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LDS Father Shares Story about Transgender Child
“I can accept her becoming a woman more easily than I can accept her straying from a gospel path that would eventually lead back to God’s presence”

December 2012

An LDS father has written about the experience of his son Eddie who, at the age of four, went crying to him and told him that he wanted to be a girl.

“He loved to dress up like a girl, which I discouraged, and he always wanted to play with what were typically girl toys,” Ed Hayward wrote on the NorthStar website. “As the years went by, he came to me from time to time to tell me that something was wrong with him.”

“When I realized I couldn’t just fix him, I began to try to accept that this wasn’t the end of the world,” Ed wrote. “I had to force myself to imagine a future where we were dealing with this situation and could still be happy and peaceful.”

At age 19, Eddie attempted to mutilate her body and ended up in the emergency room. Ed’s stake president contacted LDS church headquarters in Salt Lake City to get more information. Ed was told that “regardless of what choices Eddie makes in this life, when he is judged he will be judged by a Judge who will take those feelings into account, in addition to his desire to do what is right.”

“I felt a lot of comfort in this,” Ed wrote. “I continued to stay in contact with my stake president, who was incredibly understanding and supportive.”

Eventually, Eddie decided to legally change her name to Eri and undergo change reassignment surgery. Ed worried that she would be excommunicated, but Eddie was suicidal over her condition, and the stake president and bishop took no steps to impose disciplinary measures against Eri.

“While Church instruction is clear that she won’t be able to receive the temple endowment at this time, our understanding is that she can attend worship services, take the sacrament, and hold callings, etc., as long as she seeks to be otherwise worthy,” writes Ed. “It is my hope that she will choose to remain a member [in] good standing who is allowed to take the sacrament and even hold a calling. Quite frankly, while it still all seems confusing at times, I can accept her becoming a woman more easily than I can accept her straying from a gospel path that would eventually lead back to God’s presence.”

Read the full story on the NorthStar website.