Religious bigotry behind hatred of transgender people

There are lots of reasons why I reject religion. One big one is that religious people, especially fundamentalists, often are extremely narrow-minded and judgmental when it comes to sexual matters.

Here in the United States, opposition to transgender individuals is a disgusting hallmark of the Republican Party -- which includes evangelicals and other religious zealots who love to hate those who don't conform to their theological beliefs about gender.

It's a plain fact that some people with a male or female body don't view themselves as being the sex they were assigned at birth. A CNN story, "GOP lawmakers escalate fight against gender-affirming care with bills seeking to expand the scope of bans," describes what gender-affirming care is all about.

Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender – the gender by which one wants to be known.

Though many of the bills introduced so far this year target trans youth and their access to gender-affirming care, at least four states saw bills introduced this session that would restrict such care for individuals over the age of 18, including at least two states where proposed bans covered people under the age of 26.

...Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria, which, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align.

Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors.

I'm totally supportive of gender-affirming care. I've always identified as male, but I can understand the distress someone would feel if the sex of their body doesn't match the sex they psychologically identify with.

So it's cruel for Republican lawmakers to target transgender youth, along with a broader attack on LGBTQ people in general. Recently one conservative pundit went so far as to say that "transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely."

Obviously that isn't as bad as Nazi attitudes toward Jews, but it's highly disturbing nonetheless. How would he like it if there was a movement to eradicate conservatism from public life entirely?

Religion plays a large role in transgender bigotry. The American Bar Association discusses this in "The Role of Religious Objections to Transgender and Nonbinary Inclusion and Equality and/or Gender Identity Protection."

The core basis for many of the faith-based objections to transgender and nonbinary acceptance comes from deeply ingrained theologically grounded worldviews. Certain people see humanity as having been created by a divine being who specifically created humans as male and as female. This serves a reproductive purpose, and, for many, also differentiates the roles that people are expected to play in the world. To them, biological sex is divinely ordained and assigned to each person according to divine will.

It is therefore unsurprising that some people of faith will treat others according to their assigned sex at birth and will consider requiring them to acknowledge another’s gender identity to either be untruthful and/or unfaithful. They will not accept a person’s stated gender identity, and they will not accept the possibility that there are any nonbinary people.

This shows the absurdity of religion. Clearly there are transgender people. Clearly there are nonbinary people who don't identify as either male or female. Clearly there are people who are attracted to the same sex.

Yet because a holy book or holy person says this is wrong, reality is ignored by religious fundamentalists, causing them to deny the rights of LGBTQ people who don't conform to their ignorant theological perspective.

A 2017 survey by the Pew Research Center found that attitudes toward transgender people divide along religious lines. 

The American public is sharply divided along religious lines over whether it is possible for someone to be a gender different from their sex at birth, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.

Most Christians in the United States (63%) say that whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by their sex at birth. Among religious “nones” – those who identify religiously as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – about six-in-ten (62%) say they think a person’s gender is not necessarily determined by the sex they are assigned at birth.

Well, I'm proud to be part of the religious "nones" who accept the reality that a person's gender can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth. I just wish religious people who believe otherwise would stop trying to force transgender people to conform to their dogmatism.

Comments

[science]

“Many of the effects of hormone therapy are reversible, if you stop taking them. The degree to which they can be reversed depends on how long you have been taking them. Some breast growth, and possibly reduced or absent fertility are not reversible.”

https://transcare.ucsf.edu/article/information-estrogen-hormone-therapy

The “not reversible” part is really scary.

[um]

Is it not a matter oi perception?

How a person perceives him/herself
and
how that person is perceived by others.?

Is it not a matter of attributing value and meaning based upon a lifelong conditioning as an individual and as a member of a group?

The more the personal perception deviates from what is considered as normal,., the statistic normal is meant here,... the more problematic things become and a person can end up in an institution.

In a democracy, life is regulated according the wishes of the majority .. those people that can walk into any shoe shop and clothing magazine and find there an large number of items to chose from. ...the 80% of the middle of the statistic gauss or normal curve.

If that principle is left behind and the gauss curve is cut in halve along the norm, and the outsides are turn inside we get an cup. At the bottom of the cup, the previous extremes, separated from one another by the 80% of the community, are standing face to face to one another .... not difficult to imagine what will be the consequences.

It behaves people in a democracy to look after minorities upholding the normal standards.
It is not that easy for an number 49 foot to walk in an number 37 shoe without friction.

[um]

The dictum says:

You are what you eat.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524299/

Decades ago the focus was on so called growth hormones and these days among others on hormones that impact the sexuality.

[808]

Once again, I’m with Bill Maher on this one (and I have a very confused “trans” wanna be teen).

https://youtu.be/mMBzfUj5zsg

Families from very liberal towns and metropolitan areas seem to have at least one trans teen. It’s so disproportionate that have to ask, WTH is going on here. I would be fine with it if all these kids were genuine but they’re so gender confused in today’s society that they barely know the difference between male/female. Even “straight kids” are androgynous.

[808]

I’m not insensitive about it, it’s just I’m dealing with a very common situation where the root cause of my teen’s gender dysphoria have more to do with her peer group and what’s trending. She was all unicorns and rainbows as a little girl—feminine to the extreme. Even now that her school friends refer to her as he/him she still insists on dressing up and wearing makeup and doing her nails and her hair (albeit a bit on the goth side).

I point this out to her as why I can’t quite take the whole trans issue seriously with her and she’s like, oh I’m kind of fluid.

The truth is she all about trends and she loves to stand out in a crowd. She has the confidence to do things I would never dream of doing. But I’m not giving in to the notion that she’s had enough time to think long and hard about what it means to be trans. To be honest, it’s kids like her who make it hard for the very, very small percentage of children who have always felt they were born the wrong gender.

This issue has been blown wayyy out of proportion. Children do not know themselves well enough to make decisions that involve altering their gender. Most adults don’t even know themselves well enough to do that.

I don’t understand—so much focus on the physical. I totally accept that she’s gay, but we are not doing any hormone therapy or reaffirming psychology with her. We just tell her the same thing that her sisters tell her—you can’t make your whole identity about your gender.

I hate extremes, and this is so extreme. When she gets older she will have the freedom to make radical changes to her body if she wants. I can’t stop that and I will still love her. But I swear to God, this kid would trans from girl to boy and then dress up every day like a drag queen (she wants to be a fashion designer).

[Roger]

Obeying the Bible inhibits the development of conscience.

The Bible and other Holy books, contain within them grotesque and nightmarish suggestions that are about as far from living within equanimity and compassion as it gets.

When you are forced (under threat of punishment) to behave in any particular way, you are no more than an unthinking, performing monkey who lives in fear and is in a constant state of worry.

Secular laws, although based on the same principle of fear of punishment, change over time to take into account the opportunity at least, for a more humane society.

That said, human conscience can only be fully developed when one is prepared to take 100% responsibility for what one thinks, says, and does, without recourse to blaming anyone else or any external events for the quality of your mental state in now-ness.

The baseline for the development of human conscience is to adopt a lifestyle that does what it can, to do the least amount of physical, emotional, or psychological harm to yourself, others, and the world around you.

It requires a commitment to move towards living life, based on equanimity and compassion, as a lived experience of the interrelatedness of all THINGS.

[um]

@ Roger

Just a thought from the side line.

Humans are all alike, both good and bad, from within or as seen from without.
It seems that overtime they become "better"
but ...
that might be an illusion.

Over time the fashion of clothes change but the effect they have in terms of keeping the body warm etc has remained unchanged.

In the same way means of controll have overtime changed, more refinde more sophisticated.

These days people abhor physical means of correcting, punishing and torture.
Do They have vanished from the public eye?!
No, as the need to correct, control and torture has remained unchanged.

So the means have become more mental over time.
But does that mean it is a progress?

As yet we have no courts that rules over mental, intellectual and emotional crimes.

The modern secret services have developed many means to make a prisoner speak. They show no bruises on their body but often are mentally broken for the rest of their lives..

What to think of schools where the teachers no longer can use the ruler to correct a youth.

In short ... is beating one to death with a stone, wqorse than dropping a bombs?

[Laura]

I just don't want someone with a penis in my locker room.
I don't want to compete against a man in women's sports.
Other than that, live and let live.

[808]

We need an open thread. I’d really like to comment on this looming war with China. We really botched diplomacy this time…

[Appreciative Reader]

Agreed, this is yet another example of the dysfunctionality of religion.

True, religion tells you not to steal, or kill. But it also tells you lots of weird things, and lots of horrible things. If you follow its instructions on one matter, you well might on others as well.

Even when religion is apparently beneficent, that's merely by happenstance.

[Appreciative Reader]

Great comment, Roger, about taking responsibility for your state of mind in nowness. Wise words.

[Roger]

@ um

I'm human, and full of good and not so good. My human brain, that is me, is a work in progress.
I always reserve the right to be wrong. What is worse, that you mentioned, is going to be subjective.

[um]

@AR

Please do write the last phrase in another way .. I do not grasp the meaning due to english.

[um]

Sorry AR it should be Roger.

[808]

@Roger

Agreed. The Bible and other holy books are a hodge podge of horrific history, poetry, wise sayings, disturbing prophecies, helpful parables, mysterious phenomena and other miscellaneous stuff.

It’s quite confusing. Very human. You can buy a copy of the Bible organized in chronological order—much more interesting that way. It’s better read as a history lesson and not a holy book.

[Roger]

@AR

Yes, "taking responsibility for your state of mind in nowness." This wordage has been around for a very very long time. The now-ness expression is not original to me, I found it years ago from another writing, coined by someone, now unknown to me.

[um]

@808
I tend to read the bible as an history book about tribes in the middle east.
The same type of book could have been written about say the history of the Balkan or Sicily, both regions that have known many many brutal invasions, invasions that have put a stamp on the local people even today.

It has become my undersytanding that much of the literature in the world related to mystic experiences are related to problems people faced in those days.

If there would not have been an tribe seeking for a territory of their own and later being occupied by the Romans, there would not have been Judaism nor Christianity or Islam.

Many things that the leadership of a tribe considers as "good for the people" could only have become a guidline if some one would tell them that they are divine guidelines.

One can be assured that the whole of India would be without even one cow if it was not made divinely forbidden by the "shamans"

Religion has always been a justification tool for actions and rules, controll etc.

The killing and be killed in the name of the Lord.

There is no God that is interested in what humans do, there never was, there never will be. The divine is a human tool like the invention of the wheel and fhe use of fire.

So yes most of the atrocities in the Bible are more or less historical correct, IMHO

[SantMat64]

Historians Stumped How Kids Throughout History Didn't Commit Suicide Despite Having No Access To Gender Surgery

PRINCETON, NJ — Despite being armed with respectable PhDs, published papers, and bowties, historians remain stumped that kids throughout history didn't commit suicide despite having no access to gender surgery.

They expressed astonishment that high rates of child suicide only exist in the country graciously offering gender surgeries to minors.

"We've pored over manuscripts, scrolls, hieroglyphs, petroglyphs, and really old tweets," said Professor of Old-Timey Children's Studies, Dr. Richard Pritchard, "But we've been left perplexed that both gender surgeries and child suicides were practically nonexistent in civilizations past."

Dr. Pritchard had caused a stir in academia after claiming to have stumbled upon a centuries-old North American society that appeared to have offered gender-affirming surgery for minors. After peer review, however, his work was discredited with the discovery that the Aztecs were simply mutilating and sacrificing their children to the gods.

"It's a common misunderstanding to confuse child gender surgery and ritual child sacrifice, as the two practices have such striking similarities," said Pritchard, "For example, in both cases, the parents seek to trade their children's lives for increased status in the eyes of their community and their gods."

At publishing time, historians had announced confusion that past governments did not immediately collapse despite having no obligatory staff diversity quotas.

[808]

@SantMat64

🤭