Is the church headed for a schism ?

[alas]

In my opinion your logic on the trans issue is flawed, let me explain. So following your logic, a trans woman is a woman so that means it's perfectly acceptable for a trans woman to be part of the relief society presidency. OK, but what if that trans woman decides to de transition during serving on the presidency, does HE have to step down and let someone else represent the all women's organization?

Yes.

But I don't think there is much flip flopping on this. We do hear of some who regret surgery. This is rare though. There have been transgender people for a long time. The media would have you think that it's a catchy disease infecting millions. In fact it's a small percentage of the population. I'm hesitant to agree with surgery on minor children though. Puberty blockers are one thing, but surgery? I'm not in agreement with that. I think young kids need time to sort it out, especially since social media has made it a huge thing. I'll leave it to the medical professionals and families to decide those things. Anyway, that is going down another hole, and we are off the church headed for a schism thing.

I can’t see the difference between the chemical castration of a minor and the castration of a minor. Not that my opinion matters. I damn sure don’t expect anyone else to see a difference, but also suspect many do.

Detransitioners are rare in the context of the entire population. They are less rare in the context of people who transitioned. Do you know what the statistics are?

You are misunderstanding what puberty blockers are. They are not “chemical castration.” They are just a delay to development. So, if a 12 year old biological male decides he/she is really she, and wants to go on puberty blockers, then puberty is delayed, so they will not develop into a man. They are not castrated. Surgical transition is not don’t on 12 year olds and after they are old enough to go through the required year or two of counseling and after living as a woman for however long your state requires, then they may opt for bottom surgery, at which point, they may choose what you are calling castration. But if it is what they want and they are over 18, why is it the government’s business. I am all for government getting out of what is not governments business. Now if after a few years on puberty blockers, they decide they want to grow up to be a man after all, they go off puberty blockers, puberty hits and they grow a beard and all secondary sex characteristics, and the worst that can happen is they might end up a little shorter than if they had never gone on puberty blockers. They are then perfectly capable of having children and being a man in every sense of the word. So, I really do not understand the hysteria over puberty blockers. Are they medically risky. A little bit because they have an effect on bone growth as well as delaying puberty. So, if our 12 year old goes on puberty blockers, and at 14 they decide being male is their preference, no harm no foul. Why are you calling it castration when it is no such thing?

[Mayan_Elephant]

Yes.

But I don't think there is much flip flopping on this. We do hear of some who regret surgery. This is rare though. There have been transgender people for a long time. The media would have you think that it's a catchy disease infecting millions. In fact it's a small percentage of the population. I'm hesitant to agree with surgery on minor children though. Puberty blockers are one thing, but surgery? I'm not in agreement with that. I think young kids need time to sort it out, especially since social media has made it a huge thing. I'll leave it to the medical professionals and families to decide those things. Anyway, that is going down another hole, and we are off the church headed for a schism thing.

I can’t see the difference between the chemical castration of a minor and the castration of a minor. Not that my opinion matters. I damn sure don’t expect anyone else to see a difference, but also suspect many do.

Detransitioners are rare in the context of the entire population. They are less rare in the context of people who transitioned. Do you know what the statistics are?

You are misunderstanding what puberty blockers are. They are not “chemical castration.” They are just a delay to development. So, if a 12 year old biological male decides he/she is really she, and wants to go on puberty blockers, then puberty is delayed, so they will not develop into a man. They are not castrated. Surgical transition is not don’t on 12 year olds and after they are old enough to go through the required year or two of counseling and after living as a woman for however long your state requires, then they may opt for bottom surgery, at which point, they may choose what you are calling castration. But if it is what they want and they are over 18, why is it the government’s business. I am all for government getting out of what is not governments business. Now if after a few years on puberty blockers, they decide they want to grow up to be a man after all, they go off puberty blockers, puberty hits and they grow a beard and all secondary sex characteristics, and the worst that can happen is they might end up a little shorter than if they had never gone on puberty blockers. They are then perfectly capable of having children and being a man in every sense of the word. So, I really do not understand the hysteria over puberty blockers. Are they medically risky. A little bit because they have an effect on bone growth as well as delaying puberty. So, if our 12 year old goes on puberty blockers, and at 14 they decide being male is their preference, no harm no foul. Why are you calling it castration when it is no such thing?

I think we are talking about the same thing.

What is chemical castration?
Chemical castration, sometimes called medical castration, refers to the use of chemicals or drugs to stop sex hormone production. While many people know about this process as a way to stop sex offenders, medical castration is used as a treatment for tumors that feed on sex hormones. The treatment, also called hormone therapy, may be used to treat breast cancer and prostate cancer.

This is just one example that uses the terms interchangeably. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/t ... castration

Also, I am no doctor. I am just a dude. I am also just a parent and I have a bit of common sense. Not a lot. And I say bullshit - the effects of puberty blockers can be extreme and terminal. So no, it is not riskless. That is a bunch of propaganda that requires too much bias for me to go along with. Puberty blockers are a massive risk.

Puberty blockers may actually cause depression and other emotional disturbances related to suicide.

https://acpeds.org/transgender-interven ... m-children

[alas]

Nope, chemical castration is different. It is used on sex offenders to remove sexual urges, and while I am not a doctor either, puberty blockers work before there are sex hormones to block. They work on the area of the brain that triggers the things before the sex hormones are even released. They are used on cisgender children too, for very early puberty, the kind that starts at 5, and some other conditions that have to do with bone growth.

And yes, there are side effects. I even said that. So, like me with my diabetic medicines, I have to decide which side effects I want to live with and which ones I don’t. So, not to be taken on just a whim and I don’t know of any doctor who would give them to a kid without sending them to a mental health expert first and then carefully weighing the cost/benefit and emphasizing that it is only a temporary solution, and then carefully monitoring them for side effects. So, personally I am glad it isn’t my kid.

And calling them chemical castration is also wrong because they are used on females too. The drugs that are chemical castration only work to block male hormones.

[Jeffret]

Nope, chemical castration is different. It is used on sex offenders to remove sexual urges, and while I am not a doctor either, puberty blockers work before there are sex hormones to block. They work on the area of the brain that triggers the things before the sex hormones are even released. They are used on cisgender children too, for very early puberty, the kind that starts at 5, and some other conditions that have to do with bone growth.

And yes, there are side effects. I even said that. So, like me with my diabetic medicines, I have to decide which side effects I want to live with and which ones I don’t. So, not to be taken on just a whim and I don’t know of any doctor who would give them to a kid without sending them to a mental health expert first and then carefully weighing the cost/benefit and emphasizing that it is only a temporary solution, and then carefully monitoring them for side effects. So, personally I am glad it isn’t my kid.

And calling them chemical castration is also wrong because they are used on females too. The drugs that are chemical castration only work to block male hormones.

Thanks for injecting some actual facts and knowledge into this discussion.

The puberty blockers have a variety of uses, in different doses and situations, for a variety of maladies and treatments. One of them is for dealing with gender dysphoria. Attempts to ban them, which various places / people are trying to do, results in harm to others. Individuals, with consultation from their medical professionals need to be able to make those decisions about which side effects are tolerable and which conditions are most damaging to themselves.

[Jeffret]

Detransitioners are rare in the context of the entire population. They are less rare in the context of people who transitioned. Do you know what the statistics are?

It's not hard to find the statistics. A quick search reveals this recent Associated Press article. Basically, detransitioners are very rare even amongst those that have transitioned.

In a review of 27 studies involving almost 8,000 teens and adults who had transgender surgeries, mostly in Europe, the U.S and Canada, 1% on average expressed regret. For some, regret was temporary, but a small number went on to have detransitioning or reversal surgeries, the 2021 review said.

So, 1% expressed regret. For most of those it was temporary. A small number of that 1% had some detransitioning.

Other studies and articles confirm that the vast majority of transgender individuals who engage in some sort of transitioning experience tremendous relief and increased satisfaction, in spite of of all of the tremendous hurdles and that attacks that they experience.

[Jeffret]

I don't believe most transgender individuals are pretending to be the sex they identify with. (I say "most" because you will always find an exception somewhere.) Therefore, a transgender woman would BE a woman and could be RS president. A transgender man could become a Bishop if he were worthy.

Exactly.

Playing a cross-gender role, or cross-dressing in a performance (including the current, mistaken furor over "drag queens") is as old as there have been any established gender roles in human society. It's practically de rigueur in Shakespeare comedies and it certainly wasn't created there.

However, transgender people, who have some aspect of their body awareness out of sync with their gender self-awareness, are also as old as human society. They are not pretending in any fashion. It's who they are, though it may be different from who other people are, or who other people expect people to be. They go through a lot, exposing themselves to even more ridicule and assault, both physical and emotional, to align themselves with who they are.

Reminds me of a certain anti-trans organization that in the last couple of years wanted to make a movie of men transitioning to women to win at sports, but as hard as they tried, they couldn't find anyone willing to do it. They settled on making a movie of men dressing up as women to win at sports, thereby missing the entire point, most particularly about what they encountered.

[Jeffret]

To get back to the original topic, I think it's very unlikely the Mormon Church will experience any kind of significant schism these days. Or ever, since the original one as part of the succession crisis, which Brigham predominately won. The history of the Church has shown that there will always be small offshoots, but there haven't been big ones. Major schisms are even less likely to occur these days.

The ongoing, entrenched societal evolution trends strongly toward decreased church participation and religiosity. The major studies, including Pew and PRRI, have been documenting this for years now. For the most part, people are not looking to start new churches. They'll get behind a new charismatic leader, but the demand for new churches is small. By far, the dominant trend is for people to leave all churches, not to leave their current one and choose or form a new one.

My observations have long been that this is particularly strong in post-Mormons. Few of them leave Mormonism to go to another church or religion. When this does happen, it is most commonly from someone returning to the church they had left to join Mormonism. I watched part of yesterday's Mormon Stories panel episode about the RS Instagram furor and was surprised that two of the women mentioned participating in post-Mormon churches.

If there were to be a schism, it would most likely arise from the "Visions of Glory" folks, but those are the same type of offshoots, usually based upon a desire to engage in polygamy, which have always been going on to a minor degree. While those extreme beliefs derive from and influence mainstream Mormonism, they're much too bizarre for the mainstream of the Church to follow them.