Mormon hermaphrodites.

[SoonerCoug]

The first lab I worked in had a Vietnamese girl in it. She seemed very much like a boy. Turns out she was technically neither, but legally she was female and I think she had been "made into a female" shortly after birth because her genitalia were probably ambiguous.

But she seemed SO much like a boy that it was almost impossible to resist calling her "him." Also, she began dating a Mormon girl, so she was technically a lesbian. About a year later I bumped into her with some other people, and I realized that we had a pronoun change. She had become a he. Now he was no longer a lesbian, of course, thanks to the sex change.

What happens to Mormon hermaphrodites who are considered homosexual because they were given female genitalia by surgery? Are they allowed to switch back? Do they have to date the "opposite" sex even though they are attracted to the same sex? Can they undergo a sex change if they feel it is necessary?

Lastly, if it's physically possible to be born with ambiguous genitalia and eventually feel a need to change from female to male, then why is it so difficult for us to accept the fact that some people's gender identities do not match their genotype and phenotype (sex chromosomes and external genitalia)? In other words, why is it prohibited for Mormons to undergo sex changes?

And what about women who have an X and a Y chromosome (which happens if you have a mutation in a gene called testis determining factor)? Are they really women? How about women with an X and a Y chromosome who have testicles and a vagina, because their "androgen receptors" do not function properly, and therefore ovaries and a uterus do not form?

I refuse to accept "God will sort it out" as an answer. I'm asking about how these people are handled by the Church in the here and now.

[SoonerCoug]

My guess is that the Church only "understands" if there is something physically tangible like "ambiguous genitalia."

[MikeWaters]

I think I asked this on cougarboard once and someone said the handbook says that they cannot be endowed or married in the temple or have the priesthood, IIRC.

[YOhio]

I had a buddy who taught and baptised a hermaphrodite in a midwestern state. His mission president told the Elders to ask him whether he wanted to be considered a male or female, but from that point on he would have to stick with it. He chose male, although my buddy thought he was a female for the first few months of knowing him.

[FMCoug]

I never met him/her but there was a convert in an area in my mission who got baptized as a woman and it was later found out he/she was a transvestite. Exed if I remember correctly.

[8ballrollin]

What happened when Jamie Lee Curtis was baptized?

[BigFatMeanie]

I have nothing to comment on the subject itself but where else on the Internet can you find a thread titled "Mormon Hermaphrodites"? If this ain't a great board then I don't know what is.