Who is blogging on trans?
Here is Dee, who is early on in her coming out. Her sister, niece and nephew know and are supportive, and she has told four friends. It is lovely to read her new year post expressing her delight in that support and her explorations. She will explore further, and share it.
I went to the WordPress tag “trans” to find what people would see there, apart from me. I was so put off by the first post that I went to the tag transgender to see if it were any better. Michael Coward claims that Christians are doing a great deal of damage. He has a long screed arguing that the Bible does not condemn LGB people to a life of celibacy, and reporting trans suicide attempt statistics. God, it’s depressing. He explains that “Evolution is not a theory in crisis” and links to an earnest site arguing that, but also saying that Christian leaders challenging the theory may be “well-intentioned”. I don’t believe that. Christians should have a respect for truth, and natural selection is clearly evidenced. Those Creationists are denying the truth. In the same way, when Michael challenges the assertion that LGB people should be celibate, I no longer care. Yes there are Christians who believe that, and he describes conversations with them, showing how closed-minded they can be. I have mostly given up debating with the sickos who condemn us. I used to visit their blogs, and even made friends there, but now can’t be bothered. There’s only so much stupid one can take.
According to this blog, wherever the writer is, “Chakka”, meaning transgender, is a playground insult. He likens it to Muslims being called terrorists. Still, I learned something: मादरचोद is Hindi for “Motherfucker”, pronounced maadarachod. Someone who confesses to being “conservative”– never a good sign- says the “transgender cult” is pushing women out of women’s sports. everyone outside of brainwashed gender studies professors knows these scientific facts. I could of course rip this to shreds, but can’t be bothered.
I liked the look of Geansworld on “New Years Joy!”. Gean is an intersex woman. I don’t know why she tagged transgender, but enjoyed reading of her adopting a cat.
Tomcat has been on disability for months, after his transgender surgery, but the pain of being in a body that does not match his brain is a lot less. He’s feeling better and rebuilding his life. I wish him well. He writes, We’re all surviving, one way or another, with what we have right now. Some of us are fighting to survive in ways others will never see or understand.
Charlotte, from North Carolina, has a trans daughter called Heather and another daughter called Abby. She gives thanks, for she has found friendship and support when she had feared losing friends when they found out about Heather. It’s the same theme as Tomcat for the new year: survival, and slight surprise.
Scroll a little further. Another fool blogging endlessly about LGBT from an American Family Values perspective, without any comments or likes at all and perhaps no readers but me. This is why you should find your trans blogs on T-Central, which lists dozens of trans blogs and news sites.
Clare Flourish 
Hi Clare, I feel a bit misunderstood, and maybe it’s my own failure of context or tone. My audience is Christians who are non-affirming of the LGBTQ+ community, including those who are LGBTQ+ and do not affirm themselves. Of course, I hope that it empowers and encourages those who are LGBTQ+ as well.
I also don’t support everything in the BioLogos article, but instead of lengthening my “screed” with an apology for the state of evolutionary science, I just linked to someone who already did it well.
I think offering some graciousness to those on the other side of any given issue is a legitimate tactic as long as it is sincere. Most Christians I know who are more conservative truly believe that they are doing good. The whole point of my post is to acknowledge their good intentions, and explain how they’re actually doing damage. I assure you, it’s much more winsome than the eye-roll you’re post gives everyone.
This is part of a greater conversation in Christianity and it sounds like you are either ambivalent towards it or consider it a lost cause. Maybe lengthy blogs to persuade non-affirming Christians to believe otherwise, and to treat them with respect and graciousness, are not for you.
I used to be condescending and cynical, but it really wasn’t working out for me. I really hope that you find hope and can learn to be more gracious towards others.
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Dear Michael, thank you for commenting. Welcome.
I gave up on the argument. You show how the conservatives respond to you: rather than believing you could know your bible, they start quoting individual verses. That’s a dreadful way of using the Bible as there are often contradicting verses, context is important, and a wide variety of attitudes and points of view are in the Bible. I hope they listen to you. But their heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn. I now associate with Christians who see that this is as God made me.
I am glad someone who can speak their language is still willing to make the argument. I am pleased you are doing this work. But I don’t think trans people should be exposed to anything suggesting that the extreme evangelicals have anything going for their argument at all. Many of us have crippling internalised transphobia, so need to be brought to feel courageous in our self-expression, and shown texts encouraging us. By arguing, you show them greater respect than they deserve. With the measure they use, I will measure unto them.
Why not tag your post “Evangelical” and “Christian” rather than “Trans”?
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Hi Clare, I wasn’t going to reply because I try not to be that person who always has to have the last word and internet back-and-forth is only so helpful. However, I also didn’t want you to think that I was being dismissive, and after talking through it with a couple of folks have a thought.
You probably didn’t see my post from 12/29, but it’s my faith memoir (long, but less scree). It’s about how I grew up conservative and remained so into adulthood. It was the patience and interaction with gracious and respectful friends and even internet strangers that eventually led me to become affirming, vegan, pro-choice, and a bunch of other things I said that I would never be. Maybe I didn’t deserve the patience and kindness of those people, but I sure am grateful for it, and hope that by extending it that there will be others like me. I’ll grant that all I have is anecdata, but it fits within my worldview that love, especially undeserved, is the ideal path. I don’t wear rose-colored glasses, and maybe in some cases we love too long and hard for no reason. But because of my own experience, I don’t have any reason to believe that the loving option has grown pointless.
I do not mean that to downplay the damage that many Christians are doing. It’s just that I’ve been where they are and so I kind of hope that if I show them my path, that they can better follow their own towards a more accepting worldview. It’s kind of the same thing being a vegan.
I am not new to blogging (don’t bother looking, I archived them all; remember when I said I used to be conservative?), but I am new to the WordPress platform. Are tags different on WordPress? My understanding is that tags are used to notate what categories and subjects are discussed in any given media. As in, there’s a substantial amount in my post on the topic of “trans” that I should tag it as such among the other tags, among which was “Christian.” I think maybe the search format on WordPress makes this a little different?
I do hear your point that a long list of how awful some Christians have been to trans people is probably not at the top of a trans person’s list when looking for blogposts on the trans topic. I might say the same about you tagging “Christian”, but of course, your post doesn’t remind Christians how terribly their treated. In other words, you have a point, so I will add a note at the top of the post. A few years ago when a dear friend came out as trans to my former conservative self that I was Googling every combination I could think of to, well, find posts like mine, so I’m reluctant to remove the tag, but open to correction.
I hope that helps give a little perspective. I’ll leave the last word to you with the caveat that I may follow up if your response leads to additional questions and clarification around tags and the WordPress platform.
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Thank you for sharing. As you asked a specific question: there are pages on the WordPress site, for all posts tagged with a particular tag or category. “Photography” has hundreds an hour, but other tags have hardly any. The pages I looked at were:
https://wordpress.com/tag/trans
https://wordpress.com/tag/transgender
I don’t know how many people look for blogs there.
I call myself Christian, I had an Evangelical phase, and I could not do what you are doing. When I read of “King Cyrus” it is just one more thing on them: I think of Scott Lively’s campaign in Uganda, which Ugandan people did not manage to get the courts to hold him to account for; all sorts of monstrosities.
Today I read this story: I thought I was the only one because there were no lesbian or bisexual women anywhere, they were not on tv, they were not in films, they were not in books I didn’t know anyone else who felt the same as I did and I used to think that I was the only one. Until one day I was in our local shop and there was two ladies talking, they were talking about Martina Navratilova, who was a tennis player. And you know when grown ups have that conversation thing where they ‘talk like that’ and they think kids can’t hear but kids hear everything, it was one of those that was going on. But I could tell by what they were saying about her and I still remember it as clear as anything this feeling of ‘[gasp] there’s another one’ and then I watched a lot of tennis. Not because I was into tennis but just because there was another one. Yeah? That feeling of isolation.
But I heard it because it was secretly recorded to entrap her, and the transcript I read had sarky comments on her demeanour, which I did not think justified: “cross now”, “really really cross”, “long, looooooong pause for us all to reflect on whether it’s wise to challenge Mermaids woman further. Clearly no one else is prepared to take her on”. The pause was 5 seconds maximum.
We’re not really having a back and forth, we are closer than that. I am just off to bed, it is late here (UK). I will read your personal journey tomorrow. You may be interested in Ray Barnhart’s blog. He was Evangelical; he is back in church now, after years.
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Hi Clare! I’m sorry you visited my recent blog post and didn’t like it. Because nearly 50% of trans youth who are not accepted by their parents consider and attempt suicide, the purpose of my blog is to provide personal testimony of our journey with our daughter so that other parents are accepting of their transgender child. I’m interested to find out if you think I should no longer use the “transgender” tag? I certainly don’t want to appear as though I’m trying to be an expert on the subject because, most certainly, I am not. I’ve checked out your blog. I like it and I look forward to reading more of it! I’m going to share it with Heather as well. Thanks!
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Dear Charlotte, that was not what I meant. I am sorry. What I took from your blog post was that you were surviving; that you were getting through the trials. Only the lying “Family Values” blogger really offended me.
There is a great amount of judgment on yourself in your blog. I recognise it because I feel it myself. I don’t think loving yourself as you are is obvious. It is difficult. So I love the way you are supporting your daughters. And I like what you write. I am very glad to have you here. Of course you should use the Transgender tag. We are all exploring here.
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Thank you for sharing the good blogs as well as alerting me of some not-so-good ones. I am by no means a perfect ally–far from it. However, I feel that one important element of becoming a better ally is to really read from, and learn from, LGBTQ+ bloggers. You, of course, are one of them. But you mentioned several others that I was not aware of before. Dee’s blog offers a really honest perspective of her journey, including some of the challenges along the way. Ditto with Tomcat and Charlotte. And it was interesting to read Michael’s blog as well, as I too come from a place similar to where he was theologically.
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I like Michael’s blog, but don’t really think it is good for trans people. He is exploring Christianity, and what the Bible can mean if you respect it and seek God’s loving purposes in it. I would like Tibbs to read it, or “Dr. J”, but only trans people who are seriously afflicted by internalised transphobia by such a background, for whom it might be a liberation. Trans people who had escaped the Reformed worldview might just be retraumatised. Michael is sincere, open-minded and open-hearted, devoting his energies to following Christ, and I wish him well.
Trans people can pay undue attention to the sort of rubbish Tibbs writes. I feel we should know we have enemies, but not care too much about the detail of their idiocies. That’s why I recommended T-Central for trans people.
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Okay…so I decided to avoid Tibbs and Dr. J, but I checked those blogs and yikes, those blogs are toxic. Just by virtue of reading, you have more tolerance for Dr. J than I do! (because given my life experiences, I would just about vomit from reading that)
And thanks for your insights on Michael’s blog. Thinking about his blog again after reading those other two, I definitely agree that Dr. J and Tibbs would do well to read Michael’s blog. From the sound of things, it sounds like Michael’s blog may be best for someone at a certain (transphobic or transphobic background) stage but not all stages?
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Also, thanks for introducing me to T-Central! As I said before, I think reading LGBTQ+ bloggers is an important piece of learning to become a better ally, and there are some wonderful blogs out there!
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Hi Brendan, My audience is kind of people like my former self. I used to be conservative religiously and politically. I have since deconstructed, but I still love theology. I know there are people like my former-self out there, who have the same questions and who think like I think. I don’t think it’s a large audience, but I enjoy writing this stuff, so I might as well put it out there. I also talk about veganism and occasionally dip into the craft of writing as well (I write fantasy fiction on a separate platform).
I don’t think my audience is the LGBTQ+ community, but I hope what I write lends some solidarity. I would say if there is an LGBTQ+ Christian out there who is either trying to convince other Christians to accept them, or trying to accept themselves, that there are some posts that may be helpful. Otherwise, I am just trying to be a helpful ally, which also means learning along the way.
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Based on what I’ve read, that’s the sense I get. I think there is definitely value in your blog, especially for people who come from a background similar to yours. Part of what I found so interesting about reading your blog was that I come from a similar place (though I have long since deconstructed those beliefs and now strive to be the best ally I can be).
You and Clare seem to be in a decent amount of agreement, from what I read–your blogs are just for different audiences. There’s nothing wrong with that. 🙂
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Reblogged this on ✨ Geansworld ✨.
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