Essay

Eternal Gender and the Body You Were Given

If you experience discomfort about gender—or love someone who does—you may be trying to understand two things at once. What does God say about being male or female? And what do I do when someone’s feelings about the body seem to conflict with what God has revealed?

Those are deeply personal questions. Let’s take a look at what the restored gospel of Jesus Christ teaches you about yourself: Heavenly Father knows exactly who you are. You are His spirit son or daughter, your identity as male or female began before this life, and the body you received in mortality belongs within His eternal purposes for you.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that every person is a “beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents” and that gender is an essential part of our “premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” And, because of Jesus Christ, your feelings about your body do not have to carry the impossible burden of telling you who you eternally are. God has already revealed something about that.

Let’s see what else He says about you as His son or daughter.

Jesus Christ Took Us Back to the Beginning

When the Pharisees questioned Jesus about marriage, the Savior answered by taking them back to Creation. He reminded them that God “at the beginning made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4–6).

Jesus was speaking about marriage, but notice where His explanation begins. Before discussing the relationship between husband and wife, He points to God’s creation of man and woman. Being male or female was not presented as a later cultural invention. It belonged to God’s design “at the beginning.”

Restored revelation takes that truth even further. Elder Richard G. Scott taught that our creation as male and female “was done spiritually in your premortal existence” and that “your gender existed before you came to earth.”

That means your eternal identity is ancient and you are more than your current feelings about your body.

Your Spirit and Your Body Belong Together

One of the beautiful doctrines restored through Joseph Smith is that the body is not an accidental shell around the “real you.” The Lord taught that “the spirit and the body are the soul of man” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:15).

He also taught that the spiritual is in the likeness of the physical and that “the spirit of man” is “in the likeness of his person” (Doctrine and Covenants 77:2).

Elder James E. Talmage taught this connection unusually plainly. He explained that male and female existed before mortality and that “the body takes form as male or female according to the sex of the spirit whose appointment it is to tenant that body.” He concluded that man and woman are male and female “fundamentally, unchangeably, eternally.” His teaching was published while he served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

This doctrine gives the body remarkable dignity. You did not come to earth merely to endure having a body until your spirit can leave it behind. Through Jesus Christ, you will be resurrected. The Lord teaches that when “spirit and element” are inseparably connected, we can receive “a fulness of joy” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:33–34).

God’s plan for your body ultimately leads toward wholeness and joy through Christ.

Chloe’s Story

Chloe Cole has described experiencing intense discomfort with being female when she was a young teenager because of time spent on social media. She began making significant changes to her body while still very young and later came to understand herself differently.

Today she speaks openly about what she wishes she and her family had understood that could help you or a loved one in this same situation:

Your Feelings Matter, but They Are Not Your Entire Identity

It can sound compassionate to say that if your strongest internal feelings conflict with your body, those feelings must reveal who you really are. That idea can be especially persuasive when the distress is genuine. It gives the pain an explanation.

But it also leaves out something important God has revealed: feelings are part of mortal experience, while your divine identity reaches back before mortality.

President Russell M. Nelson spoke directly to young adults about this. He said that if the Lord were speaking to you personally, one of the first things He would want you to understand would be your true identity. President Nelson identified three truths that should come before other labels: you are a child of God, a child of the covenant, and a disciple of Jesus Christ. He then reminded young adults, “Your potential is divine.”

That gives you room to experience difficult feelings without allowing those feelings to become the whole explanation of who you are.

Let Your Patriarchal Blessing Help You See the Bigger Picture

If you have received a patriarchal blessing, this may be an especially meaningful time to read it again.

Look at the much larger picture Heavenly Father gives you of your life. Notice what it teaches about your lineage in the house of Israel, your spiritual gifts, responsibilities, relationships, promises, service, and the person you can become.

Church resources teach that studying your patriarchal blessing can help you discern who you are in God’s eyes and what you can become.

That perspective matters when one struggle starts taking up most of the room in your mind. Heavenly Father sees much more in you than the question you are wrestling with right now.

What Can Research Help Us Learn?

There is also reason to be thoughtful about the messages surrounding young people.

At England’s former Tavistock gender clinic, referrals of girls had over a 5,000 percent increase in just a few years. Researchers have also studied unusual patterns within some friendship groups.

In Lisa Littman’s parent-report study, many of the adolescents who were experiencing gender distress were also in school friend groups where most members had come to identify as transgender. And 86.7 percent of parents reported increased internet use, friends identifying similarly during the same period, or both. The study does not prove that friends or social media cause gender dysphoria, but it does raise reasonable questions about how social environments can influence the way some young people understand what they are feeling.

That matters because discomfort with puberty, anxiety, body image, sexuality, or simply not fitting stereotypes of masculinity or femininity can be very real. It is wise to give yourself time to understand those feelings rather than assuming immediately that they tell you something different about your eternal identity.

How Do I Understand These Feelings?

You may sincerely pray, study the scriptures, worship in the temple, and try to trust God—and still experience gender dysphoria.

That does not mean you have failed spiritually.

The Church acknowledges that some people feel an inner sense of gender that does not align with their biological sex and does not claim to know the cause of those feelings. It encourages people experiencing them to speak with trusted family members, friends, and Church leaders so they can receive support.

Your discipleship does not have to wait until every difficult feeling disappears. You can keep covenants, receive revelation, develop gifts, strengthen relationships, serve, learn, work, worship, and build a meaningful life with Jesus Christ.

Your life can become much larger than this struggle.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

• When I have strong feelings about my body, do I treat those feelings as the final answer about who I am?
• What voices have most influenced what I believe my feelings about gender mean?
• When I read my patriarchal blessing, what does Heavenly Father seem most interested in helping me become?
• What good parts of my future might be harder to see when this question takes up most of my attention?

What Can You Do This Week?

Start with Jesus Christ. Read Matthew 19:4–6 and the opening paragraphs of The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Ask Heavenly Father to help you understand why your identity as male or female and your physical body matter to Him.

Read your patriarchal blessing. Look especially for words about identity, gifts, covenants, service, responsibilities, promises, and your future. Let it expand your view of yourself beyond the struggle that may feel especially large right now.

Notice what is influencing you. For one week, pay attention to what your social media, entertainment, friends, and other voices are teaching you about your body and identity. Compare those messages patiently with what God has revealed.

Build something good. Develop a talent. Strengthen a friendship. Serve someone. Work toward school or career goals. Attend the temple if you are able. Choose something that helps you become the person your Heavenly Father is inviting you to become.

There Is So Much More Ahead

Jesus Christ’s invitation to people carrying heavy burdens was simple: “Come unto me” (Matthew 11:28). He does not require you to understand every feeling before you can follow Him.

He knows who you were before you came to earth. He knows the body you received. He knows what is difficult about your mortal experience, and He also knows what you can become.

These feelings do not have to become the center of your life. There are covenants to keep, gifts to discover, people to love, work to accomplish, relationships to build, promises to receive, and experiences with God still ahead of you. As you trust what Heavenly Father has revealed and continue following Jesus Christ, you can grow into your divine identity with greater confidence and discover that God’s purposes for your life are far larger—and far more hopeful—than you can ever imagine.