RELIGIOUS PLACES OF WORSHIP AND RELIGIONS ARE NOT SAFE SPACES FOR TRANS CHILDREN
We use trans loosely here to cover trans, nonbinary and genderless and genderfluid. Some report an antigender identity which hates being gendered in any sense.
The trans person may suffer from failures to affirm themselves. Internalised transphobia is rife. It will take the form of hating yourself for not heeding or wanting to heed society's demands for what "normal" gendered behaviour is. Or it will take the form of hating yourself for how your body or parts of it do not line up to who you know yourself to be in your mind. Or both. The trans person will learn how easily it is triggered. What may not do it today may do it tomorrow.
Suicide ideation may surface again.
Trans suffer from others not affirming them. Their legal gender can be changed but that brings some problems. It comes across as forcing people to treat them as their legal gender. It can be damaging and unsatisfying. They may feel that God is important and God does not affirm them. It is difficult for a secularist or liberal to understand the deep impact that can have. Even if a trans person thinks God affirms them, the fact remains that they cannot know it the way they can know their friend beside them affirms them. It barely counts as an opinion. It is forced and desperate and unsatisfactory.
While the wellbeing of the trans person is a grave concern, that of the trans child is a graver concern.
A child should not be enrolled or baptised into a religion that doubts or forbids or even damns transgender rights and the right to have gender confirming healthcare. Another issue is the wrong name and wrong gender or sex will be put on the baptismal certificate. A trans child will be forced to go to Church ceremonies such as confirmation or first communion in the wrong sex and this can leave its mark. A transman will be discriminated against for the priesthood in the Catholic Church. His marriage to his bride will not be facilitated or recognised. A transboy is not granted the same rights as the boy who the Church considers to be simply a boy.
Erasure of trans people and their identities is more serious than open opposition for it's extremely dehumanising and its damaging effect can be very insidious and do more harm in the long-term.
Trans themselves may erase people whose experience is trans but does not match theirs. They can be unsympathetic to your experience of dysphoria for they cannot relate it to their own. Religion divides trans from trans and sets trans against trans. The marked individualism in the trans "community" is sometimes driven by their religious context.
Christian worship erases trans for it is all about man and woman and the wily Jesus said that the divine plan was set at the start that it is only one man and one woman in marriage for life. The Catholic marriage ceremony goes into heteronormative overdrive and amounts to abuse. The prayers are so heterosexual and cis that they amount to anti-trans conversion therapy in a sense.
The idea of trans children alarms many Christians who think of how Jesus said that if you scandalise a child, ie show a child a sinful example, you would be better off with a heavy stone placed around your neck and jump into the sea to drown. LGBT if seen as a sin are accused of deserving this hate for trying to show children that it is okay to have LGBT feelings whether they are LGBT or not. Another concern is how religionists accuse LGBT of being narcissistic enough to want to sort of rebirth themselves and their LGBT identity in children.
Believers in a good God argue that God makes nobody and puts them in the wrong body or the wrong sexed DNA. If you argue that you don’t have a male or female body but a trans one you are still saying the chromosomes need defying for they are wrong. They add that healthcare does not mean interfering with perfectly healthy male parts or female parts. They point out that trans surgery involves very serious procedures and it's possible that a person could have loads of gender affirming medical treatment and still end up feeling terrible about it for it's not enough. They point out that God allows you to do things but that does not imply approval but mere tolerance for your free will. They tell you that everything is off kilter as Genesis says creation broke from God when Adam and Eve chose to revolt against his love and wisdom. They say Jesus said you must deny yourself, deny your identity to follow him. In other words, if you put your trans identity to the fore not him it's a sin. They say that even if you have the right to bodily alteration, no doctor is obligated to operate or give you hormones etc. Or to block a child's puberty. They say it is evil to force doctors to do it and that we should be okay with all doctors if they refuse to do it.
The Bible doctrine affirmed by Jesus that God made them male and female in HIS image not only erases other gender identities and ignores them but says pronouns are his choice not yours for he is your maker. He is not really male or female but spirit according to Christian theology. That merely stresses that he decides your sex and how he will describe it.
Gender dysphoria has been known to make the person wonder if they suffer from a form of possession or demonic obsession. The latter is when demons fixate you on something. Religion is clearly putting that in the person's head. This has been known to lead to the person being abused by believers attempting exorcism. The gospels with Jesus' careless attitude to diagnosing a need for exorcism and even validating persons who were not part of his group attempting it are no help.
We see then there are a whole list of things that religion can do to hurt a trans person. Our answer is this. Choice is choice. Each person even if they get it wrong is still the best person to decide what is right for them. You have no reason to think that you forcing your choices on them can make things any better. Love your neighbour as yourself is irresponsible for you project what you want unto others. That is an unfortunate human trait and it is with us all the time to a greater or lesser extent. Commanding you to love is also commanding you to fear what you think is bad for them or might be and fear turns you into somebody who wants to control. Jesus commanded this love of neighbour and went as far as to say that we should treat others as we imagine we would like to be treated. That we have that rule instead of, "Affirm your neighbour's choices and mind your own business" shows its a license for interference and always has been.
Trans children need to be afforded funding and the right to hold parents accountable for putting them in unsafe religion and by extension unsafe faith schools.
Attacks on a person with dysphoria need to be treated the same as serious abuse. Even mild aggression or failure to affirm can cause terrible damage and so transphobia in any form is potentially grave violence. It is often the case that expression your opinion in opposition to trans is literal violence.
Until a religion condemns in the strongest terms its catechisms, scriptures and traditions that validate and are based on discrimination it is not a safe space for trans. Also, affirming religions are like political parties. They can change back into something toxic and backward quite quickly. They can hide their bigotry under progressive jargon and it takes time for their real face to emerge. Scriptures that need complicated explanations to get away from homophobia, misogyny, racism and transphobia are showing there is a problem with the language used. Their "explanations" will soon fall apart if they are contrived. They need to be convincing and clear otherwise they can put doubt into a trans person and cause harm.
The trans person in front of takes priority over a man who lived 2000 years ago or any God or any view of God you have. Confess that or have your spiritual groups declared unfit and your counseling service declared dangerous.
