History and Theology of Trans and Nonbinary Identity in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Trans and gender nonbinary Latter-day Saints have become increasingly visible in recent years, sparking public debates about their place within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.1 These debates have emerged as transgender visibility gains prominence in American and global political discussions, leading to conflicts over access to long-standing medical protocols, bathrooms, sports participation, housing, employment, religious belonging, and more. The heightened panic and polarization surrounding this topic have resulted in alarming rates of surveillance, regulation, violence, and harassment faced by transgender individuals, even as some sectors of society have shown greater tolerance.Latter-day Saint Church leaders have evolved their understanding of and teachings on trans identity and practice alongside these broader cultural changes. The Church's teachings have generally discouraged individuals from transitioning. Such policies and teachings were once peripheral issues for the mainstream Church, but in recent years, its leaders have issued numerous updates on trans-related policies. These policies are often rooted in a theological claim about fixed differences between males and females, including teachings about preexistence, creation, and embodiment, as well as a scientifically questionable concept of binary “biological sex.”2 The Church has struggled to balance its strong opposition to transgender identity with an ethics of compassion, resulting in a lack of a singular perspective and shifting values on this topic.Over the past decade especially, trans and gender nonbinary Latter-day Saints have attempted to bring greater awareness of and education on their experiences to Church leaders and the general membership through interviews, publications, and in-person interactions. These have often included theological reflections and commentary on official and semi-official doctrines. Some have critiqued Church teachings while others argue that transgender identity is compatible with traditional LDS doctrines on eternal gender. While there is no singular trans identity or perspective, let alone a singular trans theological perspective, the public discourse has advocated for their place in society and within the Church community. In general, transgender Latter-day Saints have worked to make it clear that their identities and real existence should take precedence over ideological ideals.The deepening cultural divide on transgender issues emphasizes the urgent need for greater historical, sociological, and theological clarity. The circumstances demand a critical and responsible engagement with history and tradition, interpretive possibilities, and ethical considerations of the past and the future. Are trans practices and identities necessarily in conflict with religious practices and identities, including those of the Latter-day Saints? The answer is complicated in this case. LDS theology is a loose concept, deriving from authoritative scripture, teachings of past and present Church leaders, and official publications like manuals and handbooks.3 Nevertheless, the shifting historical teachings, competing authorities and texts, and the ways that Latter-day Saints critically engage their faith creates new possibilities for reconsideration of the answers.Trans and nonbinary topics have raised critical questions about gender, priesthood, desires, sexuality, and embodiment. Numerous popular and scholarly books and articles have offered critical and constructive engagement of the broader Christian tradition from a transgender perspective.4 Trans Latter-day Saints have only recently begun to articulate their theological views, reconciling their experiences with Church doctrines or rejecting those that do not align with their lives. While there are shared interests with other Jewish and Christian explorations of transgender figures and concepts in the Bible and other ancient religious literature, the distinct teachings and authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints necessitate an independent engagement with these issues. However, this preliminary analysis of the history, theology, and more reveals a lively conversation and several avenues for further consideration that offer alternatives to a simplistic mythology of a naturalized male/female gender binary.Gender variability has a long history in practice, including in religious traditions.5 Nevertheless, the risk of anachronism and the need to analyze analogous practices across time remain complex issues in trans historiography.6 This essay uses the terms “trans” and “nonbinary” as distinct but overlapping analytical concepts that include a spectrum of atypical or nonconforming gender practices, bodily morphology and biology, and socio-psychological identities. As a basic definition, trans individuals seek to transition from one category of sexed or gendered cultural expectations to another, including nonbinary.7 Various terms have been employed to describe these practices, including clinical terms often associated with pathologizing psychological states like gender dysphoria, though not all accept these.8 Modern practices may include name and pronoun changes, public presentation, hormone treatment, and occasionally surgeries of primary and secondary sex characteristics.Just as trans and nonbinary identities have a lengthy history, so does their opposition, especially ramping up in the early modern and colonial era.9 The mid-nineteenth century is a crucial turning point for understanding trans identity and practices in the modern period as it intersects with Mormonism.10 In these years, a social panic in the United States about “cross-dressing” led to a great deal of media coverage and municipal ordinances banning the practice.11 The medical establishment also began in earnest in the mid-nineteenth century to diagnose and classify various gender and bodily anomalies. At first, researchers and commentators connected much of what we would call trans practices to homosexuality. Austrian and German scholars Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Karl Maria Kertbeny, writing in the 1860s, coined the term “homosexual” and described “a female soul enclosed within a male body.” A few decades later, sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing developed a series of terms to describe those to their gender. it trans and as experiences turning on the While these early described what the terms not some of these new trans as others were and to trans and German and the in and the for in These coined the term and the sex surgeries in the modern The a place for the of trans and also in of including that transgender to as their gender in the of and its with religious in the its in in the to take place in and were by the this early the for trans issues once scholarly of early trans individuals and the of the for this category are of practices that and individuals, recent the has an early trans in with a Latter-day Saint the of in in in the as been a but as a At to only on the The more A few the a but and as a male and as a but as a for more more though to to as early remain to though may or from the this early it the that LDS leaders began to engage in public about the The broader and in these Church understanding of trans issues on those LDS leaders that transgender identity an of and of that it as a of gender Church leaders that a male in with male or a female with female with the other gender. 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