Here’s a conundrum: Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints consistently preach that women are naturally spiritual, gentle, and nurturing . . . but if those qualities were truly inherent in all women, women would not need to be reminded again and again how to behave in the ways they are supposed to have been designed to automatically behave.
Taylor Petrey’s new book Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism says this kind of paradox is not a bug so much as a feature. And the idea that gender identity is not fixed but fluid and changeable also plays out consistently in other areas as well.
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