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Man’s Best Friends Are Bigger Threats Than Transgender
Persons
By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor
Never let the facts get in
the way of a good story- certainly our intrepid guest
columnist doesn’t.
In order to play into the
hands of the fearmongers, who would have the general public
believing that that transgender persons represent some sort
of threat to the good order of our society, our columnist
has opted to create his own wide range of “facts” – be they
scientific, historical or theological.
Let’s start with the
scientific and the whimsical nature our columnist has
ascribed to transgender persons – those who want to “use
whatever bathroom that fits their mood or fancy.” Since our
columnist is either unable to research scientific
information or is disinclined to treat people whom he does
not understand with any modicum of respect – or both – it’s
time we enlightened him on a few facts about transgender
persons.
Transgender does not
describe sexual orientation or desire, it describes gender
identity. A small number of humans, less than one percent,
are born with sexual genitalia that does not line up with
the inner identity. It is possible to be born with male
genitalia and female chromosomes – and vice versa. Brain
research now tells us that it is possible to be born with
female genitalia, female chromosomes and a male brain. For
most of the population, all three factors line up but for a
few, there is a variation in one or two of these indicators.
It is also possible to be
born with genitalia that are ambiguous or incomplete and
when this happens, more in the past than now, surgeons would
often make a calculated decision about whether the baby is a
boy or girl and, based upon that guess, surgically determine
the gender, often enough not matching genitals with similar
chromosomes.
We are still debating the
origin of homosexuality, whether it is primarily nature or
nurture, but there is no debate about gender. Within moments
of conception chromosomal variances occur.
Secondly, transgender
persons are not sexual predators – the typical profile of a
sexual predator is an adult male who is heterosexual and
possibly married. There is absolutely no statistical data
that links transgender persons to pedophilia. Our children,
sad to say, are in much more danger from Christian pastors
than they are from transgender persons.
And, thirdly, as we speak
of Christianity, we are completely at a loss to figure out
how where one pees has been an issue in the past for
Christians. Scour the Bible as one might, nowhere is it
mentioned that people ought to pee in any particular or
designated place. Despite what our columnist writes about
the “hundreds of years of history and thousands of years of
Judeo-Christian thought and belief,” no such history
actually exists about bathroom practices.
Had our columnist done
just a brief bit of research, he would have found that the
folks who segregated public bathrooms were the Victorians of
the mid and late 19th century. Peeing places are
not rooted in thousands of years of Judeo-Christian belief.
The issue of allowing
transgender persons to use the bathrooms of their choice is
not a matter of being “hip, cool and liberal.” In fact,
given the relatively small number of transgender persons and
the lack of evidence that such persons are likely to be
sexual predators, it is clear that those passing such
bathroom laws to protect god-fearing Christians from the
godless hordes who would destroy civilization are merely
attempting to forestall the extension of rights to the LGBTQ
community in general, especially in light of the Supreme
Court ruling declaring the gay couples have the right to
marry.
This is their petty, very
petty, little get back.
Here’s another little fact
that would surprise our columnist - non-discrimination laws
affecting bathroom use in the U.S. are not new. For over 35
years there have been laws protecting the rights of
transgender persons to use the bathroom of their choice.
Currently 17 states and over 200 cities have such
ordinances. During that 35-year time frame, not one police
department in the country has reported a crime perpetrated
by a transgender person in such a bathroom. During that time
only one such offense has been reported anywhere in the
world – in Canada.
During that time social
order may have gone to hell in a handbag, but certainly not
because of the acts of transgender persons. Indeed the
victims of crimes during that time have been transgender
persons themselves who are all too frequently the target of
bullying and violence by those who have no respect for human
dignity and think that slurs such as “gender benders” are
acceptable words to describe what they disdain and can’t
understand.
Surely somewhere in the
Bible there is an admonition to treat all persons with
respect and dignity.
Not one sexual offense in
35 years reported by any police department! Last year over
84,000 rapes were reported in the U.S. – none by transgender
persons. Every year 450 people are killed by falling out of
their beds. In the last five years, five people in the
United States have been shot by dogs!
You have a much greater
chance of being shot by a dog than of being sexually
attacked by a transgender person in a bathroom.
But the bathroom laws are
not really about bathrooms at all. It’s a wedge issue at
best, an attempt to camouflage the underlying intent of such
laws which also, for example in the case of North Carolina,
carry provisions limiting minimum wages, turn back the clock
on hiring practices and, in general, handcuff the more
progressive communities in a state in all manners involving
civil and economic rights.
The effect of such laws is
to inflame baser instincts, such as we observe in our
columnist who now cannot see the forest for the trees that
he thinks the wrong persons are peeing behind. Allow those
wrong persons to pee where they will and “chaos will reign”
and “anarchy,” he declares. That is exactly the same
sentiment expressed by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice
Roger Taney (the author of the abominable Dred Scott
decision) when he spoke of the possible emancipation of the
Negro.
What are all these godless
transgender persons going to do? How are they going to bring
anarchy and chaos upon the Earth?
Are they going to conduct
Crusades in order to subjugate tribes and nations to their
system of belief, as Christians have done so often in the
name of their religion? Are they going to put heretics to
death by fire at the stake? Are they going to invade Africa
and for centuries subject the native population to
kidnapping and slavery, colonialism and apartheid, as
Christians did?
Are they going to displace
and attempt to wipe out indigenous peoples around the globe?
Or conduct pogroms against nonbelievers, forcibly evict them
from their countries and eventually place them in
concentration camps and gas them to death by the millions?
Are they going to enslave,
segregate, lynch and impoverish peoples of color around the
globe?
Are their leaders, their
own shepherds, going to prey on the innocents of their flock
with untold number of sexual depredations?
This planet has survived
two thousand years of Christian savagery and brutality and
general inhumanity, often in the name of God. If we can
survive that, I think we can take pretty much overcome the
horrors that might follow from letting a few people pee
where they feel most comfortable peeing.
Me? I’m keeping my eyes
open for those armed dogs.
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