What it costs people
Gay and Transgender Latter-day Saints
The Church says it is not a sin to be gay, asks gay members never to act on it, had an apostle call its 2015 handbook changes the will of the Lord, and reversed the rule on their children three years and five months later.
The point in one sentence
The Church says being gay is not a sin, and asks gay members to live without a partner for this whole life. In November 2015 it barred a child of a parent in a same-sex relationship from baptism until the child was eighteen and no longer living with that parent. An apostle told young adults the Lord had inspired the prophet “to declare the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord” on the handbook changes. In April 2019 the Church’s leaders, now led by President Nelson, reversed the child rule after “fervent, united prayer to understand the will of the Lord.”
What the Church says, and what it asks
Both columns come from the Church’s own pages and from Elder Oaks’s 2006 interview, quoted below.
- Being gay, lesbian, or bisexual “is not a sin”
- It does not keep anyone from “participating in the Church, holding callings, or attending the temple”
- Members are all “children of God, deserving of each other’s kindness and compassion”
- Gender is “eternal,” and each person lived before birth as a male or female spirit
- No sexual relationship with a person of the same sex: it “violate[s] one of our Father in Heaven’s most important laws”
- Celibacy for anyone who is not married, which for a gay member means a life without a partner
- A same-sex marriage is still “a serious transgression” (2019)
- Transgender members who transition “will not be able to receive the priesthood, a temple recommend, or some Church callings while transitioned” (General Handbook)
Sources: churchofjesuschrist.org Gospel Topics, Church newsroom (2006), Church News (2019), General Handbook ch. 38
What you were probably taught
If you grew up in the Church, you learned this in pieces. In Primary and Young Women or Young Men you learned that families can be together forever. In seminary you may have learned “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” President Gordon B. Hinckley read it aloud at the General Relief Society Meeting in Salt Lake City on September 23, 1995. It declares that “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God,” and it says that “gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” The Church’s Gospel Topics page (its short explainers on hard subjects) says what the word means there: “The intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation is biological sex at birth.”
Most members were also taught to be kind. The Church’s own page says: “we are all children of God, deserving of each other’s kindness and compassion.” This page quotes it in full. If you are gay, or you love someone who is, you are the reader this page is written for as much as anyone.
What most members were never shown is the whole arrangement in one place: what the Church says to a gay member, what it asks of them, and what it did in 2015 to their children. The rest of this page lays that out in the Church’s own words.
What the Church says to a gay member
Church of Jesus Christ, Gospel Topics page “Same-Sex Attraction”
Identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual or experiencing same-sex attraction is not a sin and does not prohibit one from participating in the Church, holding callings, or attending the temple.
This is a real statement and it deserves to be read at full strength. A gay member who is open about who they are is not, by the Church’s own words, doing anything wrong.
The page on churchofjesuschrist.orgSame page, on what is not permitted
Sexual relations between a man and woman who are not married, or between people of the same sex, violate one of our Father in Heaven’s most important laws and get in the way of our eternal progress.
The same sentence applies to unmarried straight members. The difference is what it means in a life. A straight member who keeps this law can marry. A gay member who keeps it cannot marry the person they love.
Same pageElder Dallin H. Oaks, Interview With Elder Oaks and Elder Lance B. Wickman, “Same-Gender Attraction,” Church Newsroom, 2006
The interviewer asked: “If a young man thinks he’s gay, what we’re really saying to him is that there is simply no other way to go but to be celibate for the rest of his life if he doesn’t feel any attraction to women?” Elder Oaks answered: “That is exactly the same thing we say to the many members who don’t have the opportunity to marry. We expect celibacy of any person that is not married.”
In the same interview Elder Wickman said: “same-gender attraction did not exist in the pre-earth life and neither will it exist in the next life.” Believers take that as the hope the Church holds out. A gay member may hear it as saying the part of them that loves a person of the same sex is not who they really are. The interview also says: “Marriage should not be viewed as a therapeutic step to solve problems such as homosexual inclinations or practices.” The 2006 interview is older than the Church’s current Gospel Topics page; it is quoted here only for the celibacy rule.
Read the interviewNot a sin to be gay. Never to act on it. For the whole of this life.
A straight member keeps the same law and gets a marriage and a family. A gay member keeps it and does not.
What happened to their children
The Church handbook is the book of rules that bishops and stake presidents follow. On November 5, 2015, a change to it became public. It treated a member in a same-sex marriage as having left the Church’s teachings (the Church’s word is apostasy). And it kept a child of a parent living in a same-gender relationship from being blessed as a baby, baptized, confirmed, ordained, or recommended for a mission until the child was eighteen, no longer lived with that parent, and “specifically disavow[ed] the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage,” in the words the Church-owned Deseret News used to report it. That is a boy or girl, raised by two moms or two dads, who could join the Church only by leaving that home and renouncing the parents’ marriage.
The Church gave a reason, and the reason should be heard at full strength. Michael Otterson, Managing Director of Church Public Affairs, wrote on November 13, 2015, in “Commentary: Understanding the Handbook”: “Church leaders want to avoid putting little children in a potential tug-of-war between same-sex couples at home and teachings and activities at church.” Elder D. Todd Christofferson said: “We don’t want the child to have to deal with issues that might arise where the parents feel one way and the expectations of the church are very different.” Those are sincere, protective words. They are also what the Church said about a rule that kept a child out of the Church until the child turned eighteen and left the parent’s home.
Then came the claim that matters.
Elder Russell M. Nelson, worldwide devotional for young adults, January 10, 2016
This prophetic process was followed in 2012 with the change in minimum age for missionaries and again with the recent additions to the Church’s handbook, consequent to the legalization of same-sex marriage in some countries. Filled with compassion for all, and especially for the children, we wrestled at length to understand the Lord’s will in this matter. Ever mindful of God’s plan of salvation and of His hope for eternal life for each of His children, we considered countless permutations and combinations of possible scenarios that could arise. We met repeatedly in the temple in fasting and prayer and sought further direction and inspiration. And then, when the Lord inspired His prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, to declare the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord, each of us during that sacred moment felt a spiritual confirmation. It was our privilege as Apostles to sustain what had been revealed to President Monson.
“The recent additions to the Church’s handbook” are the November 2015 changes. Elder Nelson does not name the child rule, but the claim is explicit: the Lord inspired the prophet, the prophet declared “the will of the Lord,” and the apostles sustained “what had been revealed.” He also says the apostles were “filled with compassion for all, and especially for the children,” and “met repeatedly in the temple in fasting and prayer.” That is how believers understand the policy: a hard decision reached prayerfully. This was said to young adults, in a worldwide broadcast.
The talk on churchofjesuschrist.orgFirst Presidency statement announcing the change, April 4, 2019 (as printed by Church News)
These policy changes come after an extended period of counseling with our brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles after fervent, united prayer to understand the will of the Lord.
The same words appear again: “the will of the Lord.” The 2019 statement says children of parents who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender “may be baptized, if the custodial parents give permission for the baptism and understand both the doctrine that a baptized child will be taught and the covenants he or she will be expected to make,” and that a same-gender marriage by a member, while still “a serious transgression,” “will not be treated as apostasy for purposes of Church discipline.” President Oaks announced it and said: “We want to reduce the hate and contention so common today.”
Church News, April 4, 2019The same process, the same phrase, “the will of the Lord.” Two different policies.
If 2016 was right, the Lord’s will changed in three years and five months. If 2019 was right, the policy that kept those children out was not the Lord’s will, whatever the Church said it was.
From the Proclamation to today
What the Church said, and what followed.
Sources: Church documents linked on this page
The exhibits
The first group is the Church’s own words. The second is peer-reviewed research on gay Latter-day Saints. Each source says only what it says, and each limit is stated.
Elder Russell M. Nelson, worldwide devotional, January 10, 2016
On the November 2015 handbook changes
What it establishes: The Church presented the handbook changes as revelation, with apostles bearing witness that they felt a spiritual confirmation. Elder Nelson also said they acted “filled with compassion for all, and especially for the children.”
Read the talkFirst Presidency statement, April 4, 2019
Reversing the child rule
What it establishes: The same phrase, three years and five months later, introducing the rule that replaced it. The statement does not call the earlier policy a mistake. It says: “the changes reflect the continuing revelation that has been a part of the modern Church since the Restoration.”
Church NewsElder D. Todd Christofferson, interview reported by Deseret News, November 6, 2015
Explaining the age-18 rule
What it establishes: The Church’s stated purpose was to protect children. The mechanism was that a child could not be baptized as a minor, and at eighteen had to renounce his or her parents’ marriage.
Deseret NewsA 2015 survey of 1,612 current and former Latter-day Saints who are LGBT (Dehlin, Galliher, Bradshaw, Hyde, and Crowell, Journal of Counseling Psychology 62(2))
Recruited through an online survey
What it establishes: In this sample, at least 73% of the men and 43% of the women had tried to change their sexual orientation, usually by several methods over many years. Participants overwhelmingly reported the methods as ineffective or damaging, though some reported benefits such as acceptance and less depression or anxiety. (SOCE means sexual orientation change efforts.) The sample was recruited through an online survey, so it describes these 1,612 people, not every gay Latter-day Saint.
PubMed abstractLefevor, McGraw, and Skidmore, Journal of Community Psychology 50(1), 2022
602 active and nonactive or former Latter-day Saint sexual minorities
What it establishes: This cuts both ways, and it is stated as the authors state it. Active and nonactive members reported similar degrees of suicidal ideation. What predicted lower ideation was resolving the conflict and having family and friends behind you.
PubMed abstractMcGraw, Skidmore, Lefevor, Docherty, and Mahoney, Journal of Counseling Psychology 70(3), 2023
Two online samples of current or former Latter-day Saint sexual minorities (403 and 545)
What it establishes: This is a statistical association over two months, found with online samples. It points toward harm; it does not measure every member or prove cause. The same abstract says that cross-sectionally the effect “disappeared” once religious struggles and internalized stigma were included, which is the pathway the authors describe.
PubMed abstractYou may have heard that suicide in Utah rose by a specific percentage because of the Church. That causal claim is not established, and this page does not make it. A widely repeated “141 percent” came from a talk-show host (Ellen DeGeneres: “Suicide in Utah has increased 141 percent because of the shame they feel from the Mormon Church.”), not from a study. KUER examined it in 2018. Benjamin Knoll, in Dialogue (49:2, Summer 2016), compared states using youth suicide data from 2009 and 2014, before the policy. He found that in 2014 states with a higher share of Mormons had higher suicide rates among 15-to-19-year-olds. But he wrote that because the CDC does not record sexual orientation, the evidence “does not and cannot show a definitive link between Mormon religious context and LGBT youth suicide rates,” and that it says nothing definitive about the November 2015 policy. KUER reported that BYU researcher Justin Dyer said the data are not clear enough to tie the Church’s teachings to the high suicide rate, and quoted him: “While a lot of times they are just estimates.”
What KUER reported is a rate for Utah youth ages 10 to 17 of 17 per 100,000 in 2011, 44 in 2015, 32 in 2016, and 42 in 2017. The highest of those years is 2015, the year the policy arrived in November, so these numbers alone cannot be pinned on it. These numbers are about all Utah youth, not gay youth, and, as Knoll notes, the CDC does not record the sexual orientation of those who die. What is defensible is what the peer-reviewed studies above found: among gay and bisexual Latter-day Saints, family support goes with fewer suicidal thoughts, and internalized stigma goes with more depression. A policy that required a child to leave a parent’s home and disavow the parent’s marriage runs against the first and may feed the second. That is a reasoned concern, not a measured result.
The check-it-yourself page
Everything above can be read in the Church’s own words. Here are the three statements side by side, each with a link. Open them.
| What was said | When | What happened next |
|---|---|---|
| “We expect celibacy of any person that is not married.” (Elder Oaks) | 2006 | Still the rule for gay members. In 2019 the Church said a same-gender marriage by a member is still “a serious transgression.” |
| A child of a parent in a same-sex relationship barred from baptism until 18 and living away from that parent; same-sex marriage is apostasy. The handbook changes were described by Elder Nelson as the “mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord.” | Nov 2015 (Nelson, Jan 10, 2016) | Reversed April 4, 2019, after “fervent, united prayer to understand the will of the Lord.” |
| “Gender is eternal. … we all lived as male or female spirits” (President Oaks). Baptism and confirmation “are received according to a person’s biological sex at birth” (General Handbook 38.2.8.9). | Oct 2018; current handbook | Transgender members who do not transition may be baptized and may hold the priesthood. Baptism of someone who has transitioned needs an exception approved by the First Presidency, and such a person “will not be able to receive the priesthood, a temple recommend, or some Church callings while transitioned.” |
Read the middle row twice. The children in it were real, and some of them are adults now. The 2019 statement does not say the 2015 policy was wrong. It says the changes reflect “continuing revelation.”
Transgender Latter-day Saints: the thought experiment
This section begins with an illustration, and then the strongest objection to it.
Imagine that twenty years from now brain transplants are possible, and your brain is placed in a body of the other sex. You wake up and it feels wrong. Many people would say the body should be made to match the brain. That is the thought experiment, and it is only an illustration, not evidence.
The strongest objection comes first
The thought experiment assumes the thing in dispute: that a person has a stable inner sex that can fail to match the body. In the transplant story that is true by construction. For a real person, what causes the feeling is something the Church says it does not know.
What the Church teaches
President Dallin H. Oaks, general conference, October 2018, “Truth and the Plan”
Gender is eternal. Before we were born on this earth, we all lived as male or female spirits in the presence of God.
The Proclamation of 1995 says the same in other words: gender is “an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” In the same talk President Oaks says: “Our knowledge of God’s revealed plan of salvation requires us to oppose current social and legal pressures to retreat from traditional marriage and to make changes that confuse or alter gender or homogenize the differences between men and women.” He also names what is at stake for the Church: “exaltation in the celestial kingdom, which can be attained only through an eternal marriage between a man and a woman.”
The talk on churchofjesuschrist.orgOn causes, the Church’s page on transgender topics says: “The Church does not take a position on the causes of these feelings,” and that transgender members and their families “face complex challenges and should be treated with sensitivity, kindness, compassion, and an abundance of Christlike love.” (Gospel Topics)
The General Handbook then sets the rules (chapter 38). Section 38.2.8.9: “Baptism and confirmation are received according to a person’s biological sex at birth.” Section 38.2.9.9: “Priesthood ordination is received according to a person’s biological sex at birth.” The only exception the handbook describes is to the baptism rule: it “requires the approval of the First Presidency,” and if it is approved, the person “will not be able to receive the priesthood, a temple recommend, or some Church callings while transitioned.” Someone who transitions and then transitions back “to their biological sex at birth” and is worthy and committed to keeping God’s commandments “may be baptized and confirmed.” Mission presidents, or stake presidents for an eight-year-old, are told to “address individual circumstances with sensitivity and Christlike love.”
What the Church’s reason is, and what it asks
The Church does state the step, and it gives a reason. Its Gospel Topics page says: “The intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation is biological sex at birth.” The reason is the doctrine on this page: every person lived before birth as a male or female spirit, gender is eternal, and the plan of salvation depends on it. That is why President Oaks says the plan “requires us to oppose” changes “that confuse or alter gender.”
Here is what that asks of a transgender member. The Church’s doctrine already holds that an identity can exist before a body. Its rule is that the spirit’s gender always matches the sex of the body at birth. The Church does not say how it knows that a spirit’s gender always matches the body, and its own page says it “does not take a position on the causes of these feelings.” So a person who feels the two do not match is asked to treat the body at birth as the answer, and, if they transition, to accept that they “will not be able to receive the priesthood, a temple recommend, or some Church callings while transitioned.” The rule rests on a doctrine. It does not rest on anything that can be checked.
What is true on the other side
The Church’s position has real strengths, and a fair reader should hold them in view.
- It is not a sin to be gay, and it says so. Many churches say less. A gay member is welcome to attend, hold callings, and go to the temple.
- It gave a protective reason for the 2015 policy and a different one for the reversal. “Tug-of-war” in 2015; “reduce the hate and contention” in 2019. Believers say that is how a living Church should work: leaders learn, pray, and adjust. The First Presidency’s own words for 2019 are “continuing revelation.”
- The celibacy rule is the same rule it gives to unmarried straight members, and the Church teaches that this is a condition of mortality (Elder Wickman, 2006).
- The transgender policy lets members who do not transition be baptized and hold the priesthood, and tells leaders to act with “Christlike love.”
What all this leaves standing: a gay member who stays in the Church is still asked to have no partner for life; a same-sex marriage is still “a serious transgression”; the 2019 statement neither withdraws nor explains the claim of revelation behind the 2015 policy; and a transgender member who transitions can be baptized only by an exception the First Presidency approves, and even then “will not be able to receive the priesthood, a temple recommend, or some Church callings while transitioned.” Kindness in the Church’s words and the doctrine have not been brought together.
The common rebuttals
“That is how revelation works. It comes line upon line, and the Lord can change a policy as circumstances change.”
That is a believing answer and it deserves to be taken seriously. The First Presidency’s own words for the 2019 change are: “the changes reflect the continuing revelation that has been a part of the modern Church since the Restoration.” But that does not fit what was said in 2016. Elder Nelson did not tell the young adults that leaders had adopted a cautious policy and might change it. He said the Lord had inspired the prophet “to declare the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord,” and that the apostles had sustained “what had been revealed.” If a thing declared as the will of the Lord can be set aside in three years and five months, then no one hearing a declaration of the Lord’s will can know whether it is the Lord’s will or a policy to be revised. Meanwhile children lived inside the rule.
“The policy was only meant to protect children, and the Church fixed it.”
The purpose was stated sincerely, and it was fixed. But the Church’s own words describe what the rule did: it kept a child from baptism until eighteen and no longer living with the parent, and required that child to “specifically disavow” the parents’ marriage. The 2019 statement does not say the first policy was wrong or apologize for it. And the research above found family support to be one of the things that goes with fewer suicidal thoughts for gay Latter-day Saints. A rule built around a child leaving a parent’s home and disavowing the parent’s marriage works against that.
“We ask the same of everyone. Single straight members live the law of chastity too.”
The wording is the same and the situation is not. An unmarried straight member is asked to wait for marriage. A gay member is asked never to have the marriage the Church holds out to everyone as the highest hope. Elder Oaks says the Church expects “celibacy of any person that is not married.” For one person that is waiting. For the other, on the Church’s own rule, it is for this whole life.
The Church says “not a sin,” asks for a lifetime alone, and called a rule against children “the will of the Lord.”
Then it used the same words about the rule that replaced it.
What this means
Put the pieces together. A gay Latter-day Saint is told that who they are is not a sin, and also that they may never act on it, and that this is among “our Father in Heaven’s most important laws.” Their children, in 2015, were told they could not be baptized until eighteen, until they no longer lived with a parent in a same-sex relationship, and until they disavowed that parent’s marriage. An apostle told young adults the Lord had inspired the prophet “to declare the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord” on the handbook changes. Three years and five months later, after “fervent, united prayer to understand the will of the Lord,” the Church’s leaders, now led by President Nelson, reversed the child rule. A transgender member hears that gender is eternal and that each person lived as a male or female spirit, and is then told that the body at birth decides what they may receive, because the Church holds that a spirit’s gender always matches the body, a claim no one can check.
If handbook changes an apostle called the will of the Lord in 2016 can have their rule on children dropped in 2019, the phrase “the will of the Lord” no longer tells you what the Lord wants.
The research does not say that the Church caused any particular death, and this page does not say it. It says something narrower, and it is enough: gay Latter-day Saints in these samples who held nonaffirming beliefs about being gay later showed more depression, through more internalized stigma, and those with family and friends behind them reported fewer suicidal thoughts. The 2015 policy required a child to leave a parent’s home and disavow the parent’s marriage before baptism. The 2019 statement does not say. When leaders speak for God about the people who are hurt first, how can those people know which words are God’s and which will later be taken back?