We're in 2020. A few years ago, we witnessed historic progress in the movements for civil equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) movements.
To sum up, it started with a handful of states starting to legalize same-sex marriage. In 2012, elections for both candidates and amendments across the country took a big progressive step forward. In some states, proposed conservative marriage amendments were defeated. Other states passed laws legalizing same-sex marriage. Then a year later in 2013, the Supreme Court handed down two landmark decisions about marriage equality. First, from California, its marriage ban (aka Proposition 8) that went back and forth in its legality was declared unconstitutional, once and for all by the Court. Likewise, a key section of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was also struck down as unconstitutional, thereby requiring the federal government to recognize all legally married same-sex couples. That particular case's decision (Windsor v. United States) set a precedent that became the catalyst for a record of momentous LGBTQ victories around the country. In their own respective federal courts, state after state was having its marriage ban declared unconstitutional. It eventually came to 37 states having had their bans struck down, permitting more and more loving LGBTQ couples to start tying the knot. Finally, on June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution does indeed grant gay couples the right to marry granting complete marriage equality to ALL Americans in all fifty states; all states were required to issue marriage licenses, and each state was required to recognize out-of-state licenses. Love won.
As these legal victories kept coming up, a frequently marginalized group of the LGBTQ community - the "T" (transgender) - started getting more and more of the spotlight. As their issues started becoming more common conversation topics, I started thinking and reflecting about the species that are homosapiens, or human beings.
There are those that will cling to the Bible and declare that the only legitimate homosapien is either male or female, as God created them to be. And as their arguments grew louder and louder, my thoughts started to dig deeper and deeper. Though I was raised a devout Catholic, simply questioning and applying logic started to make many of my taught beliefs come undone. A string was pulled, and the curtains started to rise. I started seeing my world with so much clarity.
For some, it would seem that being transgender is absolutely impossible. How can one be born into the wrong body? (Or as transgendered people properly specify, they are assigned [insert sex here] at birth.) Well, ask a trans person and find out. The ones I've met have really opened my eyes, and they've made me realize something about trans individuals--and God--that I hadn't considered.
Devout Christians will hold fast to the belief that God doesn't make mistakes and that "he created them male and female". While they can cite that verse all they want, it appears to me that Christians, insisting that God only makes things a certain way, are doing what I find blasphemous: putting human limitations on a deity. Who are they to say what God can or cannot do? If God is THE creator, who are we humans to limit what God's powers are, what God's intentions are, what God's choices or decisions are? How many times does a believer say in the Lord's Prayer "thy Will be done"? They are literally saying they accept and even support *w h a t e v e r* God wants to do. Who's to say, if God is indeed the one behind ALL creation, that God doesn't want to make the human race more interesting by creating individuals who find themselves assigned to the wrong sex at birth, or even don't identify as either male or female (non-binary)?
"No! God doesn't do that, he created them male and female!"
Oh yeah?
"Thy Will be done."
"His Will is male and female! It says so right in the Bible!"
"Who wrote the Bible?"
"Men who were divinely inspired!"
Exactly. Men who didn't know science and told stories to make sense of a world they didn't understand. And that was two millennia ago.
I honestly can't think of why any person would choose to be transgender, just like I can't see anyone choosing to be gay, bi, lesbian, queer in any form, etc. Why? Because they know there are people out there who think the world is simple, black and white, and those people cannot handle a simple world having so any natural variations. But the irony is that the simplicity they think their faith decrees exists is the same simplicity that can be challenged by viewing the very deity they worship, who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. It's honestly laughable to watch humans humanize a deity because they are clearly explaining that their god sees the world the same way they do, and--here's the kicker--they find the scripture that justifies their opinion. And many times it's taken out of context. But they don't care; their opinions about life are now validated by the scripture that serves as their instruction manual for living.
If you want to believe your god can do whatever s/he wants, because they're GOD, then logic dictates God can do whatever the fuck God wants to do. YOU, believer, don't get a say. Why?
"Your Will be done."
The next time you see someone who doesn't fit the mold you think everyone is prescribed to...you have a choice:
1. Praise your deity for a new masterpiece, especially if said masterpiece is beyond your own comprehension.
2. Pay lip service to your god while you make a fellow human being's life miserable because they don't fit the mold you think everyone needs to be in. It's not their fault you don't see unique beauty in your god's creation. That's YOUR fault. And what's worse is if you make that special creation of god feel shitty because of it.
You love your god? You believe your god created EVERYTHING in this world? Then embrace the most unique creations that are here to behold.
After all, the one whom you're calling incomplete or sick is already stronger than you because they have to be ready to face ignorance for the rest of their lives. That takes strength. It takes perseverance. It takes confidence. It takes intelligence. And it takes compassion because they know their challenges are simply people who are misguided by their own blindness in their own faith.
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