Acceptance over intolerance

Posted

In my last column I’ve talked about how Senate Bill 2 or the “bathroom bill” is unnecessary. Its use would just be to add to a list of discriminatory laws against trans people. But I feel it is necessary for me to continue the discussion by doing my best to define what it really means to be transgender.

As I’ve stated in my previous column, a trans person is an individual who doesn’t identify if their assigned sex. I’ve seen others explain, it’s a “man trapped in woman’s body” or vice versa.

Let me also reiterate that being trans has nothing to do with sexuality. It is about self and how one identifies themselves. How you feel inside has nothing to do with what kind of relationships you want to have with other people.

Another misconception when talking about trans people is the idea that transgender means transvestite or hermaphrodite. That’s untrue on both ends. Again, go back and read the simple definition I gave. Nowhere in that definition does it state whether someone cross dresses or whether they have both sexual organs, etc.

Whenever we discuss the transgender culture and there’s pushback against it, one of the biggest motivators is fear. I had a lengthy argument on social media the other day (I know, bad move on my part, never argue on social media) about trans people and the biggest issue we ran across was whether it was a choice or not to live that lifestyle. You don’t just wake up one day and say to yourself “oh man, society is telling me I should just conform with the norm but golly gee, I think I want to be a woman now.”

That’s not how that works.

Why would you choose to live this life? Look at all the disadvantages to being trans. From something as small as someone saying “eww you’re icky” to something more serious like being discriminated against to even more deadlier cases of abuse, murder and suicide. Who would want to live that life? And yet there are people who argue that being trans is a lifestyle choice just as it is a choice to put on clothes in the morning. Ridiculous.

I am lucky enough in that I’ve accepted my assigned sex and through whatever flaws you may see I’m OK with who I am. But there are others that don’t. Can you imagine going through life feeling like you don’t belong in your own body? Meanwhile, our society is telling you that you should be fine, don’t be weird, you’re being weird, hey, stop being weird and gross, mostly the weird part, stop that. And then we wonder why the suicide rate for trans people is so high.

The way we treat trans people is sickening. We act as if we’re in biblical times and trans people have leprosy and need to be healed.

Speaking of the Bible, this obsession with using these texts to defend intolerance needs to stop. I’d argue the Bible is one of the most misused and misinterpreted pieces of literature today. Yet we still have people saying “well the Bible said this, so we have to do it.”

There are plenty “words of wisdom” in the Bible that we do not follow yet somehow we pick and choose the ones that fit our ideals the best such as the idea that God is perfect and doesn’t make any mistakes, therefore we must accept everything God creates. That’s problematic. Using that logic, we must accept that God made conjoined twins, therefore we should let them be instead of trying to better their lives with things like surgery since, you know, everything God makes is perfect.

To a lesser degree, you that were born blonde, nope, must stay blonde. God wanted you blonde. How dare you go against God’s will and cut your hair and dye it brown.

How about you with misaligned teeth? How dare you go against God’s will and straighten those teeth with braces. God’s plan and purpose for your life was to have gaps in your teeth and you’re not honoring his will.

Can you see how all of this is pretty silly?

Just because we’ve accepted something we believe to be a fact for so long doesn’t mean that it is true. Slavery was accepted for so long until we finally figured out that treating other human beings as lower than is wrong. How about Earth being the center of the universe and also flat? Nope. We were wrong there too. As we gain more information we have to adjust the way we look at the world. It’s the same when it comes to trans people.

Comments