In 1852, Frederick Douglass made a speech. In it, he asked “What to the slave, is the Fourth of July?” He went on to note that he had great respect for the Founders of our Nation, as they were brave men. However, he also noted that…while the rest of the nation celebrated…he and his community mourned.
I find resonance in those words…for, today, in 21st century America…I, as a transgender woman, have very little to celebrate. The rights and freedoms everyone else seemingly takes for granted…which are supposed to come with birthright citizenship…are denied to me. In my own state, laws were passed defining what bathroom I must use…regardless the risk to my own personal safety or comfort. Because someone MIGHT “pretend to be trans” to gain access to women’s spaces…to do nefarious things.
Let me unpack just how much bullshit there is in that entire line of reasoning. For starters, those who would pretend to be trans, to gain access to women’s spaces…to do nefarious things – by definition, they are criminals. And law or no law, they will do as they were going to do anyway. That is what criminals do.
Well…that is the argument we always get whenever we talk about passing common-sense gun-control legislation, or restriction on certain kinds of weapons that have no business in civilian hands, anyway…right? “If you outlaw guns, only criminals will have guns!” “We don’t need more gun laws, criminals won’t obey them anyway!” We have heard these arguments…yes?
YET..the very same people seemed to believe that somehow criminals WOULD magically obey the stupid law about bathrooms passed in North Carolina in 2016, infamously known as HB-2. Let me be clear: HB-2 protected NOBODY…and put an already marginalized and vulnerable community at great risk. They did not care, because they also disparage that community…and I don’t think it is a stretch to say that many of them actually WANTED us transgender people to be hurt. To be assaulted, beat up, raped and even killed in bathrooms.
Another faulty premise HB-2 rested on…was that somehow…we trans wanted to peek in on their wives and daughters. Because, after all…let’s face it…that is what a lot of hetero cisgender men imagine THEY might do…if given the opportunity to access women’s spaces. They fail to recognize that WE ARE NOT WIRED LIKE THEY ARE. We identify AS WOMEN. Not as men. And any other time they talk about us…the men are all freaked out that we trans might, like, come on to them. So which is it?
I specifically speak of trans women here, because NOBODY cared about the trans men using the men’s bathroom. This hateful legislation was aimed squarely and solely at transgender women…because they think we are creepy and icky. Oh, they would never own that if you confronted them with it…but it’s there. Live my life every day, and you see it all around you…in news media where murdered trans women are routinely misgendered and identified by their former male names (my own transmom, Terrianne…is even misgendered and misnamed in the cold case file of the Jacksonville, Florida P.D.) Almost eighteen years ago she was murdered on her own front lawn. A single gunshot to the head. And to this day her killer has never been brought to justice.
So this is just the stuff everyone NOTICES…because it is titillating. Because…ooooh….the bathroom…because our society cannot EVER seem to collective get it’s mind off sex for even so much as two lousy minutes. What they do not notice is the day-to-day indignity and injustice we transgender endure…and have endured for decades. And from which our governments refuse to protect us.
In nearly half of our states, you can be fired, or denied a job, legally…just for being transgender. Including my own home of North Carolina…which, in fact…is the only state in the nation…that literally codifies into law…discrimination against transgender people! This was done with the so-called repeal of HB-2…known as HB-142. In it, there are provisions that ONLY the State Assembly may make any laws or policies about bathrooms…forever. So if I am a school superintendent, for example, and I want to be accommodating to a trans student, and set up a separate bathroom for them…or allow them to use the bathroom with which they identify…legally, on my own hook, I can’t. I have to go through the State Assembly…which has no interest in granting transgender people basic rights or human dignity.
Similarly, in many of the same states, you can be evicted from your apartment or home…or be denied a rental…or even be denied credit to purchase a home…just for being trans. And businesses are free, in most of those same states…to refuse to serve us…even some government agencies refuse to…and do so legally.
They set us up to fail…in every way imaginable…make our already-difficult lives…as impossible as it is possible to make them…and then wonder why over 40 percent of us have, at some point in our lives, attempted suicide…versus about three percent of the general population. I, myself, am a survivor of two attempts. My last was twenty five years ago.
And this is even before we scratch the surface of the further indignity heaped on us by the Trump Administration…everything from rescinding Obama’s bathroom guidance, to removing a question on the Census about if you identify as transgender…to banning trans people from serving in the military, to banning the CDC from even saying the word “transgender” verbally or in reports.
This last is more insidious than most realize. The CDC used to do reports about violence faced by transgender people in bathrooms. And they did reports on transgender people who suffered medical problems from bathroom avoidance…everything from bladder spasms requiring medical attention from holding it too long…to dehydration leading to kidney disease and kidney failure…in an attempt to avoid the need to use the bathroom at all. These reports are no longer done. And if there is no government report about it…it did not happen! EXCEPT THAT IT DID HAPPEN…AND IT IS STILL HAPPENING!!! How convenient for them, isn’t it?
Signs are on the horizon that things may be getting better…but not before over half the part of my life that matters…the part where I can work and earn money…has been laid waste! And of course it STILL depends on the Supreme Court. The STACKED Supreme Court. Whether they respect precedence and common sense…or ideology.
Currently, a case is headed to SCOTUS R.G & G.R Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. vs. EEOC and Aimee Stephens. 46 organizations collaborated to file an Amici Curiae in the case…and yours truly is mentioned by name in the Brief. I knew this was coming, because I was contacted and asked for permission to use my story in the Brief.
No. 18-107
In the Supreme Court of the United States
On Writ of Certiorari to the United States
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
R.G. & G.R. HARRIS FUNERAL HOMES, INC.,
Petitioner,
v.
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY
COMMISSION AND AIMEE STEPHENS,
Respondents.
AMICI CURIAE BRIEF OF TRANSGENDER LAW
CENTER, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL
RIGHTS, AND 44 OTHER NON-PROFIT AND
GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS IN SUPPORT
OF RESPONDENT AIMEE STEPHENS
AND AFFIRMANCE
And on Page 23 of the brief…my story is related:
Angela, a transgender woman from New Jersey,
was sent home when she came to work in a dress and
told to come to work dressed as a man.40 Angela felt
as though she was being forced to “choose between my
livelihood and my life.” Angela complied despite
feeling helpless and humiliated, but suffered an even
greater humiliation once she finished her shift: she
received a call from her employer saying not to return
to work because she was being terminated effective
immediately. Angela currently runs a small business
out of her home because she “would sooner die than go
on a job interview again.”
The discrimination that employees like Angela and
Carter experienced is undeniably discrimination
“because of … sex,” because it hinges on societal
expectations about how employees should act and
behave based on stereotyped perceptions of sex—the
very form of discrimination prohibited by Price
Waterhouse.
Note: Price Waterhouse refers to a 1997 ruling in Price Waterhouse vs Hopkins
My story directly relates to the legal action I took in 1997, resolved in 2002, and which funded my surgery, I might add. I am unable to articulate the defendant’s name in this case, nor disclose any other info about it…terms of our settlement forbid it.
I’d attach the Amici Curiae Brief to this article, but do not know how.
Anyway…this case may finally decide if we, as transgender people…have rights in employment and other areas…if we are in fact to be protected from discrimination on the basis of sex…which is currently precisely what we suffer. Discrimination on the basis of sex. Failure to conform to stereotypical dress and behavior based upon other people’s assumption of our gender.
And we suffer everyday indignity on the streets, in the public…in stores, in every manner of public accommodation…if a business so chooses…or if some other member of the public decides to harass us. And we have no protection.
We have thus no real ability to even carry out the essential functions of everyday life. And that is what transgender people face.
In a nation that lectures other nations around the world about human rights violations…it is almost laughable that MY basic rights and dignity…should even be a subject for debate! Certainly…in a free country…a truly free country…they would not be.
What is more fundamental to freedom…than the freedom to express oneself, and to identify oneself…in a way which does not break any laws…or OBJECTIVELY harm anyone else?
If my identity and my expression are limited…on pain of punishment/sanction – to only those things which are acceptable to others…then I am not free. And so I do not celebrate the Fourth…for I am not free. I have nothing to celebrate.
Very well said Angela. That was a good read.
Do not let you voice be stilled.
As always, giving the public the information and unique perspective we need to help us formulate opinions on the subject.
Thank you, Ange, for that.
Angela, thanks so much for writing this article. I have to say that I learned a lot from it. I thought I had a grasp of what trans people go through, but I really had no idea regarding the number of laws that are still on the books that permit discrimination to continue! Activists like you are the folks who produce necessary change. Kudos!
Thanks. I do what I can. Mostly, what I do will no longer benefit me. Too much of the part of my life that matters (where you can work and earn money) has been laid waste. I can only hope those that follow, will not have to endure what I have…and will have the life that should have been mine.
Concern about the next generations(s) is such a good trait. For what it’s worth, I’m also a Christian. But I come from a different place of Christianity — where openness to LGBTQ issues is not considered threatening to some strange definition of “orthodoxy.”
Why don’t more Christians like you SPEAK UP AND SPEAK OUT…and shout down the haters?
I saw what Christians in the Philippines did…and my heart soared…and at the same time ached…that American Christians WILL NOT DO THE SAME AS THEY DID.
It may be that you just haven’t encountered more open-minded Christians. If your experience has been with conservative evangelicals (in some areas), it will have been different than it would have been with more liberal, left-leaning Christians. It often depends on where you live and work. Free thinking, pacifist and non-xenophobic Christians are definitely out there, though. I know a lot of them. They just tend to move quietly and confront in a more low key, loving way. They’ve seen what can happen with RW fringe groups who get “screechy.” Not good.
Well, as you may have noticed, I live in the American South. Like 38 percent of all American LGBT.
And living here can be hell. Intolerant Christianity is very commonplace here.
I do NOT see the “loving” Christians confronting AT ALL. I wish I DID see that…I wish they WOULD “get a little screechy” and shout down the haters a little.
It would do MY heart good.
Too often, I believe Christians have the all-purpose excuse to do nothing when they see injustice…”Well, it is the will of God” or “It will be taken care of in His time…”
WELL…His time…AIN’T FAST ENOUGH FOR ME!!
“The rights and freedoms everyone else seemingly takes for granted…which are supposed to come with birthright citizenship…are denied to me.: Which rights are actually denied to you??
“And law or no law, they will do as they were going to do anyway. That is what criminals do.” True. Criminals have no regard for the law. Since the vast majority of females ‘identify’ as female, my question is why should their legitimate concerns be subordinate to those in the minority who ‘identify’ as female?
“I don’t think it is a stretch to say that many of them actually WANTED us transgender people to be hurt. To be assaulted, beat up, raped and even killed in bathrooms.” I believe that it is a stretch. A BIG stretch to say that. A person can and should love you in the way that Christ describes – loving the person while rejecting the sin. This by itself would prohibit them from wishing ill upon the person.
“NOBODY cared about the trans men using the men’s bathroom.” I don’t think that that’s really true. I just think that people recognized the greater potential danger posed by men pretending to be women to women.
“I have to go through the State Assembly…which has no interest in granting transgender people basic rights or human dignity.” Really? Or are they trying to balance the nebulous rights of transgender people with the rights of people who live/accept the sex acknowledged at birth based on their physical characteristicts?
“to banning trans people from serving in the military” – OK. Remember. A Lot of people are prevented from serving in the military. Got flat feet (for example)? Not serving. The transitioning trans community has a lot of stuff going on. The military is tasked with fighting and winning wars. It’s not the time for social experimentation.
“The STACKED Supreme Court. Whether they respect precedence and common sense…or ideology.” The SCOTUS has more people who seek to abide by their constitutional role than in a very long time. It is NOT their place to legislate from the bench. It IS their job to determine what is actually allowable under the Constitution.
“discrimination on the basis of sex…which is currently precisely what we suffer. Discrimination on the basis of sex. Failure to conform to stereotypical dress and behavior based upon other people’s assumption of our gender.” I’ll be blunt here. If you are not a biologic female, you have not lived the life of a female. Bruce(Caitlin) Jenner?? Really??? He/she has never actually grown up with who/what it means to be be female. Identify all you want; but it’s like me saying that I identify with being African American. My experiences will never be the same as one who actually is what they profess.
“it is almost laughable that MY basic rights and dignity…should even be a subject for debate! Certainly…in a free country…a truly free country…they would not be.” When did your “basic rights and dignity” become more important than the rights and dignity of those born with the identity you have chosen? Why should they take precedence? Why should those biological females be forced to accept biological men in their locker rooms?
“If my identity and my expression are limited…on pain of punishment/sanction – to only those things which are acceptable to others…then I am not free. And so I do not celebrate the Fourth…for I am not free. I have nothing to celebrate.” Everyone endures pain. Most endure unacceptance for one reason or another. That does not preclude one from celebrating the Fourth. (Imagine yourself living in another country. How accepted would you be? If more so, then go there. If less, then rejoice in and celebrate what you have here!) I am a Christian living my faith. How ‘acceptable’ do you think that is in today’s PC environment?? How ‘free’ am I? Yet I am able to, and do, celebrate the freedom we are able to experience as a nation.
Stop feeling like a ‘victim’ and start counting the blessings you have received. We could all find reasons to feel like we ‘got less’; but really, in America, we all get more than we would in any other society/country.
Be thankful for what you have.
“Stop feeling like a ‘victim’ and start counting the blessings you have received. We could all find reasons to feel like we ‘got less’; but really, in America, we all get more than we would in any other society/country.
Be thankful for what you have.”
Absolutely agree!!
Josephine, You are precisely the sort of hateful person that holds back my rights.
It is NOT a sin to be transgender. And I am going to prove this to you.
I had these feelings of being a female since I was five years old…that I am aware of. My earliest reliable memories begin around that age…as they do for most people.
And this is one of MY earliest memories: Playing “London Bridge” in kindergarten. 1976, Illinois. Remember that game?
Picture it. Little five year old Angela (in the wrong body) is playing London Bridge. DELIBERATELY times her walk around the circle so as to be the one caught…so that she could be “my fair lady.” AT FIVE YEARS OLD I KNEW I WANTED THAT…that it was RIGHT…for me to be “my fair lady.”
I got caught…and they screwed it up…and called me “my fair gentleman.” I was crushed. Little five year old Angela refuses to EVER play London Bridge again.
That was as clear a statement as a five year old could make…asserting a female gender. This was LONG before I knew about adult relations, long before I even knew of the physical differences between boys and girls. OK, I could see my mom had something my dad did not…but I always assumed I’d grow up like Mom. I knew nothing of the physical differences downstairs.
In girls my own age, the only difference I saw was that they had long hair and wore dresses…and I wanted that for myself, as it was what I felt was right for me. And this is at five years old.
This brings me to a conclusion:
If there even IS a God (which I am doubtful of anyway) and if that God DID create me (again, doubtful, but for the sake of argument I will go with it)
Then it is obvious that God created me just as I am…just as I was. A transgender girl.
Now how could any all-knowing, all-seeing, all-loving, all-caring God…create me thus…and then condemn me for being that which I was created to be?
And if I was NOT – as you will doubtless argue…created to be the way I am…then why didn’t this all-knowing, all-seeing, all-loving God…take these feelings from me?
Did people like you ever stop to consider that…if there IS a God…maybe…just maybe…people like me were created…TO TEST YOU??
Will you REALLY love everyone, as I have commanded you to? How about THIS person? Will you love them? Will you treat them with compassion and dignity…as I treated the woman who washed my feet with her own tears…in the home of the Pharisee Simon Peter? WILL YOU??
I believe, Josephine, you fail that test.
I have nothing further for you. Because I am TRYING to be nice. And my capacity for niceness towards people who are deliberately NOT nice to me…is being stretched to it’s limit.
Have a nice day.
In what way am I ‘hateful’? How is it that you think you can make a determination about how I treat people, or decide that how I love is somehow inferior to how you love?
Perhaps you were created by God to be the way you are. OK. Perhaps members of the gay community were created to be the way they are. OK. I don’t believe that God makes mistakes;so there is a reason. You suggest that it’s perhaps a test for ‘people like me’. Perhaps. But I do treat others with love, respect and dignity – regardless. However, denying truth is not loving or respectful. And loving the person is vastly different from loving the actions God has condemned. (Remember, Jesus came for us sinners. He spoke with sinners, and when they had repented, He forgave them – with the admonition to “Go and sin no more.”) Have “you ever stopped to consider” that you were created with that particular cross to bear? And that you are being tested in how you respond to your cross?
You asked, “how could any all-knowing, all-seeing, all-loving, all-caring God…create me thus…and then condemn me for being that which I was created to be?” My response would be that the “all-knowing, all-seeing, all-loving, all-caring God…create[d] me[you] thus” and loves you. You are a beloved child of God. Like any parent, though, there are things that our children do that we do not love (for a variety of reasons). Those actions, however, don’t end our love for them.
I’m really not trying to be mean or hurtful, but I understand how things can seem that way even if they’re not meant that way. I wish you peace.
Is that so? You have utterly failed to treat ME with love, respect and dignity!!
You have been dismissive, accusatory, judgmental, and downright mean if you want the truth. Your words have been nothing but hurtful.
Yet…i continue to respond to you with as much kindness as I can muster…trying very hard not to trade hate for hate. Truthfully, what I feel for you is sorrow. Sorrow that you are so closed minded and hard-hearted.
Hopeful that one day, the scales will fall from your eyes, as what happened when Saul became Paul on the road to Damascus. I keep hoping something will open your mind, and melt your heart.
I wish those things for you. And I wish you peace.
I will let others judge for themselves…in our exchanges with each other. I have done my best to be kind in the face of nearly unbearable cruelty.
P.S.
Are you actually suggesting I am Job? For what am I given this cross to bear…the feelings of dysphoria…the cruelty of many of my fellow humans, the deprivation that accompanies discrimination?
If you ask me, God literally smote me from the day of my birth…if what you suggest is correct…since I have always felt as I do. Why would a loving God EVER give anyone this heavy a cross to bear?
No, sorry, I do not buy that. Not for a nanosecond.
Perhaps you were created by God to be the way you are. But having seen Donald Trump, I do think God makes mistakes.
Isn’t it funny how Trumpers scold those who have been oppressed to “stop feeling like a victim” while they wail alongside their cult leader about “The Deep State” victimizing them, immigrants victimizing them, liberal values victimizing them, the media victimizing them, Obamacare victimizing them and on and on. They are so needy about their victim mentality, they even feel victimized by those who have actually been victimized in our society because it’s competing with the Trumpers’ need to feel like only they are the “real” victims.
The difference is, most minorities never wanted to be victims in the first place while Trumpers have an emotional, self-pitying need to constantly feel like victims…because the supremacy that their previous generations enjoyed has been slipping away.
To people accustomed to privilege and exalted status…equality FEELS like oppression. Too bad they will never know what TRUE oppression feels like. Not that I’d wish them to know, at least not by experience, as we do…but if they DID know, they’d stop whining.
Yes, for those who were born into a position of superiority, leveling the scales of equality feels like something is being taken away from them. They feel “victimized” by equality for all.
And most of these Trump supporters are hugely ignorant to the fact that their party and the corporate interests behind it have been the actual ones taking their jobs, income, opportunities and children’s futures away from them.
Even going back to the days of the last Repub president, Bush, their lives and financial stability were on the decline but those with tribal mentalities blindly allow their leaders to throw them to their own destruction as long as they’re led to believe it’s a path to harming those they see as the “other” tribe.
As they say, hatred is borne of ignorance. And as Trump said, “We won with the poorly educated, I love the poorly educated!”
Yes. I have said it before. They do not care if their own house burns down…as long as the house of the black, the Muslim, the LGBT, the “OTHER” burns down more than theirs!
If you gave the average Trumper two choices…
1. You can be better off than you are today…but everyone else around you, including those you think of as “other” or otherwise disparage…will be on equal footing with you…
OR….
2. You can be worse off than you are right now…but those you hate and disparage, and think of as “other” – will be even MORE worse off than you are….
MOST Trumpers would take Choice Number 2. Because for them…it is not about lifting others up…or even themselves. They aren’t capable of that.
It is about tearing others down, because that is easier. It is about maintaining “superiority” even if it means lower status for themselves…if they can tear others down further…thus maintaining their “superiority.”
There ARE those who are only able to walk tall when they have forced everyone else to their knees….those who must blow out other people’s candles…in order to make their own glow more brightly.
And that is your average Trumper. They can only destroy. They cannot create, they cannot lift up others or themselves…all they can do is tear down others.
Have you even read her post or did you just cherrypick your favourite talking points? How can you begin to understand what trans women or men have gone through and still go through every day?
Your misguiding and condescending advice to someone who has experienced what Angela has experienced in her journey, is insulting because you seem to be cluelessly judgemental and she wasn’t asking for it.
You flout your Christian values without possessing an ounce of what Jesus asked us to do. People who hate and discriminate as you do, make me feel ashamed to call myself a Christian. Thankfully I am not like you.
This is the only thing you got right. At least the first part.
“but it’s like me saying that I identify with being African American. My experiences will never be the same as one who actually is what they profess” because you will never know what it’s like to be born with a male body feeling that you are a girl. What sin? Are the increasing number of small children who feel this way, sinners too? What gives you the right to tell Angela to suck it up?
If it’s impossible to put yourself in another person’s shoes, then why comment at all?
https://planetpov.com/faq/terms-of-use/
Thanks for the support, Kalima. It IS good to hear a Christian actually speak up on our behalf. It is very rare. I know not all Christians believe as the fundamentalists like Josephine do…that there are good, kind, caring and loving Christians…I know some.
But DAMN is it rare to hear one of those kind of Christians ACTUALLY SPEAK UP. So thank you. It seems that it must take a lot of guts for the real Christians to speak up…so I thank you for having them.
By the way, have you ever heard of John Pavlovitz? I think you might enjoy reading some of his stuff. Look him up on Google.
He is currently a youth minister at NRCC (North Raleigh Community Church) – I know him personally…I have hugged him, and I have him on speed dial.
More Christians need to be like him. And like you!
Bless you.
P.S. Kalima…so you know…
No, there are some things of being a girl I will never know…it isn’t physically possible. But some cisgender girls are born sterile, too…and never have monthlies…does this make them any less girls? Because they did not experience that?
No…some experiences girls have in their teen years…i did not have…because I was not allowed to be my true self, I was forced to hide…and to put on a facade everyone else expected me to wear…and to live up to things I never could…and feel things I did not and never could feel.
Because, in spite of my physical body at birth, I never was a man, a boy, a male…and never could be. It was alien to me.
Anatomy does NOT dictate gender, nor does it dictate destiny.
MOST people, yes, happen to be congruent…in their physical anatomy…and their gender identity. Those who, like me, were not…have gone through hell.
The best way to articulate this to the cisgender (not transgender) – is to say that SEX is found between the legs….whereas GENDER is found between the ears.
Gender is a social construct built and enforced…but there is NOTHING inherently genetic that tells a girl to wear dresses or makeup…or adopt coquettish behavior. There is NOTHING inherently genetic that tells a male child that he cannot wear a dress, that he should not cry, that he should enjoy rough and tumble sports. And nothing genetic tells a girl child that she should NOT enjoy rough and tumble activities.
Think about it. You, as a girl, likely had to learn…by observation and imitation…or be actually taught…to do things like have good female posture, to walk a specific way, etc.
This is no different than what transgender women like me do…though we tend to start this at a later age, because we were not ALLOWED to do so at the earlier age.
I have as much experience being female as it is possible for me to have. As I say, some physical things…I never will experience. It is not, at this time, possible to give transgender women those experiences. But, again, there are cisgender girls who also never have those experiences…for various reasons…and nobody would say THEY were any less female for not having those experiences.
You don’t have to thank me and around the world the majority of Christians feel as I do if they believe in the teachings of Jesus. Many will speak out to right a wrong when they see it. Even here at planetpov.
I come from a long line of European Catholics and was taught by my German grandparents to be accepting of all people no matter their race or religious beliefs. It was our duty to help the poor, the sick and those with emotional needs. At the age of 5 I was giving away my toys, my clothes, and later treats given to me by the man who would marry my mother. He adopted me when I was 7.
I am thankful for my upbringing and continued to be who I am into adulthood. I’m a lapsed Catholic now because of circumstances I can no longer attend Mass. I also strongly disagree with the Church’s stance on abortion, birth control and homosexuality but follow their lead on helping the disadvantaged, the poor and the sick. As far as I’m concerned empathy and understanding is what most people are capable of until they are groomed to believe the opposite.
There is a group of young Catholics who run an organisation that fights injustice and discrimination within the Church and outside of the Church. The name is “Faithful America”.
Until I started blogging on an American site in 2007, no one had ever aggressively confronted me about my faith. I found it intrusive for me to have to justify it to strangers as my beliefs are a very private thing to me. I don’t push my beliefs on others and am appalled when others use their beliefs to demean others. During our 10 years here, I have found myself having to defend my beliefs. That’s over now for me as I feel no need to explain who I am. It should be obvious in what I say even though English is my second language.
As a child until I was 13, I was a tomboy. Played football, climbed trees, wore trousers, played with the neighbourhood boys and was just as good at it as they were. At 14, my mother insisted I wear dresses. You are right, we conform, and in your case it must have been a very painful experience not being able to be yourself. I’m sorry for all the people who have tried and succeeded in making your life so difficult. My heart is heavy when I read about the hate that Far Right extremists are spreading around the world but believe the only way to fight it is to speak up, and not vote them into power.
Thanks for the heads up on John Pavlovitz, I will check him out.
Take care. Bless you too. Peace.
It is NOT my experience…for Christians to speak up on our behalf…and to speak out against the false “Christians.” It just isn’t.
Twenty-five years…I have been me now. I have lived more years of my life openly trans…than my life before transition. And I have had a lot of encounters with people who call themselves Christian along the way.
Most of them want to “save me” – as if I needed to be saved because I was trans!! I would tell them…if you REALLY want to save me…then stop trying, because, frankly, eternity spent around people like YOU is my very definition of HELL!!
Most of them have been cruel and unfeeling. I was driven from the Christianity of my birth by them. I was born and raised Roman Catholic. I quit the Catholics when it became clear to me that, in spite of what they said about :a sin is a sin is a sin” – there obviously WAS a hierarchy to sin…and my perceived “sin” of being trans…was absolutely unforgivable to them.
They had nothing for me but a message as comforting as a crown of thorns. So I left. I became a Unitarian. And now, these days, i am an Agnostic, and self-described Jesusian. Sometime, I will write an article on Jesusianity. I call myself such to differentiate myself from Christians…who, in my mind, are synonymous with intolerance, hatred and bigotry. Sad…isn’t it? Bur that is the name Christianity has earned itself in the eyes of many.
I ended up learning a lot of the Bible…primarily because I had to learn how to “fight fire with fire.” I had to learn to throw Scripture in their face…as they did to me.
SO…seeing a self-professed Christian as yourself…or as John Pavlovitz…it is truly a breath of fresh air. I credit those like you…with the fact that I am now at least an Agnostic…and not the Atheist I once was.
If my experience at HP is typical and came from the Left, I think that many Christians feel that they have been hijacked by fundamentalist beliefs that have nothing to do with our own and we are tired of all being painted with the same brush. I remember feeling like this just before I finally had had enough. It didn’t last that long and now I will stand up for anyone being attacked by someone who dares to claim superiority because of their beliefs. That is not what Christianity is about. It’s not in the teachings of Jesus or The 10 Commandments. Most of the people I know who don’t believe, are some of the best people I’ve known, and some of those who claim to believe, are hypocrites and bigots. If you are a good person or bad person, religion really doesn’t change that.
—
The sad thing is, trump doesn’t give a flying fart about them. All he wants is their votes to pump up his insatiable ego.
—
The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity
Support for Trump comes at a high cost for Christian witness.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/evangelical-christians-face-deepening-crisis/593353/
Not sure what HP is.
And you are right about claimed beliefs not making a person good, or lack thereof making them bad.
ONLY IN AMERICA…can any crank, crook, charlatan…or general all-around horrible person…add the word “Pastor” in front of his name and gain INSTANT CREDIBILITY.
Sorry for the delay in answering. HP refers to The Huffington Post where I started to blog.
Yes, false prophets are everywhere, many with diminished moral standing preaching against the things they are guilty of themselves while growing rich from the people they have brainwashed. Jesus would throw them out of their temples/churches without a second glance.
Trump is one of the worst offenders. He is a false prophet in every conceivable way.
—
New book details how Republican leaders learned to stop worrying and love Trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-book-details-how-republican-leaders-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-trump/2019/07/10/be75eff8-a27d-11e9-b7b4-95e30869bd15_story.html
Indeed.
I have, more than once…been at pains to point out that…ONLY IN AMERICA…can any crank, crook, charlatan, or general all-around horrible person…add the word “Reverend” or “Pastor” in front of their name…and gain instant credibility.
NOWHERE ELSE does that happen.
deleted, and added to response to you, so that it appears in the right order.
OJ was like that on original Yabberz too. Dumb as a post AFAIC too.
Hello, Pamela and welcome to The Planet.
Deliberate, disruptive behaviour is not tolerated here. Reading our “Terms of Use” states that very clearly.
Angela’s post was her personal opinion of painful facts in her life. It was not something to be ridiculed or debased by someone pushing their religious beliefs to judge her. If this person feels “persecuted” for their faith, maybe it’s because of the fact that she in turn persecutes others by trying to make them feel inferior.
This is a Liberal Progressive site, there must be many other sites where these opinions are shared. Here it just seems like a form self-righteous, mean-spirited trolling to me.
indeed. Same MO on the old Yabberz too. 🙂
I can believe that but not on my watch, and not on The Planet.
Frankly…people like Josephine…do a better job of making the argument why people like me should have the protection of laws…than I do.
They are a living example of why these protections are needed.
It doesn’t matter. I have fought people like Josephine my entire adult life and I am used to it. She isn’t even among the best I have had to stand against…I eat people like her for lunch.
She needs to step up her game, if you want the truth.
Yes it does matter. Apart from an obvious attack, in our Terms of Use, we clearly state that this behaviour will not be tolerated here. I am aware that you can and do stand up for yourself, but you shouldn’t have to on The Planet is my point.
I appreciate that support. And I should bear in mind I may not be the only trans here…just maybe the only visible one…and while I CAN take it and stand up for myself…someone less visible than myself, who has not dealt as long as I have with this kind of adversity…may not be as inured to it as I am.
Then I hope they understand that they have nothing to fear here.
Yep
Wrong! Not biological men. Eunuchs loaded with estrogen would be the closest that you could possibly understand. Worst they’d likely do to you is insult your taste in clothes.
Precisely.
For one thing, we ARE NOT WIRED LIKE MEN. We might have got born with male physiology…but NOT a male brain.
And when we go on Estrogen, we lose about 40 percent of our upper-body strength, by the way.
We still can and usually do tend to be stronger…BUT…I can tell you if any perv started messing around in the women’s bathroom…I WOULD BE THE FIRST TO START POUNDING ON HIS ASS.
Incidentally…I have never had to…in 25 years.
And the only thing I ever saw in the ladies room that interested ME…was the occasional super-cute pair of boots or shoes (I’m a boots girl, personally) – or maybe a really nice blouse…and then all I want to know is where did she get that…and how much did it cost? Because I want it. LOL.
It’s interesting to see the lengths you went to to try and normalize your transphobia. Your absurd self-justifications for your prejudices only highlight how weak and disingenuous they are.
You prove dishonesty by contradicting yourself repeatedly, in one paragraph you question what rights are denied trans people then in multiple paragraphs that follow, you justify them being denied rights.
As you poorly attempt to deny Angela’s life experience, wisdom and identity, I think it would be far more appropriate for you to be introspective about identity issues.
You claim to be a Christian but there is nothing in the hatefulness and bigotry evidenced in your comments that reflects Christ or Christianity. It would be delusional to claim that Jesus Christ was hateful or bigoted towards any human being. It is incompatible with following the teachings of Christ thus incompatible with genuinely being Christian.
And since disdain of the transphobic and homophobic is a majority view in America…according to your convoluted “reasoning”, isn’t it justified for you to be disrespected and shouldn’t have to just accept that because your views are those of a minority?
AdLib…those who stand against us have ALWAYS used circular logic and convoluted arguments to justify their positions, because they WILL NOT admit their bigotry.
Angela, when an opinion comes from ignorance and fear, trying to present it as reasoned is both impossible and makes one look just plain foolish. It is unavoidable that the bigoted display hypocrisy in trying to apply a reasoned facade to their knee jerk bigotry because the two are incompatible.
That never prevents them from thinking they can pound a square peg into a round hole but repeatedly trying to do so after failing each time is reflective of enormous ignorance.
True. But after 25 years of dealing with people like that, I have come to understand them…and how foolish they are. I only wish more people would see them for what they really are.
Ignorant and fearful. Determined to force any square peg to conform to the round hole or die trying, because it never occurs to them to cut a square hole for that square peg.