Footnotes chronicling what has happened since I reported a stake president's abuse of power in early 2015 have now exceeded the length of the original post, so I'm splitting them out to a separate blog entry.
That letter to Richard J. Maynes (with an attached copy of my previous letter to church leadership, as documentation that I had unsuccessfully attempted
local resolution) did find its way to Elder Maynes' office, despite the
lack of proper addressing. He handed it down to Richard Hansen, who
forwarded it down another level to Daniel Johnson sometime around early
April. That much, I'm fully in support of... if I'd had Elder Johnson's
name and contact information I would have sent it directly to him in the
first place.
Two months later, with that projected
move to Tualatin still pending, I got a meeting request from the
Beaverton Stake President. He said that Elder Johnson had forwarded my
letter down to him for resolution at the local level, with no direction
on how to handle the situation being provided. I of course immediately
asked what his authority over the other Stake President was, and got the
expected answer of "none". That 90 minute meeting was mostly spent
running verbal circles about the same topic that I'd walked out of my
previous meeting with him THE PRECEDING YEAR over, with a few encouraging forward
steps in understanding. Towards the end of our meeting, I got to remind
him yet again that there's still this issue with the Tualatin Stake
President left to be addressed, at which point he made a less than
enthusiastic offer to set up a meeting with the three of us.
The
idea of meeting with two stake presidents simultaneously, one of whom
has given indication of being outright hostile to me and one whom is
lukewarm at best, and neither of whom seem to think there's any actual
problem needing resolution doesn't exactly strike me as likely to result
in timely resolution.... so I called Elder Johnson's office the next
morning to advise him that I really don't think the Beaverton Stake
President is the right person to be handling this. I was expecting to be
told to write an email or another letter, was pleasantly surprised to
be permitted to speak to him directly. Despite Elder Johnson's claim to
be "very familiar" with my letter, he somehow managed to have my gender
identity wrong (I am not a transman!) and was oblivious to there being
an issue with the Tualatin Stake President. After spelling the situation
out for him (including WHY this situation is so distressing to me,
which I've been withholding from local leaders in order to ensure that
Mr. treat-the-trans-person-as-a-child-molester doesn't have an
opportunity to do even more harm) and asserting that yes the Tualatin
Stake President really did give that direction to the Hedges Creek Ward
bishop in response to his skepticism that any stake president would ever
do such a thing, he agreed that such a restriction is not in line with
church policy and said he'd make a phone call to the TSP.
End
of July rolls around, and I haven't heard from either stake president,
so I make another trip over to Hedges Creek Ward to ask that set of
leaders whether or not they've been given addition direction from Daniel
Johnson. The Stake President happened to be presiding over the meeting
that day, which gave me an opportunity to query him directly instead of
the bishop. According to him, DJ did call, accepted SP's side of the
story and agreed that the situation had been handled properly... oh, and
I'm in trouble for making a "false accusation". When I asked what that
false accusation was, he refused to answer. He denied the comparison to
child molester handling is but declined to elaborate on the difference.
And his response to a direct query on my permissions to work with
children: "Not as long as I'm Stake President". I reported that latest
development to my own bishop, expecting to get the usual blind
acceptance of "I sustain local leaders" and was pleasantly surprised
that he considered the situation worthy of reporting again. So we're
sending that back up through the chain of command again, with me being
extremely skeptical that anything will come of it but desperate enough
to try.
By November 2015, I hadn't heard a darn thing
back from my current Stake President or Bishop. I'd been generally been
going to Sacrament meeting only and then going home instead of attending
the second two hours of church.... but even with that restricted
exposure to church people, I was finding myself having 36-hour anxiety
attacks every weekend, Saturday afternoon through all day Sunday. And of course the church's update to policy on gay members killed any hope I had of church authorities issuing positive clarification. I had
one last meeting with my current bishop spelling out to him exactly how
unwelcome I'd been made to feel in his ward, and revealing the detail
I'd been keeping secret in order to limit hostile leadership's
opportunity to abuse their power further... that spouse and I were
deliberately buying a big house so that we'll have space for foster
children. Foster children that I will not allow church folks to mistreat
as badly as they've mistreated me, so if there's no move to improve the
situation then I'm gone.
Bishop once again assured me
that he would try to improve the situation, but I know better than to
believe that... I'll come back when I see it happening, not before. I never looked back, and have had only minimal
contact from my few allies in the ward. What I thought was going to be a
"vacation" of just a few weeks has turned into months and still
counting. Spouse and I moved to our new house (not the one in
Hedges Creek Ward, that sale ended up not going through) and I
decided not to tell any church officials where I'm at.
I let my Ensign membership lapse, most of my church-related
possessions are hidden away in a box in the attic, and I won't
be giving the USPS a forwarding address in order to make myself harder
to track down... which seems a bit overkill, given that they seem to not
even want me back. Mormons have a reputation for tracking down and
continuously harassing inactive members; I guess that shows how much
they really didn't want me there in the first place.
Griffith
Park Ward tried to assign me a home teacher in October 2016. I laughed
at him, told him I hadn't been in his ward for more than six months and
that no, I'm not interested in having church visitors at my new home.
Agreed to send him a link to the blog explaining why I have that policy,
did so, never heard back.
January 2017, the bishop of
Meridian Park Ward (Tualatin Stake) sent me a "welcome to our ward"
email. Apparently somebody finally figured out that I wasn't in Griffith
Park Ward anymore (RTS from the postal service on a Christmas card?
Tithing settlement prompted a review of ward records?) and the only
other address they had from me was that now-abandoned P.O. Box in
Tualatin. Again, I had a good laugh at the conditional interest ("If you
live within the Meridian Park Ward boundaries"...), shared a link to my Letter to Area Authority blog post, re-iterated that I'm not interested in giving out my
address for more of the same runaround, and suggested unloading my
membership record back to Springfield since that's the last ward that
seemed to actually want me. I was fully expecting that to result in another round of getting ignored... classic "not my problem" Mormon logic says
that since I'm not living in their ward boundaries, they're not expected
to do anything other than continue playing hot potato with my
membership.
Well, that bishop actually seemed have a backbone (as opposed to the previous two that I'd interacted with)... he made it clear that I would be welcome to attend his ward, even without actually living in their boundaries, and got an ok from the Tualatin stake president to give me a calling if I want one in that church unit. Not that I really trust anything TSP says, but it's a nice gesture. I had a few more phone & email exchanges with the Meridian Park bishop discussing what the long-term logistics of having me attending a ward whose boundaries I don't live in would be, which led to an offer for him to contact the bishop of the ward where I actually do live without expectation of sharing my address or other contact information until I explicitly give permission to do so.
And so that's how I ended up meeting with the bishop of Lake Forest ward in February, nervously dreading what the next blindsiding rejection would be. It hasn't happened yet. I've got permission to attend the men's 3rd hour Sunday meeting, and have even been told that they "appreciate" the few comments I've been brave enough to make there. After my church record transferred, a calling was promptly extended: Primary Presidency Secretary!
So it's looking like I'm resuming the appearance of "activity"... although I turned in my temple recommend as soon as the record transfer went through, over protests from the bishop. I haven't felt like going to the temple in the entire time I've lived in the Portland area, and only renewed it two years ago because I (incorrectly, apparently) believed that having evidence of my worthiness would help with navigating the Tualatin mess. Despite the recent positive connections, I'm still completely disgusted with the leadership roulette mechanism (how can I be banned from working with children in one stake and then assigned to the Primary Presidency in another?!?) and have no interest in buying my way into "salvation".
I've been open with everyone who's approached me for anything beyond superficial conversation, but get the impression that most of the ward still doesn't know I'm trans... and on testosterone.
2017 ward Primary Program was in October, and the weeks of practice leading up to that event gave me plenty of opportunity to appreciate having a place in this church unit. Sitting with the kids as they practiced was the first time(s) I'd been at the front of a chapel since I lived in Springfield, a quiet reminder of how thoroughly I'd been excluded during those three years living in Beaverton. I decided that I'd get up again on the first Fast Sunday following the program... didn't register to me until the week of that this was going to be November 5th, the two-year anniversary of that event that had precipitated my exit.
So included that in the story that I shared with the entire ward.... opened with a disclaimer that my testimony isn't short or sweet, and then related the entire story of my experience with the LDS church from meeting Nathaniel at Dragonflight through the Corvallis Student Ward and Springfield 2nd ward and Griffith Park Ward in Beaverton and Hedges Creek Ward in Tualatin all the way to Lake Forest Ward in Lake Oswego. My distinction between the people I go to church with and the people that I consider to be my friends, my current transitional status, the fact that I still don't trust church records with my address so the bishop put the stake center's address in that field of my record, and what an honor is to be allowed to serve with the children here. [Didn't manage to fit in the part about having been married and divorced twice in this timeline; oops, I'll have to include that next time.]
I was expecting there to be some sort of fallout from that public revelation, but anything along those lines that may have happened hasn't been relayed back to me yet. Several people commented to me afterwards that they "enjoyed my testimony"... which seems more than a little ironic given that there wasn't much enjoyable material in that, although I assume that the standard recognition-of-speaker phrase was the best wording they were able to come up with. One person was more specific, combining a comment about "having had a similar experience" with a half-hug. And that was it. Next time I checked in with the bishop, he said that he'd heard only positive feedback also.
So now I'm out to the entire ward (at least, the portion of it who weas awake and in attendance that day), and I'm still the Primary Secretary. Never would have expected that, but I'm certainly not complaining!
