MrShorty

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Everything posted by MrShorty

  1. @mordorbund @scottyg the data comparing cis-male high schoolers against cis-female Olympic athletes is interesting. I guess the question is how comparable are cis-male high school athletes to trans-female athletes. The claims I see coming from trans affirming sources and governing bodies is that, after sufficient transitioning treatments, trans-women compete in many sports at the same level as cis-women. Again, I'm not in a position to fully evaluate the data, but it seems that data comparing cis-boys to cis-women is not by itself going to answer the question of how well trans-women compete against cis-women.
  2. I agree that this is the driving reason between having men's and women's divisions in most sports. What I see currently happening (and a big part of why I say this is all in flux right now) is athletes and sports governing bodies and society in general are trying to understand just how much of the competitive advantage is inherent in growing up biological male and how much is current biological maleness. @mikbone is probably a lot closer to the literature and better equipped to interpret it all, but I see some literature that seems to show that trans-women who receive the right combinations of treatments (the OP's article only listed testosterone levels, I'm not certain what more or less there is to it all) can compete fairly against cis-women. I'm certainly not in a position to judge the literature, but I tend to assume that these governing bodies (in the OP's case, USA Swimming) will have as their primary focus the integrity of their sport. As near as I can tell, no one wants to turn women's athletics into competitions that cis-women cannot compete in, but these governing bodies are also trying to be as inclusive as they can towards trans-women. I don't know all of the details, but it seems that at least some of these governing bodies are being convinced by the data they are presented that it is possible for trans and cis women to compete fairly against each other. Whether or not the specific incident mentioned in the OP fully fits into that possibility or not, I don't know.
  3. I apologize for not catching that the OP was more of a joke. I have a daughter who just entered treatment for gender/body dysmorphia (so far only talk therapy, but who knows how far that will go), and maybe I'm just a little hypersensitive at the moment so that I missed the joke. I, too, am a card-carrying member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (still not sure if day is supposed to be capitalized or not, I thought the official instruction was a lower case "d", but I could easily be in error on that), and I agree that the statement from the proclamation is the words of Christ. I don't, however, believe that the clarifying statement mentioned by Grunt (Gender = biological sex at birth) represents the words of Christ. So, two card-carrying members (if we had the resources, we could further extend the survey to untold thousands of card-carrying members and see what percentage agree and disagree) don't completely agree on what constitutes the words of Christ on this topic. What happens next? Declare that all those who disagree with the full statement plus clarification are no longer card-carrying members? As for the OP, I agree that the real issue is one of competitive fairness (or cheating, if you prefer). I'm not convinced that a blanket "trans-women cannot compete alongside cis-women in any sport" fully addresses the question. Sports like swimming (USA Swimming and the NCAA were mentioned in the OP's article as governing bodies for the competition in question) seem to be trying to understand what is fair and unfair in allowing trans-women to participate alongside cis-women. I do not have any expertise in this area, so maybe I will ask if we have specific points or policies where we think USA Swimming (arbitrarily putting them as the highest authority on fairness within the sport of women's swimming) is misunderstanding or misusing data in deciding that trans-women who meet certain criteria (the OP's article only mentioned testosterone levels) can fairly compete against cis-women?
  4. A very good question. As Tevye said, "I'll tell you, I don't know" All I know is that I see many who want to stay in the Church in spite of their disagreements. How do we feel about that? Would we prefer to encourage them to see the door and take it -- kind of "purify the Church of its progressive elements"? Or do we want to engage them where they're at and help them stay? As for the word "stubborn", that was the word I put in place of "difficult[y]...bend[ing] to God's will." If you feel that stubbornness doesn't capture the idea you were conveying there, what would you feel would be a better interpretation?
  5. @Traveler I want to start by saying that I am sorry you were bullied like that in the Army in the mid-20th century. Such behavior seems completely antithetical to any kind of understanding of Christian behavior. Recognizing that this belief comes out of your anecdotal experience, I feel like it must be said that, in the 21st century, the consensus is that human sexual proclivities (and transgenderism, too) are at least partially in born (usually described as a complex and poorly understood interplay between genetic, in-utero epigenetic, and environmental factors). I don't know how to best reconcile your anecdotal experience and conclusion with the conclusions and experiences of a myriad of other people that don't match yours. Ultimately, the only thing I think I can say is that we have a different and better (even if still incomplete) understanding of LGBT issues than we did half a century ago. If we want to speak into the current marketplace of ideas on LGBT issues, we need to have a firm grasp of the current understandings. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean that you or I or 3rd hour need to lead out in these discussions. Those who do successfully engage the current dialog are going to have a good understanding of the current ideas and beliefs.
  6. @Grunt I'm not convinced that the Family Proclamation is as clear as is sometimes claimed. The Proclamation states that, "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." Beyond that, I see nothing in the document that defines or elaborate on what "gender" means. Pres. Oaks clarified a few years ago that, as far as the Church was concerned (if I recall correctly, he did not claim revelation or otherwise to be speaking for God), gender means biological sex at birth. As I see it, there's enough ambiguity there to allow someone to recognize through personal revelation that their eternal gender may not line up with their biological sex at birth. As for the suggestion that people are just stubborn about bending their will to God's will -- probably true. If it's not too much of a distraction, I think a big part of why the priesthood and temple ban lasted until '78 was our collective stubbornness about bending our will to God's will. Ultimately, the challenge is still the same -- how do we know that the declarations of our leaders are God's will? Are we going to reduce the question of what to do about those who don't get a testimony or get a contrary testimony down to stubbornness on the part of the member? IMO, if we are going to reduce the discussion down to, "those who don't get testimonies are just stubborn," I think we will lose some of the ability to have good conversations. I know many users here at 3rd hour don't always like those conversations, and I don't necessarily think those conversations have to take place here at 3rd hour. There are plenty of other places where these conversations can take place. Wherever the conversation takes place, I think it will need to be more nuanced than, "someone is stubborn."
  7. @Grunt I doubt I have any more insight into what "carnal desires of the natural man" means than you do. I can easily go with the circular/tautological, "it means anything that runs counter to God's will for us," but that doesn't really help when deciding which individual behaviors and beliefs goes into that box. I also agree that the Church is trying to be as loving and accepting as it knows how within the limits of what it believes God's will is. The question I see many asking is if the Church has a complete and accurate understanding of God's will regarding transgender persons, and, how to reconcile the Church's understanding of God's will with the understanding many individuals are claiming through personal revelation.
  8. @mikbone I agree that we need to build our foundation on the words of Christ. As it relates to transgender issues (including how to navigate competitive sports), what are the words of Christ on this issue and how do we know they are the words of Christ? Perhaps alongside that, in a pluralistic society, how and to what extent should we inject our understanding of the words of Christ into the laws, practices, and procedures of sports' governing bodies and states and nations?
  9. For something that is as "in flux" as transgender and other LGBT issues, I'd suggest we be careful getting locked into any one definition of what it means to be transgender. I know that we get uncomfortable by a foundation of shifting sands, but I think, on a topic as in flux as gender identity and transgenderism, we need to be able to somehow manage our discomfort with the shifting sands, because that is part of where the discussions are happening. I think there are two difficulties along the way to encouraging someone to overcome carnal desires of the natural man. Step one is discerning what God believes is included in "carnal desires of the natural man" and the second step is motivation towards overcoming those carnal desires. I sometimes feel like conservative church members are focused on the motivation of step 2 assuming step 1 is completely settled without question. I think step 1 is the more important step, because many (even in the Church) are not convinced that transitioning towards your preferred gender is included in the "carnal desires of the natural man." As a cis-hetero man, I don't feel like I have the stewardship to try to tell anyone what is sin and what is not. I know that I have seen many anecdotes of faithful trans members who feel like God has revealed to them personally that transitioning is not sinful -- that God is accepting of their transitioning. I don't think we have ever adequately addressed the conflict between personal and institutional revelation on issues like this. Until we can adequately deal with the discernment step on this, I don't think there is much we can do on the motivational step.
  10. @NeuroTypical So, if I read the chart correctly, the inflation rate continues to rise if the FED is too slow (no definition of too slow). If the FED is on top of things, then inflation stays steady at about 7% for the next year. The FED's reaction is important, but part of me is still dissappointed that the "best case scenario" according to this is "7% inflation for the next year". Maybe I'm feeling a little spoiled with the low inflation rates we've seen over the last decades (around 3% as shown in the chart from last year), but maybe I just feel like "holding inflation at 7%" is only kind of sort of some kind of victory but maybe not really a victory.
  11. @NeuroTypical Yes, legitimate (whatever that might mean?) gender dysphoria and transgenderism is quite rare (I typically see something along the order of 1% of the population). I do not have the expertise to even begin to talk about how doctors and therapists distinguish between legitimate dysphoria and curious exploration. I also don't know how to balance the tension between the conservative "be very careful about changing how we diagnose and treat dysphoria, because some changes could cause additional harm" against the progressive "current diagnosis and treatment is allowing harm to some, so we need to change our diagnostic and treatment to do less harm." Seeing this from the POV of the "hard sciences", it is hard to understand how the "soft sciences" make these kinds of decisions. I'm not sure how much is driven by mere "cultural winds". I hope that our "best practices" can balance both conservative fears of new trends in treatment and progressive fears of getting stuck in "dark ages," but I don't know how to balance those. As a non-therapist, my hope in my interactions with individuals is that I will be kind, tolerant of whatever "whims" the individual expresses, supportive of treatments recommended by the individual's doctors/therapists, and ready to help pick up the pieces when stuff goes wrong.
  12. I don't know the answer to this. My LDS upbringing naturally wants to answer that the quest for truth is the greatest quest we can undergo, and that finding truth should trump all other pursuits. However, as I have gotten older, I find myself moderating that stance. If someone is wandering lost and confused and seems happy to be lost and confused and they aren't hurting themselves or anyone, how important is it to help them connect to truth? As much as I love the idea of absolute truth, who is going to arbitrate the choices of what is truth and what is "lost and confused?" (Note -- I am NOT volunteering for the position of "arbiter of truth" -- especially when it comes to transgender issues.) For the most part, I've reached a point where -- perhaps in my own uncertainties -- that I would rather leave people to muddle along for themselves and hopefully they will grant me the same courtesy. If I can help someone, I'm happy to offer what little I can to help them navigate confusion, while also seeking the support of others in navigating my own state of lost and confused.
  13. After reading the article, one thing that stood out to me is that the NCAA is apparently allowing a higher testosterone threshold for trans-female participants than USA Swimming allows (10 nmol/L versus 5 nmol/L. The article also notes that typical cis-female testosterone levels are 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L). I don't have any insights into why the NCAA chose that threshold for participation, but I did notice a random poll in the sidebar of the article asking if the NCAA ought to use the same criteria as USA Swimming. How should the sport of swimming police this kind of thing? If I've understood correctly, Henig is trans-male (not taking T supplements, no statement regarding other transition treatments). If I've read correctly, the trans-male athlete was about 0.2 seconds slower than the trans-female competitor. Also, I noted that the 3rd place (presume cis-female?) was about a full second slower than Thomas and Henig. That seems interesting, but it feels like more data is needed to understand the significance here. It is definitely a difficult question to try to answer.
  14. I kind of hate myself for making this about intent, but what is the intent of this discussion? Are we really interested in the hard conversations around how sporting leagues and organizations ought to accommodate (or not) transgender persons? Usually the hardest questions are around trans-women and any unfair advantage they may have and how do we determine that trans-women have an unfair advantage and does it depend on the sport and the level of competition and does it depend on hormone therapies and on and on and on. I have no answers, nor do I even begin to have any expertise in how to get answers. I expect there is a lot of research and some trial and error that will need to go into finding those answers. The more cynical side of me worries that this is more of a "because it is difficult to know how to best accommodate trans-women in women's sports, therefore we do not need to do anything in other places to accommodate trans-gender peoples and we can continue to blindly insist that people ought to just accept their "biological sex at birth" designation." I don't think it is right to use challenges with sports as a bludgeon for erasing transgender people. I recognize that the Church has certain spaces where it needs a bright, binary line around gender (and it has chosen biological sex at birth with case by case nods to intersex scenarios as that bright line), but I'm not convinced that this necessarily represents all of the truth there is to know about transgender people and what path each individual ought to choose. In short, it is a very difficult question that I don't think we have fully answered. I also hope that the challenges for sporting leaques and associations do not give us permission to fail to extend basic kindness and courtesies and acceptance of everyday, run-of-the-mill transgender people we come across who are more worried about navigating mundane life with no aspirations for world records in some athletic competition.
  15. It's a bit tangential, but I think this is another challenge the Church is struggling (maybe not the right word) with -- where to draw boundaries around who is and is not a Latter-day Saint. Dez-nat types (because they are just easy fringe punching bags for this sort of thing) would have us believe that there ought to be lots of things in our truth cart and we ought to urgently push anyone who can't absolutely support everything they put into the truth cart out as quickly as possible. Weeds and tares all over this field and the field must be cleansed. I see a lot of better voices (including many of the highest leadership) that wants to encourage people on the fringes to stay in, and leave the separating of wheat and tares to later. It is sometimes interesting to see how those going through faith crises struggle with the question of whether they ought to include themselves as "Latter-day Saint" or not. There is a question of "in or out" here that exists, but I'm not sure exactly how we want to decide who gets to be in or out -- and I'm sometimes not certain the Church is fully committed to some of the lines some want to draw.
  16. I think this assumes that LGBTQ+ is a separate society from our current society or that LGBTQ+ society is out to supplant cis-hetero society, and it also seems to assume that reproduction is the most important part of sustaining a society (which is at the heart of evolutionary theories). I think it makes a lot more sense to see LGBTQ+ as part (albeit a minority -- typical numbers on the order of 5 to 10%) of OUR society. Yes, the existence of many of these minorities removes individuals from the breeding population, but no where near enough to prevent the sustaining of our society. If this is the kind of argument we want to make, I think effective birth control and an overall aversion on the part of cis-hetero couples to have children would be a greater threat than the few sexual minorities that naturally remove themselves from the breeding population, as @NeuroTypical already mentioned.
  17. Getting too old to keep up. A few things I want to respond to. I see more parallel here than you do, perhaps because I am not convinced that the priesthood ban came from God. This group will tend not to like it, but I appreciated an essay from Johnathon Stapley over at By Common Consent where he argued that it might be time to accept that maybe the priesthood ban did not originate with God. As I see it, in both cases we can ask whether the Church's doctrine and policies around each issue are all truly from God or not. https://bycommonconsent.com/2021/02/11/whether-the-temple-and-priesthood-restriction-was-mistaken/ I would add here that I'm not convinced that Pres. McKay's experience necessarily proves that God instituted the ban in the beginning. I find more support for God continuing to accommodate the Church's bad beliefs, waiting until the Church reaches a point of being willing to repent of it's errors. I don't believe that God accommodating man's foibles necessarily means that man's foibles were put there by God. Agree that this is a huge part of the question. I don't have answers. What I know is that a strict focus on self is wrong, but I also believe that a martyr complex where I sacrifice everything in order to benefit those around me (a la Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree and the criticisms leveled against it). I also believe that God may require temporary suffering that leads to longterm, maybe eternal, goodness. However, I also believe that prophets and scripture are fallible and may present something as an eternal view that really isn't the eternal view. Ultimately, how do we come to know what is right and good as God Himself sees things? How did those processes of discernment lead us to believe so many terrible things about people with a different skin color to where we eventually need to fully and completely disavow those teachings? Are we absolutely certain that we have all the Truth (capital T) about LGBT issues that we know we will never need to disavow our current teachings and policies? I think this is the difficult nature of slippery slopes. Sometimes one really does need to hold fast to the anchors at the top because the descent to the bottom is inevitable. Other times, we cling to the top without allowing ourselves to explore the ledges and anchors that exist partway down and prevent the descent all the way to the bottom. As I've read Reeves, one interesting thing that seems to keep coming up is how broader American views of Mormon life were some kind of slippery slope into polluting the white race -- often explicitly accusing us of wanting to encourage interracial marriages (it almost seems like 19th century America was more scared of interracial marriage than they were of abolishing slavery. Abolishing slavery was just the first step down the slippery slope, so they resisted that first step. In the end, I don't know how best to navigate slippery slopes, I think they are difficult.
  18. As a Jedi Master once said, "So certain are you." How does one come to know truth with such certainty? It's the kind of certainty that prompts one to say: "You must have been a fence sitter in the pre-existence." (Belief now officially disavowed, suggesting, as I noted earlier, that any certainty was misplaced by previous generations). "Your marriage is counterfeit." "Your disbelief makes you foolish and deluded, and a bear of no brain at all." (because a thread this heavy needs a Winnie the Pooh reference to lighten the mood a little). How does one get to a point of certainty where they can believe these things (even if/when they choose not to say them for diplomacy's sake)? As interesting as the race and the priesthood and LGBT issues are, the underlying issue is one of epistemology -- how did we come to "know" that priesthood and temple blessings ought to be denied to a race of people and how did we come to know with such certainty that same sex marriage and gender transitions "disrupt progression and mock our divine nature."? 
  19. I find the juxtaposition of these two somewhat contrasting viewpoints interesting. On one hand, we must "put off the natural man" (whatever the natural man is). On the other, a naturally occurring phenomenon is held up as an echo of an eternal, celestial phenomenon. How do we know what parts of our nature are "natural" and need to be put off, and what parts of our nature need to be nurtured and embraced because they represent echos of eternity?
  20. I agree that this is likely what the ancients believed, and that the process of bringing ancient scripture to us caused these accounts to be transmitted to us under the guise of scripture. The question is, are these opinions true, or are they an ancient tradition of men handed down to us through millennia?
  21. I agree with 1, I doubt 2 (maybe even leaning towards disbelieving 2, if the distinction between doubt and disbelief is not too subtle), I also doubt 3 (again maybe even leaning towards disbelief). I agree that these are "known" by faith and testimony, and I understand what that usually means to us. What do we do when someone comes along and says that he/she/they know(s) by faith and testimony that sexual relations outside of marriage is sin, that marriage need not be gender-specific, and that homosexual relations are acceptable within marriage? It often seems that we can do no more than shrug and bear a different testimony. In some ways we end up back at a prior "conclusion" where individuals must follow their own faith and testimony whether or not it matches the Church's faith and testimony. Maybe God's truth is malleable enough to be different for different people?
  22. How do we know this? When I look for sources on this "foundational" belief underlying so much of the discussion, I find fallible prophets and errant scripture. Those claiming personal revelation from God seem mixed -- sometimes for and sometimes against this teaching. In many ways, this also parallels the priesthood and temple ban, because fallible prophets and apostles used errant scripture to claim that they KNEW the reasons for the ban, but all of those reasons are now officially disavowed. While I find there are different meanings people ascribe to "disavow," to me it means that everyone who spoke with certainty on this issue before spoke with much more certainty than their knowledge could possibly have justified. We speak with an awful lot of certainty when we speak of LGBT issues. Are we certain that this level of certainty is justified?
  23. I can't imagine any biologist (especially if he/she has also had some education in statistics within biology) that does not understand that naturally occurring traits will frequently exhibit "bell curve" (or similar distributions) behavior. Naturally, "normal" experience is going to be in the middle regions of those bell curves and not the extremes. And, it seem quite natural to expect that such common experience with the middle of the bell curve will cause many to pathologize or demonize the extremes of the bell curve. However, we as Latter-day Saints frequently say that our goal in life is to know God's will and truth. Does normalizing the middle of bell curves and pathologizing/demonizing the edges of bell curves really represent a good way of getting to know the truths and will of God? This often reminds me of the talk given by then Elder Oaks when he talked about general authorities teaching general principles, but that he didn't want to comment on exceptions because that is up to individuals to decide exceptions. If we really believe in a model that includes general principles/truths with exceptions, it seems like LGBT issues could easily fit into that kind of model. Assuming 90% of people fit nicely into the cis-hetero standards the Church outlines (which seems to be about what I usually find when I go seeking for how commonly people identify as LGBT+), with somewhere around 10% of people finding, by personal revelation, that they are exceptions to the normal cis-hetero rules. If we truly believe in general principles with exceptions, it seems like we ought to embrace people in their exceptions to make it easier for them to stay in the Church. Of course, maybe we don't really believe in general with exceptions or that this specific issue cannot tolerate any exception, but then we are back to understanding how we come to know what exceptions God allows and which exceptions God doesn't. I don't know how we decide, but I certainly don't think that biological norms can tell us about God's views about those at the ends of the bell curves. In some ways I like this "utilitarian" view of revelation -- that God chooses to withhold real truth or provide partial truths or even allow His people to believe falsehoods because tolerating or accommodating less than the full truth serves some purpose. The main problems I see with these kinds of models of revelation are things like these: If history is any indications, God can tolerate some pretty immoral stuff in His people -- slavery, forced racial segregation, genocide. Is there really anything God cannot tolerate or endorse among His people? If God stands behind these practices, is God a reliable source of moral truth? If God tolerates immoral "false" traditions among His people, are the practices of God's people reliable indicators of truth and morality? As it relates to the LGBT question, if God could tolerate slavery among His people, could He not also tolerate a few same-sex couples getting married? I agree with much of what you say here. These kinds of ideas are part of why I'm not sure I believe the Church is true in the sense of being the only true Church and representing the only path through mortality that leads back to salvation and exaltation.
  24. So late to respond, but there are a few things I feel I ought to respond to: As a biologist, I have long found it interesting that almost every living thing has a sexual mode of reproduction, and the biological/evolutionary attempts to explain why (after all, asexual reproduction is far less expensive). Of course most explanations talk about the strong advantage to genetic recombinations. But, even though it is intriguing, I find any attempts to draw parallels between what occurs naturally and advantageously in this fallen world to what is happening in the celestial realm ultimately unconvincing. I do not find much in the amoral natural world that helps me understand God's morality. Re: Paul Reeves and his book, the conclusions and impressions are mine and not Paul's, so set the record straight there. I would wonder exactly what "right time" means here, because a significant part of my own doubts and disbeliefs around this issue involve why God waited until 1978. Others of our offshoot branches ordained blacks to their priesthoods from their early days in the 19th century. There's a lot said about the history of the priesthood ban (including the Church's own essay) that includes the idea that God had to wait until 1978 because we as a Church were too stubborn, too set in our thinking, too unrepentant, to receive the revelation any earlier. Some mention Pres. McKay's experience in the '60s. One history mentions an internal "study" by the Q12 (can't remember if it was '50s or '60s) that concluded that the Church [membership?] is not ready to lift the ban. It seems to me that there should have been plenty of "right times" before '78 to desegregate the priesthood, but our own stubbornness handicaps God (an interesting idea??) in the revelations He can give us. Which, I wonder, might be another parallel to LGBT issues. In many circles (including this forum) I have seen many (a strong majority?) of Church members claim that they would leave the Church if it changed its stance on LGBT issues. Have we handicapped God's ability to give us new revelation by our own stubbornness? (At this point, I would almost want to invoke Spackman and his discussion of accommodationism as a model of revelation and prophets and scripture). I've been around this forum too long to be "scared off", but I do find it unproductive (so not usually worth engaging) when someone decides to draw moral equivalences between two men holding hands while enjoying a romantic movie together and sex trafficking and statutory rape. I can kind of see the slippery slope connecting the ideas, but those comparisons otherwise don't really seem to add anything to the LGBT discussion. What do we do with those who decide that lifelong celibacy (romantic and sexual) does not produce a good tree or good fruit? What do we do with those who plant the seeds of accepting and acting on their homoromantic and homosexual predilictions and claim that it brings goodness into their life? As a cis-hetero man, I cannot plant and test the seeds of homosexuality, so I can only rely on others' experiences. It seems that, in a large number of cases, those who follow an Alma 32 type model find that homoromantic/homosexual behavior brings goodness into their lives. Of anything said in this thread, I think this is the thing I can most agree with. I often feel like, as a high demand religion, the Church doesn't always handle those who question or doubt or reject individual tenets while trying to stay true to the "core principles" of the restoration very well. In many of the more progressive circles I visit, so many "leave" the Church, not because they want to reject all of the core principles, but because they get tired of needing to censor themselves among their correligionists, or they get tired of being suspected of being a wolf in sheep's clothing, or having concerns/questions/doubts casually dismissed, or similar. One of the things I noticed in David Archuletta's recent video was how much of the pain he felt comes from people who doubt his faith in and relationship with God just because he decides to start dating, even though he feels his relationship with God is as strong as ever and that God approves of his decision. If we truly believe that God leads each individual, would we do better as a Church to be more open to people's individual experiences with the divine, rather than insisting that God gives everyone all of the same answers? (That was long -- forum ettiquette question -- Is it better to break something big and long like this up into separate posts?)
  25. @JohnsonJones In short, Ohman is talking about the cessation of "dynastic" or "kingdom" sealings where Church members with "questionable" sealing opportunities (married to a non-member or spouse/parent leaves the Church or just because) would be sealed to prominent Church leaders. Ohman suggests that the cessation of these non-familial sealings and insisting that everyone be sealed along family lines was a significant moment in our history that, in many ways, completely changed our ideas of what being sealed truly means.