I am a proud member of Tri-Ess. Tri-Ess is an organization dedicated to supporting cross-dressers and their family and friends. I pay my yearly dues to the local Salt Lake City chapter. I am not a cross-dresser, nor am I trans-anything, but some of my dearest friends and loved ones are. Tri-Ess is very family-oriented, sometimes having picnics with wives, children, and friends; and other times hosting group date nights with spouses. The cross-dressers don’t always cross-dress. They alternate between their male and female personas. They tend to be very fluid with their genders and often personal pronouns get lost along the way. 

I have been to several Tri-Ess meetings and activities and am always surprised by how Mormon they feel. Many of the members are current and faithful churchgoers of the predominant Utah faith — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. At Tri-Ess buffet dinners, they serve fruit punch instead of alcohol. Wives sit next to their dressed-as-women husbands. Often the cross-dressers are conservatively dressed, with nice knee-length skirts and cardigans draped over fashionable blouses. So many of the attendees look like they are ready to sit down to sacrament meeting.

I love these women and men and cross-dressers. They each work so hard to find a place in the world. Many bravely choose to do it without religion. Many bravely choose to do it with religion.

Besides knowing a great many cross-dressers (which falls under the trans-umbrella), I know several transgendered people. Because of my background and where I live, many of them are Mormon.

Last March I wrote about my friend Leah coming out to her bishop as a transgender woman. Thankfully, Leah was treated with warmth and respect. Recently, Leahnora Isaak has made national news as an LDS transgender woman who has attended priesthood meeting. Leah is going one step further and plans on formally requesting SLC headquarters to officially alter her church records, changing her name and information to correctly match her true gender. She wants to attend Relief Society meeting along with her fellow sisters.

I am no longer an orthodox Mormon, but even I got a bit misty when I read about Leah’s experience in her ward on the first Sunday of this month. In fast-and-testimony meeting she bore her testimony of the Plan of Happiness. She tearfully related her gratitude for leaders like President Uchtdorf. Instead of having to walk into Priesthood meeting alone, dressed in her authentic female self, the Stake President arrived and personally escorted Leah through the door and into a room filled with cheering, emotionally supportive men.

This. This is a church that would make Jesus proud.

As I write this post, I realize that not every ward and church member is as loving and as Christ-like as Leah’s congregation in Oregon. People like Leah and my dear friends at Tri-Ess are not only likable, they’re lovable. Who would not love them? Who would ever dare treat them poorly? And yet I hear countless stories of LGBTQ people who are inexcusably mistreated by their fellow “saints.” I cannot state too strongly that the compassion towards a few LGBTQ people does not condone or in any way trivialize the heartbreaking experiences of bigotry that many of our LGBTQ community have suffered. My heart has and always will go out to them.

The current president of the SLC Tri-Ess chapter, Jane Said, believes that the LDS church can change and grow to be more loving. She has high hopes for the younger generation. On Sundays in Utah county, when Jane is put back in the closet and Brother Jake* steps out, he teaches primary to a class of young, rascally boys. He teaches them about compassion and acceptance. He warns them that making slurs towards gay, transgender, and cross-dressing people at school and at home is wrong and extraordinarily hurtful. He tries to teach them about love. He hopes they listen.

Leahnorah has hopes, too. “I know that God has a place for me in every aspect of the Gospel and church worship.”

Amen, Sister Leah. Amen.