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Just going to throw this out there. About 10 years ago, shortly before Amendment 3 was passed in Utah, the SL Tribune printed an article about a child who was born with indeterminate gender. The child’s gender could not be determined through genitalia or chromosomes. If I remember correctly, the article stated that this condition occurs with the same frequency as down’s syndrome.
So, if you know a person with down’s syndrome, you probably know someone whose gender is probably a choice.
Or was assigned to them by parents or a doctor.
So, all these discussions about same sex attraction and gender identity….it’s obvious to me that nothing about any of this is sure, certain,set in stone, easy to define, normal, standard, blah, blah, blah.
If Heavenly Father sends us children with gender questions…, why can anyone assume that sexual attraction, gender identity or any of these issues are black and white? How can society put that on kids, especially a church that purports to speak for Christ?
Elder Christofferson did say earlier this year that we don’t have a very good understanding of these issues. Clearly we don’t, and it is clearly not black and white. I have long said the same thing – and it was good that Elder Christofferson acknowledged how gray our understanding is of those issues. It would be better if our policies matched that acknowledgment, and, though it is small comfort to many, I am sure that acknowledgment will start to effect our policy relatively soon – as one generation replaces another.
ghayes wrote:article stated that this condition occurs with the same frequency as down’s syndrome.
Did some quick research and the figures I found had Down Syndrome occurring in 1 out of 700 to 1 out of 1,100 babies.
Coming up with the occurrence of intersex babies is more difficult but a broad estimate is 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births.
So I would agree that the numbers are broadly comparable.
Quote:
To answer this question in an uncontroversial way, you’d have to first get everyone to agree on what counts as intersex —and also to agree on what should count as strictly male or strictly female. That’s hard to do. How small does a penis have to be before it counts as intersex? Do you count “sex chromosome” anomalies as intersex if there’s no apparent external sexual ambiguity?1 (Alice Dreger explores this question in greater depth in her book Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex.)Here’s what we do know: If you ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births. But a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won’t show up until later in life.
Below we provide a summary of statistics drawn from an article by Brown University researcher Anne Fausto-Sterling.2 The basis for that article was an extensive review of the medical literature from 1955 to 1998 aimed at producing numeric estimates for the frequency of sex variations. Note that the frequency of some of these conditions, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, differs for different populations. These statistics are approximations.
Not XX and not XY one in 1,666 births
Klinefelter (XXY) one in 1,000 births
Androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 13,000 births
Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 130,000 births
Classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia one in 13,000 births
Late onset adrenal hyperplasia one in 66 individuals
Vaginal agenesis one in 6,000 births
Ovotestes one in 83,000 births
Idiopathic (no discernable medical cause) one in 110,000 births
Iatrogenic (caused by medical treatment, for instance progestin administered to pregnant mother) no estimate
5 alpha reductase deficiency no estimate
Mixed gonadal dysgenesis no estimate
Complete gonadal dysgenesis one in 150,000 births
Hypospadias (urethral opening in perineum or along penile shaft) one in 2,000 births
Hypospadias (urethral opening between corona and tip of glans penis) one in 770 births
Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female one in 100 births
Total number of people receiving surgery to “normalize” genital appearance one or two in 1,000 births
1 Dreger, Alice Domurat. 1998. Ambiguous Sex—or Ambivalent Medicine? Ethical Issues in the Treatment of Intersexuality. Hastings Center Report, 28, 3: 24-35.
2 Blackless, Melanie, Anthony Charuvastra, Amanda Derryck, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Karl Lauzanne, and Ellen Lee. 2000. How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis. American Journal of Human Biology 12:151-166.
We were recently asked to update these frequency figures, and a lively discussion arose between two staff members.
For me this certainly adds context to President Packer’s statement, “”Some suppose that they were pre-set and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember he is our father.”
I can’t speak for God (and I cannot definitively say the exact intent of Pres. Packer’s words) but it would appear that situations like this do occur biologically. It is not fair to anyone to suppose that theologically they should not exist and therefore can be ignored.
I covered labor & delivery for years and never came across a baby that was “indeterminate”. It is rare enough that it is front page news. By adding hypospadias to the list, they changed their numbers drastically, and inappropriately. The basic argument is still valid as God loves all His children. Compassion, inclusion, and kindness are key to living a quality and fulfilling life as a follower of Christ.
Yes, even if only a few children on earth are born with a gender determination issues, broad based policies presuming everyone on earth is either a boy or a girl completely ignores reality. The individual stories you hear of people who were just assigned gender at birth by guessing are heartbreaking. And what they deal with due to societal norms is so sad. If determining gender can get dicey, surely there are more things that occur that affect gender identity and sexual attraction. Think of all that we know about that does go “different”…including autism, OCD, color-blindness. It is such arrogant thinking to label anyone who is living a good and decent life…but “different”… as being a sinner.
Let’s start punishing folks because they are born with two different colored eyes and punish their children because it freaks us out.
“Elder Christofferson did say earlier this year that we don’t have a very good understanding of these issues. Clearly we don’t, and it is clearly not black and white.” But clearly, I believe the church is treating this all as a black and white issue…despite admittedly not understanding it. If they don’t understand what is going on, then stop the witch hunt. Stop making policies that drive children to commit suicide. Stop labeling that poor 14 year old boy and girl as a sinner before they’ve even had their first kiss. This is what children face in our wards each and every week. And I’ve personally seen the struggles they go through. It’s heartbreaking.
I see this whole topic treated in church as though people dealing with this are invaders from another planet…a group of “others” to which we simply cannot relate…who are off in caves plotting our downfall. When in reality they are our family, our neighbors, our children sitting right next to us. The family is of God…and these folks are part of my family.
I hear your frustrations, ghayes, and the frustrated sarcasm. Totally valid responses. Wouldn’t it be better if the church had fewer policies, and allowed for special circumstances to be dealt with on a case by case basis? All they need to give bishops is the leeway to do so, and preach to the membership the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. There is no standard wage system in the vineyard to save all God’s children. Members need to understand Christ’s teachings, not keep asking for kings and OT commandments and rules.
For me, I accept the church establishes standards. But God is not restricted by the church’s rules that get established.
ghayes wrote:“Elder Christofferson did say earlier this year that we don’t have a very good understanding of these issues. Clearly we don’t, and it is clearly not black and white.”
But clearly, I believe the church is treating this all as a black and white issue…despite admittedly not understanding it. If they don’t understand what is going on, then stop the witch hunt. Stop making policies that drive children to commit suicide. Stop labeling that poor 14 year old boy and girl as a sinner before they’ve even had their first kiss. This is what children face in our wards each and every week. And I’ve personally seen the struggles they go through. It’s heartbreaking.
I see this whole topic treated in church as though people dealing with this are invaders from another planet…a group of “others” to which we simply cannot relate…who are off in caves plotting our downfall. When in reality they are our family, our neighbors, our children sitting right next to us. The family is of God…and these folks are part of my family.
I couldn’t agree more.
ghayes wrote:Stop labeling that poor 14 year old boy and girl as a sinner before they’ve even had their first kiss. This is what children face in our wards each and every week.
Recently a teenager asked me if holding hands with a member of the same sex is a sin. Before last week my answer was no. This week it appears the answer is – it’s the first step towards apostasy.
Compassion and broader guidelines are what we need for cases like indeterminate gender and other topics. The price for leeway and case-by-case judgment at the local level means less control from the top and less consistency across the organization.
Forgive me this rant. I’m feeling passionate tonight. When I was in institute a few years ago, one of my instructors made a big claim that the church would “never support gay marriage.” This was before the Church was using that kind of language (they were preaching it was a sin, but “never” is a pretty absolute word) and it rang some big bells in my head. He then offered us his reason why:
Because gender is central to this church. Gay marriage defies this.
I have never understood this sentiment about gender being essential to Christ’s gospel and increasingly the Church has taught this message. As much as the leaders at the pulpit preach about gender (roles) being important, that’s not what our doctrine actually shows. It’s about Christ. It’s about returning to him. People make the “being cealed” argument but at its core, that has nothing to do with gender. At least, the way we talk about marriage, we treat it like it’s the same covenant for men and women (except-that-it’s-not-but-whatever-no-one-wants-to-talk-about-this-stuff-so-we-might-as-well-just-throw-it-out-because-parts-of-the-temple-are-totally-sexist-and-it-breaks-hearts-and-some-men-use-it-to-control-their-wives-but-whatever).
If gender is so important, than why do I, as a woman, have no one to look to as an example of what I “get” in the eternities? Or even to what I should aspire to be? If my gender is so important, the doctrine should probably demonstrate how it would be different for me in the eternities. Fact is, as a woman, I have no one to look to to show me how my gender is important to my destiny in the eternities. Members can’t even agree if there are multiple heavenly mothers or just one–we seem to agree that there is at least one, but we have no clue what she does–clearly she’s more hands off than her husband—we’re forbidden to pray to her, for no apparent reason.
So, as an LDS woman, I am forced to choose between the two options here:
1). Accept the sexist teachings of past polygamous leaders and the blatantly sexist rhetoric of the temple, which I won’t get into here
OR
2). Accept that in spite of having no female figure to look to—which to me, seems to indicate that my place in the eternities will be the shadows—my gender will fundamentally alter my eternal destiny. I will have a different “role” than my husband, even though I have no way of really knowing what that role is going to be (which most women these days lean towards).
Obviously I reject both of these options.
My point is, our society is messed up, our gender roles are crazy, and I’m tried of being told how important gender is–especially because of these black-and-white policies that hurt men, women, and our spiritual siblings who are transgender, intersex, or even people that have a hard time identifying with either gender (I do interact and work with people of this nature–their struggles are often overlooked).
Being that I am a man, I am sure I don’t fully “get it”. But I do want to say that I feel it is odd that the church wants to hang it’s hat on gender roles and relationships. I have studied how in the womb we grow and certain chemicals are created by our genes and for some people (Hermaphrodites – with both genitalia) either the chemical (hormone) isn’t created or the cells can’t sense the chemical then they can end up very different than normal. That is all amazing, but I don’t think the church has any idea to deal with them. Gender, gender identity, and role are considered completely fixed and the church seems to have no idea how to handle them – other than calling them sinners. It bother me that anybody that gets a sex change operation isn’t allowed to be baptized. I don’t get why. And the current teachings (not sure they are doctrines, but nobody can explain some of the differences that makes it clear to me) hurt women especially, but they also hurt men and they are brutal to anybody that does not fit the norm.
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