Christians and Trans

[barnhart]

I am encouraged by this thread.

[Robert]

This how I relate to a family member that has come out as non-binary.

I do not use pronouns. I use their name. If they say they want me to call them a different name, I will, but when I talk to the person, I do not use pronouns. I use their name. Pronouns are for speaking about a person. I try not to except to my wife. We talk freely knowing what we say will be kept between us.

So people can define what pronouns they want, but if they are not around, how do they know what is being used?

My family member knows I do not agree with the non-binary but knows I care about them and include that person in whenever I see them. They do not push and neither do I. I know something they do not. 95% of people sort through the gender confusion by the time they are in their 20's. I am patient.

[HondurasKeiser]

Deep compassion and sadness is what I feel for Trans (& non-binary) folk in my life. Many of them have been sold a bill of goods and do not realize, until it is too late, that happiness does not come in the form of hormone therapy, surgeries or neo-pronouns. This essay by Bethel McGrew came across my transom last week but I just got to it this morning. I would commend it to you all:

I would definitely like to have been a woman, because I feel, whether rightly or wrongly, that then everything would have fallen into place. The way I speak, the way I walk, the way I move, and the thoughts in my head would not any longer have been remarkable. They would have been acceptable. What I’m so bad at is being a man. — Quentin Crisp

When transgenderism was a budding fad, some people looked into their crystal balls and shrewdly predicted that a reckoning was coming. It wouldn’t be immediate, of course. It would take time for young people to realize they’d been screwed over. And it would take courage. Lots and lots of courage.

Over the past few years, a number of women have displayed that courage, coming forward to tell their stories and sue the medical professionals who harmed them. A few men have as well. But many more women than men.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Statistically, men are also more reluctant than women to report sexual assault, which also requires a great deal of courage for both sexes. But for men, it carries an extra weight of shame. The same is true when it comes to identifying as a victim of transgender “medicine.” Like telling one’s rape story, it’s not easy for anyone. But it will always be easier for a woman to stand up and say, “I thought I was a bro” than it is for a man to stand up and say, “I thought I was a sissy.”

The new free documentary Lost Boys: Searching for Manhood spotlights five young men who have decided to tell their stories. Alex, Brian, Njada, Ritchie, and Torren come from a variety of backgrounds. No two of their stories are exactly the same. Each is like a fingerprint, unique to the storyteller. But all five men have something in common: courage.

Their stories are interwoven with reflections from two therapists, Joe Burgo and Az Hakeem, and Irish writer-activist Graham Linehan (who lost his reputation, family, and career after publicly opposing trans ideology). Linehan doesn’t have very much screentime, but his presence is a sad reminder that we’re dealing with a top-down cultural contagion, enforced by people with enough power to completely demolish someone’s social capital.

There is also a sixth young man whom we never see. Instead, we see his father, Steven. Steven tells us how the boy “came out” transgender in his senior year of high school, walked away, and has never come back. He remains “lost.” “The last thing I think about in a day is my son,” Steven says, “and first when I wake up, before I’m even out of bed.”

Although each story is unique, there are certain recurring patterns. One running theme is that the men in these boys’ lives often seemed to be either absent, predatory, or weak. This is not a grand unifying theory. There’s Steven, after all, apparently a loving and present father who reports that he and his wife were “blindsided.” But it ties several stories together. Ritchie Herron, a young Englishman, only ever talks about his “mum” showing up to appointments with him and being pressured to make decisions. But he found plenty of men willing to enfold him into a “community” online. These men, of course, were predatory.

Meanwhile, Torren grew up in a blue-collar American subculture where the men occupied themselves with a narrow range of “manly” interests (cars, beer, hunting), while the women, in his words, “ran the show.” Similarly, Njada’s father tried to push his son towards “manly” interests and tasks, but when Njada drifted into gender confusion, he ironically failed to “man up” to his own wife. Njada recalls how she instantly took the driver’s seat and began to insist, “You better use the pronouns.” Like the women in Torren’s world, she was definitely running the show. These two stories are particularly interesting, because they complicate simplistic narratives of “toxic masculinity.” If anything, they evoke a world in which men become absorbed in “manly” pursuits while simultaneously failing to embody masculine leadership in the home. Thus lacking immediate models of how to be their own distinct selves while still being healthy men, these boys sought guidance from the broader culture. But as they discovered, that broader culture of teachers, therapists, and influencers was not going to help them become healthy men. Quite the opposite.

In the film, Joe Burgo proposes a nuanced third way for how men can properly lead and nurture misfit boys—neither by questioning their manhood if they diverge from rigid norms of masculinity, nor by “problematizing” all distinctly masculine traits, a trend which he believes has increased male depression. If boys do in fact like distinctly “boyish” things, that should be fine. If they don’t, that should also be fine.

I once discussed this in person with Burgo at a cocktail party in Washington. When I asked him what he thought of Richard Reeves’ book Of Boys and Men, which is generally sympathetic to the plight of boys, he said he still disagreed with Reeves’ idea of nudging boys towards more “feminine” trades—teaching, nursing, etc. As a disclaimer, I still need to read Reeves for myself, but I agree that particular idea isn’t going to solve the masculinity crisis. As I put it to Joe, it’s less urgent to mix up more statistically feminine trades and more urgent to re-dignify masculine trades. Here Joe looked up with a little smile, very taken with this, and said, “One thousand per cent.”

The other featured therapist, Az Hakeem, is also very concerned about the masculinity crisis, and he makes a further connection to the co-factor of autism. He’s consistently observed that young male patients on the spectrum followed a certain rigid chain of logical reasoning, based on their tendency to create rigid categories: “To be male, you have to be like this, this, and this. I’m not like this, therefore I’m non-male. Therefore I must be female.” Burgo adds the observation that autistic young people will struggle more than average with the changes their body undergoes in puberty, more likely to feel disgust or a desire to disassociate from who they’re physically becoming.

[RZehr]

My predominant feeling towards men transitioning to female is suspicion bordering on scorn. I don’t think scorn is good at all, so I try to not have that. I feel this way because I struggle to believe that they themselves actually believe what they are pretending, and I don’t believe that they are actually confused. I think that that are trying to get attention or are simply indulging themselves in their own perverted fantasy.
As, a man, I feel like I understand men more than I do women.

For women transitioning to men, I find myself allowing more space for the probability that they had an abusive home life, and they are trying to put on a strong front to protect themselves. I can’t really take them seriously as a man, and my predominant feelings are pity and curiosity. Being a man is hard. Why would a woman want that?
I don’t understand women since I’m not one.

But I believe at an individual level they all need treated kindly. I don’t know a single trans person. So I expect if I get to know one, my feelings would adjust somehow.

[Soloist]

The biggest problem I have in everyday life is this: some people insist that I must actively use their pronouns and agree with them, or else I'm not supporting them in who they are. I ask for room for me to be who I am too, but that isn't always enough for the person I am talking to.

Wife: I totally get what you’re saying. It is a lot easier now that we live over across the country. The in-laws got accused of dead naming, and if they accidentally said she, the dad would get super upset. The girls were basically being taught at one point that we hated the one niece, which, hopefully they don’t believe anymore. I was spared some of the open aggression from the brother especially, probably at least partly because I am an outsider to the family, and the brother sometimes seems outright friendly to me and the children compared to the rest of the family but I really think it’s because he didn't grow up with me. I also don't think it would stay that way if we were having regular contact with each other all the time.

Ultimately, you can just do the best you can without compromising your convictions, and if they decide that’s not enough or cut ties with you, just make sure they know you are there for them if they ever want to talk to you again.

And yeah, I doubt that I would be able to work in a lot of situations like that for conscience reasons. There are definitely people that push to make you use pronouns to the point that you just can’t avoid it. I think people can come to different positions on the names, but especially when it comes to family members, my own personal conscience wouldn’t allow me to use the other name, because I felt like it would be an endorsement. Might be different if I didn’t know what their name actually was, but I haven’t actually been in a situation where it’s come up outside of family

[Soloist]

Being a man is hard. Why would a woman want that?
I don’t understand women since I’m not one.

Wife: in my less than two score years of accumulated wisdom, I have found that men say it is easier being a woman and women say it’s easier being a man. I have yet to decide which side is right, but it would be easier to stroke my chin more thoughtfully as I pondered this if I had a beard.

[steve-in-kville]

I listened to most of a podcast where a guy transitioned to a woman and later, after real therapy, switched back. Thankfully no unreversible surgeries were done.

The real kicker, he was in the Navy when he did it the first time and the Navy paid for it!

[Soloist]

I listened to most of a podcast where a guy transitioned to a woman and later, after real therapy, switched back. Thankfully no unreversible surgeries were done.

The real kicker, he was in the Navy when he did it the first time and the Navy paid for it!

Which one?

[steve-in-kville]

I listened to most of a podcast where a guy transitioned to a woman and later, after real therapy, switched back. Thankfully no unreversible surgeries were done.

The real kicker, he was in the Navy when he did it the first time and the Navy paid for it!

Which one?

The first time. To say it made it awkward among the ranks is an understatement. I should find that podcast. It was one of the better ones.

[ohio jones]

Could a moderator please move Ken's posts to his own thread.

They have been moved to Bunny Trails, and this is now a Ken-free thread.

I guess things posted in seriousness on April 1 have to be reposted on April 2.