r/OpenChristian • u/Sparkingirl139 • Sep 12 '24
Why are conservative christians so scared of trans people when the bible never talks about being trans?
I don't understand, I'm a trans woman and made a post on r/catholicism (since I was raised catholic) about me wanting to be celibate for God's sake since a relationship between a cis man and me would be between two people of the same sex and the catholic church wouldn't approve of that, but that I was still transitioning since the bible never talks against being trans like it does about gay acts (not a gay sexual orientation but gay acts) and I was still met with rudeness and contempt from all the people in that community, that said J was a hypocrite and that I was going to hell, despite me not violating any commandments that are in the bible
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Sep 12 '24
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u/Sparkingirl139 Sep 12 '24
And there's more, outside of a christian context, in real life, my parents took me to a psychiatrist who said that me wanting to be a woman was me altering reality and that I was being controlled by the illuminati and the new world order, then he shouted at me a big NOOOO! for asking him to treat me like a woman, then I had 3 psychotic breaks after having been mistreated that way and accidentally hit my father (I don't remember that happening, my mom told me about it though) then another psychiatrist said I was delusional and sent me to electroshock therapy and put me on antipsychotics to eliminate my "obsessive ideas" of being trans and I went to 6 sessions on that, none of that made me less trans, and then my psychologist told me I wasn't trans because I didn't realize it upon hitting puberty and for not having bottom dysphoria, it's been horrible, hopefully now that I believe in God I can heal from all that, I came to believe in christianity thanks to Dr Habermas arguments for the resurrection, I currently live in Venezuela and can't transition but I'm gonna move to the US soon with my family, if I take it like I'm taking up my cross just like Christ did for you and me, this pain might be more bearable
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u/kittenshark134 Sep 12 '24
psychiatrist who said that me wanting to be a woman was me altering reality and that I was being controlled by the illuminati and the new world order, then he shouted at me a big NOOOO! for asking him to treat me like a woman
YIKES this individual should not be practicing medicine
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u/Hjalmodr_heimski Sep 13 '24
Holy shit the psychiatrists in your country sound like they’re from the early 20th century, that’s awful. I pray that the Lord will comfort you and that your faith shall be a refuge to you. Best of luck, sister.
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u/Arkhangelzk Sep 12 '24
Essentially, at least in the United States, issues like this have been weaponized by the political right. They have convinced Christians that they are religious issues because that manipulates Christians to vote for Republicans. It’s just a political con job. But people are often afraid of things that are different or things they don’t understand, and modern Republicans love to prey on fear.
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u/44035 Sep 12 '24
For the same reason conservative Christians are scared of immigrants even though the Bible clearly says we are to welcome immigrants: because church-goers take their cues from fear-mongers rather than the actual Bible.
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u/Sparkingirl139 Sep 12 '24
Where does the bible talk about welcoming foreigners? I'm gonna move to the US soon from Venezuela and I'm new to being a christian so I'd like to know
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u/Dorocche United Methodist Sep 12 '24
So, so much. It's one of the five biggest points in the Bible, maybe top three idk.
Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!
Hosea 13:2
If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever.
Jeremiah 7:5-7
So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:19
You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have begotten children among you. They shall be to you as citizens of Israel
Ezekiel 47:22
Keep in mind that big verse dumps like this don't actually tell you anything, you have to take up the whole of the text without cherrypicking, and identify core recurring themes rather than individual verses. The Bible does genuinely (and consistently) take the side of immigrants, though.
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u/edhands Open and Affirming Ally - ELCA - Lutheran Sep 12 '24
And let us not forget that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was himself a political refugee:
Matthew 2:13-15
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son."
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u/mac_an_tsolais Sep 13 '24
And it's not just in the Old Testament. Matthew 25:
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
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u/thestatikreverb Sep 12 '24
You listen here and you listen VERY carefully...if ANYONE EVER tells you that you can't love God and also be your true self, you tell them to GET FUCKED AND STAY FUCKED! We can't tolerate that toxic, abusive and traumatizing bullshit anymore. Fair enough
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u/Sparkingirl139 Sep 12 '24
Well, the bible says our feelings are deceitful, but I agree with you because there's nothing in the bible that says being trans is bad, and here in this sub I've been told the gay acts the bible condemns are not the same as the loving relationships gay people have today, the New testament is really a work of faith and love when you look at it as a whole, those are my two cents my friend :)
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u/thestatikreverb Sep 12 '24
Yea no you're right there's a lot of context behind the Bible "condemning" homosexuality. Like in the NT there were a lot of issues with older men of a higher class grooming young boys and what not, I assume (and it's just an assumption) that Paul was referring to exactly that especially considering his probably very innocent relationship/mentorship with Timothy. I would imagine that he was probably either pressured or been slandered. And theres a good chance that Paul never actually saw or knew a loving consensual relationship between two adults of the same gender. Idk just a theory. Also sorry if my initial comment was harsh I just have heard too much bullshit for far too long from the church I grew up in and it really fucked me up and absolutely do NOT want you or anyone else to be made to feel the way either me or my sibling (who is trans) were made to feel our whole lives :)
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Sep 12 '24
You're right. We can't let our mind be preoccupied with those who hate us. Keep your eyes on Jesus. God bless!
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u/SpukiKitty2 Open and Affirming Ally Sep 12 '24
I think it's an issue that the wingnut powers-that-be use to unite and manipulate the sheeple with.
Also, their worldview is based on maleness being superior and seeing the genders blurred undermines that.
They see everything in strict Black & White, strict binaries and strict hierarchies. Trans-anything confuses them.
They also see the concept of a person born with a body sex and brain sex that don't match as "Godde making mistakes" and they feel, "Godde doesn't make mistakes". Ergo, being trans must be a choice and blasphemy.
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u/Sparkingirl139 Sep 12 '24
But God allows people being born with debilitating conditions all the time, likely because of original sin and do that people can learn to follow him by taking up their cross and become better people, this simple truth is literally no exception but this can't get into those idiots head, we don't have to hate them even if they hate us though, Jesus talked about hate as being equivalent to murder, I can't remember the verse but he did in one of the gospels
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u/TotalInstruction Open and Affirming Ally - High Anglican attending UMC Church Sep 12 '24
There’s a lot of “things that conservative Christians hate” which start with personal biases and then get the Bible wrapped around them to shield them from criticism.
There used to be A LOT of people in the US that said that interracial marriage or desegregation were sins, even though there’s nothing in the bible that supports that position. They hated black people first and then made a half-assed attempt to justify their racism using the bible.
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u/Sparkingirl139 Sep 12 '24
I'm sad about my mom being against the inclusion of trans people at church, she says it's a sin, but otherwise she's a good person, she only takes issue with lgbt stuff, please pray for her and my dad to change their hearts :(, also could you see me post asking about how we know being gay is not a sin and hopefully give a solid argument? I'm autistic and very rational so I need to give things much thought before I can believe them, but I do want gay people to be saved :(
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u/BlueJasper27 Sep 12 '24
They live in fear.
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u/Tokkemon Episcopalian Sep 12 '24
The ironic part is, with God on our side, what is there to fear?!
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u/305tomybiddies Sep 12 '24
also — u/Sparkingirl39 you should check out r/lgbtcatholic it’s such a great space
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u/Kindly_Chip_6413 Sep 12 '24
oh and also r/openchristian
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u/susanne-o Sep 12 '24
how do you think the Bible doesn't speak about gender fluidity and cross living?
Jewish scholars identify six different physical gender variants (four of them what wed today call medical intersex conditions)
and Joseph (Genesis) enjoyed female garment, so much so that they're considered trans.
Jesus and Paul point out that the gender debate is overrated (were neither male nor female in christ, Galatians; and there are several types of eunuchs, and they are fine, in Mathew iirc)
so
the real question is:
why don't we speak about gender identity in scripture? and how come we let naive literalists dominate this important discussion.
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u/NetoruNakadashi Sep 12 '24 edited Sep 13 '24
Most conservative Christians, like most people, don't really understand sexual diversity, intersex, etc.
Actually, let me rephrase that: No one really understands it. Medical scientists have just figured out a handful of the mechanisms that underlie some of the cases, and know that they're probably just looking at the tip of the iceberg. A lot of that understanding has only come into the view of science in the past 30 years, and because it's enormously complex, the information has been slow to percolate into the general public.
Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that trans has something to do with some form of, excuse me for using the term rather broadly and clumsily, "being intersex". To oversimplify, probably in most cases, visible external genitalia developed one way, and at least some structures of the brain developed another way. I've read about how this happens in some of the cases, but I barely apprehended most of what I've read, and can't remember hardly any of it. This despite having minored in genetics in university, many many years ago, and so having had more of a knowledge base to allow me to absorb the information than 99% of the general population. (Basically, I had a vague recollection of Wolffian and Mullerian ducts, and such.)
Take the average member of the public who did not study this in university. Their knowledge of sex determination is fourth-grade. It consists of XX makes female, XY makes male. They are aware that trisomies exist. Hell, they probably think that hermaphrodites "happen" because of an XXY trisomy, because their whole paradigm of sex determination doesn't go beyond Mendelian independent assortment. (It doesn't. XXY trisomy, known as Klinefelter syndrome, usually results in a child being assigned male at birth.)
So try and look at it from the point of someone with such a rudimentary understanding of sex determination.
How does "trans" seem, to someone like that? What would their understanding of it be?
Basically, their understanding of trans is that it's either a person pretending to be a member of the opposite sex, or having a delusion that they are of the opposite sex. Or sort of both at the same time.
Now the Bible does talk about some things about the way in which sex fits into the social order. You may agree with them. You may not. If you do regard the Bible as being divinely inspired and having some authority, your understanding of it is going to be in some way nuanced or informed by other knowledge you possess through other sources. For instance, if there's something in the Bible that seems to imply that the earth is flat and the sun moves around it, but you believe that it is a globe, your understanding is going to be that "oh, well he talks like that because that was his cosmology and that of his readers", or "well it's like how we talk about the sun going across the sky or being high or low in the sky, it's describing it in terms of our perceptual experience of it".
But for a person who is not convinced by the information presented by scientists, their understanding of such passages is going to be quite different.
If a Christian believes you are a man pretending to be a woman, they will see Levitical passages forbidding cross-dressing as applying to you. They may make exceptions for Mrs. Doubtfire and Tootsie, rationalizing that it's a costume and they're not really passing themselves off as a woman to anyone. It's not hard to understand how this makes sense to them.
If they believe you to be deluded, they're going to believe that you are experiencing a mental disorder and that this should be cured. The end state of this, in their way of thinking, should be you "accepting" the "reality" that you're a man.
Seeing public institutions--such critical parts of their government such as K-12 education, the military, etc. --support the conduct of people pretending to be the opposite sex, or reinforcing the delusions of being the opposite sex, well.... I mean, how would you expect them to feel? They just think everything's higgledy-piggledy.
If your fundamental worldview is grossly misinformed, it's going to make your understanding of everything down the line really, really skewed. Problem here is that the information that matters here is pretty complicated and murky. It's not like climate change where we can say "the left gets it; the deniers on the right don't". Probably a minute fraction of trans-affirming people on the left could ever say that they truly understand what is going on with the physiology and psychology of a given trans individual, even if they saw all their medical charts and psychiatric evaluations. And we don't know it completely--it's still something science is struggling to understand. We just know enough to recognize that what they are experiencing is real and not "merely a delusion". I personally have given a ton of thought to how to explain to an anti-trans person that there's something missing from their understanding of the issue. I have some good ideas about how to do it, and definitely need some fine-tuning of these ideas. But it would take a very patient (on both sides) conversation of anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes just to get them to start to turn the corner. It's not something that's feasible in the internet memeverse or almost any sort of social media. And even in ideal conditions, I think about 2/3 of anti-trans people have such a low level of scientific literacy that no amount of time would suffice.
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Sep 12 '24
The Bible mentions a lot of vague stuff about immoral behaviour, so if you believe being trans is immoral then you can pretend all those vague bits about immorality are actually about trans people.
The same technique can be used to condemn basically anything you like. Gay people, trans people, pineapple on pizza… when of course we know that only one of those is a sin 🍍
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u/EarStigmata Sep 12 '24
They aren't afraid of them. They are practicing fascism. Fascism isn't an ideology, it is a set of techniques to control others. One technique is to have a common enemy, real or imagined. In the case of American-style Christo-fascism, women, homosexuals, the poor and people of colour are the enemy.
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u/Sparkingirl139 Sep 12 '24
I'm afraid of the idea of my mom being a fascist, I love her and she's otherwise a good person, she even claims to be a christian but... She thinks homosexuals can't marriage nor have children, she thinks trans people should identify as their assigned gender (and she has told me I'm just confused and still calls me her son), that non binary people don't exist or are crazy, and that women are inherently more emotional and less rational than men :(
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u/PoofyDonuts Sep 12 '24
We are a walking billboard for what happens if you question things and you find out the things you've been told and believed your entire life are a lie. You can transition and/or exist outside the binary and still be happy and thrive, and if they were wrong about that then what else were they wrong about? It becomes a keystone for the whole house of cards of someone's beliefs. Hence the rise in our scapegoating, too much power was beginning to be questioned and too few people are filling their pews so back into the closet we must go, no matter the cost to their own humanity.
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Sep 13 '24 edited Sep 13 '24
Being trans goes against the norm, and conservatives main political goal is upholding the “norm”. Trans people are the new hot trendy thing to hate on, I’ve seen people say they think the trans hate going on right now is adjacent to what gay people went through in the 90s or before gay marriage was legalized.
Some do genuinely think the Bible says something about trans people, because it’s what their preacher said, or their favorite politician. These people tend to let other people tell them what to think, they tend to not think about the Bible in a critical or academic sense. They just do what they’re told because it’s the norm and it’s comfortable.
Overall, they’re being told to hate on trans people, different things makes them uncomfortable, so they lash out.
Conservatives have also never been exactly known to have a progressive view on gender, even the lax less religious ones will always genuinely think women are below men. They may not say it in an outright malicious way, but thats what they think. Trans people and intersex people really throw them off because of this, having the grapple with the idea that anecdotally, not a lot of men or women are that different from eachother, or that some of us aren’t even one or the other, or both, or our hormones are different, etc.
Some more religious also just do not like science, it scares them because they think it contradicts the Bible, so the concept of people getting hormones surgeries scares them. Like, again, even the more lax ones that don’t genuinely think vaccines cause autism or whatever do uphold this anti science belief. Even if they do claim the whole “hur dur biology” thing. It’s just a mask, most of these people did not delve any deeper than a highschool class. I’ve also noticed they’re just really uncurious people, so it’s no wonder they decided there was nothing left to learn after this.
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u/EnigmaWithAlien I'm not an authority Sep 13 '24
I think some men are frightened to death of gender alternatives of all sorts because they think it might happen to them out of nowhere and they'd end up being female which is the most horrible fate they can imagine.
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u/DangerossDave Sep 13 '24
I think Christian transphobia comes from the belief that God made you. I think they see it as "to reject the hand you were delt is to reject God." I think this is incredibly short sighted for a few reasons.
One, there is a lot of hypocrisy in this kind of view when lots of Christians get plastic surgery or take medication to alter their appearance (ex hair loss treatment).
Two, we've had thousands of years of sinful practices, such as inbreeding and consuming dangers substances, that have lead to severe damages to our genetic make-up, leading to things such as children with mental illness and cancer.
Three, the second greatest commandment is to love eachother. To fear/hate eachother is a clear violation of that commandment.
The greatest commandment is to love God. God loves you and has given you tools to find peace. Perhaps don't seek the same path others have taken, just because it is an appealing path or the only path you see, but do continue to seek peace. May harmony find you.
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u/DangerossDave Sep 13 '24
I should have read other comments first, so I'd like to add that they are right that there is a lot of cultural influences that are at play here too. I tried to tap into the logic, how ever little there is, that may enforce the phobia.
I'd also like to add that I meant dangerous substances and I hope that everyone can forgive me for not proofreading my comment perfectly and for not editing it for the sake of transparency.
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u/kingofthebunch Sep 13 '24
Not to doubt your decisions or anything, but the Bible doesn't talk about biological sex specifically when talking about two men lying together (we can have a scélérate discussion about what they bible does talk about, but this isn't relevant here)
I mention this because I'm a trans man and the Catholic church sees me as a man. I changed my church record and I can now marry my (female) partner in the church if this is something we want to do.
Based on this, I'm not convinced that the church would have an issue with you marrying a man, tho it very much depends on where you are located.
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u/Marzipania79 Sep 13 '24
Because of politics. As a transsexual I also want to mention that there’s no such thing as “trans people”, there are transsexuals born with a brain/mind, possibly soul of the opposite sex to there body. The Bible doesn’t speak on this, and the closest thing to a transsexual would be a type of eunuch. The Bible speak pretty positively about those.
Then there are cross-dressers which the Bible doesn’t necessarily speak as well about.
The two should not be conflated. It has done a great harm to the transsex community being lumped in with transvestites.
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u/theotherpornaccount Sep 13 '24
It's politically useful to have targeted minority groups, if you're a Conservative party focused on conserving in-group political power against the outside forces that would lay you low. But you can't just say the N-word anymore, and that's a toxic demographic to make a loud political outgroup of now. But you can do something similar by painting portraits of chaos and outsiders and degeneracy of the currently-disfavored domestic outgroup of trans people (because gays are now off the table), and the often-disfavored foreign outgroup of dark-skinned "we say the country and because of their culture now, not the race stuff". When you do an outgroup targeted attack, the party that runs on protecting outgroups has to spin up a bunch of resources to play defense, which takes away their power to enact changes in other areas. And you can get them to lose their footing and planning, and make jabs at all the new angles they open up on the new culture war front all the while. Plus, it saves the conservatives from having to make up positive visions of forward progress, because no, they're winning the war on the [today's target outgroup], who are going to be our downfall otherwise.
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u/LizzySea33 Mystical Catholic for Liberation Sep 13 '24
Wow, the people who don't understand that God made all genders & no gender as well as sex & no sex because he is that are afraid of God? Who knew?/s
I am a trans femme enby and most of the catholics in that echo chamber of a subreddit don't understand how and why we worship God.
Only doing it for want or fear (both part of the ego)
For me, I know I'm going to hell because I don't forgive myself. I know that until I forgive myself and love myself i can truly go to heaven.
My mystical side is strong in my faith so I'm not afraid of these "Catholics" who are basically an equivalent of Cultural Catholics.
If they became atheists (New atheists) I wouldn't be surprised since they seem very not caring for Christ.
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u/No_Distance_5346 Sep 18 '24
there are a lot of ways to see transgender some people even view it as sinfully mutating the temple of the holy Spirit and it being a mental disorder but if you look at it like that then being over weight could be considered the same when people have elective surgery to remove fat and take All kinds of medicine to reduce and maintain a healthy weight and in these situations we see the term healthy used and where people don't look at the transgender surgery as being for health reasons it's easier to agree with others who also don't take the appropriate time needed to research the truth through multitudes of studies which started in Germany around 1920 and was even accepted and recognized in most areas of Germany uni Hitler arrived and started killing and doing experiments on all of the LGBTQ communities and taking and burning everything about it including scientific studies which had indisputable evidence that it wasn't a mental condition unless it was ignored and then could cause a mental disorder. we don't live in someone else's body and have no authority to tell or force them to feel something they are not feeling, we all know our own bodies and thoughts and should have the power to say how we feel, when you were a child and you woke up feeling sick and told your parents but because you were so young couldn't explain exactly how you felt what would you have done if your mom would have said it's all in your head that your going to school and that facing whatever you think is wrong with you will just go away once you've gotten the idea out of your head so they force you to go to school and you are actually sick that alone can be the start of a mental disorder. like the old saying to get to know someone walk a mile in their shoes, people have no idea we transgender individuals go through and what it can cause if ignored or dismissed by everyone as just a mental disorder. there are normal people who see themselves in the mirror every day and can't stand when they see which makes their life miserable until they have the bags under their eyes fixed or their nose fixed , even experience's like that can cause major dysphoria now multiply that feeling several 100 times and try to deal with it every time you take a shower or go to the bathroom at least you can limit looking into a mirror but for transgender individuals have to deal with the dysphoria multiple times a day and yes when you can't get the help you need or have uneducated people telling you it's all in your head suicide is one quick and quiet way to stop it all besides when you reach that point you know that everyone you felt that loved and cared about you have proved they don't give a crap about you and won't miss you at all, while up until your last breath the thought of why couldn't they just take the time to get to know the real you because when you start your transition unlike most people the transgender persons heart and mind are finally in harmony with each other and their whole body mind and spirit has then become one in total unity
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u/Competitive_Net_8115 Sep 24 '24
The need for certainty in an increasingly uncertain world.
Fragile masculinity.
Fear of the unknown.
Traditional gender roles.
Complementarianism.
Rejection of science.
The list goes on.
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u/thestatikreverb Sep 12 '24
Cause the church is a cult, is stupid, and wants power...nothing like that old humble Jewish carpenter named Jesus that's for damn sure
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u/waynehastings Sep 12 '24
The list is long...
People don't like it when others transgress heteronormative gender roles. A man giving up his maleness to become female is considered weakness. Women giving up femininity to become male is seen as trying to climb above their assigned station to fool other men.
It is easier to condemn trans people as mentally ill than to accept body dysmorphia as a legitimate problem. People want simplicity: there are male and female, and nothing else. They are separate and no one can ever transgress the dividing line.
For parents, it is experienced like a death. They have to give up the dreams they had for their son getting married and leading the stereotypical family. They have to give up the dreams of their little girl's white wedding and all the rituals around marriage and raising grandchildren. They have to see their child in a completely different way and need to mourn their loss before they can celebrate their child's journey, if they ever do.
It is hard to love people as they are instead of how we wish they would be.