LGTB stuff is on my mind a lot, because it's showing up a lot in media, with the Presidential campaign, states and localities voting on "religious freedom" and non-discrimination ordinances, etc..
One thing that I see people say is that God wouldn't make people transgender because he doesn't make mistakes. Well, he doesn't. But I think we can agree he makes (or allows to be made) intersex people (formerly called "hermaphrodites"). Is the only reason it's difficult to allow that someone might be born as one sex externally but really be another because we believe what our eyes see more than anything else? We can see ambiguous genitalia so we understand that that person might have more going on than meets the eye... but if someone just says they know they are something else inside, we say they have a problem and need to get over it?
And then I was considering, too, posting a Facebook status something like this: "I've been thinking a lot about the obese community and their agenda. When I was younger and in school, if someone was fat, they were made fun of and bullied. That's not okay, but it just wasn't something that you wanted to be. Today, if someone is fat and they don't want to do anything about it, they can just say, 'I'm big, this is the way I am supposed to be, and I'm happy.' And the obese community just welcomes them and celebrates them. It's like it's the cool thing to do now. And I don't have a problem with fat people, but the Bible does say that gluttony is a sin, so if I'm trying to teach my kids that it's wrong, I really resent that there's this 'fun' group of people who are all happy and accepting and probably actually recruiting fat people."
Along both of those lines, with a shady statement recently released by some alleged group trying desperately to sound like the American Academy of Pediatrics, even though they're not, I've seen a lot of people talking about how parents (and kids, but mostly parents) just see a "trend" in transgenderism, and that they're rushing out to pump their kids full of hormones because maybe their little girl is a tomboy.
Two issues I have with this.
The first one is that the argument "It's just a thing that people are doing now, so everyone's doing it" is dismissive and insulting, but it could also be applied to something that I have, which is left-handedness. In the not-so-distant past, if your child was left-handed, you "fixed" them by making them do everything right-handed until they were conditioned to be right handed. Thing is, handedness is not confined to the arms. It's a brain thing. And going against what your body is designed to do has mental and emotional implications, as well as physical. So now our culture is progressive enough to realize that there's nothing actually wrong with being left-handed, and people are left to do their own thing. It's not that it's so cool all of a sudden to be left-handed (although I think it's pretty awesome), it's just that people are allowed to be it now, and the world didn't end.
Also, the whole "there wasn't any of this when I was younger" argument might have two answers (and this applies to homosexuality, too, I think): a) It did but people couldn't be open about it because they'd suffer even worse repercussions than they do now. It's just now that society is accepting and accommodating people who are "different." b) There are many genetic changes that happen over time. We as a people are taller than our ancestors. Are we taller just because it's some "cool" trend we're determined to force on other people? No, it's an observable thing. A cursory look into the chemistry of fetal development, chromosomes, hormone exposure, etc. reveals that gender identity develops separately from physical sex characteristics. And in terms of homosexuality, that's a lot more cut-and-dried, with the nicknamed "gay gene." These are observable phenomena.
The second issue is that I think a lot of people believe, especially when dealing with children, that believing a kid is not the gender with whose genitalia they were born is ridiculous for reasons like "I went through three years when I was a girl that I refused to wear a dress, and I loved playing sports. Imagine if my parents had made me identify as a boy! When I turned 16 and realized that boys were cute, I would have been so confused!"
That is NOT the experience of families with transgendered kids.
This isn't like when your daughter says, "I'm going to marry Daddy when I grow up!" and we all giggle and she grows up abandoning that idea because it was an immature understanding of a real love.
This is boys who are 2 or 3 years old literally trying to cut off their own penises, or telling their parents that they hate themselves when they're naked. This is a 10-year-old girl starving herself for two years because it's the only way she can keep breasts from developing. These kids know what they are, and they're insistent. Parents can try to talk them out of it, but gender dysphoria is a real thing, and it's like someone insisting that I'm a man, even though I'm not. I might be able to dress up like a man and pretend, but that doesn't make me a man. And after a while, I might feel like crap for not being accepted as I am, and I might decide that I didn't want to live anymore. This happens a disproportionate amount to transgendered kids compared with the cisgendered population.
No parent... or, almost no parent (I'm sure there are some sickos out there) has a kid and thinks it'd be a hoot to change them up. No parent brings home their little girl from the hospital (or birthing center or just stays at the home where she was delivered) and dreams of the day that they can start them on hormones to stop puberty until they can get the right counselling to turn them into a male. Most parents are at best confused and somewhat hurt and at worst aggressive in their denial and disgust and fear and misplaced anger when their kid tells them who they really are. They don't talk about how to handle that in most circles. There are resources becoming available, but it's a tough road, regardless.
Somewhat lastly, I've been wondering how strictly-literal-Bible-interpreting churches will handle transgenderism within a marriage. If a person says, "I'm a man, and I've been in denial, but now I'm going to live as a man" but agrees to stay married to his husband, and to continue their marital relations, what then? They're not straying sexually. And if you don't recognize transgenderism as a "thing," you still think they're a woman. So does the husband have any right to say, "I'm sorry. I love you, but I'm not attracted to men, so I'm out"? If you don't allow for emotional abuse/neglect, I don't see how you can allow for this. And obviously, I'm in favor of allowing for emotional abuse/neglect to terminate a marriage, as well as having your spouse so drastically turn the tables. Though I'd still try to love my husband if he became a woman. He said he'd love me, too, but not be in love with me and wouldn't stay married. I wonder if we'd still live together, though, because we love our baby. Anyway, I'm rambling.
Why do I even care about this stuff or think about it so much?
Here's why: Because I think the majority of the church global is getting this wrong. Even if we don't believe that genetics determines homosexuality or even if we don't believe that people are truly transgender, we still get the "they'll know we are Christians by our love" part way wrong. We don't have support for them that doesn't involve "fixing" their "sin." We shun their family members because it makes us feel awkward, or we disapprove of their unconditional love and acceptance of their son or daughter or sister or nephew. We "allow" LGBT folks into our churches, but don't let them serve in leadership positions. We pigeon-hole them into a "sexual deviancy" framework before we ever get to know them. I'd imagine this is the exact taboo that "divorcees" used to have. See? No one even uses that word to define anyone anymore. Now, we just say "single."
Okay, I'm going to end this with something Kevin Teets (whom I don't know) wrote, but it sums up why this is important to me and why I think about it so much:
Happy Easter...and please read on...
I got a text last night from my friend Ryan telling me a guy named Evan was looking for me. Ryan is a bartender at a gay bar I frequent often. Evan is a dear friend, but he's straight. Something didn't add up as to why he was there looking for me.
To make a long story short...I went to find my friend Evan. Evan couldn't call me or text me because his phone stopped working the day before and he's waiting for a new phone to arrive on Monday. But he knows Canvas is a place he's likely to find me on the weekends, so that's where he went.
I learned Evan's eighteen-year-old gay cousin killed himself. Evan had just returned from the funeral. And then he went looking for me. I cried with a friend that felt like he could have done more to help his cousin feel loved and feel accepted. His cousin experienced years of bullying from his peers and even felt condemned and unaccepted by the adults in his life, some of whom were family.
I haven't stood in his cousins shoes, nor have any of us. But I do know his story is all too similar to that of other youth and adults that feel marginalized in a society and are living as broken souls battling depression, shame and substance abuse...and his story is all too similar to that of those who felt they had no way out and chose to take their own life.
I also know that this world has a lot of bullies and that when it comes to LGBT discrimination, most of these bullies, no matter if they're kids in a classroom or politicians in a committee room, are using God and religion to justify the rhetoric they use to judge and condemn others.
I love Jesus. But I'm getting fed up with his fan club. Christian or not, none of us can ever do too much to make another person feel loved, valued and appreciated. Kids like Evan's cousin depend on it.
He is risen. He is risen indeed. But he didn't die for any of us to hate or marginalize others or in any way be a dickhead to another human. He died for love.
Happy Easter.
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