Guest post by Jen Morrison

Through countless lines upon lines, precepts upon precepts, prayers and fasts, this scripture can be every member’s litmus test for truth and righteousness. The recent Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints policy updates requiring supervised bathroom trips of transgender people left me aghast with its unfairness and deliberate cruelty. For those already on the defensive, let me explain.

Below is a sex offender email notification regarding a fellow ward member who pled guilty to sex abuse of a young child:

Brother Bond was a sex offender in my former ward who lived 4 doors down from the park and a couple blocks from the chapel. He’d pled guilty to unlawful sexual activity with a minor under 12 years old and received probation instead of any time behind bars. Do you know what else he received? He received a ride to church every Sunday morning by the Bishop of our ward. He’d sit in the same row as the Bishop’s family, a wife and 3 young daughters. Until the bishop’s wife caught him hugging one of her children. Then he sat a row behind.

Do you know what Brother Bond didn’t get? I bet you can guess. He didn’t get supervised trips to the bathroom. No, in fact, as countless potential victims ran the halls alone to get a drink, use the restroom, or visit one of the many classrooms with no windows in the doors Brother Bond got to enjoy his Sunday services like many other convicted sex offenders. When I moved to Utah from California, I was distressed at seeing the many doors in the church building that didn’t have windows. Two deep leadership doesn’t prevent pedophiles from luring a child who went for a drink of water into a dark classroom or prevent them from fooling trusting members in the ward to get access to their children. When I reached out to my priesthood authorities, I was met with a dead end.

Despite proven cases of children being abused at church, precious few resources have been used to protect them. In fact, at the discretion of the bishop, sex offenders may hold callings as long as the person has “made progress in genuine repentance.” Stake presidents can even request that an annotation on an offender’s membership record be removed. With no background checks completed, annotations allowed to be removed, repentance being prioritized over safety, the church gives many sex offenders free access to the ward’s children. Meanwhile, they demand an escort for transgender individuals to use the bathroom? How can this grievous difference in treatment be justified?

On Wednesday, October 29, 2008, the LDS church was working hard to make sure that marriage would not be accessible to people whom they believed shouldn’t be allowed to marry. An email went out canceling trunk or treat (trick or treating) so that all efforts could go into solidifying a win at the ballot box. Here’s the email:

In the email sent by the ward Bishop, instructions were outlined to fight against California’s Prop 8, the famous law against Same-Sex marriage. He proceeded to outline instructions for phone calls, putting up signs, and talking to neighbors in support of Prop 8. Additional instructions included a timeline for when to do certain efforts so that neighborhoods around California would receive calls, door knob hangers, and folks promoting Prop 8 on corners around their town. Then, last but not least, to keep this petition in your prayers to “stand strong in the face of growing opposition”. 

Have you ever seen a level of commitment as driven and deranged as the one that the LDS church has towards the LGBT community? I have not. Supervised bathroom trips for transgender individuals may very well be a policy that gets reversed in time, just like the November policy barring baptism from the children of gay parents and immediately declaring gay members apostates. That deranged policy cost the lives, actual lives, of many members. Some of whom I knew personally.

So when I say I have seen the fruits of the LDS church I mean it. I have seen the tears and shed them myself. I have felt the anguish and despair from the never-ending torrent of conference talks and news statements against the LGBT community.  I’ve felt the confusion and rejection caused by seeing loved ones still attend and sustain a church that has put more effort into discriminating against good people than it has in protecting children from actual sex offenders. The indignation at the cruelty of these policy changes towards transgender people burns within my bosom like the raging fire prepared to receive the hewn trees with rotten fruit spoken of in the scriptures.

Transgender youth rally on the steps of the Utah Capitol building in response to a slew of anti-trans legislation. It’s interesting to note that 86% of Utah lawmakers are LDS as of 2021 stats.

As an avid nature lover, guest author Jen can often be spotted on trails, at parks, or in her backyard admiring squirrels, birdwatching, and tending the garden. She was raised in Orange County California and graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a degree in Sociology. Jen and her family (including all 8 pets) moved from Utah to Washington in 2023 after spending a couple decades in Eagle Mountain, Utah. Jen is currently volunteering at a local library while looking for a new career.