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Hi Christopher,
I decided to respond to your response to my blog in the
following way. I want to use your words exactly and respond to it so I can’t be
seen as misquoting you. Your statements are quoted and next I respond.
“I also posited that if religion was not prominent that
the world would be better off and have one less barrier to allowing individuals
who identify as transgender to be accepted.”
Since getting rid of religion in your lifetime is
unrealistic, why not focus on the more realistic barriers?
“It is still evident that Leelah’s mother and father both
still hold their religion over their love for their child.”
This is a logical fallacy. Holding to one’s religion does
not exclude love for your child. Religion is a perspective or lens as you put
it, through which experience is filtered through. These parents may have seen
their response in the context of THEIR kind of Christianity as the way by which
they are showing their child love. Unfortunately, their child chose to commit
suicide but correlation does not equal causation. That is actually a scientific
principle.
“I will accept and promote that her parents failed to
truly understand their daughter and learn what it meant to identify as a
transgender.”
You can’t be sure because you are a spectator.
“Neither parent used the proper pronouns and refused to
acknowledge that their “son” was really their daughter.”
They don’t have to, as they don’t believe it to be the “proper
pronouns”.
“this is an issue that we can work towards: helping
future generations understand gender issues.“
In my undergraduate studies I had to take a course called “perspectives
on gender” which featured a professor that is biologically male, and identifies
as female psychologically. I patiently listened through the lectures and took
the exams and wrote the papers. Education was readily available and I can
respect the perspectives, but ultimately I didn’t buy it. I didn’t buy it, not for
religious reasons, I just didn’t buy it because bottom line is; it is a
perspective not a science. I don’t have to agree with other perspectives;
nobody does.
“While I could spend hours on how religion has enabled
these parents to continue to hold their biases…”
You can speculate; but you don’t KNOW what was true for
them.
“a proper burial as the woman she was.”
What is a proper burial for the atheist? Would you be
offended if anyone suggested to just leaving his body exposed to the elements
to decompose? Is that disrespectful? Why? I am fascinated by how an atheist can
cling to such ritualistic sentiments. Why do you care?
“As for her funeral, I am at a loss because there is no
legal recourse I know of to insist she be buried as a woman.”
And if you did? What right do you have? Did he state in his
note that he wanted to be buried as a female?
“My hope was that if enough pressure were put on the
parents they would concede or acknowledge their daughter as transgender. “
Pressure? Wow. How are you any better than religion? Good
Lord/Science.
“Recently someone showed me the Reddit posts from Leelah.”
Link doesn’t work for me.
“ban transgender conversion therapy”
Why? On what basis? What if someone WANTS that treatment?
“it was a negative attack on transgender individuals from
someone who I do not consider an ally for anything but Christianity.”
You may not consider me an “ally” probably because I don’t
buy your propaganda, but I actually have a good friend who is transgender and
is in process of “re-assignment” procedures. She knows my views, but I still
love her, and she says she appreciates that I stay true to my beliefs and don’t
dispense with them just because we are friends.
“If you do not wish to read hate speech and ignorance,”
What of my response to you was “hate” and “ignorance”? Just
because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I am ignorant of the issues. What
is your education background sir? I probably am less ignorant than you are on
the psychological issues. You are probably less ignorant than I on the case
study side.
“For those of you that are still with me, let me explain
the blog in short. “
They should read my blog themselves. It is a fraction of the
length of your post.
“To address the first point, as I stated above, this was
not a launching board for anti-theism in any sense.”
The point was not your intention, I was commenting on what
it came off as. My words: “I believe that your piece comes off as just another
anti-religion hit piece”. After I posted my response I noticed I was not alone
in this assessment. In fact, supporters of your general cause noticed the same
thing. So, I don’t appreciate being singled out here.
“Religion is a factor in this case and it does play a
part in the parents’ choices and (lack of) understanding of transgender issues.”
Sure. To what extent you sir do not know because you are not
psychic. Some people use religion only to support their pre-conceived biases.
“Laurence claims to be a Christian and he seems to have
the same issues accepting transgender rights as these Christians.”
Don’t lump me in to a group when you don’t know all my views.
You don’t know if it is my Christianity that causes me to believe as I do, or
my studies in psychology. Do you know? Doubt it. Also, it’s not a civil right
until it is. I am always baffled about propagandists speaking of “rights” as if
they are intrinsic absolute rights, my question is where do these “rights” come
from?
“If Laurence still feels like it is an anti-theism blog,
then I am sorry, but he obviously only want to put words in my mouth, and given
that he does not understand transgender individuals, he probably will not be
able to accept the role religion plays in the decisions that these parents made.”
One of your comments from a supporter of your cause, not
mine or Christianity said this of your post: “But I highly doubt that change
will come from the types of angry atheist rhetoric that I saw in the article as
justified as it is… To reduce the trans struggle to just religion fails to
acknowledge the full truth of this injustice and lived reality.” Why do you
treat this commenter with more respect than I? Is it your bias perhaps? He gets
a nice apology and I get the half assed sarcastic apology.
Also, how do you know I don’t understand transgendered
individuals? You’ve heard what happens when you assume. You don’t have to keep
presuming what I will accept or not. You can talk to me about it sir. I find
that I see the same patterns here when I chat with Evangelicals. It states on
my blog: “Bottom line is, don't think you know me or my views before you ask me
about them or read about them.”
“But what can be deduced is that the counselors did not
do an adequate job helping Leelah, because they refused to acknowledge her
desire to transition, and did not talk about transgender issues she had
concerns about.”
You have no guarantee that a non-Christian therapist would do
the same or not. My point was an atheist can go to an atheist therapist and
still commit suicide. Who do you blame then? You have no business determining
what was or was not adequate as you are not a mental health professional
yourself. If you know what was adequate then perhaps we can have all the
referrals sent to your cell phone number so you can initiate a therapeutic
relationship with them.
“Her parents also did not address her concerns and
instead of seeking out the appropriate help, they dismissed and punished Leelah
for her feelings. So they did not force her to kill herself, but they were
major contributing factors that lead her to feel that she no longer had any
love or any options left. “
I didn’t say they were not contributing factors, just as
credit card policies and job stress can be huge contributors to adult suicides,
but I was talking about placing a practical blame on them. Are you suggesting
perhaps that therapists and parents can be put on trial for something like
this? You have no guarantee that in the absence of the parental punishment or
therapeutic interventions to your infallible specifications that the child
would still be alive today.
“They simply locked her up, restricted her access to
everything, and only allowed minimal social interaction.”
Not wise, but you can’t say Christians alone would do this. Secular
parents are just as likely to punish as religious ones.
“Lastly, Laurence is wrong on many levels about transgender
individuals. Laurence says, “If I want to be a eunuch then am I a eunuch?” Holy
shit, Laurence! That is one of the most ignorant statements I have ever heard. First
off a eunuch is someone who has been castrated- typically before puberty hits. This
is NOT what Leelah was asking for.”
Okay, perhaps it was a bad parallel. But you miss the point.
On what BASIS should we respect his wishes? If I want to be considered “asexual”
or “agendered” which some do, does that alone make it so? You say in your
writings “birth gender of male to her correct gender of female.” Correct
gender? Says who? Science? You? You are selling philosophy, or a perspective on
bio-psycho-social phenomena, not something you can prove exists in reality. You
will perhaps demand this of me for my belief in God. However, my theological
views are not on trial here, your blog post is. I am using a scientific
standard which you demand of us for God. What does science have to say about
gender, or does it say anything at all? Does the animal kingdom have animals
needing of gender re-assignment?
“Laurence also tries to explain what Leelah went through
as a mental illness. Leelah did not have a mental illness.”
I quoted from Psychology Today. The same description can be
found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders. For your
information that was not a Christian holy book.
“Leelah suffered from being born into the wrong gender,
nothing else.”
Oh really? Who got that wrong? If not God, who? Ipse dixit,
my friend. You are calling me un-educated? You don’t need to resort to insults
towards my views Christopher. You can respond to them civilly and respectfully. You
don’t have to of course. Depends on what you want the tone of your cause to
sound like.
“She was depressed and may have suffered from depression
but being transgendered is NOT A DISEASE OR A MENTAL ILLNESS! People like Laurence need to be helped to
understand the science behind transgender individuals.”
The DSM is a scientific book.
“To Laurence, thanks for your interest and response, but
please go educate yourself and get rid of your biases that are holding you back.”
I spent enough years in psychology classes and probably read
more textbooks, papers. And took more courses with professors in your
ideological camp than you have. So, Christopher, it may bother you that in spite of
all that I still don’t believe as you do, but that’s how it is. My Christianity
has nothing to do with why I didn’t buy these PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER. Notice
they didn’t call the class SCIENCES ON GENDER.
…
Thanks for the response Christopher. I appreciate you taking the
time to respond.
Laurence Gonzaga
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