Optical Allusionist

The past two years, I have had, perhaps, I'm estimating, 50 or more people tell me that I need to understand where they are coming from, and then tell me something about my life that reveals how little time they have spent trying to understand where I am coming from. This note is not to attack these people, but rather to address the situation. I would say that about half of these people were beside themselves with anger at me and my differences, and about half spoke with love and sincerity, but with a lack of education, experience and understanding. This note is for the second half.

I am tired. It becomes exhausting to explain to everyone. It is exhausting to justify yourself to everyone. I know I have been rude in response a handful of times, but I have tried hard, much more often than not, to always take the opportunity to turn the other cheek, and to treat people, who perhaps did not always deserve it, with respect and dignity. I hope that, as you read this, you can treat me with that same respect. If you are one of the few that I have treated with disrespect, and unkindness, I am truly sorry, and I hope we get a second chance.

There are many reasons for people to feel the need to contact me... and, by this, I mean that I have taken stances, made choices, and have beliefs that offend people. I never take a stance, make a choice, or have a belief to offend, but rather because I believe it is right. I hold myself to a stronger moral code now, than I believe I ever had before, because I take extra care now to look at each of my decisions and analyze what is the right and wrong way to do things. I am an atheist. I am a communist. I am transsexual. I lived as a lesbian. I am not spiritual. I live with my significant other. I am an ex-Mormon, and what some might wrongly consider to be an anti-Mormon. I do not believe in an afterlife. I make day-to-day choices, for instance, I occasionally drink an alcoholic beverage, that most people I was raised with do not think is morally right. Take your pick. There are many reasons for people, "as my friend", to tell me that I'm wrong, and that I will never be happy.

But they forget that everyone is made happy for different reasons. Happiness is complicated because people are complicated, and what might make one person at peace with themselves will cause chaos in another. I am more happy, and more at peace than I have ever been. This is because I have taken the things that make me, Jack Kadin Steele, happy, and I have put them in the forefront of my mind when I make decisions that will affect my life. The path I have chosen in my life may very well make another person miserable. I have known a few that it has.

There are three different types of pursuits of happiness:

"Dr Martin E.P. Seligman, a proponent of positive psychology, has identified three types of happiness.

Pleasant life.A pleasant life consists of having as much pleasure as you can, as many of the positive emotions, and learning some of the dozen or so techniques that actually work for increasing the duration and intensity of your pleasures. There are shortcuts to the pleasures. You can go shopping; you can watch television; you can take drugs. These things do not lead to true happiness.

Engaged life.An engaged life is being one with the music, being totally wrapped up in the people you love or what you're hearing. There are no shortcuts to the engaged life. The engaged life can only be had by first knowing what your highest strengths are, your signature strengths, and re-crafting your life to use them at work, in love, in leisure, in parenting and in friendship.

Meaningful life.A meaningful life consists of again knowing what your highest strengths and talents are and using them in the service of something that you believe is bigger than you are." -- "The Three Types of Happiness" (http://www.evancarmichael.com/Human-Resources/775/The-three-types-of-happiness--are-you-really-happy.html)

Because of the popular teachings of the Mormon religion, the popular belief is that people who leave, or people who decide to take a different route in life than that "intended" are doing so because they are lazy, tired of following the rules... following a pursuit of pleasure. I am sure that there are people who leave the LDS religion and lifestyle because they are "tired of following the rules", but most of those who I have met who have left have left for reasons that are much deeper, and much more understandable when explained. It's a tragedy that they do not get the chance to explain more before a judgment is unwittingly cast. It is a huge jump for someone who does not know me to assume that they know better than I something as tied to myself as my happiness and my identity.

So you will understand my story better, I will tell you briefly why I left the Mormon religion, and then give the reader an argument that gives the possibility for a Mormon belief in a separation of birth sex and gender identity, and then I tell you what makes ME happy-- truly happy-- and that will, perhaps, begin to explain why I have taken the measures in my life that I have.

I left, little known to many, 3 times... because I never truly left the first two times. I continued to wonder if I would go back, and still wanted to, in a way.

The first time, I left because I [believed I] was gay, and I accepted and loved myself, and knew I could never continue to immerse myself in an environment that was not affirming of my whole self, which included the part of me that loved-- what I believe to be the most beautiful contribution a person can make to this world.

The second time, I left because I saw the effects of the spiritual abuse in the life of my loved one. I felt like I could never support anything that hurt someone as deeply as she was hurting, especially when I loved her as deeply as I did.

The third time I left was the most meaningful to me, and the final time, and it is because of this final reason that I will never be coming back... I finally left because I discovered enough things about past and present Church history that could be backed up factually, that implicated the leaders and doctrine in what I believed and continue to believe are a number of moral and ethical wrongs that affect the majority of the Church members, and many, many non-members.

And that third reason could ensue an entirely different topic, but I'm going to leave that to people who would like to message me about specifics... because, honestly, there are too many branches on that tree for me to span each one of them... Does that make sense?


(I apologize in advance to my gender-queer friends that this argument does not yet account for them... Help me out, eh?)
Why I believe Mormons should accept the belief of the separation of gender identity and birth sex, based on their own beliefs:

PRESUMPTION 1: God has power to make our bodies a certain way, to match our inner spirit. "We are a child of God"; "All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God."

PRESUMPTION 2: God wants us to be either MALE or FEMALE. "Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents...Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."

FACT 1: 1 out of 100 human bodies varies from the standard primary and secondary sex characteristics. 1 out of 100 people are intersex, which means that their bodies differ from standard male or female bodies. This may mean you are one of the 1/20,000 men who have male bodies and two X chromosomes, or it may mean you have both male and female genitalia, or ambiguous genitalia. (Intersex Society of North America: http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency)

CONCLUSION 1: God has limited to no power when he creates our bodies, because he wants us to be one way but some bodies don't match their spirit. This leaves the possibility that there are people with spirits that did not match their bodies, leaving the possibility for transsexual people to not be confused but be complaining of a legitimate problem within their body.

CONCLUSION 2: God has power, but does not wish for all of his children to have bodies that match their spirits. This leaves the possibility, again, that there are people with spirits that do not match their bodies, leaving the possibility for transsexual people to not be confused but be complaining of a legitimate "problem" within their body.

My concern with this topic is: What does the Church expect the intersex member to do, since your choices in life, as a member, are so dependent on whether you are female or male? Who do they marry? Do they receive the priesthood? It seems like the conclusion is that they either decide what sex they are-- not by their body (birth sex), but who they feel they are (gender identity), or that they stay in limbo until they are resurrected.

An inappropriate response to this conundrum is that we can't know the mysteries of God. When God says the world is one way, and we can see in front of our noses the exact opposite, it is no longer about the mysteries of God, but the mystery of why God may be ignorant of his own world.

For more information, which I would recommend to those who know little to nothing about transsexualism, you are always welcome to ASK ME QUESTIONS, and you could also read the introduction to Becoming a Visible Man (http://allusionism.blogspot.com/2010/08/becoming-visible-man-by-jamison-green.html) by Jamison Green, to start off.


And for the third and final section of this particular note, I will telll you what makes me-- Jack Kadin Steele-- incredibly happy, and at peace with himself and life. It is a happiness that is based in pursuing both an engaged life, and a meaningful life, with spurts of a pursuit of a pleasant life. It is not a set of spurts of happiness, but rather things that create a resounding, long-lasting, deep happiness.

It makes me happy to base my beliefs about how the world works on what I can know to be truth, evidence and proof that can be empirically tested. For instance, because there is no empirically testable evidence to become proof of a being that has power or influence in my creation or life, I do not believe in one. This means lots of things in my life, one of which is that I do not base my actions off of what someone has told me an unprovable being wants me to do. This makes me happy, because I can feel confident that I am not basing my actions off something I have no basis of knowledge in. I am also happy when I test my beliefs of how the world works, so I can be sure to continue to see if 1) I am happy where I am in life, and 2) I believe truth.

It makes me happy to be true to who I am. There will never be another me. I am unique, and special, and happy to be so. I am good enough as I am, and intend to treat myself as such, whether I'm gay, transsexual, or anything else. I am happiest when I treat myself and others with respect, dignity, and kindness, finding beauty in the world around me, whether it be in the vivid colors of the flowers, the excited explorations of my daughter-kitten, or the beautiful feeling of waking up with someone I love beside me. It gives me happiness to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those in need of comfort. It makes me happy to laugh when I can, and cry when I need.

It makes me happy is to surround myself with affirming people in my life. This doesn't mean that I surround myself with yes-men, but rather that I surround myself with people who will be looking out for me, based on what they know of me and what I need, not just what they think I need, that they will bring out the best in me, and encourage me to be the best that I am, and appreciate the best that is in me. I am happiest when I try to continue to always grow, to always become better.


What I've written here is just a taste of my story, and of myself. It is why I will never be Mormon again. It is why I am happy living the life that I am, the way that I am, with the people I am. If you want to talk more about this, you're welcome to comment here, or message me.

I hope you at least start thinking, with some things in mind, of where I may be coming from. I've spent years where you are, and the last two, especially, trying to understand where you are coming from... I don't ask for you to give me 21 years of your life thinking about this, but some common decency, like thinking in depth about where I may be coming from, may be nice before you write me with a judgment on my life. I don't know how many of you would want me writing and making judgments on your lives... I think it's fair to ask that you please extend me the same courtesy. Thank you.