“if you have concerns with the proclamation, turn to god” this is great advice!! that i took myself!! but elder rasband seems to believe that doing this will result in god telling me that i should subscribe to the church’s conservative ideas about gender. and that’s not what happened!! i certainly feel like god blessed my transition. i wonder if rasband has ever given such an anguished prayer about this subject than our queer neighbors have.
I specifically remember (like it was yesterday) when I was listening to then-Elder Oaks giving his infamous talk on the proclamation. I was sitting on the floor of my college dorm, I had it set up on my laptop while I was hemming my choir dress that was slightly too long. And do you know what I felt during that talk?
Everyone says the Spirit manifests as a warm, fuzzy feeling. Even up to a burning in the bosom. It was closer to the latter. Something slapped my soul across the face, and I heard, as if it was physically spoken, in my ears, mind, and heart: "There's a reason it says 'gender'."
That was it, clear as day. The first presidency back at the turn of the century may not have truly known the weight of one simple word choice that they made, but that was the divine inspiration there. Gender is what your soul is. That deep, innate, child of God made flesh is truly what you are. And I hold to that. Because I had one of the biggest spiritual experiences of my life about it.
