When my son was four, he saw a picture of Jesus Christ as a shepherd with sheep. He pointed and proclaimed, “Jesus saves us…from the sheep!”
Out of the mouth of babes, right?
Allow me a brief moment of motherly sentimentality as I describe this kid1. He’s 11 now. His nightstand prominently displays a picture of Jesus Christ in the nativity. I didn’t give it to him or place it there. He decided that picture was important to him.
Once when I was cleaning out some old boxes, I set aside a gold foil picture of Jesus Christ from my YW days. It seemed like it was time to let that one go. Instead, my son fished it out of the donate pile and set it up on his bedroom shelf.
Last year, when the primary kids were asked to be in a nativity for Christmas, they also asked the kids to share their favorite nativity character and explain why for the program. My son chose Mary because she can do hard things.
This kid was genuinely disappointed that we didn’t go to church on a fourth Sunday linger longer day. He really wanted to linger longer.
Seems like a pretty upstanding, spiritual kind of kid right?
My son, who uses he/him pronouns, also wears a dress to church, maintains long hair, and rocks his favorite pair of heeled ankle boots. Since he was three, when he said he wanted to be a girl, he has gravitated toward gender nonconformity.
In that primary nativity scene at the ward Christmas party, he portrayed Mary in the manger scene. While there was some worry this would ruffle a few feathers, our then bishop kindly and carefully coordinated with us to ensure all was well. If someone wasn’t happy about it, I’m grateful they kept it to themselves.
As my son’s parent, I’m just a passenger on his journey of gender expression and identity. While his pronouns and his wardrobe are always his choice, as we move through The Puberty, I don’t know how he will evolve. I do know that I love this kid and support him, full stop.
While we attend church (in a messy middle kind of way), this exceptionally lovely child isn’t baptized, by our choice as his parents. He’s a perpetual visitor in our ward. I and some other ward members wear pride pins on Sunday. At the local member level, our small ward supports and loves us. He’s never…yet…been made to feel unwelcome.
I look ahead and wonder when that streak will come to an end. All it will take is one overzealous, overstepping bishopric or stake presidency, one bad round of leadership roulette, to wreak havoc on our safe little bubble, emboldened by the harm the handbook advocates.
At school, his teachers love him fiercely. His friends nominate him for awards and his classmates cheer him on. When there are instances of bullying (and there definitely have been instances), he has had a strong network of adults in place who have protected him and supported him.
At church…I guess this innocent child could need an escort to the bathrooms? Could never be allowed to attend an overnight activity? Could remain a perpetual visitor because baptism would subject him to potentially abusive and harmful practices?
It’s mind boggling to think that Jesus Christ wants any of this.
To know my son is to love him. To know him is to know he is a beloved child of God who arrived on this earth exactly as he is. To know him is to know that our church leaders have shamefully set him to the side.
There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus loves my son. Jesus has saved him too. I can only hope that Jesus also saves us from the sheep.
Photo Credit: RosaryTeam, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- My son and I read this blog post together. My sharing some of his experiences has a seal of approval, but he does want me to share the comments with him. We agreed that I wouldn’t share harmful messages, just “positive comments and suggestions” in his words. ↩︎
7 Responses
The church benefits as a whole when kids like yours show up and teach everyone about inclusivity, accepting differences and Christ-like love. Everyone else benefits from your family there even more than your own family does from attending, and I’m afraid these policies will drive people like you away. 💔
It’s so beautiful to me that your ward loves on your sweet boy, and that he and your family offer and grow love in your community. You’re inspiring, all of you! I find it endlessly frustrating and tragic how, because of the reality of hierarchical authority, communities aren’t allowed to create what they desire, even when they are willing. We can grow unity in a ward, people can love one another, people who feel different can desire to stay and the people around them can desire inclusivity—but all that desire and willingness can be squashed with a single, enforceable policy from higher-ups. This can’t possibly be how Zion is created.
My son is 16. For the last year and a half he’s been included in the Teachers and then Priests Quorums, both for lessons and activities. Our ward has been wonderfully accepting of him and if anyone doesn’t like the way things have been going, their complaints haven’t reached my ears. That is now coming to an end. While our bishop clearly feels conflicted, he places higher value on following the handbook than accepting everyone. He hasn’t participated all that much in church for the last 6 months, coming to church with us very rarely, and attending activities only occasionally. But now that he’s no longer invited to those, it’s difficult to imagine that he’ll want anything to do with the church ever again. Perhaps Christmas and Easter.
As progressive Mormons, church has been difficult for us as parents for a number of years. Our ward is largely positive. Anything out of the Church Office Building is increasingly a negative in our lives. And we are still trying to figure out if/how we can participate in an organization that can be this mean to our child. I don’t see Jesus in these handbook changes. My Jesus told people not to worry so much about the handbook telling them they couldn’t eat with sinners, or get close to lepers, or pick grain on the sabbath, or preach to the Gentiles, or keep kosher. The Q15 increasingly seem to be talking about some other guy, who is overly concerned about underwear and keeping trans people out of the bathroom and ensuring that trans people are neither seen nor heard in the ward.
Just to emphasize, because I think the distinction is telling and important: wards are largely positive experiences and the messages out of the Church Office Building are increasingly negative.
These kids deserve a safe and welcoming place of worship. I am sorry that your ward isn’t that place anymore.
I really resonate with these comments and I appreciate you sharing them. I feel for your family. I’m very angry about the new policies. My ward is a mixed bag. It is not esp. progressive or welcoming, but it has a lot of potential for community connection my family needs that the community hardly begins to tap into. Instead of bbqs, socials, book clubs, or talent shows, all we get is a bunch or temple oriented events that don’t interest me. In a time when families really need supportive community relationships for their kids more than ever, the Q15 send down policies and messages and program changes that choke out the potential for our youth to have friendship and to feel truly seen, accepted and loved in their communities. My kids happen not to be queer, they are just trying to show up as themselves, but we’ve found they are not accepted as they are, they are except to show up as all-in and conforming, and this is killing their interest in the church community.
As reported in the NY Times:
“A spokesman for the church, Doug Anderson, said the [handbook] updates “seek to help Latter-day Saints follow Jesus Christ’s example of ministering with love, patience and respect.””
Dear Lod, please protect us from those who insist they are your shepherds!
“Ministering with love,” and “ministering in a way that best meets their needs” have joined the ranks of empty, oppressive, resented platitudes used by the Q15 for me.