At the 2018 Sandy Utah Sunstone Symposium I sat in a session about the genetics of Sex and Gender. The presenter was Crystal Scott, a is a embryologist. Crystal got her start at the University of Virginia. She works in the industry creating high-value babies and teaching genetics at Boise State University. Today we spend time diving into these complexities and how understanding that Sex and Gender are not understood in Binary ways requires us to hold space for the possibility that Truth may not be congruent with our Theology and Doctrine. If we find that to be true should we impose our Theology and Doctrine anyway or are we required to make space for additional truth. Especially if said false Theology and Doctrine hurts and harms others. Can you listen today with a soft heart. Can you hold space for those who are different. Can make room to be wrong. All that and more on today’s episode of Mormon Discussion.
Her Sunstone Powerpoint Presentation – CLICK HERE
RESOURCES:
Sex, Gender and Genetics
Sexual… dimorphism??
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/(SICI)1520-
6300(200003/04)12:2%3C151::AID-AJHB1%3E3.0.CO;2-F
Genetic components of Sex and Gender:
This is an exhaustive compliation by the World Health Organization
http://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html
Genetics, Sexual Orientation and Behavioral genetics:
http://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index2.html
The Transgender Brain, Jan 1, 2016
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-something-unique-about-the-
transgender-brain/
More bran imaging for cis-v-transgender brains
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/are-the-brains-of-transgender-people-different-from-those-of-cisgender-people-30027
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25392513
No longer considered a mental health issue:
https://www.glaad.org/blog/apa-removes-gender-identity-disorder-updated-mental-health-guide
Brain connections and cis –v- trans:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4585501/
Homsexual Men with differences between homosexual, bisexual and heterosexual brains:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286516/
Homsexual Men with differences between homosexual, bisexual and heterosexual brains:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29330483
About finger length:
https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/why-finger-size-matters-19691231/
differences in identical twins with opposing sexuality:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-018-1262-z
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I know a transgender person who has tried to stay in the LDS faith. He very much wants to attend the temple. To do that, his bishop requires him to wear a dress. Though the child biologically has female parts,…inside that is not the case. Not even a little.This child identifies as a male.
THANK GOD HIS MOTHER LOVES HIM!
Speaking from the personal observation I have had into this family, I can say with 100% assurity, this child did NOT choose this struggle. And, this struggle IS NOT THE RESULT OF SIN!
I don’t think there is any way possible for this family to remain LDS; the church has no room for those who don’t identify themselves in given paradigm.
I have always marveled why the “prophet” can ask God about this, and get some new info. Obviously Joseph Smith didn’t have answers for this (or even discuss it)…and now its a big deal. We have “Today’s News Today” (with a living prophet).
That man doesn’t do sh!t.
Is it possible that society in general is more accepting of LGBT causes that enables people to be more homosexual where in the past they might have been heterosexual had their environment been more coercive or encouraging to be straight?
Sort of like a left handed forced to use his right hand scenario.
You can force a left handed person to use their right hand, but that does not make them right handed. It just causes feelings of anguish, judgement and inadequacy. You are simply taking the talent and ability to draw/ write/ whatever in their left hand and throwing it away to make room for a life full of mediocre, right handed scribbles.
I know many people who are Right handed, who initially were Left handed. Some don’t even know how to write with the left hand, others are ambidextrous.
No one complains about being forced to right handedness, so it’s quite possible that this also extends to the sexual arena.
Oh, I get it. Then lets take a true 100% woman and for him to become 100% man… Fake it till you make it. God demands it. Fruits…?
“… and force him to become…”
Forcing change and obedience is…. the other brother’s plan. Think about what Jesus really said and did, nothing like this garbage coerced, bullied, punished and shamed in His name (the nature of today’s “Power & Authority” Pharisees too, who’s father was named by Jesus as Satan): Matt 7: 20-24 and all of Matt 7 & Matt 23 & Matt 15: 11-14
The real Jesus (not our puppet Jesus) warned us over and over, and not just about those “with Power and authority” but “Ravening Leaders in fine wool suits” and so many more descriptions.
Fruits. Are we really that intentionally “deaf and blind” to His real wisdom?
Excellent, excellent, excellent podcast!!! Thank you! What an eye-opener!!
Sex does not actually exist on a spectrum. There are two sexes. There are extraordinarily rare exceptions in the form of intersex people. The condition is a birth defect, and most intersex people have characteristics of the two genders that exist. The statistics given here are incorrect. Less than 0.8 percent of people are intersex, and an estimated 5 to 30 percent of people are left handed. Also, I have not heard any of the church leaders say that homosexuality is a choice. They seem to be well aware that it is not.
Intersex individualis are far more common than members of the LDS church, it’s not even close. The most thorough existing research finds intersex people to constitute an estimated 1.7% of the population, which makes being intersex about as common as having red hair (1%-2%).
This also means there’s approximately 130 million people in the world who are intersex compared to a relatively insignificantly small number of LDS membership of 16.2 million. Or put another way, intersex people are 8 times more common than someone baptized into the LDS church.
Since you brought up left-handedness, the number of left handed people is considered to be about ten percent, not the wide range variation that you provided. Crystal Scott may have been referring to cross-dominance or mixed-handedness, which is the change of hand preference between tasks. This is very uncommon in the population with about a 1% prevalence.
And one last thing, many LDS leaders did believe homosexuality was a choice, which is why there are quotes like this from Boyd K. Packer from a 2010 GC talk, “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.” This belief that it is was “unnatural” and a sin is what led to BYU participating in aversion therapy, or electroshock therapy, because they absolutely believed that being gay was a choice and the brain could be reconditioned for heterosexuality.