Four years after I first predicted it, the pushback against the LGBTQ+ Community is gaining momentum worldwide

Important Note: At the time I first drafted this, the mass shooting event at a Christian school in the Nashville area on March 27 involving a shooter who was Transgender had not happened. The person who did that was clearly mentally disturbed and it’s unfortunate some in the media have decided to use the shooter’s status of being Transgender as propaganda to inspire retaliatory violence agains Trans people in particular.

Despite that, I have decided not to soften the tone of this article. I feel it would be disingenuous of me to do so. I have provided opinions on how this past Monday’s events will likely be used as justification to persecute Trans people in much of the U.S. The media will largely avoid this narrative on what some on the Far Right are already calling “retaliation” but it’s too important to not talk about.

 

The first two times times I discussed this matter, I prefaced it with some kind of disclaimer warning folks they may find some of what they read offensive as a courtesy. I’m not doing that anymore. Like I did once before, this will span this blog and my blog on Religion.

I decided to write this to share my thoughts on Ughanda joining Nigeria, Russia, China and a growing number of other countries that have criminalized identifying as LGBTQ+ nationally. As of this month, around 80 countries have outlawed Homosexuality. This might surprise a lot of people but almost half of them are on the African continent. The AIDS/HIV epidemic originating from that continent 40 years ago has a lot to do wih it.

Here in the U.S. Red States, Republican Politicians and Anti-LGBTQ+ activists are leading the charge to push back hard against the LGBTQ+ Community and Trans People are priority. Mind you, I predicted this would happen back in early 2020.

The LGBTQ+ Community made the fatal mistake of challenging Ultra Conservatives and Christianity itself as a whole head on. You can’t do that and expect to there to be no “response” from Christian Fundamentalists in particular. They picked a fight with people who at this point will not stop until LGBTQ+ Rights have been revoked or at the very least severely limited. The recent mass shooting in Nasville involving a Transgender person will be used as justification and propaganda for that.

States passing laws outlawing Gender Affirming Care for minors and removing pro-LGBTQ+ books from school libraries is nothing compared to what likely will be coming soon. The Dems couldn’t cautify Abortion Rights before the midterms after Roe v. Wade was overturned. They’re not going to be able to stop Obergafell v. Hodges from being overturned and more so if a Republican gets the White House in 2024.

Speaking of. Biden has said he will advocate for LGBTQ+ rights domestically and abroad. I’ve seen no evidence of that since he took office aside from appointing an openly Gay man and a trans woman to his cabinet. Those are basically token selects for the sake of optics. He’s been mostly silent on Homesexuality being criminalized in a growing number of countries as well as anti-Trans laws being passed across the U.S. since he took office.

Biden’s silence speaks volumes and should tell you everything you need to know about where he REALLY stands on this topic. As a reminder, Biden is a devout Catholic and this is well known. More importantly, he knows biologically everyone is born Male or Female. Biden is a lot of things but he is no fool. He wouldn’t dare go so far as to try to argue against something so basic. It’s a political fight he knows he can’t win now or ever. Same for even the most Progressive Dems.

There are (still) Christians in the Democratic Party too believe it or not. I know quite a lot of Dems and Left-leaning Independents who are fine with advocating for basic Civil Rights and basic Human Rights for the LGBTQ+ community but that’s where they draw the line. A growing number of even Progressive Christian Democrats have expressed to me discomfort and a quiet but growing anger with the Trans and “Non-Binary” communities in particular in recent years. I’m talking people my age and younger.

Basically, they feel they were deceived by the Trans and “Non-Binary” Communities at large from the beginning. It wasn’t until they started seeing questions at a doctor’s office or on an employment application asking them to define what gender they do or don’t identify as that they realized for the first time Trans and “Non-Binary” people want to redefine Gender as “fluid” and something that can or should be allowed to freely change which it is not. All that said, the older Christian Democrats were as angry as Conservatives when Trans people started saying 15 years ago “God made a mistake” to explain/justify why they wanted to undergo Hormone Therapy treatments and in some cases Gender Reassignment Surgery.

What they don’t tell you is they basically have to continue taking hormones (Estrogen for Trans Women or Testosterone for Trans Men) for the rest of their lives even after they undergo the surgery. The reason is because believe it or not, the body knows it is Male or Female and will naturally regress to its birth gender when hormone treatments are stopped. On that note, this is also how Trans Men who elect not to undergo gender reassignment surgery can get pregnant if they want to. They typically use Estrogen to speed up their body’s regression back to “Female” though. All those YouTube and TikTok videos you see claiming to be “Pregnant Men” were born Female to be clear.

All that said, there’s no disputing basic science fact. Even with surgery and hormones, everyone is Male or Female. It’s fine if you don’t personally feel you’re the gender you’re born as but that’s a psychological matter. Your mind might feel differently but your body knows it is Male/Female. Even with those rare cases of people ambiguous genitalia, it’s not hard for doctors to determine what their birth gender was intended to be.

On that note. This particular detail has been largely silenced by the LGBTQ+ community–sometimes under the threat of legal action–but the issue on gender pronouns has put many healthcare professionals and educators in a VERY uncomfortable position over the last two decades. I’m speaking from personal experience as a reminder.

I have spoken to doctors and nurses who were repremanded for unintentionally referring to their Trans or “Non-Binary” patients by the gender they were born as instead of using their preferred pronouns. I can tell from the body language and facial expressions of medical assistants I’ve interacted with in recent years that they routinely double check the paperwork to see what a new patient’s gender identity is because they don’t want to lose their job or worse, be sued for being “inaccurate”. I don’t just mean older or religious staff either. The margin for error is THAT thin for them.

That brings me to Educators who until Republicans started pushing back hard in recent years would find themselves trying to explain gender identity to kids as young as 3 and 4. In recent years, the LGBTQ+ Community did concede it’s not age appropriate to have these kinds of conversations with children or students who are 8 years old and younger.

I would place the minimum age marker for discussing gender identity to no younger than 13 personally but that’s just me. The reason is because most kids are dealing with a lot between 8 and 12. By 13, most kids would have a fairly good grasp of their sexuality and gender identity. When you have preteen kids–kids under 13–being taught the concept of gender does not matter, that can be pretty damaging mentally and emotionally.

The LGBTQ+ Community makes the case it’s about empowering kids but the unfortunate reality for too many kids who struggle with their gender identity is they grow up without a sense of self-worth. It is not harmful to tell a boy born a boy “You are a boy”. It is not harmful to tell a girl born a girl “You are a girl”. It IS harmful to tell a child or teen the gender they were born with does not matter. It IS harmful to tell a child or teen the only difference between the genders are the reproductive organs. That’s also a lie.

The LGBTQ+ Community likes to make the case looking at gender identity as strictly binary is “too restrictive”. They truly believed that in time, all the “resistance” to their views would become history. It turns out they had it backwards. Good intentions or not, you can’t attack basic biology and not have consequences.

What the LGBTQ+ Community misread as the opposition giving up and going away by the mid-2010s was simply a step back to reassess and buy time for the fierce counterattack we are seeing across the U.S. Due to the recent mass shooting at a Christian School in Nashville, the anti-Trans movement just gained powerful allies in Christian Fundamentalists who will be seeking revenge against Trans people in particular for that. Likely sooner than later.

 

Before I get into the potential ramifications of that incident, I do want to take a moment to talk about what’s become a wedge issue: Weather or not Trans women should be allowed to play Women’s sports at the college and professional levels.

I touched on this earlier but biologically, Trans Women are MEN. To allow them to play in Women’s sports at the college and professional level would give them an unfair advantage over Female competators. Especially those Trans women who can’t or elect not to have gender reassignment surgery.

I have spoken to some former female college athletes who told me they don’t understand why Trans women “want to play in THEIR leagues”. The former athletes I spoke to all said the NCAA, pro sports leagues and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) should all bar Trans women from competing as Women. The consensus I got from the former athletes is they don’t understand why Trans women don’t just start their own sports leagues “since they don’t want to compete as Men and most Women don’t want to be forced to share a locker room with them”. Those I spoke to have all told me they have friends who are Trans Women but this is an area they refuse to move on because of the implications otherwise.

The women I spoke to point out the fact Womens’ Sports does not have the same equity as Mens’ sports in pay and fan turnout for starters. In their minds, allowing Trans Women to play Womens’ Sports would devalue it even more than it currently is.

I’ll be blunt: Some told me on a more personal note “People come to watch and support real girls and women play sports, not people who feel they should be allowed to play our game just because they say they’re Female”. It’s MUCH deeper than the “Locker Room/Bathroom politics” the LGBTQ+ Community and their allies want people to think it is. Most Women do not want to seriously play competatively with Trans women.

The feeling I got is many female athletes view Trans women athletes as a threat to their sports if they’re allowed to play Women’s sports. Those I spoke to said they’ve had these conversations with many current college athletes and some pro athletes. The current athletes can’t openly talk about it because it would be career suicide and they’d get “Cancelled” so…yeah.

 

This just happened on March 27 so I have to stop and comment. In case you didn’t catch the news, this mass shooting event took place at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. Three 9 year old children and three adult staff members were killed. The shooter was also killed in a shootout with law enforcement.

As soon the news broke the person responsible is a Transgender Man–media outlets initially referred to the shooter as Female–my only thought is this person just gave the lunatics on the Far Right who already don’t think trans people should exist an excuse to start hunting down and killing Trans people as if they’re animals. That’s what this person just did.

The 28 year old shooter–I’m intentionally not saying their name–is a former student of the school. If you do the math, they left the school about 16 years ago. The school goes to 6th grade so they would have left or finished at that school in 2007.

Members of the LGBTQ+ Community who’ve attended a faith-based school as children quickly learned to keep their status a closely guarded secret and more so if they knew their family would turn on them. The fact that the shooter decided to return to the school 16 years later makes it clear they likely planned it for some time.

That brings me to this:

This is the front cover headline of Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post for Tuesday, March 28. Yes, really. If this isn’t a call to arms to every (White) Christian (Evangelical) in America who hates Trans people, I don’t know what is. This headline will be responsible for the deaths of people.

In the minds of those who think all Trans people should be wiped from existence, the shooter just gave them “permission” to start hunting Trans people down. I am already seeing rhetoric to this effect online and it’s getting more disturbing as details into how much planning the shooter put into what they did. This is to say nothing of the fact Republicans will use this as political fodder.

Again: It is being framed as a declaration of war against Christianity.

One of the child victims killed was the daughter of the pastor of the church attached to the school. Speaking of, the suspect was apparently recently being counseled by the pastor. It also seems the pastor was the shooter’s primary intended target. Naturally, the shooter would have at least known what his daughter looked like.

…At this point, it’s a matter of when there will be retaliation against the LGBTQ+ Community for this incident. When and where. I am not wishing bad things of course but the chances of nothing happening are slim to none. The hatred Christian Fundamentalists have toward the LGBTQ+ demands something happen is why.

 

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