Gender Roles and Same-Gender Attraction

After this past week of class I can honestly say that I have so much more compassion for those who struggle with same-sex attraction. As I watched the documentary on the men that struggle with same-sex attraction I began to see how real of an issue it is for so many people. It felt so much more real seeing people who have felt with this struggle for most of their lives. Something that really hit me was the fact that the people in the video all didn't want to be attracted to people of their same-sex. They had all gone through very heart-wrenching trials that affected them to be attracted to their same-sex. The people in the video struggled with pornography, sexually abused or substance abuse. These different things caused these people to lose confidence in themselves and they just wanted to receive the love and support from their own gender. The people in the video also kept saying "I don't want to be this way". I honestly didn't think that would be the case for them before the video, but it made sense to me that these men wanted to have a relationship with a woman and have their own family. It tore my heart realizing that they want to have a relationship with a woman, but are struggling because of the issues of the past.

It was interesting this past week because in my Eternal Families class we were also talking about gender this week. In class a guy asked a question about someone that he knew who had both female and male parts, but the parents decided when the child was young to have the child go under surgery and become a male. Now the child is facing problems because it has more female tendencies, which has caused a lot of stress to this boy because he comes from a very strong Christian family. He doesn't want to go against his beliefs but he is struggling fighting the tendencies because he didn't have the choice when he was young to decided whether or not he wanted to be a boy or a girl. After discussing this issue in class I have realized how important it is for parents to let their children have their own agency. They need to decided for themselves who they are and what they believe. As parents we can teach them all that we can, but it is up to the children to decided whether or not they will put what  has been taught to them into practice. Agency is key to our own personal growth because we get to learn from both or good and also poor choices in life. I have a testimony of agency and I know that God gave us our agency so that we could learn and grown from the hard trials of life. I am grateful for a loving Savior who strengthens us and enables us to change if we have the desire to do such.