] Yeah, just my thoughts are that it's always this double edged sword. We can celebrate the progress. And I think 30 years from now, this puts us on a trajectory that's going to be fabulous. Right? At the same time, what it doesn't do, because we're not good at practicing our own best doctrines, like repentance as a church, is that it basically leaves behind, again, the people who were most apt to be obedient, the people who were most apt to really follow and take the church seriously. It leaves them abandoned. I mean, this happened with polygamy, right? Like all the people who really practiced it were abandoned by the church.

Natasha Helfer [00:47:01] And it also completely disqualifies the tragedy, the unnecessary tragedy of the many people we've lost to suicide, the many mental health conditions that people have suffered, the low quality of life, the ostracization and family systems. If the church did, I mean, the church can't repair a lot of that because it's already passed and gone. But we know through trauma, informed practice, that when you have an apology, when you have things like people taking responsibility for prior wrongs, it does heal and it does speed the healing process. And I think it's a really missed opportunity that we don't practice our own best doctrine as a church.

Jana Spangler [00:47:47] Yeah. Amen to what you're saying, Natasha. I think that we will never be fully Christian religion that we have the ability to be, until we are willing to do that, until we are willing to look at ourselves and really deeply excavate all of the shadow and all of the wrongs that we have done. And it's very Christian to do so. I don't think we can get there without it. And this is such a delicate issue with any advocacy. Right. Like, progress does just happen little by little by little, step by step by step.

Jana Spangler [00:48:22] Too big of a step, and it causes all kinds of problems. I was amazed when the new temple changes came out that were more empowering to women, how many women of faith that I know had real problems accepting it. Because I think when you have really internalized that something that maybe doesn't seem right on some level or just seems really hard, when you internalize that and then it's reversed, that is a really hard pill to swallow. And it is really hard to imagine that really maybe something was wrong with it all along.

Jana Spangler [00:48:59] So progress is hard. It's hard on all fronts. And, you know, I don't know. And at the same time, I agree. Like, it also feels like sometimes we're protecting the 90 and 9 and leaving the 1 out in the cold, which should also seems very unchristian to me.

John Dehlin [00:49:17] Right. Thanks, Jenna. So I think it's time to move to the transgender issues. Kyle, is there any other last LGB kind of points you want to make? It's not doing justice because there's so much here. Any final things you want to say overall or just points you want to make?

Kyle Ashworth [00:49:34] No, I just want anyone who identifies along the spectrum to know you're not alone, you're not broken, that this is good progress in the right direction. And it's interesting, the comment boards, as we discussed this on my podcast and in other LGBTQ spaces online, how the whole handbook issue, there are no positives. This is disgusting. This is awful.

Kyle Ashworth [00:50:02] My reality is that these are steps in the right direction. Baby steps are still progress steps. And traditionally, we know the church is decades behind in its administration and its understanding of current world events, and that has to do with a senior apostle and junior apostle issue, where the progressive and conservative groups will continue to clash until somebody takes over. But the LGBT community, I think this was a win for them in many aspects, and in some aspects, it was a loss. And we'll talk about that in the transgender section of the handbook. But there are resources available out there just to kind of echo what Janet just talked about.

Kyle Ashworth [00:50:46] I see this happening in the faith affirming groups, LGBT groups, this feeling of betrayal that all these decades of messaging no longer applies, and how do they deal with that? My recommendation is that you need to look at some of these groups as stepping stones. And for me, I was closeted. I found groups like North Star that were faith affirming and very spiritually uplifting as a stepping stone to get me to where I'm at. And don't discount the importance of progression and don't stall yourself because you're stuck in the same traditional rhetoric or archaic rhetoric that has existed. I think this handbook change, this discussion, and many more that are happening around kitchen tables around Mormonism are beneficial to getting rid of the marginalized, the other system, and moving more into an inclusive and opening and supportive community that we all deserve.

John Dehlin [00:51:45] Love it.

Anthony D. Miller [00:51:47] So I actually have a question for Kyle and Samantha, and that is, you know, if you perceive, like I perceive that this is an incremental improvement and that as members have opportunities to interact with LGBTQ people more, even on some of these, where it's just a small incremental improvement in the future, 20 years from now, it's going to be a lot better. But what you've mentioned to Kyle and Samantha, you have as well, is that the problem is there's no recognition of the trauma and the harm that's been committed. There's no apology.

Anthony D. Miller [00:52:32] There's no allocation of resources to support individuals who have experienced trauma and alienation and shunning from family or anything. And it's not like there's a lack of resources to be able to do something like that. You know, and I suppose that maybe this is off topic or not, but, like, if you had a magic WAND and like $100 billion, you know, to do something with and, you know, to heal the harms or at least try to make an effort to heal the harms and the trauma, like, what would they add in addition to this, you know, 20 years from now, it's going to be incrementally better. It's not perfect, but what would they do now with the unlimited resources they had for your communities?

Samantha Taylor [00:53:24] $100 billion is an oddly specific number to come up with.

Anthony D. Miller [00:53:29] Just imagine that they had $100 billion. What would they do?

Samantha Taylor [00:53:38] I'm about to take a bit of time on the transgender issue here, so I think I'll let Kyle tackle that one first. If you want to.

Anthony D. Miller [00:53:44] Okay.

Kyle Ashworth [00:53:45] I can offer a suggestion that doesn't even cost a dime or a penny. And you brought it up. Apologize. It costs nothing to stand at a pulpit and say, we made a mistake, we're sorry. We believe that the church is continuing a church based on continuing revelation and similar to what Bruce R. McConkie had to do in 1978. On June 6, there was a, in some circumstances, a pure hate towards people of color in the church. On June 7th of 1978, forget everything that we said prior to this topic that has not yet happened surrounding the LGBTQ discussion that will cost nothing in terms of monetary contribution.

Kyle Ashworth [00:54:36] The other thing that. The other suggestion that again, costs nothing, is instead of the church members and leaders and members of the Quorum of the Twelve praying the gay away or inviting the impacted LGBTQ member to pray their gay away, maybe it's time for the Mormonism to pray the gays to stay and create policy and opportunity for those LGBTQ members to sit in the benches to allow the general congregation the opportunity to benefit from their talents, their time, and their love. That's what's missing in the pews.

Kyle Ashworth [00:55:21] Just the remarkably wonderful, and I want to use the word fabulous, members of the LGBT community are missing, and that takes an element out of those congregations that will never be replicated.

John Dehlin [00:55:35] So true.

Samantha Taylor [00:55:36] I think as an additional comment on that one, I'm reminded of an old joke that I'm going to paraphrase here. Paraphrase. You know, a gay man finds a genie's lamp on the beach, robs it. The genie pops out.

Samantha Taylor [00:55:52] Genie says, you can have one wish. And he says, well, I would like the Mormon Church to donate a hundred billion dollars to charities for LGBTQ youth. And the genie says, well, that's never going to happen. Pick something different.

Samantha Taylor [00:56:08] So then the man thinks for a minute, if they aren't willing to spend any money, I'd like an apology for some of the things they did. To which the genie says, who should I make the checkout to? I really don't think I've already seen pop up in the comments. Somebody posted the quote that Dallin H. Oaks has said, the church does not apologize. And as much as I've seen doctrine change over the years, I don't think that's one he's ready to change.

John Dehlin [00:56:42] Yeah.

Kyle Ashworth [00:56:42] Does anybody find it interesting, though, that during the April 2019 announcement, it was oak that gave it almost as if President Nelson was saying, you caused a lot of this. Now you you reverse it. I wondered if Oaks was the designated survivor for some particular reason.

Samantha Taylor [00:57:05] Elder or Sorry, President Nelson doesn't seem the type to rub somebody's face in it. But I do think he's become the the Elder Oaks has become the de facto spokesperson on these issues.

Kyle Ashworth [00:57:19] He has been since the 1950s where. Or the late 60s where he was creating policy and manual and talking early, early 1980s. 80s, that's right.

Anthony D. Miller [00:57:28] Yeah.

Kyle Ashworth [00:57:30] For, for the quorum of the 12 messaging and trying to understand strategy.

John Dehlin [00:57:34] Yeah.

Kyle Ashworth [00:57:35] Correct. Yep. So he's been heavily involved.

Deep Dive into New Transgender Policies

Part 4 of 4 · Ep. 1263

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Sam. Well, Samantha, let's go ahead and you know, thank you for waiting. I wondered. I thought that maybe these other things were kind of foundational. But let's jump right into a discussion about probably the most significant aspect of change to this new handbook of instruction, which is further light knowledge or further dark and confusion. Take your pick on transgender Mormons. So please give us your reactions and thoughts.

Samantha Taylor [00:01:01] I mean, like you said, this is the biggest change that we've really seen so far. If you don't mind, John, I did do a pretty in depth analysis. I'll post a link to that in the comments because we just simply aren't going to be able to cover even most of it right now now.

Samantha Taylor [00:01:23] So I'm going to have to kind of step out of the weeds a little bit here and look at it from 30,000ft. It's really had a lot of mixed reactions, typically from the cisgender members of organizations like Affirmation, especially North Star. Sorry I'm throwing you under the bus, but it's very well accepted.

Samantha Taylor [00:01:55] The transgender members are seeing it a little differently. And quite honestly, most of us have bounced back for hours for some historical background here. All the church ever really counseled in the past. And I've traced this back to the oldest leaked handbook, one I have access to is from 1999.

Samantha Taylor [00:02:20] The church specifically mentions as one of the mandatory reasons for disciplinary councils is if a member has a transsexual, which was the term used back then, or an election. That was it. We didn't talk about anything else. There was no theology.

Samantha Taylor [00:02:42] NOR until about 2015 when somebody asked I believe Elder Holland briefly mentioned gender identity in a talk in 2009. But in 2015 somebody asked L A jokes in an interview and he stated that the church still has a lot of homework to do on this. Now this led to tons and tons of problems.

Samantha Taylor [00:03:02] You would have leaders who were very permissive. I myself was very, very easy to get being transgender to jive with traditional doctrine. Even the Family Proclamation. I don't deny that for me anyway, gender has important eternal significance. Where I do disagree with church leadership is that as we have taken an eternal spirit who the church teaches has a gender and that's problematic for our non binary members, which in terminology I identify as very binary trans. I was assigned male at birth was the gender. The doctor decided I was. I have transitioned to female. That's a very binary transition. There are people who feel that they're in the middle and that they are not binary or they're somewhere on that spectrum from male to female.

Samantha Taylor [00:04:00] Modern biology tells us that human sexual or human gender is not binary. It's bimodal, meaning it tends towards two specific categories. But there's a lot of room for variance along that spectrum. Non binary people fall somewhere on that spectrum or may even consider themselves agender or genderless.

Samantha Taylor [00:04:21] So that teaching does have some problems there and I want to make sure inclusive of them. I will mostly be speaking from a binary trans perspective because the church is really to binary people. I want to throw that out there that there is still a ton of work to do in that realm.

Samantha Taylor [00:04:42] Most of the new policies focus on people like myself. And again, some leaders were able to fit this into their theology. We have great evidence that, you know, we live in a fallen world. That's something that the Church will agree with. Our bodies are not perfect in this world.

Samantha Taylor [00:05:00] That is something the Church teaches. But for some reason we can acknowledge that. You know, we say God doesn't make mistakes. Well, if that's the case, then why are we doing cleft lip or clubfoot surgeries? Was that a mistake or did God intend that person to live their entire life lame or with a speech impediment? And that's a big question that leaders don't answer. My stake president got really irritated with me when I went down that road.

Samantha Taylor [00:05:29] And so that's how I've always fitted in. And I go into some more of the statistics and I really did make sure I found citations for these in the essay I wrote. Intersex conditions, which is one term for when somebody is born with what we say is ambiguous genitalia, even though the intersex world doesn't like that term anymore. That's what the Church has chosen to use. And it's quite interesting the Church has chosen to recognize in this handbook the existence of intersex people.

Samantha Taylor [00:06:04] Their mistake is they say it's extremely rare. Well, in reality, intersex conditions occur as often as 1 in 100 live births, so about 1%, which is an entire order of magnitude more common than cleft palate at 1 in 1000 live births, or 1 in 1700 live births for clubfoot, which are some of the birth defects that we're most aware of.

Samantha Taylor [00:06:29] And the Church actually, and this is where I think there's some warring factions here, inside leadership, they're willing to recognize that, hey, somebody who's born intersex. And traditionally what would happen is a doctor would say they lean more one way or the other. Let's operate to make it that way. And Leave it there.

Samantha Taylor [00:06:48] And then the kid doesn't notice until their teenage years that something's up. Now we're leaning towards the medical community, and there's still a ton of work to do here that we leave it alone. We let the kids self determine when they're old enough what gender they are. And the church has left room for intersex members, specifically intersex members born with ambiguous genitalia, because that's not always the case. There's times when people look like appear to be a woman for all external characteristics, but the day she can't get pregnant, she gets a sonogram and finds out she has testes where she should have ovaries and there's no uterus.

Samantha Taylor [00:07:25] And the church has left room for people with these types of conditions to say, hey, I saw. You know, I was identified as male at birth. I now identify as female. Now that I'm old enough to figure that out. But we've drawn this line that's very artificial and, and said, but we refuse to recognize it for transgender people, even though modern science has shown that my brain, for example, matches up much more likely a cisgender woman's brain. If you were to give me an mri, there's a lot of brain structures that are more similar, and we don't really understand what causes this. But the science very much shows that, hey, this isn't something that is just a mental condition.

Samantha Taylor [00:08:06] There are actual physical differences in us. But the church has kind of drawn this hard line. And I think that's again where Dallin H. Oaks has come in. Because the most offensive language in this new policy is something he quoted, he said back conference in October, which is that biological, sorry, gender is defined as biological.

Samantha Taylor [00:08:34] So in one part of this new document, we're saying, hey, sometimes we can't define gender at birth. We can't define biological sex. Some of these things can't be diagnosed without advanced medical imaging. But then we turn around and say, on the other hand, a different subset of our population, we know that some medical professional with no spiritual guidance held you up by your legs, looked at you once and said, this is a boy.

Samantha Taylor [00:09:00] And we have to stand by that forever. Even though that medical professional now turns around and says, hey, guys, it's not that simple. So there's this huge contradiction there. And that's the biggest problem I see with the new policy is it completely invalidates our existence and invalidates our autonomy and our ability to self identify.

Samantha Taylor [00:09:20] And all these policies are built around that. An interesting thing now is the Restrictions are automatic. If you choose to transition in any way, these restrictions come into effect. You can't have a temple recommend.

John Dehlin [00:09:39] This includes changing your name, requesting new pronouns, changing your appearance, which I thought was really weird, right?

Samantha Taylor [00:09:46] Yeah. And there's even now than there is on the actual medical interventions. It's fairly common that people who don't feel a need to completely change who they present themselves as to the world will take a low dose of cross sex hormones because just getting the right hormones to your brain will calm down a lot of that background noise. And the church has explicitly stated that they are okay with this as long as your intention is not to transition to the other, to your opposite gender.

Samantha Taylor [00:10:19] So we're putting even more emphasis. The church seems to care more not what you and your doctor do, but who that you claim you are. And that seems to be where we're drawing the line. Now if I want to say, hey, I am a woman, I have violated church policy to just take hormones and continue to present as a man, which has its own implications because all sorts of things change.

Samantha Taylor [00:10:49] Certain things stop working, other things start growing. It changes your body irreversibly, even at low doses. It just takes longer. And the church is fine with that as long as you continue to show up to church in pants.

Samantha Taylor [00:11:06] And the interesting thing is in some ways the restrictions have been relaxed and in others they have become more strict. But they have been standardized, which is one of the most. See, if you lived with impermissive, if you had good, very permissive, very progressive was a huge step backwards.

Samantha Taylor [00:11:29] So that's kind of why we're seeing some very different opinions here. Because we've now taken something that was completely ambiguous and open to interpretation, both by the individual and by local leaders, and we've collapsed it down to fitting everybody in the same bucket.

John Dehlin [00:11:47] Is it? I don't want to jump too far ahead because I want to cover your thoughts on some of the minutiae of the policies. But I wonder if this is sort of your the equivalent of the November 15 policy, which is the bad policies before the improvements come. Do you think about it that way?

Samantha Taylor [00:12:09] I think the policy of exclusion, it's unfair to make the comparison. I think the church has learned a lot and frankly, while I have heard some rumors of suicide attempts as a result of this, most of it was from the buildup. I haven't heard of a lot of mental health issues, specifically after the release of policy.

Samantha Taylor [00:12:32] Now, that being said, I have been so busy with other things that I haven't been able to Dig down. But at least in my particularly driven to think it's the end of the world, you know, a lot of us really don't like it. A lot of people are saying, hey, this is the last straw. I'm going to quit Mormon and submitting my resignation.

Samantha Taylor [00:12:53] But I haven't heard very many people say, hey, I'm gonna go kill myself over this. The policies of exclusion was much, much worse in its impact, and I'm just thankful that we didn't see something that terrible.

John Dehlin [00:13:09] Yeah, I remember when you messaged me as it was released, you kind of felt like it could have been a lot worse, I guess.

Samantha Taylor [00:13:16] Yeah. We were prepared based on some of the sources I have who had seen background materials that influenced the creation of this policy. We were expecting some really terrible things.

John Dehlin [00:13:32] One of the biggest things, some of us. No, please, go ahead.

Samantha Taylor [00:13:35] Some of us decided not to spread too much. Some of us. Some people went way over into speculation, and I think that probably caused more harm than the policy itself did. But it is telling that you hear that there's a new church policy in the pipeline, and people immediately freak out and start thinking of killing themselves.

John Dehlin [00:13:57] Right.

Samantha Taylor [00:13:58] That tells us a lot about the history of the Church's treatment of us.

John Dehlin [00:14:03] It seems like the real line that the church is drawing in the sand is on medical procedures, on any type of operation, on any type of hormone therapy. They're basically saying, that's the point. You can identify as transgender. You even can annotate the records with a new name and new pronouns. Even though we don't want you to do that, but we'll allow it as

Samantha Taylor [00:14:29] soon as you do that. The restrictions would kick in.

John Dehlin [00:14:31] Right. So that's bad and good, I guess. But it seems like the real big thing they're saying is no medical procedures. And if you do that can jeopardize your ability to get baptized. If you're an investigator, it can jeopardize your temple ability to attend the temple. It can jeopardize your ability to exercise the priesthood, if you have the priesthood. And it can jeopardize maybe potential callings. So they're basically saying, stay away from medical procedures.

Natasha Helfer [00:15:03] And I think the other interesting point that they added into this was that they will now annotate your record.

Samantha Taylor [00:15:11] That's always been the case. Transgender members have been treated as sexual predators, and that's very much coming from the individual members. A lot of what I've seen in my personal experience and in some other people's experiences, but that annotation has existed at Least.

John Dehlin [00:15:35] And so do you. Do you. Are you saying that that's one big line in the sand that the church seems to be drawing here?

Samantha Taylor [00:15:42] It seems that, you know, where we're allowing certain medical things to happen. It's really. Who are you holding yourself out as? Are you saying? I experience gender dysphoria, which, just to give some definitions here is feelings of unease of to explain that the incongruence with the gender you were assigned. But I don't plan to become the opposite gender.

Samantha Taylor [00:16:10] So one of the questions that's come up is, I know a transgender individual who had double mastectomy to help with her or with their, sorry, gender dysphoria, but has no desire and no intention to live as a man.

Samantha Taylor [00:16:33] And so, because there's none of this, what we call social transition, where they are holding themselves out as a member of what the church considers the opposite sex, is that still okay? I mean, we've explicitly said hormones are okay as long as we don't have that intention. Is a mastectomy okay?

Samantha Taylor [00:16:56] We don't know. But the really interesting thing is the most problematic word from the old policy survived to the new policy. Everything says elective, medical or surgical intervention. The church has a very different definition of elective than the medical community does.

Samantha Taylor [00:17:18] The World Professional association for Transgender Health, which creates most of these guidelines, requires a lot of documentation before any practitioner will begin allowing or participating in some sort of medical intervention. Now, there is a pushed towards what we call informed consent, where Doctors such as Dr. Ricks Lucanar in Salt Lake City, who I love but has become a controversial figure, feels that the path of least harm is to help people as long as they have given informed consent.

Samantha Taylor [00:18:01] The world on the world stage right now, we still recommend before you can start cross hormone therapy, they want to see a letter from a practitioner in psychology or psychiatry saying you have well documented and persistent gender dysphoria, that you understand the consequences. Etc, Etc. Before we start talking about top surgery. So anything above the waist, they want a letter from your personal physician.

Samantha Taylor [00:18:32] Well, as a mental health professional, if we start talking about any surgeries below the waist, we need a letter from a PhD level medical professional and another psychiatric professional, as well as a letter from your personal physician. I can't walk down to the University of Utah tomorrow and say, operate on me.

Samantha Taylor [00:18:53] There is no such thing as an elective transsexual operation. It does. Does not happen. It's not like, you know, going down to the plastic surgery office at the point of the mountain and saying, I want A mommy makeover. You know, lift these up, give me a tiny tuck.

Samantha Taylor [00:19:11] You know, like we see a lot of the Mormon women doing. You can't walk in, get it in elective procedure. You can't. If you want your insurance to pay for it, if you want the surgeon, there has to be documentation.

Samantha Taylor [00:19:24] This is medically necessary. And so by leaving that word elective in, it creates interesting ambiguity. And this could be like we talked about earlier about liability issues, but I've never seen anyone really pay attention to the elective. On the leadership side, they consider everything elective.

John Dehlin [00:19:50] Right? Yeah. So

Anthony D. Miller [00:20:01] can I jump in, please, Natasha?

John Dehlin [00:20:02] Yeah.

Anthony D. Miller [00:20:02] Say a few things that will kind of be a second witness to Samantha's. To Samantha's thoughts. I do find it really interesting in kind of just our Mormon culture that the one area we do not heed, the best medical and psychiatric advice available is in the realm of sexuality, reproductive rights and choices, and also gender identity. You know, there's no issue if you come down with cancer or if you have some type of medical issue that would put you at odds necessarily with your values as a member of the church. But in regards to sexuality, this has been an issue for a long time that we are at odds with the best medical and mental health knowledge and practices that we have as an international community, not just here in the United States.

Anthony D. Miller [00:20:57] We have excellent peer reviewed research now that has come out of very high quality, high top spaces all over the world that support best standards of care for transgender health. And even in the medical community, there's still biases, like a lot of what Samantha just talked about with needing so much psychiatric and psychological checkpoints for certain things that, you know, we don't really require other individuals to do when it comes to, you know, like their 20th Botox injection or things that we don't require psychological letters for, you know, in regards to that. So even in the medical community, there's still bias and discrimination towards the transgender population.

Anthony D. Miller [00:21:46] And even the term gender dysphoria right now is being very much. It's a very controversial term because in a sense, it's pathologizing, something that is, you know, shouldn't necessarily be pathologized. So. And that there's, you know, quote unquote, treatment for just by, but not because it's a pathology per se. So I just. I just find it interesting that this is kind of, you know, when Oak said we haven't done our homework on transgender issues, it was the one thing that I was like, oh, my goodness. He actually said something fairly amazing. I was actually very hopeful that they would do their homework. But you have to do your homework from sources that are accurate and that are peer reviewed and that follow the best knowledge that we have this day and age in regards to these issues.

Anthony D. Miller [00:22:36] And the statistics are quite dire. So, I mean, suicide rates for transgender folks, suicide Attempts are at 42% for transgender youth. 42% of transgender youth report an attempted suicide. So if we're going to go by the fruits, you shall know them. We have a lot of fruits to show us that we've been on the wrong path in regards to this population for a long time.

Anthony D. Miller [00:23:05] 93% of peer reviewed research found that gender transition improves the overall well being of transgender people. And that includes hormone replacement therapy, and it also includes surgeries. If, of course, there's a whole other level of access to health care that transgender folks oftentimes have had historically a problem with as well.

Anthony D. Miller [00:23:34] There are benefits to improvement of life. There's benefits to relational quality of life. There's improvements to mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, suicide rates. Also, substance use goes down significantly for people who have adequate health care that is affirming to transgender best standards of practice. So the fact that we, I mean, it's one thing to see the history with LGB issues where the church in a lot of ways was kind of paralleling a lot of cultural shifts that we were doing.

Anthony D. Miller [00:24:19] Disappointing to see the church at a point in time when we have some of the better current culture. I'm extremely disappointed in all this.

John Dehlin [00:24:30] You broke up a little bit towards the end, Natasha. Can you repeat that? Just final sentence or two?

Anthony D. Miller [00:24:36] Well, it's just so tragic that we have the best information out there that they could have done their homework on, and instead we, you know, sadly went against some of the best knowledge that we have to help transgender folks in our community. And it just makes me incredibly sad and frustrated and angry.

Samantha Taylor [00:25:01] Something interesting to note is, and I've seen this happen, members of the LDS church are quick to laugh at the Jehovah's Witnesses who think that getting a blood transfusion is a grievous sin and how stupid that sounds. Yet we take the same stance on medical interventions for transgender people, which have been proven to be life saving.

Anthony D. Miller [00:25:24] Yeah, exactly, exactly. Against even, you know, I mean, not to bring up a whole nother topic, but masturbation, for example, that's been considered a developmentally normal activities for. From the American Academy of Pediatrics for the last, like 60 years. And we still can't, you know, it's just it's in these issues of sexuality that we really have a hard time conforming to our best information that we

John Dehlin [00:25:50] have available to us and reflecting something you said, Samantha. It's so weird that a Mormon woman can choose, you know, can a heterosexual cisgender Mormon woman can choose electively, either breast augmentation or breast. Or breast reduction. Purely elective by choice, not necessarily medical, purely, admittedly, for just cosmetic reasons. And that's not okay. But then if somebody wants, let's just say top surgery or breast augmentation to eliminate gender dysphoria, which is a real insignificant condition, somehow that's not okay.

John Dehlin [00:26:30] That just seems really confusing to me. Rochelle writes, the restrictions on social transition has tightened, which is sad because it's the lowest cost, most accessible intervention which reduces harm. It's the first line of defense for those struggling with dysphoria. That is a great comment from Rochelle, and it's just so true. Like, why not let people change their name, change the pronouns, change how they present?

John Dehlin [00:26:56] That should be easy. That should be just sort of easy. And they're basically saying, you can identify as transgender but don't express it in any way. And that's like sort of, you can be gay, but don't do gay. And it's. I'm sure there's all sorts of problems with that comparison, but it's just another example of kind of this inability to really understand. Have they talked to any transgender people? Have they sat down with them? Have they asked them how their lives are? Have they asked to understand why they feel and think and act the way that they do? Because this policy doesn't seem to reflect that well.

Natasha Helfer [00:27:31] It defines the narrative.

John Dehlin [00:27:32] What's that?

Natasha Helfer [00:27:33] It defies the narrative. The narrative that they are the source of truth. And we gain this knowledge from the best books. Not science. Not science. It's from faith and from revelation. And when that tends to not be as true as pure science, real lived experiences and the personal experiences of those directly impacted, then a church that has always claimed that we are the end, that there is no other truth outside of us, where do you go from here? Is now stuck with a conundrum because you have people who are experiencing this in real time and a church that has used this as messaging against that, and that doesn't correlate well. And it's difficult to go back.

Transgender Member Experiences and Mental Health Perspectives

John Dehlin [00:28:17] Right.

Anthony D. Miller [00:28:17] And the social aspect is really important because we also know through the research that this is tremendous. Any type of marginalization or discrimination or bias is going to upgrade all of the negative symptoms and by nitpicking. These little things that they're talking about as far as when and if you will be able to participate in certain ways, are all forms of discriminating a population within our church community.

John Dehlin [00:28:47] Let me go ahead and get a comment from Kimberly Anderson in as well. Kimberly writes to dovetail on nhp. The only doctrine in the church that says to rely on the arm of the flesh instead of the spirit is with transgender people. We are taught to rely on the arm of the flesh and ignore, suppress, and deny the spirit. And that's something that, you know, if somebody has valid spiritual experiences that communicates to them, why are we selective in saying, listen to the spirit, listen to yourself, you know, unless it contradicts what the brethren are saying. And, Kimberly, that's a great point. We thank you always for your participation on that. Samantha, do you have other things you would like to jump in and add?

Samantha Taylor [00:29:38] Many, many transgender members of the church, myself included, feel that they have had such spiritual experiences. To quote, I know he's quite controversial in the LGBTQ community, but Mayor Pete recently gave a speech, and I think it was the Victory Something dinner. I'll try to get the link in the quotes here, but he was talking about his process of coming out and how at one point in time, if you had given him a pill to make him straight, he would have swallowed it before you had a chance to give him a sip of water.

Samantha Taylor [00:30:14] And if you had told him exactly what inside him made him gay, he would have cut it out with a knife. Most of us have felt that way. And as Natasha mentioned, with the suicide rates and she didn't bring any transgender youth can and do try to cut it out, sadly.

Samantha Taylor [00:30:40] And I fought with this. I knew from the time I was about six years old, probably earlier, but around seven, eight is when I really found a word for it. And I tried everything I could to pray away. The gay, which is what they wanted us to do, got into a marriage, which was supposed to fix it.

Samantha Taylor [00:31:03] The only thing that finally fixed it was when I finally went to the temple and I asked the right question and I said, lord, am I a son or a daughter? And he told me. And many, many of our members have had a similar experience, but the day you tell that to a stake president or bishop, they freak out.

Samantha Taylor [00:31:24] They do not like to hear that. I mean, to be fair, there were quite a few progressive bishops out there who I'm sure were totally fine with it, and that's why they justified being progressive. But it typically is not well received. You cannot possibly receive personal revelation that is contrary to what the brethren have taught you can't. It's Satan speaking to you, and so therefore you're under the influence of Satan. And that's very much how this has been approached for a long, long time.

Samantha Taylor [00:31:59] And I lost my thought there a little bit. But I do want to cover a few other things before we totally run out of time.

John Dehlin [00:32:04] Please, please, please.

Samantha Taylor [00:32:07] How I think that this policy should have been handled, and this is going to upset a lot of people on both sides of the fence. What I'm about to say is the church could have taken a very kind approach and said, hey, there's enough evidence out there that we know that transgender conditions exist. You exist. You're real, you're valid. We don't know what the heck is going on. We don't know what causes it. We don't know for sure what we should be doing about it. We simply do not know. And because we have no reliable method to determine your eternal gender, and we aren't willing to trust you to self identify anything that is particularly gendered within the church, such as temple ordinances or priesthood and the callings that are related to those, to err on the side of caution and not make any eternal mistakes, we're going to restrict you from those, but in absolutely every other way, we want full participation, which is basically the final effect of these policies.

Samantha Taylor [00:33:13] But certain members of the quorum of the 12, and I believe this to be Elder Oaks, I know I pick on him a lot, but this happens to be a direct quote from him that made it into the manual, decided to say that no, you are.

Samantha Taylor [00:33:31] Your eternal gender is your biological sex at birth. And that, to me, is what makes this policy so problematic, is we are taking away people's agency. We are taking away their ability to self identify. I'm happy that they are allowing us to identify as transgender, not insisting on using a different word like same sex attraction instead of gay.

Samantha Taylor [00:33:57] But the reality of it is it is taking away our ability to be autonomous as far as the church is concerned. I don't like it. I don't like being a second class citizen. But I could stand behind, from a theological and a logical standpoint, the actual restrictions placed on transgender members.

Samantha Taylor [00:34:20] But what bugs me is the logic behind why they were implemented. And that's what I simply can't agree with, especially given that we're willing to acknowledge the existence of intersex conditions, that our mortal bodies are imperfect, we can have defects related to our physical sex here on the Earth. But we drew a line somewhere where I really don't agree with that line being drawn.

John Dehlin [00:34:51] Thank you.

Anthony D. Miller [00:34:53] Well, and again, we have a lawyer speaking about conditions and medical terminology that he has no business speaking about. I mean, it's really out of scope of practice, and it's irresponsible, and it just is incredibly problematic.

Samantha Taylor [00:35:10] Another problem that we run into is Elder Oaks, known associate of a man named Paul McHugh, who was a gender researcher at Johns Hopkins University until he used some questionable methods and made some questionable conclusions that were quite problematic, and his own university disavowed him. They disavowed his research and said, we cannot stand behind this. It is not correct, and we won't continue to sponsor it. But because the church wants to seem like they're relying on science, they cherry picked. And even though none of his quotes made it into the final materials that were released, inside sources tell us that a lot of the influence on the Quorum of the twelve, and especially Elder Oaks, came from this particular individual who the scientific community at large has said his research is no good. It's crap.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] Yeah, we have a hard time accepting science when it's. When it's made its case. We tend to follow science a few decades after it's come to its consensus. That's just unfortunately what we do. And we cherry pick the science that meets our agenda sometimes. That's unfortunate.

Samantha Taylor [00:36:44] Now, I do. Do we have a sec for me to say something positive about the new policy?

John Dehlin [00:36:49] Yeah, please.

Samantha Taylor [00:36:51] I do think one of the big problems before was, and I've advocated for this for a very long time, so while only portions of it made it into the handbook, the new site on transgender members, I'm actually very happy,

Gina Colvin [00:37:09] really,

Samantha Taylor [00:37:09] really doubled down on this, because, as I've said for years, we know we're going to hell. How about you stop talking about us going to hell and you put more emphasis on the fact that members are supposed to love us?

Samantha Taylor [00:37:23] I've seen some horrible things even within my own family when I came out as trans, and he has since recanted this. My own father said that suicide would be the better option for everybody, which we're talking a population that already has a 40% suicide attempt rate.

Samantha Taylor [00:37:41] I came close a couple times to following that advice, and I've seen. I did an interview with a young transgender woman who, thank God, is now safe and away from home. But the levels and types of abuse she suffered, a lot of which was sanctioned to some extent by local leaders or thought to have been sanctioned by her father.

Samantha Taylor [00:38:11] At least that's how he interpreted his counsel from leaders. It was quite disgusting abuse to the point where I had to stop the interview a couple times because I couldn't handle hearing it. And these are not isolated stories. Kids getting kicked out of homes, treated very poorly.

Samantha Taylor [00:38:34] But I really love how the website has doubled down and said, hey, we need to actually love and include these members. I think that when you go read the actual website, which I believe was written by somebody inspired and not just an attorney, and I use that word in two ways, meaning Elder Oaks, who was an attorney as well as the attorneys at Curtin McConkey.

Samantha Taylor [00:39:01] I think that a lot of what was written there really was inspired and really is directed at the members of the church to help them be better and do better. And I'm really impressed at the effort that went into that.

Samantha Taylor [00:39:16] I think that if members read and follow that advice and if leaders are willing to enforce it, we can see some really meaningful changes within the church. Not enough to make me consider going back because there's other problems that I have with the organization, but I think that creating a loving environment, making it clear that, hey, yes, your duty is to get your children to heaven, but that doesn't mean that you beat the hell out of them.

Samantha Taylor [00:39:48] We should see some meaningful change. We should see some differences in the way leaders relate to people. And to his credit, my branch president, and this is funny, I was actually in a branch in Orem. Strange how that worked out.

Samantha Taylor [00:40:03] He was called a few weeks before I came out and he was actually quite kind. Not supportive, I wouldn't use that word, but he was very kind, which is not something I experienced from any of my other leaders.

Samantha Taylor [00:40:17] And I think that as people take to heart the need to be Christlike and understanding and not judge, we can see the suicide rate start to drop and the rejection not be as strong as it has been. There's plenty of transgender members who really, really want to maintain a relationship with the church. And the membership at large has done a really crappy job of allowing them to do so. And I really hope for their sake, some really, really lovely members are able to feel safe, to feel accepted and continue to participate in church.

Panel Reflections and Suggestions for Moving Forward

Natasha Helfer [00:41:02] I want to open a question quick to the panel. Just offering some wondering what suggestions the panel can offer to the listener to help 50 North Temple and those who make these decisions better understand this topic. What are you doing in your personal advocacy? What are some suggestions? Because we're kind of at a now there for what situation? It's easy for us to now acknowledge the elephant in the room. How do we now move the ball forward? How do we either get the elephant out of the room or. Or learn to live with it in. In the house?

Jana Spangler [00:41:46] Well, I. My ex. My answer would be that they need to spend time with people like you. They need to sit with them. They need to go on a kayak road, you know, ride down the Provo River. They need to go to Encircle. They need to.

Jana Spangler [00:42:02] They need to sit with them and spend time with them and listen to their story and serve them and watch them, and it'll soften their heart. And just like we mentioned before, I speculated that as BYU students during the next decade see same sex couples dating and in love and infatuated and light in their eyes and participating in their wards and spiritual and so forth, that's going to change people's experience.

Jana Spangler [00:42:42] My sense is that the same thing is true for the transgender community. The more people are exposed to other people, the less foreign it is, and the more that they're going to experience a sense of emotional connection and love and intimacy with those people.

Jana Spangler [00:43:04] And I think that's what needs to happen in Salt Lake and the big white building and the administration building is they need to spend more time serving this community.

John Dehlin [00:43:15] Love it.

Anthony D. Miller [00:43:18] I would say, too, that we need to be very careful to, as we speak about these topics, as we talk in wards and councils and stakes, to not just assume that they're not amongst us. Right. I mean, so many people have. Have not come out, have not gone public, but are still dealing with these kinds of concerns and issues. And I think we need to be very mindful about our language, about our. Our perspectives and what we're sharing in circles where we assume people are like us. You know, when cisgender people are unaware of their privilege and think everybody's like them. And that's just not the case. It's not true with anybody in the LGBTQ community. You know, that they're amongst us, they're listening, they're hearing us, and they're being damaged by many of the things that we're saying. So let's be mindful of that.

Natasha Helfer [00:44:16] Usually when I do a fifth Sunday fireside training or some type of training with a church leader, I always introduce this idea that conservatively, if we look at a population that is 5% impact of someone along the spectrum, or 5% of our population is somewhere among the LGBT spectrum, conservatively it's 5%. Some argue 8 to 10%. But when you look at a single ward, that means at least 20 to 40 members of that ward are impacted by this topic. And I had a bishop point this out just yesterday. I started with that same conservatively 5%, and he just stopped and said, oh, no, I think I have at least 30 in my ward who are impacted by this topic.

Natasha Helfer [00:45:03] And a part of me just wanted just to hug him because he acknowledged that there were 30 members of his ward that needed special care and he was willing to go out there and find them. And I think that was really important and I really appreciated it.

John Dehlin [00:45:19] Yeah, it really is us.

Jana Spangler [00:45:24] In the Gospels, Jesus didn't sit at a table and wait for people to come dine with him. He went and dined with people and he. And that example of the Jesus of the Gospels, that that's what needs to happen.

Natasha Helfer [00:45:39] And just to echo something that you said, Anthony, that I thought maybe might allow listeners of this podcast episode an opportunity to help is there is a little unknown email address. It's lgbtchurchofjesuschrist.org that goes directly to the LGBT correlation department within the church. You can use that email address to share your. Your thoughts, opinions, stories, and especially your feelings towards the changes in this handbook. LGBTurchofjesuschrist.org and that will go directly to the correlation committee, and they may hunt me down for my resigned membership for sharing the email address. But I think it's a good opportunity for us to share our stories and our experiences and. And our thoughts concerning some of these policy changes.

Gina Colvin [00:46:35] I'm curious how the panel feels that this policy, if it will affect at all some of the variation that I've heard in different places of faithful transgender members of. You know, some are allowed to attend Relief Society or Elders Quorum, and some are not. And I'm just wondering if this policy addressed any of that and if there will be any effect.

Samantha Taylor [00:47:05] The policy specifically says that transgender members can attend all Sunday meetings. And now there is still some. The thing that concerns us a lot, and I address this a bit in my essay, is that elsewhere in the manual it says all are welcome to attend as long as they don't have distracting dresser grooming practices. Now, who's to say that that's not a loophole for bishop to say, hey, Sister, whoever, you coming to church in pants instead of a skirt is disruptive. So if you're going to do that, you're not welcome in meetings or vice,

Natasha Helfer [00:47:44] and we notice you took the sacrament with your left hand.

Samantha Taylor [00:47:47] Exactly. That is a welcome change. They'll meet. You know, there were a lot of really problematic unofficial policies For a while. And some of them were very inconsistent. I was told if I came to church presenting female, I was not to take the sacrament. I was not to sit with my wife because we don't want to give the youth any wrong ideas.

Samantha Taylor [00:48:09] I needed to sit separate from her. Not that that would have been a problem. She wasn't too happy about everything. But I was also not supposed to speak, pray, etc. And right now, the change in the policy basically prevents me from exercising the priesthood, which, as of three weeks ago, when my resignation was processed, I don't have any more anyway.

Samantha Taylor [00:48:32] And I wasn't allowed to have a temple recommend, or I wouldn't under this new policy, I wouldn't be allowed to have a temple recommend. But everything else, as far as church participation, open to transgender members now, they can bear testimonies. They are allowed to speak out loud in church. They can pray.

Samantha Taylor [00:48:51] So it isn't quite full disfellowship. One of the things that bugs me is we call it membership restrictions for transgender members, which is the exact same terminology we've used to replace disfellowship. Even though the membership restrictions for transgender members different and less harsh, we're still using that same terminology, which implies that social or medical transition is a sin that needs to be repented from.

Samantha Taylor [00:49:21] And that's like going to somebody who's terminally ill cancer patient saying, you can't have your chemo, choose your chemo, or choose your temple recommend. It's not a good situation.

John Dehlin [00:49:35] Right. Well, there are probably other topics we can explore, but I think we're kind of. I think it's probably time to wrap up, but let's just do this. Well, first of all, I want to thank my panel, but maybe if it's okay, what if we went around the horn with all the panelists and gave everyone one final chance to either make any closing comments or highlight positive or negative things that they want to just kind of in a final circle around. Would that be okay?

Samantha Taylor [00:50:13] Sounds great.

Natasha Helfer [00:50:14] I'm great with that.

John Dehlin [00:50:15] Samantha, do you want to start, since we're kind of, you know, closing out the transgender issue, specifically, final things you want to say about this or other issues.

Samantha Taylor [00:50:30] My big takeaway is I think there are definitely factions within church leadership who are supportive. They have worked very hard on this. They are trying to show they love us, but they just still can't understand. Some of that is cultural bias. Some of that is age. Some of it's straight up refusal.

Samantha Taylor [00:50:56] But I do see this as them trying to do what they can within the capacity that they have, and just get out there and meet transgender members. A lot of us are among you, and you don't even know.

Samantha Taylor [00:51:15] It's quite rare. Of course, I have what we call passing privilege for the most part. I've worked on my voice quite a bit appearance, but most people have no clue that I'm transgender. There may be people in your ward and around you and your neighborhoods that have. You have no clue are trans.

Samantha Taylor [00:51:34] You have no clue are gay. Why would you let a revelation like that all of a sudden turn them into the enemy? Just go out and love people. That's what the Savior would have done. That's what we're instructed to do.

Samantha Taylor [00:51:49] Everything else is up to God to decide. And if you just accept people love them, choose to follow that portion of the council, you're already going to make the world a better place.

John Dehlin [00:52:02] Love it. Samantha, you've been great to have on. We're so glad you could join us today on Mormon Stories podcast.

Samantha Taylor [00:52:10] Thank you for having me.

John Dehlin [00:52:11] Our pleasure. Jana, do you want to go?

Gina Colvin [00:52:16] Sure. Yeah. I echo a lot of what Samantha said that. A lot of what she said, to sum up, resonates with me, which is just that I do overall appreciate the effort toward progress to changing things. That's one thing I really appreciate about the church, is that however slow, however it feels like three steps forward, two steps back, sometimes if we take the long view, we're bending toward better and better things all the time. And I also sit and mourn with people who are still hurt by it, who. The progress is just too slow.

Samantha Taylor [00:53:01] There's just.

Gina Colvin [00:53:03] My heart goes out to so many people, and I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt that most people largely, I believe, are doing the best that they possibly can. And I think that includes the leadership. And I also take heart that whatever comes out from the. From the church itself, from the leadership, there's so much power to do good in this church on the ground, and there's so much power to reach out to people and to love people the way that our hearts tell us to love them. So it's all a mixed bag for me, but I don't know. I have. I hold a lot of. A lot of hope and I hold a lot of discouragement all in one big, messy place.

John Dehlin [00:53:54] Well, Jana, you're lovely, and I'm just so happy that you could join us and that you can hold down, kind of representing the wing of people who remain in and are trying to do their best to make things better, but also Finding value. We're just so delighted you'd be willing to join us on Mormon Stories and share your perspectives and keep up the good work.

Gina Colvin [00:54:18] Thank you so much for having me. John

John Dehlin [00:54:21] Anthony, why don't you go next?

Jana Spangler [00:54:24] Sure. I would express something similar, just using my words, basically, that Jan is explaining in that I sit with this and I feel a sense of mourning for generations, lost generations, generations of people whom, for even these incremental steps aren't really going to have made a difference because it's too late.

Jana Spangler [00:54:56] But at the same time, I look at it with a sense of optimism of the trajectory of what these incremental steps are going to do is that 20 years from now it's going to be healthier than it has been.

Jana Spangler [00:55:11] And that's hopeful. Whether or not the church works for someone or doesn't work for someone. Like, you know, if a 6 year old kid knows they're different or a 14 year old kid knows they're gay, like they need to not have a horrific experience in church.

Jana Spangler [00:55:38] And maybe some of these things are going to incrementally make it not as bad for future generations. So I'm hopeful, but I mourn at the same time. And anyway, that's my sense of these things. Not just the LGBTQ issues, but things like, you know, we went from church courts to disciplinary councils to membership councils, and maybe we'll go further to a healthier thing next time after that.

John Dehlin [00:56:10] So I love it. Thanks for your continued wisdom and kindness and compassion, Anthony. It's always great to have you on warmer stories.

Jana Spangler [00:56:19] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:56:20] I really appreciate it, Natasha.

Gina Colvin [00:56:27] So

Anthony D. Miller [00:56:29] I kind of mirror a lot of what everybody's saying. There's things to celebrate here. And anytime our community makes progress in any way, shape or form, that's a cause for celebration. And at the same time, if there's still abuses in the system, we have to continue to call those out and continue to do the advocacy work. Because I truly believe it's the advocacy work and it's the stories and it's the victims of the abuses that shift these things to begin with. Right. And so those are really important kind of, I guess, tensions to be wrestling with. I'm going to answer Anthony Miller's earlier question about what the church could do with $100 billion to help this regard.

Anthony D. Miller [00:57:12] I think there's lots of things that we can do. One thing that I'm not being tongue in cheek about this. I'm actually being really serious. You know, many, many jobs in the public sector require psychological evaluations. And I Think it would be actually really beneficial if the church would start paying for psychological evaluations for anybody who's going to be in a leadership role from bishop up in the leadership community.

Anthony D. Miller [00:57:36] That would rule out maybe some personality disordered issues that we see kind of being rampant in our church, as well as mental disorders that would keep people from being able to have correct judgment and who are maybe too rigidly kind of wired for some of the changes and shifts that would serve the public, which we have a huge diverse church membership throughout the world. And I think we would see a lot of those issues maybe go aside if we had certain personalities and certain disorders kind of go by the wayside. So that's a suggestion I have.

Anthony D. Miller [00:58:13] Another suggestion I have is to really outsource a lot of this kind of homework that we need to do. We as a church, as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we may have certain authority or ideas about who we are. We are not a medical institution and we are not a mental health institution. And we need to know our place. And so there are many wonderful trauma informed resources available to us. And I actually know several entities that have actually tried to reach out to the church and the church has refused their help. So from government agencies to educational institutions to professional associations, there are so many professionals and researchers that would love to be consulted, would love to bring their capacity to the LDS organization and to help us be a more trauma informed community.

Anthony D. Miller [00:59:11] And I think it also behooves us that we need to really be open to retraining, training so many of our own mental health professionals, because quite frankly, what we have allowed to happen, which is quite unethical, is that many LDS and Mormon mental health therapists use the church as a code of ethics instead of their own professional code of ethics. And that's not an okay thing to do in any other medical profession. And so we need to really retrain and rethink about how people who, for example, encouraged to work for LDS Family Services or other community factions that have to do with serving the Mormon population.

Anthony D. Miller [00:59:49] And that's why I feel very passionate about the Mormon Mental Health association, which is a secular organization which really hopes to serve the Mormon population in best standards of care way with cultural competency, which I think is very important. So those are some things that I think would be helpful for the church to practice a lot of what it preaches. Humility, repentance, ability to seek out the best things from all the best resources, which is right from the, you know, from our beginner founder. However, you feel about him. He. He included that in our articles of faith. And I really believe that. And so many other areas of life, we do that.

Anthony D. Miller [01:00:33] We do a good job of understanding the concepts and the research. And even we've made great strides in mental health. So, for example, some of the things that we're talking about in regards to depression and psychiatry. I know 50 years ago, we saw psychiatrists, for example, as enemies to the church. Right. And so we just need to continue down that path of humility and repentance so that we can offer our members the best and not continue to be. I counted 13 out of the 16 sexual rights currently being not what I want to say.

Anthony D. Miller [01:01:14] Why is my brain just not falling? Yes, thank you. 13 out of the 16 sexual rights are being violated by all of the policies that are currently in this handbook.

John Dehlin [01:01:27] Beautiful. So well said, Natasha. Thank you as always for coming on Mormon Stories and for all the work you do for so many Mormonism is lucky to have you and everyone on this panel. So I'll just. I don't really want to add anything to what's been said other than that.

Anthony D. Miller [01:01:47] Did you have Kyle finish up?

John Dehlin [01:01:49] Kyle? I wanted Kyle to go last, so.

Natasha Helfer [01:01:51] Kyle, I'm just a sucker in the snow.

John Dehlin [01:01:55] No, no, no. I actually wanted you to go last, so please. Kyle, I'm excited to hear your summary.

Natasha Helfer [01:02:07] I really appreciate this panel for all the varying positions and abilities to analyze a really difficult topic. And I side with the church on a handful of their comments in regards to. There's a lot about this that we do not know and we do not understand.

Natasha Helfer [01:02:30] And I think discussions like this are really, really healthy. If there's anything that I want to do with the Latter Gay Stories podcast, it's to continue sharing the stories of those who feel marginalized and othered. And it's not. It's not an opportunity for them just to share a story, but a greater opportunity for people to learn from it.

Natasha Helfer [01:02:53] Samantha brought up that quote from Mayor Pete about choosing whether or not you can be gay or straight, taking the pill or cutting it out. Often I found that if given the choice to be gay or straight, most just choose to be happy and want to be happy.

Natasha Helfer [01:03:12] It's often that when we mix religion into this, I see in the lived experiences of the LGBT community, we didn't choose to be gay. We didn't choose to be lesbian, bisexual, transgender, anywhere along the spectrum. But we did choose to be in a religious society. We chose to be Mormon. And one of those things, we didn't have an opportunity to make a decision as to whether or not that would impact us for the rest of our lives. And so sometimes half of this battle is self care and just getting to a place where we're healthy and happy, where we can flourish. And often that is being among people who are similar to you.

Natasha Helfer [01:03:59] It's maybe the herd mentality. And I just want people out there who are closeted, who experience something along the spectrum to know that there's a community of people out here who support you, who love you, who value you, who understand exactly what you're going through, and who will embrace you in both the good and the difficult times. Because it's very possible for us to be happy and sad at the same time. We can have good experiences and bad experiences at the same time, and that is okay. So come out, come out, wherever you are.

Natasha Helfer [01:04:33] Contact any of us who are on this panel, and we can direct you into resources that will help get you into places where you can flourish and thrive. That's, I think, the important part of the message. Handbooks and special witnesses of Christ and policies and procedures will come and go, but there will always be people out here, as we've mentioned throughout this episode, who have paved the path and made it a little less rocky and a little less bumpy. Let's just get you on the path and allow you to make that journey on your own.

Natasha Helfer [01:05:05] Because again, when you uproot something as large as Mormonism in your life, or, and in my case, I was married to a woman, four children, my whole world was straight acting and straight presenting because that was what rocked the least amount or created the least amount of wave in my world. But when you uproot that, it's like pulling a great oak tree out of your front yard.

Natasha Helfer [01:05:32] What's left is a gigantic hole. And either you allow dust, dirt, and debris to fill that hole, or you start filling it with healthy things that allow you to grow again and to replace that with things that are special and affirming. And the ability to move forward is key. And I just want to let you know that there are resources out there available and you can personally contact me, and I will get you pointed in the right direction to see that you do succeed. So, again, John, and to the panelists, I am grateful for opportunities like this where we can discuss hard things, but also move forward with an eye of progress and the ability to vault people into a direction that is more healthy and sustainable for the long term.

John Dehlin [01:06:17] I love it. And how do people reach out to you, Kyle? If they want to take you up on that?

Natasha Helfer [01:06:21] You're welcome to contact me on the Latter gay stories website, lattergay stories.org There's a contact box there. You can look me up on Facebook directly through the Latter Gay Stories podcast Facebook page. We're really active on the page. We have thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are part of that. And I mentioned this earlier in the podcast in this episode.

Natasha Helfer [01:06:47] Each of my episodes are getting between 10 and 30,000 people who are listening to them. That's incredible. So it's either that people are bored and have nothing to listen to, or this topic is much larger than we really understand. To even have 10,000 people pay attention to a single episode is incredible.

Natasha Helfer [01:07:06] So there are people out there, especially in the ally community and the things that so many other groups are doing to support you, the LGBTQ person, it's incredible. And I will get you into a group that will support and sustain you. You are worth the investment. I want, I want you to know that.

John Dehlin [01:07:28] Beautiful.

Samantha Taylor [01:07:31] John. Another source for resources, especially here in Utah, is the LGBTQ Safe Zone project. You can find our Facebook page just by looking for LGBTQ Safe Zone. Send us a message through that anytime. Trey or I will be happy to talk to you or point you to resources as well.

John Dehlin [01:07:49] I love it. All right, any. Anyone else want to mention any resources? All right, well, amazing panel. Thanks everyone so much for their participation. Thanks to all our listeners. Upward and onward. Let's, let's celebrate the good and let's keep talking about the things that need to be improved. And let's try and make kind of this big Mormon post Mormon world healthier, better as we go. So thanks to everyone for playing your part.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.