Question
Gramps,
I so love your insight on everything. Thank you so much for all you do. I ask this question about gender identity out of curiosity, As I know people who are struggling with gender identity. I know that once we are born, we have a gender assigned to us. I assume that is the same when we are born in spirit. But what about the intelligence that existed before the spirit was born? Do intelligences have a gender?
Arlin
Answer
Arlin,
The genders of our intelligences are eternal, just as our spirits are eternal. In the “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” we read the following, “All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”
Our premortal intelligences were either male or female. There was never a time that Jesus was not a Son of God. There was never a time that Adam and Eve were not male and female, pre-mortality and in mortality. Our gender, male and female, have been and will always be who we were and are.
One notion to point out also, our gender (mortal gender) wasn’t assigned to us at birth (or when we were born). Our gender is an eternal truth. When the Lord revealed himself, his whole self, to the Brother of Jared due to his faith we are informed the following, “And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger. Sawest thou more than this?” (Source) Our Savior’s intelligence has always been a Son of God, and will always be a Son of God, and his gender wasn’t assigned at birth.
Gramps
