Why Gender-Affirmative Therapy?

A Latter-day Perspective – Adapted from Evergreen International

What is Gender-Affirmative Therapy?

Gender-affirmative therapy is the process of helping you understand your gender development and assisting you in making choices in accordance with your freely-chosen value system. The basic idea is that social and emotional variables affect gender identity, which, in turn, determines sexual orientation. The focus of therapy is to help you fully develop your masculine gender identity.

Gender is an essential characteristic of our existence. It is both a physical and a spiritual designation that we are required and expected to develop.

A Latter-day Perspective

Clinical experts often note that homosexuality isn't about sex–it is about relationships. In much the same way, the Latter-day Saint view of homosexuality has far less to do with sexual orientation than it does with a theological view concerning the meaning of gender.

In the 1999 document The Family: A Proclamation to the World, the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stated, "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." The use of the term gender is intended to have implications far beyond the physical characteristics that designate you as biologically male. Your gender is an eternal role with specific responsibilities and characteristics.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that every individual born into mortality is the literal spiritual child of a Heavenly Father and Mother, with the potential to become like their heavenly parents. In fact, it is not only a potential, but also a responsibility to grow and to learn the attributes of Godhood. To a Latter-day Saint, gender is a spiritual designation, and within that designation, regardless of the mortal circumstances, are the characteristics of fatherhood and motherhood.

The weekly classes that you as a Latter-day Saint attend, called priesthood meeting, and corresponding classes for women, called Relief Society, include instruction on the eternal attributes of gender. Several times each year, the General Authorities and the President of the Church give direct edification to the members of the Church in a general priesthood meeting and women's conference on their specific gender responsibilities. You probably seldom think of these meetings as being related to gender, but the differences in the characteristics the men and the women of the Church are asked to cultivate make the intention of the leaders clear.

The articles on this CD are meant to define gender affirmative mentoring and not define masculinity or femininity. It is important, however, to point out some different expectations of each gender. For example, men are expected to provide while women are expected to nurture. Men endure pain and women give comfort. Men strive for efficiency while women beautify their surroundings. Men are expected to cultivate the attributes of fatherhood that include, but are not limited to:

· presiding in love and righteousness

· acting as a provider

· being a protector of those for whom they have responsibility

Women are expected to cultivate the attributes of kindness, compassion, and nurturing, particularly for children. Both men and women are expected to be chaste, loving, compassionate, and faithful in their obligations toward one another, and by implication toward all the sons and daughters of our heavenly parents.

Christ, as the greatest example of masculinity, was also kind, compassionate, and nurturing, showing that it is not a simple task to separate what is masculine from what is feminine, nor should it be. But there is a difference in expected behavior of each gender, and the more a man identifies his behavior with those expected behaviors, the more he identifies himself with men as a whole.

Because of this, any thoughts or behaviors that detract from the cultivation of eternal responsibilities as they apply to gender are discouraged. Philosophies that lessen the emphasis on marriage as being sacred, fatherhood and motherhood being inseparable, or the suggestion that gender responsibilities are less than eternal in nature can not receive the endorsement of the Church or its leaders.

Ecclesiastical leaders, professional therapists, and counselors have an opportunity to assist individuals in their journey toward an eternal destiny. All too often, the counseling emphasis is placed on stopping behaviors that are wrong or controlling thoughts that are sinful. While this may be the easiest suggestion to offer or even the most important priority, unless you are taught how to replace these distracting impulses with an appreciation of your value as a child of God, the development will in all likelihood fail.

Gender-affirmative therapy has particular importance for you as a Latter-day Saint because its goal is to help you appreciate the eternal nature of gender and assist you in making choices that will be congruent with you value system. Gender-affirmative therapy asks what is available, not what is missing. Gender-affirmative therapy assists you in your growth process as you seek to become more like the Savior.