The horrors persist, but so do we

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

After all, if humans have souls and we recognize that the blind being made to see and the lame to walk doesn't inherently change who they are as people? Then a trans person having surgery doesn't change who they have always been.

You can cure someone's cancer without changing their soul, even if that's "just how their body grew." Their body growing that way doesn't mean that person is supposed to live with cancer. It means they need help.

So if the soul is a woman and the body is born male or the other way around? Then healing this divide and fixing the body is divine labor, just as any other form of healing the sick. If someone's body is hurting them, they need help, not dismissal or judgement.

The same view holds true for someone who is born intersex.

If we are more than the sum of our parts? There can be no requirement that the divine soul created by a loving deity must be forced into any narrow binary. The flesh is imperfect, always. The soul is not.

Of course we butt heads as I'm more of an atheist, but it was a bit of a shock to grow up and discover the alt-right groups who call themselves Christian while refusing comfort to the sick, the poor, the immigrant, and condemn LGBTQ people. Cuz that's just not the theology I grew up with.

catboy 7

tried to learn samurai a little bit in pve recently

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Day 4, Visayan hornbill

Spring is almost here and all the snow has melted in Sweden! I'm excited to see what plants will grow in the garden. A little fox 🦊 visited our yard the other night so I've been dreaming of it wandering through the forest and bringing spring 🌱🌷🌼🌹🌻

The inspo photo I took!

The daring little fox looking for kibbles missed by the dogs

Painting process~

Miocene Gryphon