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.
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